 
Ben Harper’s
goal for his new album was simple, but it wasn’t easy.
“I wanted to do
something that would push the limits of acoustic soul music,” says the
37-year-old singer-guitarist, whose eclectic body of work stretches from the urgent folk rock of Welcome to the Cruel World, his 1994 debut, to the haunted gospel of There Will Be a Light, his 2004 collaboration with the Blind Boys
of Alabama. Recorded and mixed on all-analog equipment over seven days
in Paris immediately following a tour with his longtime backing band,
the Innocent Criminals, Lifeline finds Harper pushing limits by
stripping down. “It’s as live a record as I think you’ll find today,”
he says. We sat down with Harper at his favorite organic-foods spot in
Venice, California.
You made Lifeline without taking a break after coming off the road. Had you wanted to do that for a while? For the longest time. But it was always a matter of the tours being superlong, or only having the time at the end of a year’s worth of touring, or just the expenditure of it all. This time, I just stumbled on a time in my life when it was all possible. We had the time, the place, the technicians, the instruments.
Even though they were recorded differently, do you think any of your older albums have Lifeline’s immediacy? The closest I got was the Blind Boys record. There was a week or two-week gap [between touring and recording] on that one, so you still had that grease on you and you still had your chops in your back pocket. I’ve discovered that the more time you take off, the more you really have to recommit to your chops. And then you end up leaning on technology: “Let’s do it over and put this there and the other thing in the other place.” Coming right off the road, it’s an absolute extension of touring; second takes don’t make sense. If you have to overdub harmonies or whatever, okay — there’s a certain amount of embellishing you do. But recording live gives the foundation that much more stability.
Recording with computer software such as Pro Tools, for instance, creates something less stable? I’ve recorded entire records on Pro Tools, proudly. So I’m not trying to insult the other process or say that one is better than the other. But this record had to have that sound for it to have its sonic, emotional, musical authenticity. I thought if I’m gonna make a record right off the road — and if I really want it to be as raw as possible — I’ve gotta keep that out of the equation.
Did the songs you’d written for Lifeline demand this kind of recording process, or did you write songs with the process in mind? A combination of both. I wrote to the goal. But also, I got to the first sound check of the first show and said to my band, “We’ve spared no expense to bring the best sound humanly possible to our fans. You guys are the best musicians in the world. Let’s do something constructive with this time.” So everybody brought to the table all the ideas that they had accumulated in their lives. As a band, we all wrote the music together; then I threw the lyrics on top.
Was everyone in the band on board with the idea from the get-go? Right off the bat. There was no hesitation. The only challenge was: Could we really be that democratic? There was a time when this band wouldn’t have been able to do this record. But we’ve grown and evolved to the place where we could actually hear each other instead of hearing our individual egos.
You’re able to lead the band and at the same time function as a member of the band? I think this record proves that I am.
Were there battles over the music while you were in the studio? It was 98 percent battle-free.
What did the two percent have to do with? Just a differing of opinion as to where things should start or end. You know, “Should we go this chord or that chord?” It was nothing that would derail the session on any level.
Do you think you’ll make your next record like this? You seem more interested in changing methods than sticking to one, even when the one yields good results. The thought of having to make a record that sounds like something else I’ve done terrifies me. That’s why when “Steal My Kisses” [from 1999’s Burn to Shine] came out, I was like, Okay, I won’t be doing anything that sounds like that for a while! It's not that I'm trying to avoid having a hit, I'm just not going to get tied into a formula.
