Reviews
 Keep It Simple
Van Morrison
Roger McGuinn @ the Huntington IMAC, Long Island, NY - April 4, 2008
Emily Saxe @ the Allen Room/Jazz at Lincoln Center - April 5, 2008
Another Country
Tift Merritt
Be Your Own Pet
Get Awkward
Paul McCartney – The McCartney Years (DVD)
Juno – Music from the Motion Picture
Various Artists
Yes - Their Definitive Story
Day and Night Driving
Seven Mary Three
InterMedia Arts Center 2/2/08
Huntington, NY
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Patti Smith
Now that Patti Smith has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I guess it’s no surprise that she would release an album like “Twelve.” At this stage of her career, it only makes sense that she would want to pay tribute to a few of her own personal favorite compositions, or the songs that have influenced her.
Smith has always been a fairly eclectic artist, and this collection certainly represents a person with wide-ranging tastes and influences, but it also a bit disconcerting. For example, I would expect Patti Smith to be a Jimi Hendrix fan, or Rolling Stones fan; she came of age when they provided some of the best rock music available, so her versions of “Are You Experienced?” and “Gimme Shelter” are respectful and informed. It’s no big surprise that she also covers the Doors (“Soul Kitchen”), Bob Dylan (“Changing of the Guard”) or Stevie Wonder (“Pastime Paradise”), for that matter. All of the above artists were incredibly important to the 20th Century music scene, and their influence lives on today. Perhaps the only difficulty is that Smith performs these songs with too much reverence. With the exception of her brilliant reinvention of “Are You Experienced?,” most of her arrangements stay true to the originals, without achieving the stark, historic blast of familiarity they provide. Her renditions are adequate, but not particularly special.
Another disconcerting ingredient is the remainder of songs selected for this project. Hearing Patti Smith sing “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears is a strange experience that I could have lived without. Paul Simon’s “Boy in the Bubble” and Gregg Allman’s “Midnight Rider” are both great songs in their own right, but would anybody expect Patti Smith to do them justice, or to do them at all? It is interesting to know that Smith thinks so highly of these songs, but it is another thing for her to record her own versions. It isn’t that her versions are bad – many of them are quite pleasant – but they demand comparison to the original recordings, and none of them surpass the source. Taking the 5/8 rhythm of George Harrison’s “Without You, Without You” and giving it a folksy 6/8 lope makes it sound ordinary and does nothing to improve the song. Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” has been dated since Crystal Meth and Ecstasy hit the streets, so Smith’s straightforward reading seems dated right out of the gate. All in all, “Twelve” is a mixed blessing, full of surprises when it comes to song selection, but not particularly stimulating in the actual execution.
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