BBC Review 1bj6o
Rounder’s astounding roster celebrated at special anniversary show.
Nick Barraclough 2010
When you look at the roster of Rounder Records you wonder why you bother to listen to other labels’ output. Just go into a record shop and say: “I’ll have half a dozen assorted Rounder releases, please.” You can’t really go wrong.
This compilation of the pick of the performances from the label’s 40th anniversary concert won’t let you down. I could grumble about Minnie Driver starting it off: there are better singers and better songs, but it would be churlish to deny this quality-driven label the chance to show a bit of glitz. The same goes for the inclusion of another actor-first-musician-second, Steve Martin, but if these appearances bring people in, who can blame them.
The performances cover Rounder’s palette: bluegrass in its most rarefied form from Alison Krauss, who throughout her career has spurned offers from major labels and stayed with Rounder. She makes her characteristic low-key presence felt – with both Robert Plant and her band, Union Station.
Zydeco is celebrated by Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas, and gospel-soul from Irma Thomas, whose Don’t Mess With My Man is worth buying this album for on its own. Jazz comes from Madeleine Peyroux. Her take on Leonard Cohen’s Dance Me to the End of Love is as louche as Billie Holliday, with whom she is inevitably compared.
The world’s best banjo player (and he is), Béla Feck, plays on two extraordinary duets. One, with the world’s best dobro player, Jerry Douglas, is impressive but the other, where Béla accompanies Abigail Washburn on Keys to the Kingdom, is sublime. If everyone heard the way he s and embellishes her vocal, there would never be another banjo joke.
Mary Chapin Carpenter rounds the album off. She’s landed at Rounder after some hurly-burly with the mainstream country music industry, which lost faith with her because she used too many chords and wrote thoughtful lyrics. It’s a slight shame that He Thinks He’ll Keep Her, her big Sony hit, is one she performs here, but again, if it brings folks into the Rounder fold, then great.
I rather wish I’d been at this show. On this evidence, it must’ve been a hell of a night.
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