Steve Earle
Washington Square Serenade
(New West) |
| Since relocating to New York City in 2005 with his wife, country singer Allison Moorer, Steve Earle has become a mini “King of All Media”: He’s the host of his own Sirius radio show, an actor on HBO’s The Wire, an esteemed playwright and a published author, and, yes, still one of roots music’s preeminent practitioners. Produced by John King of the Dust Brothers and recorded at NYC’s famed Electric Lady Studios, Earle’s first album in three years feels like a postcard from his new city. It opens with “Tennessee Blues,” a kiss-off to his longtime home base of Nashville, a place the rebellious and iconoclastic singer clearly never felt comfortable in (“Fare thee well, I’m bound to roam … Goodbye, Guitar Town,” he sings, referencing his 1986 ode to Music City, “Guitar Town”). The balance of the disc is much as you might expect: a collection of finely etched story songs in the mold of Earle’s late mentor, Texas wordsmith Townes Van Zandt, with music that offers spare folk-pop arrangements spiced up with modern backbeats and world-music flourishes. Though Earle’s first few postcomeback albums, including 1995’s Train a Comin’ and 1996’s I Feel Alright, were models of efficiency — there was nary a wasted note, breath, or thought — his more recent work has been occasionally uneven. The new disc is no exception, as it reveals its share of duds, namely the beat-poet exercise “Down Here Below” and the rather pedestrian entry “Satellite Radio.” Still, those few missteps are made up for elsewhere. Like his pal Bruce Springsteen, Earle pays heartfelt homage to folk legend Pete Seeger with “Steve’s Hammer (For Pete)” and the closing combination of “Days Aren’t Long Enough” (a gorgeous duet with Moorer). Those two songs, and his version of Tom Waits’s “Way Down in the Hole,” a menacing postmodern take on fire-and-brimstone gospel, are more than enough to redeem the record. — Bob Mehr |  |
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Joe Henry
Civilians
(Anti-) |
Though Joe Henry is still probably best known as the man behind the early-’90s classics Short Man’s Room and Kindness of the World (and as Madonna’s brother-in-law), since the beginning of this decade, his own recording career has taken something of a backseat to his other musical pursuits. As a producer, he’s helmed various soundtrack projects (Knocked Up) and singer-songwriter records (Aimee Mann, Ani DiFranco) and has even helped revive the careers of soul veterans like Solomon Burke and Bettye LaVette. In between all that activity, he’s turned in his second album for the hip Los Angeles imprint Anti-, following 2003’s chaotic character study Tiny Voices. The new disc finds Henry in a more pensive and political mood, as songs like “Civil War” and “Time Is a Lion” implicitly and explicitly offer views on the current states of war and peace, love and hate. For connoisseurs of craft, Henry’s writing is an absolute joy, drawing effortlessly on classic pop, roots, and folk traditions and alchemizing these various strains into a single, sweet sound. Aiding in his effort are a group of tasteful studio hands — including pianist Van Dyke Parks, guitarist Bill Frisell, and Dobro player Greg Leisz — who imbue the tracks with a warm, lived-in quality that serves to highlight Henry’s sharp narratives and deceptively complex melodies. — B.M.
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Harlan T. Bobo
I’m Your Man
(Goner Records)
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| In his early 40s, Memphis singer-songwriter Harlan T. Bobo seemed to emerge out of nowhere with his critically acclaimed 2003 debut, Too Much Love — an intensely autobiographical meditation on obsession, passion, and pain that was spurred by a failed romance. His long-in-the-making follow-up, I’m Your Man, is a somewhat less tortured affair. Much of the album sounds as if it were written under the influence of MOR godhead Lee Hazlewood. In many ways, the record plays like one of Hazlewood’s conceptual late-night platters — that is to say, it’s an album pickled in scotch, cured in cigarette smoke, and steeped in regret.When you hear the charmingly gruff Bobo sing-speak his way through the verses of “My Life,” lamenting how he won’t ever have the “family of his dreams,” it’s clear that the songs are less about being in the desperate throes of heartbreak and more about dealing with the dashed dreams and postmortem realities of a dead love affair. Bobo isn’t just a purveyor of musical gloom and doom, though. Several songs hint at a lighter range of influences: Check out the curiously loping title track, which sounds like Harry Nilsson recasting Billy Swan’s devotional “I Can Help,” and the intricate Beach Boys harmonies that flash across “Baptist Memorial Hospital.” It’s almost as if somewhere, lurking beneath all the bruised emotions, there’s a sunny pop tunesmith waiting to break free. — B.M. |  |
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 Ready for Prime Time?
By Bryan Reesman
Network television isn’t what it used to be: Shows are getting shorter, viewership is dwindling, and if a new series does not find its wings within a couple of episodes, it gets shot down, no matter how great the hype. (Remember Day Break?) One wonders if there is hope for the Big Four this fall, especially as last season produced only one genuine breakthrough hit, NBC’s Heroes. This year, the networks are trying to play off of the success of the past couple of seasons — introducing everything from quirky comedies and prime-time soaps to action-packed sci-fi tales — and there are a couple of breakout hopefuls. Here’s the 411 on this fall’s fiction shows.
Drama Queens (and Kings)
Prime-time soaps have been making a comeback ever since Desperate Housewives soared to ratings bliss. Can anyone else capture that lightning in a bottle?
The most likely contender is Cane (CBS), in which a Cuban-American family deals with the realities of running its Miami-based sugar cane and rum businesses. With a high-powered cast that includes Jimmy Smits, Rita Moreno, Hector Elizondo, and Nestor Carbonell, and with plenty of infighting, illicit romance, and shocking revelations, this show could become the Latin American Dallas.
