Rambling Boy (Decca)
Charlie Haden Family and Friends
Released September 23, 2008
DownBeat Five-Star Review
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kx_JeZmJhlRmTb3SjK32VMtVYbnD7qTI4
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/2IbBcwIh8pKhtzFVLbJPPJ?si=1EW0DNVwRuaOEsIK2f5Fpg
About:
During radio’s Golden Age, live country and bluegrass shows were popular from coast to coast. Back then, listeners to KMA in Shenandoah, Iowa, might have tuned in to hear the Haden Family Band. Charles Edward Haden stole the show as the 2-year-old yodeling cowboy. Charlie Haden’s singing career lasted only until his teens, when he was stricken with a strain of polio that affected his vocal cords. But with music coursing through his veins, he went on to become one of the jazz world’s most sought-after bassists and composers. He played with Ornette Coleman, Keith Jarrett, John Coltrane and Ringo Starr, and has been a longtime collaborator with guitarist Pat Metheny. But the bluegrass music of his youth was an irresistible siren song. So now, with his son Josh and his triplet daughters (Petra, Tanya and Rachel), he’s made the recording that’s been on his mind for years: Rambling Boy.
Bringing Back His Roots
Haden has been playing jazz for years, so a bluegrass project might seem a little out of place. When his wife Ruth Cameron got the family together for his mom’s 80th birthday, she suggested that the group sing “You Are My Sunshine” in the living room. It reinvigorated an idea that had been in the back of Haden’s head for a long time. Haden admits that he was nervous about the project at first, because he hadn’t done this kind of music in many years. But that didn’t seem to be a problem for the family. “Everybody just did it for me,” Haden says. “I just sat back and played the bass.”
The list of players on Rambling Boy is like a who’s-who of Americana musicians from Nashville and beyond. It includes dobro player Jerry Douglas; guitarist Sam Bush; singers Elvis Costello, Vince Gill and Rosanne Cash; and Haden’s frequent collaborator, Pat Metheny. Many of these musicians came to the recording because of Haden’s jazz background. The beautiful harmonies of Haden’s daughters come from years of singing together, starting very young. “We would sing three-part harmonies just for fun, because we shared a room growing up,” Tanya says. “Before we’d go to bed, we’d all sing ‘Kumbaya,’ and we’d all fight over the high harmony. And I’d always be stuck with the low one.”
Welcome To The Family
It seems to be a little-known fact that Tanya Haden’s husband is actor and comedian Jack Black, star of movies such as Tropic Thunder, School of Rock and High Fidelity. He sings “Old Joe Clark” on Rambling Boy. He’s mostly known for his rock ‘n’ roll persona — and recordings with Tenacious D — but here takes on bluegrass music.
“I was nervous about it,” Black says. “But once I got into the studio and Charlie taught me the melody line and the lyrics, something took over my body, and I felt like I was transported to another time.”
Host Liane Hansen asks Black, “Are you torn now with your sons — do you want to say, ‘I want you to learn this rock ‘n’ roll, but, you know, there’s this bluegrass over here, too’?”
“No, I’m only teaching folk and bluegrass and jazz,” Black says. “They’re not even going to know that rock exists. And I’m doing a new movie: School of Jazz.”
Charlie Haden has not sung in a long time, but felt strongly about recording a version of “Oh Shenandoah” for the new album. “I wanted to do ‘Oh Shenandoah’ because that’s the town I was born in — as a tribute to my mom and dad for giving me all this music,” Haden says. “I don’t really sing this as a singer, because I’m not a singer. But I wanted to do it for them.”
