Best of 2006 - Larry's Lists

Posted by Larry Karnowski at January 2, 2007 8:00 AM

This year we're going to follow a HickoryWind.org tradition and have each of the authors post their own top 10 list for 2006. Here are my lists!

Top 10 Albums of 2006

1) Solas - Reunion: A Decade of Solas
This album was not really fair, in my opinion. It's just not fair to all the other albums that came out in 2006. I mean, a blazing live concert album from my favorite Celtic band of all time, with all of their members from all previous line-ups, playing their best songs from a ten-year career? It is absolutely unfair, and it was absolutely my favorite album of the year. I wore this sucker out for the first half of the year! If you're thinking you might want to "dip your toe" into some Celtic music, I'd 100% recommend you to start here.

2) Old Crow Medicine Show - Big Iron World
Another favorite band of mine, Old Crow Medicine Show put out a much more "mature" effort this year. I hate that word, though, because it implies their previous work was "immature", and that's absolutely not true. This album is just, well, more subtle and textured than their earlier studio and live albums. This album didn't quite catch my ear as much as I expected because of that subtlety, but after a few listens proved itself to be one of the best of the year.

3) Casey Driessen - 3D
Casey has gone beyond being just a brilliant fiddler. With his debut album, he's shown himself to be not only a master musician, capable of amazing athletic virtuosity, but also a talented song leader and chooser, capable of producing the most entertaining and inspiring work. I'm going to put Casey on par with Alison Krauss as being able to pick a good song and make it sound right. (Yeah, it's a pretty different style of music, but I think he has just as much talent picking and band-leading kick-ass and killer songs as she does heart-breaking and sorrowful songs.) Casey, you are indeed the man.

4) The Avett Brothers - Four Thieves Gone
The Avetts put out two CDs this past year. Four Thieves Gone came out earlier in the year, and it pushed them into new areas, including putting some electric guitar and more produced songs on their albums. These techniques might sound new on an Avett album, but they're not. The Avetts are experts with electric music from their earlier punk and rock n' roll bands, and the synthesis sounds good. I highly recommend both this and their second album of 2006, the acoustic and more grave The Gleam.

5) Wolfmother - Self-titled
A synthesis of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Rush, and today's popular alternative rock music, they never sound forced or phony. These boys can rock. (I saw my first "Wolfmother" bumper sticker on the back of an old redneck beater truck the other day, alongside a Zeppelin Swan Song sticker. All is right with the world!)

6) Chris Thile - How To Grow A Woman From The Ground Up
I know this album has received some mixed reviews, even from this site, but I'm a big fan. This album will be one that in ten years people will realize was setting a tone and a direction for Bluegrass for decades to come. Thile is a trend-setter and a serious shaker. I consider this album on par with Tony Rice's Manzanita for it's effects on musicians in the coming years. I also recommend you memorize the names of Thile's "How To Grow A Band" band members, especially the fiddler (Gabe Witcher). These folks will be the next set of Jerry Douglases, Sam Bushes, Darol Angers, and Bela Flecks.

7) Kamikaze Hearts - Oneida Road
The Kamikaze Hearts were a surprise to me this year. Although not a new band, I had never heard of them before. A random submission to our site, I couldn't put this album down after a sample listen. I'm sure you too will appreciate their blend of Americana and Indie Rock, sometimes sounding like Uncle Tupelo or Son Volt, and sometimes sounding like Death Cab or Bright Eyes. Check them out on our podcast Episode 6.

8) Mike Therieau - Living From A Suitcase
I really don't know a whole lot about Therieau. Even after looking stuff up about him, I feel I don't know much. I know one thing, however, this album is one of the biggest surprises I had this year. His album is chock-full of honky tonk songs, barnburners, tear in your beer sad songs, and blue-eyed soul songs very reminiscent of Moondance-era Van Morrison crossed with some potent Al Green.

9) Bernard Fanning - Tea & Sympathy
It amazes me that someone that looks so much like Will Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation can put out such a soulful and twangy-great album, but he did. (Sorry, it's the sci-fi geek in me showing through.) Fanning, the Australian singer-songwriter from Powerfinger, put together one fine solo album, full of folky and twangy acoustic rockers.

10) Guy Clark - Workbench Songs
Good Freakin' God, man! Guy Clark just keeps getting better! Try the first song, Walking Man on for size. Then move on to Tornado Time in Texas and Cinco De Mayo in Memphis. Sheesh! A master of his craft, still cranking out significant works, Guy Clark is one of my all-time heroes.

