American Epic Sessions: Laying Down Tunes, the Old School Way

There will be no Pro Tools used to doctor these recordings. Each take is inscribed directly onto disk. There will also be a hard stop at just under four minutes. It has been decades (nearly a century) since records were made this way, but producers T Bone Burnett and Jack White revived the practice for their three-part PBS-BBC special, American Epic. They invited some of the biggest names in contemporary Americana music into their retro-studio to record era-appropriate tunes in The American Epic Sessions (promo here), which premieres this Tuesday on PBS.

The Scully recording lathe produced all the hit records of the early 1920s, but there were no original extant systems left in existence. However, intrepid recording engineer Nick Bergh managed to assemble one from vintage parts. It is an awesome spectacle and a rare opportunity for artists like Taj Mahal to record on the same equipment that immortalized their heroes.

The system is pulley-driven, powered by gravity and a hundred-and-five-pound weight. Sound goes in the iconic Western Electric microphone and comes out on the grooves of the master. It requires entirely different studio practices, but it is as authentic as it gets.

As you would hope, many of the artists are inspired by the setting and circumstances, most definitely Taj Mahal, who lays down a passionately raw rendition of Charley Patton’s “High Water Everywhere” that reverberates with recent memories of Katrina and Sandy. Likewise, Beck’s “Fourteen Rivers, Fourteen Floods” required at least thirteen takes, but the primal power of the stripped down final was worth the effort.

Easily the biggest surprise is the contemporary vibe Nas (finally appearing in a good documentary) and White’s house band give to the Memphis Jug Band’s “On the Road Again,” bringing out the gangster rap sensibilities in the 1928 classic. Rhiannon Giddens also connects with all the earthiness of Victoria Spivey’s “One Hour Mama,” circa 1937. These tunes are ninety-years-old or older, yet they would carry parental advisory stickers if they were released new today.

A few artists contributed new simpatico tunes, including Elton John and his longtime lyricist, Bernie Taupin. “Two Fingers of Whiskey,” recorded as a duet with White, is still completely in keeping with the spirit of the sessions, incorporating blues licks we never knew John had. He ought to add it to his regular set list, because it is surprisingly cool.

Ashley Monroe and the Americans truly sound like they are channeling 1920 Appalachia during “Jubilee.” The Avett Brothers similarly start a stirring “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” but they do not get a chance to properly finish, because the strap holding the weight breaks. Continuing the inclusiveness of Epic, the sessions also feature very nice performances of Mexican and Hawaiian standards, as well as the Lost Bayou Ramblers keeping it real on “Allons à Lafayete.” Even though Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard are meant to be the big finale, they are almost anti-climactic compared to some of the stuff that came before them.

Granted, the American Epic Sessions are a bit inconsistent, but you can’t blame the repertoire. If there is one thing we can say about these tunes it’s that they have stood the test of time. Most of the artists appreciate that fact and display an intuitive understanding of why these songs retain such potency. Recommended for fans of American roots music, The American Epic Sessions premieres this Tuesday (6/6) on PBS.

Nas: the Doc is Illmatic

Olu Dara has been celebrated for his sideman recordings with avant-garde jazz artists, like David Murray, and his own sessions that are deeply steeped in the blues. Yet, far more people have heard him work on Nas’s “Life’s a Bitch.” He had the inside track to that gig. He happens to be the rapper’s father. Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones will take one bow after another in One9’s shamelessly celebratory Nas: Time is Illmatic (trailer here), which opens this Wednesday in New York.

If you were going to write a generic rapper creation myth, it might go something like this: The sensitive son of a politically conscious but largely absent father grows up in a hostile big city environment, largely keeping on the straight and narrow, thanks to his strong mother. Yet, just as the young man is about to make it big, his close friend and musical collaborator falls prey to the urban pathologies they hoped to escape. Nevertheless, the grieving friend’s destiny would not be denied.

That is pretty much the Nas story in a nutshell. Since that is what happened, One9 is stuck with the general arc, but a good documentarian’s challenge is to delve beneath the surface to find the surprising and idiosyncratic things that make their subjects tick. Unfortunately, One9 and writer Erik Parker are content to print the legend, chronicling a publicist approved narrative that might as well be cribbed from AllMusic.com. Even for a Nas fan, the results are rather boring to watch.

Yes, Nas’s Illmatic album was a hip-hop watershed. We know that because scores of talking heads tell us so, but they never really explain it. Some vaguely suggest he broke new ground in his politicized depiction of inner city life, yet we hear plenty of rhymes similarly addressing issues of race and class from his early 1980s contemporaries. Frankly, there is not a lot of analysis in Time—just a general assumption everyone is already on the same side of the mountain.

Still, Time could be an efficiently inebriating drinking game. Just take one sip for every time he shakes hands, fist bumps, or high fives someone from the old neighborhood. While these scenes are obviously meant to emphasis Nas’s close connection to Queensbridge, we just so get it after the first fifteen or twenty times.

Even viewers who are not hip-hop listeners can appreciate a documentary about the music if it is well done. Michael Rapaport’s Beats, Rhymes, and Life is a perfect example, in large measure because founding A Tribe Called Quest member Q-Tip has a lot to say about music and it usually quite interesting (unfortunately his appearance in Time is rather perfunctory). Time simply lacks the equivalent insights. Shallow and fannish, Nas: Time is Illmatic should have been a disposable cable special, but it opens this Wednesday (10/1) in New York at the AMC Empire.