Rich people and their foibles do make for compelling soap material — at least the creators of Dirty Sexy Money (ABC) hope so. Peter Krause (Six Feet Under) plays a lawyer who inherits his late father’s task of babysitting the Darlings of New York, a quirky and rich family, while trying to solve Dad’s murder. What gives this show potential is the insanity of the Darling clan — family members include a doting patriarch (Donald Sutherland) and matriarch (Jill Clayburgh), an aspiring politician with skeletons in his closet, a substance-addled son, and a foul-mouthed reverend, among others.
It’s got to be tough to be the CEO of a company and have to cope with extramarital affairs, dysfunctional wives, and corporate politics. Hey, life could be worse. While Big Shots (ABC) wants us to empathize with its beleaguered wannabe alpha males (“Men, we’re the new women”), some of them (Dylan McDermott included) are too callous for us to care. I liked this show a lot better when it was called Desperate Housewives.
Grey’s Anatomy fans may be delighted that Addison Forbes Montgomery (Kate Walsh) is getting her own Private Practice (ABC). The Grey’s connection alone should ensure that this program gets a chance to show the doctor in a new environment (the quirky Oceanside Wellness Group in Santa Monica) and in a new relationship. Walsh also has Amy Brenneman, Taye Diggs, and Tim Daly by her side.
Cops and Robbers
It’s amazing that studios keep cranking out police shows, always trying to give us a new spin on the boys in blue.
Life (NBC) does offer something fresh: A cop who’s been falsely incarcerated for 12 years actually returns to the job he loves. Charlie Crews (Damian Lewis) has to cope with digs from fellow cops and deal with his moody partner (Sarah Shahi) while he adjusts to life with cell phones, digital cameras, and the Internet. His method of extracting information is unorthodox but quite compelling, yet there is a certain grittiness here that seems better suited for a cable show. Still, it could click in prime time.
Speaking of gritty, K-Ville (Fox) is all about it. In post-Katrina New Orleans, Marlin Boulet (The Shield’s Anthony Anderson) is trying to keep the peace, cope with a shady new partner, and keep his wife and daughter in the waterlogged city. While New Orleans is used as an effective backdrop, it does not seem to be much more than that yet. K-Ville could be any number of other police dramas. However, I feel guilty saying that about a show that may be benefiting New Orleans financially.
If you want slightly less grit, there’s Women’s Murder Club (ABC). Inspired by James Patterson’s best-selling novels, the series follows four women in the Bay Area — a detective (Law & Order’s Angie Harmon), a district attorney, a medical examiner, and a reporter — who team up to solve murder cases. Of course, the camaraderie and interaction are more important than the cases, but the quality of the stories will determine whether this comes alive or is DOA.
Are You Having a Laugh?
Sitcoms have been struggling since Frasier, Friends, and Seinfeld signed off the air during the course of the last decade, and canned laughter has lost its appeal for many viewers.
While The Big Bang Theory (CBS) does offer some fresh one-liners — like “We’ve already watched Battlestar Galactica Season Two” and “Not with commentary!” — it plays on expected stereotypes, in this case, two socially challenged brainiacs who become intertwined with their new neighbor, a slightly ditzy server at the Cheesecake Factory. While romantic promise is there, you’re just waiting for the pocket-protector jokes to surface.
Back to You (Fox) is equally mediocre. Anchorman Kelsey Grammer gets demoted and transferred back to his old Colorado station after freaking out at a coworker while on the air in Los Angeles, and his old coanchor (Patricia Heaton) has a grudge against him. Some peppy one-liners are marred by a lack of real chemistry between the stars. There is a big revelation in the pilot that may keep viewers watching, but for how long is yet to be seen.
Samantha Who? (ABC) is undoubtedly the best new comedy of the season, and it needs no laugh track. Christina Applegate plays an amnesia victim who can’t remember that she was a shallow, unfaithful club girl with vapid family and friends. Shocked at her former life, Sam quickly decides that her new blank slate of a life has advantages, one of them being that she can change who she was. And in this role, the endearing Applegate can continue to buck her old Kelly Bundy image.
Less interesting is our final comedic entry. I will say this: Since we live in such a one-car, one-person world, I am impressed that someone would even come up with a show called Carpoolers (ABC), let alone set it in L.A., where there are none. That is certainly one of the show’s defining visual gags. The breakdown is simple: Four (mostly) married men ranging in age from 20-something to 40-something share a ride to work, battle for parking, and give each other advice on love and life. Unfortunately, it’s running on cruise control.