Top 15 Songs of 2006

1) If It's The Beaches - The Avett Brothers - The Gleam
Bleak and haunting, I've written about this song earlier. It's absolutely my favorite song of the year, tender and yet just a tad bitter. It sounds like many relationships I've known of in the past. It describes a painfully complicated set of emotions very articulately and accurately... a difficult thing to do, unravel all these competing emotions. I hope each of us never have to feel this way again, but I hope y'all remember the feeling. Listen to the song in case you forget... "we will read them [love letters] when we forget why we left here..."

2) Jerusalem Ridge - Casey Driessen - 3D
Without a doubt, Jerusalem Ridge has become my all-time favorite fiddle tune in the past few years. The Bill Monroe-penned and Kenny Baker-played classic will always be very special to me. And Casey has perfected it for this new generation... making it my pick for fiddle song of the year. This is a strictly solo effort from him, at least three tracks of him playing fiddle overlaid on top of each other... brilliant! There is no other fiddler as attuned to today's music as Casey, and no one could have interpreted this song into today's sound better.

3) Heart In A Cage - Chris Thile- How To Grow A Woman From The Ground Up
Thile has remade what I consider a ho-hum Strokes' tune into an immediate Bluegrass classic. This song blends characteristics of Bluegrass -- the instrumentation, vocal harmonies, and song arrangement, with some characteristics of Indie Rock -- a brash intensity, especially in the lyrics, halts and pauses, slow downs, and explosions of sound. (These last are amazingly well-done with slams from Thile's mandolin at just the right moments, and accompanied with the other instruments when additional emphasis is needed.) This song will change the way we listen to Bluegrass for the next ten years. Just listen to how the song is crafted... each piece is deliberate, each piece fits together perfectly. Thile, at 24, is already a master of songcraft. I can't wait to see where he takes this sound.

4) White Freightliner Blues - Gillian Welch - Black Star EP
When the hell is Gillian releasing a new album?!?!?! Good Lord! Even her covers are amazing! And let me tell you, as a fabulous songwriter of her own (one of my all-time favorites), when she chooses to cover someone else's song, she always picks a doozey! Breathing new acoustic life into one of my all-time favorite songs from Townes Van Zandt, this is the best driving song of the year! (Drive carefully!)

5) God's Got It - Old Crow Medicine Show - Big Iron World
Last year I was amazed by Mindy Smith's Come To Jesus, a completely up-front and unapologetic Christian song that simply rocked me. I was amazed by its simplicity and power, and it was in my top 10 songs of 2005. Most Christian songs are pretty commercial and/or uninspired, assuming their "message" will sell them unaided. It's rare for a spiritual song today to be well-crafted and beautiful. Well, friends, as usual, the Old Crow Medicine Show knock down everything that was set up before them. This year their completely up-front and unapologetic religious song rocks my world. This song starts out as a creeping Blues tune, with beautiful soulful guitar and a little harmonica. Add a fiddle lead and banjo run, then wait for it... crazy brimstone-burning holly-rolling preacher screaming in the vocals! "I believe in the Lord above (I believe in the Righteous, I believe in Love) I believe in the fire burnin' in my soul, I believe that His light is gonna make me whole... if you want it, God's got it..." The song spills over with harmonic singing/shouting, intensely Bluesy, intensely spiritual and moving. I've seen this song performed live, and it doesn't disappoint.

6) Walking Man - Guy Clark - Workbench Songs
This song makes me want to go hiking, dude. Seriously. No, seriously, this is a hero-worship song by one of my heroes. This song puts forth an image of a wise and worldly person, someone who's "walked the earth" and done their share of living, hopefully inspiring and helping others. (You know, folks like Woody Guthrie, Chuck Berry, and Ghandi.) But in Guy's distinctive style, this is no preachy self-important lecture, but a living, breathing, kicking and screaming picture of a person we all could be and all hope to be. I sure hope my future grandkids could look up and think "Papaw was a 'walking man'." Mr. Clark, in case you're wondering, you are the epitome of "walking man" figure you describe. We sure do love you!

7) Dimension - Wolfmother - Dimensions EP & Self-titled album
I've written of this song earlier in the year, and I still can't get enough of it. "I was in the desert baby, all I had was a slip of paper, and I had to write something down..." The lyrics are dreamlike and funny, but the massive drive of the song by only a power-trio of drums, crunchy guitar, and crushing bass guitar runs amaze me. This is a very dangerous song to drive to!

8) Sometimes Some Words - Mike Therieau - Living From A Suitcase
From an album full of Country songs and soul tunes, this blue-eyed soul song is the best. It reminds me so much of Van Morrison and Al Green... it's soft and tender in the verses, and urgent and intense on the choruses. "Sometimes some words... are better left unsaid..." This is one helluva beautiful slow song. But don't take my word for it, check it out yourself on our podcast Episode 8.

