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Roger McGuinn @ the Huntington IMAC, Long Island, NY - April 4, 2008
Emily Saxe @ the Allen Room/Jazz at Lincoln Center - April 5, 2008
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Paul McCartney – The McCartney Years (DVD)
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Day and Night Driving
Seven Mary Three
InterMedia Arts Center 2/2/08
Huntington, NY
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k.d. lang
Depending on your age or your inclination, you’re gonna recognize the artwork on k.d. lang’s latest (re)release, entitled “Reintarnation.” If you’re over fifty, you’ll be reminded of Elvis Presley’s debut album for RCA in 1955. If you’re over forty, you’re thinking of the Clash’s “London Calling” from 1979. If you never saw either of these covers, then you are doomed to associate the pink and green right-angle lettering with k.d. lang’s “Reintarnation.”
I suppose that this artwork is destined to roll around every 25 years or so. The design might be redundant, but you have to respect the inherent pun in the title. This disk compiles some of lang’s best country-stylized work from her first five albums, a semi-campy blend of two-step rhythms and twangy clompers that some called ‘cow-punk’, although it contained very little of either of these suggested elements. In retrospect, it isn’t hard to understand why the country music establishment was slow embrace k.d. lang. Her restless song stylizations were too off-the-wall and too highly stylized to be taken seriously in Nashville. The song titles alone convey her status as an ambitious outsider with about as much authenticity as a kid in a cowboy outfit; “Pullin’ Back the Reins,” “Angel with a Lariat” and “Got the Bull by the Horns” convey all of the authenticity of a Halloween costume. The songs themselves may be a bit silly, but her plucky resolve and soaring voice force you take her seriously. It’s easy to see why k.d. lang eventually became famous, once she dropped fun but mostly insipid tunes like “Don’t Be a Lemming Polka” and “Big Big Love.”
A few songs stand above the others by not wearing their intentions too obviously. “Pay Dirt” and “Don’t Let the Stars in Your Eyes” both transcend the hokey imagery, and they also represent an inclination of what may have happened if Patsy Cline were allowed to follow her own basic instincts. k.d. lang is perhaps one of Cline’s biggest fans, and it’s interesting to note that she shared Cline’s instinctual desire to sing upbeat music that suited a hoedown more than a recording studio. Cline was lucky enough to have producer Owen Bradley, who prevented her from sabotaging her own career. Lang herself would eventually benefit from utilizing the very same man, but these songs pre-date his influence. As history, “Reintarnation” is an interesting document, but the maturity exhibited by her latter-day work has rendered this material to little more than amusing timepieces.
Grade: 
 
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