Track Listing:
1. Single Girl, Married Girl featuring: Petra Haden, Tanya Haden, Rachel Haden 2:38
2. Rambling Boy featuring: Vince Gill 2:58
3. 20/20 Vision featuring: Bruce Hornsby 4:16
4. Wildwood Flower featuring: Rosanne Cash 3:35
5. Spiritual featuring: Josh Haden 6:14
6. Oh, Take Me Back featuring: Tanya Haden, Rachel Haden 2:19
7. You Win Again featuring: Elvis Costello 3:12
8. The Fields of Athenry featuring: Petra Haden 7:30
9. Ocean of Diamonds featuring: Dan Tyminski 3:38
10. He’s Gone Away featuring: Tanya Haden 4:32
11. A Voice from on High featuring: Petra Haden, Tanya Haden, Rachel Haden 4:16
12. Down by the Salley Gardens featuring: Ruth Cameron 4:30
13. Road of Broken Hearts featuring: Ricky Skaggs 2:29
14. Is This America? (Katrina 2005) featuring: Pat Metheny 3:40
15. A Tramp on the Street featuring: Rachel Haden 4:57
16. Old Joe Clark featuring: Jack Black 4:06
17. Seven Year Blues featuring: Petra Haden, Tanya Haden, Rachel Haden 2:41
18. Old Haden Family Show featuring: Little Cowboy Charlie 1:43
19. Oh Shenandoah 3:49
Personnel:
Charlie Haden: bass, backup vocals (2)
Petra Haden: vocal (1, 8, 11, 17), backup vocal (9, 13, 15)
Rachel Haden: vocal (1, 6, 11, 13, 15, 17), backup vocal (9)
Tanya Haden: vocal (1, 6, 10, 11, 17), backup vocal (15)
Jerry Douglas: dobro (1-3, 5, 6, 8-17, 19)
Sam Bush: mandolin (1, 6, 11, 15-17)
Stuart Duncan: fiddle (1-3, 5, 6, 8-17, 19)
Bryan Sutton: guitar (1, 3, 6, 11, 13, 15-17)
Vince Gill: vocal (2)
Dan Tyminski: backup vocals (2), mandolin (2), vocal (9)
Russ Barenberg: guitar (2, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14, 19)
Bruce Hornsby: vocal (3), piano (10, 12, 14)
Ricky Skaggs: fretless banjo (3), mandolin (9), vocal (13)
Rosanne Cash: vocal (4)
Josh Haden: vocal (5)
Elvis Costello: vocal (7)
John Leventhal: guitar (4, 7)
Pat Metheny: guitar (4, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 19)
Bryan Stuart: guitar (9)
Ruth Cameron: vocal (12)
Jack Black: vocal (16)
Bela Fleck: banjo (16)
Buddy Green: harmonica (16) Old Haden Family Show (18)
Recorded January 5-12, 2008, at Skaggs Place Studios, Nashville, TN; April 12 & 14, 2008, at NY Noise, New York, NY; April 26, 2008, at Glenwood Place Studios, Burbank, CA
Produced by Charlie Haden & Ruth Cameron
Co-Produced by Mark Fain, Pat Metheny & Steve Rodby
Engineer: Bil VornDick, Mark Aarvold, Rick DeProfi
Mastered by Tom Baker
Mixed by Rich Breen
Creative Director: Fanny Gotschall
Review:
If you love jazz but your ears are also tickled by the high lonesome sound of the Carter Family, honky-tonk and bluegrass, bassist Charlie Haden’s new disc will be a wonderful surprise. Though you may know Haden as the avantgardist with Ornette Coleman or the politically outraged leader of the Liberation Music Orchestra, Haden came up playing what was called “hillbilly music” in a family band. Hearing Haden play this music today—especially with the celestial sister harmonies of his triplet daughters, Petra, Tanya and Rachel—is a revelation. It is not only a homecoming, but a brave illumination of the source of the soulfulness Coleman would hear in him so many years later in Los Angeles. Though the disc is freighted with the kind of all-star cast that sometimes sinks corporate Nashville gambits, in this case, the guests come in, do their job and lift the music even higher. The Haden sisters sing the Carter Family’s stoic, plain-style “Single Girl, Married Girl,” Bill Monroe’s supplicating “A Voice From On High” and the Louvin Brothers’ swinging waltz “Seven Year Blues.” The gals soar on their own, as well. Rachel reminds us, as Hank Williams once did, that the scorned “Tramp On The Street” might have been Jesus himself; Tanya wails—forlorn and vibratoless—on the Haden/ Pat Metheny original “He’s Gone Away,” with Bruce Hornsby contributing a fine piano solo; and Petra—with a lush Metheny arrangement— recalls the Irish famine in the ballad “The Fields Of Athenry.” Son Josh Haden gets in on the act, as well, rendering his own plea for salvation, “Spiritual,” with haunting beauty. Beyond the family circle, Elvis Costello takes a refreshingly restrained turn on Williams’ “You Win Again”; Dan Tyminski applies his raw, nasal sound to Jimmy Martin’s ultimate declaration of love in three-four time, “Ocean Of Diamonds”; Ricky Skaggs, who plays mandolin on two tracks, offers Cowboy Copas’ “Road Of Broken Hearts”; country star Vince Gill hits just the right tone on the Maybelle Carter classic and title track; and Rosanne Cash does just as well by Carter’s signature “Wildwood Flower.” Tanya’s husband, actor Jack Black, lays into the banjo barn-burner “Old Joe Clark,” with Béla Fleck, no less, plying the five-string, along with Jerry Douglas on dobro, Sam Bush on mandolin and Bryan Sutton flat-picking guitar. Nearly all the tracks are liberally peppered with the licks by these and other Nashville cats. A brief, 1939 air check of the “Haden Family Radio Show,” the next-to-last track, features 2-year-old Charlie Haden being prodded by his father to sing “Roll Us Over The Tide.” The adult Charlie closes the album, singing the nostalgic lament “Oh Shenandoah.” This is sentimental music, but, like Charlie Haden himself—and like American country music—it tells a story straight from the heart—plaintive, honest and true—with nary a trace of irony. And it works, from start to finish.
Paul de Barros (DownBeat)