9) Black Star - Gillian Welch - Black Star - EP
Yes, friends, a second Gillian cover song in my list. (Where is her new album?) This time Gillian is doing a gutsy but entirely amazing cover of another of my favorite bands -- Radiohead. This song sounds completely different from the original electric version from The Bends from the late 90s. I love how Gillian and David can pull out the tenderness, tiredness, and defeat of this song, making it sound like an ancient Blues song just uncovered from some dusty field recording. My favorite part of this live recording is when they start singing the chorus and several crowd members finally recognize the song. The crowd sound gives me goose-bumps. I can't imagine what that must have felt like, realizing Gillian and Dave were covering a Radiohead song! Whew.

10) My Good Gal - Old Crow Medicine Show - Big Iron World
The epitome of acoustic Blues, this could've been a blistering Doc Watson song from twenty years ago, but nope, it's a brand-new song from OCMS. The story isn't new, love, betrayal, humiliation, then finally revenge and regret, murder. But man, does it sound freaking good! Ketch Secor is the only person in history that has ever made me want to put down my fiddle and learn to play harmonica. (Fiddlers and harmonicas don't normally get along.)

11) 8 Miles A Gallon - Scott Miller - Citation
If you're going to write a political song, please follow Scott Miller's lead. Don't write some sappy sing-along campfire thing that bores the shit out of me. (I'm talking to you, the Mammals.) If, as a songwriter, you think that your audience must already agree with you to like your political song, well then you're not writing a great song. Instead, if you want to convince people to follow your logic, do what Mr. Miller here does -- first write a kick-ass song that's sure to get even the most fuel-inefficient giant-V8-truck-driving dude's foot tapping and head bobbing. Write a few lyrics in there that are vague enough to get em listening, and then stick it to them with a vicious sting of a hook -- "So invent a big engine, make it run on bullshit", repeat, repeat, repeat, throw in some biting criticism of the current executive and (then-current) legislative branches, and voila! A timeless, great, political rock song!

12) Pompeii Am Götterdämmerung - The Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics
There's absolutely nothing Americana about this song, sorry. But it's freaking great! A wonderful mixture of Rush, Holtz's The Planets, and all the 60s pulp sci-fi soundtracks and sound effects... it sounds like a refuge from an earlier Doctor Who episode or a Flash Gordon movie. I've woken up to this song every morning for months now.

13) Black Swan - Thom Yorke - The Eraser
This Thom Yorke album grew on me, a lot! The lead singer and songwriter from Radiohead isn't Americana, but he's a certified genius. I think Yorke's the most innovative and yet listenable musician in popular music today. (I'm certainly not alone in this.) His influence has been felt by several Americana staples already -- both Nickel Creek and Gillian Welch are big fans. (See song #9 above, please!) This song is a repetitive, throbbing succession of drum beats, with thin melodies textured over it, layer over layer. Very abstract, but very interesting... one of my favorites of the year.

14) Sukie In the Graveyard - Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
This upbeat and quirky tune is quintessential Belle & Sebastian. The beloved Indie Rock band (with a few twangy quirks here and there) are known for zany caricatures of interesting characters. This song, about a runaway high-school drop-out that makes a career in posing nude in the art world... well, that's just the beginning. As with most B&S songs, it's not really the lyrics that make the song so entertaining and beloved... (although nutty lyrics like "she had a soft slave and his name was Dave, she said be my photo bitch and I'll make you rich" certainly help) it's the quirky melodies and lush arrangements of guitars, keyboards, stringed instruments, and horns. "Sukie was the kid, and she liked to hang out in the graveyard..."

15) Songbird - Bernard Fanning - Tea & Sympathy
"If you let someone love you just enough, you'd have everything you to break, away from all your pain..." A rollicking acoustic number, folky and bluesy, with Country drums and old-time scratchy fiddles, this song is a wonderful mixture of Americana sounds. I love the melody and the words. It's bright and sunshiny-sounding, even though it's definitely a song about getting someone out a bad place.

Interesting EPs and non-traditional releases
Although not official full-length releases, I found myself listening to these quite a lot this year:
Feufollet - Merlefest 2006/04/27: Watson Stage via FestivaLink.net
Gillian Welch - Black Star EP
Wolfmother - Dimension EP

The Ones That Got Away!
Solomon Burke - Nashville
Beck - The Information
Damien Rice - 9
Bruce Springsteen - The Seeger Sessions