Flights of Fantasy
It feels like the sky is falling lately, and sci-fi and fantasy certainly reflect that. But this year’s crop of escapism is not too gratifying.
The Bionic Woman was a fun, if goofy, ’70s show in which Jaime Sommers, the survivor of a near-fatal accident, got souped up with bionic enhancements that gave her super strength, reflexes, and speed. She became a champion of justice for the U.S. government. This time out, in NBC’s Bionic Woman, Jaime’s a bit more ticked that her body was altered without her consent, and her reluctance to make nice with the feds is augmented by the presence of another bionic woman, who has a governmental grudge of her own. Time will tell whether this is top-notch sci-fi or more clichéd schlock.
Chuck (NBC) is the epitome of escapist dreck. An aimless electronics-store clerk accidentally views an e-mailed video file containing thousands of subliminally encoded images related to defense secrets, and now they’re implanted in his brain. Naturally, the secret keepers want to get hold of him, as he is unintentionally decoding these seemingly random images. This kind of espionage parody was more fun in the ’80s movie Gotcha!.
In Journeyman (NBC), a San Francisco reporter finds himself jumping back in time in the Bay Area, presumably to help rewrite history and change people’s lives for the better. He also bumps into his deceased ex-fiancée, whom he still pines for. The fact that his trips cost him a day or two in the present is extremely irritating to his wife and his boss. I know I’ve already used this joke, but, frankly, I liked this concept better when it was called Quantum Leap.
The immortal cop of New Amsterdam (Fox) has been on earth for 400 years, waiting to find his soul mate, at which time he can become mortal. That’s a depressing commentary on modern love. While the protagonist is classy, cultured, and a great puzzle solver, he’s also too understated for my taste. I liked this concept better when it was more action oriented and called Highlander. (I can’t help myself.)
The vampiric PI of Moonlight (CBS) doesn’t want to chomp on people’s necks to feed, so he makes sure he requisitions his blood supply in other ways. He also wants to help people who have no one else to turn to, as if he’s an undead Equalizer. It’s kind of cool when a bloodsucker is on our side, but I liked this concept better when it was more goth-friendly and called Forever Knight. (Seriously, someone stop me.)
Out in Left Field
Some shows don’t quite fit into an easy category, as is the case with the following two debuts.
With executive producer and guest star Hugh Jackman, Viva Laughlin (CBS) could be this season’s dark-horse contender. I find casinos gaudy and boring and reeking of desperation, but I got involved in this tale, which is about a budding casino owner who wants to take on the Vegas kings by opening his own place in Laughlin, Nevada. When his main backer pulls out and winds up dead in his office, he’s got a load of woes. The idea of a drama with musical numbers didn’t fly well when it was Cop Rock, but Jackman could pull it off. Seeing his sly, sleazy character swagger through a casino singing “Sympathy for the Devil” is pretty hip.
An even quirkier series is Pushing Daisies (ABC), from director Barry Sonnenfeld (The Addams Family) and writer-producer Bryan Fuller (Heroes), which plays like a colorful Tim Burton fairy tale. Piemaker Ned can bring the dead back to life with one touch, but if he touches them again, they’ll die permanently. And if they’re alive for more than a minute, someone else must take their place. (Stay with me here.) Ned has a good racket with a PI — he briefly reanimates corpses in morgues in order to find out who killed them, and then he and the PI collect reward money. When he resurrects his childhood sweetheart, he wants her around, but naturally they can never be intimate in any way. This show looks cool, and the premise is enjoyably weird, but I don’t know what the point is. Stay tuned.
So there you have it, boob-tube addicts — the beginnings of the 2007–08 TV season. I like to think that I have a good knack for identifying hits, since I knew Desperate Housewives, Lost, My Name Is Earl, and Heroes were special. Then again, when I worked in Hollywood, I skimmed through a script for Beverly Hills High, which later became 90210, and I thought, No one will watch this.
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Finally, people are getting to know ventriloquist Jeff Dunham for more than the characters he carries around in a trunk.
 It’s not that Jeff Dunham is crazy. It’s just that he sounds crazy when he’s talking about the characters that have made him arguably the most popular ventriloquist working today. Like, when he’s talking about that time on stage in Cincinnati when he was doing his routine with a green-haired puppet — or dummy, or whatever — named Peanut.
Dunham explains the moment: “I asked a question that Peanut was supposed to answer. But I answered it in my own voice. So Peanut sat there and looked at me. And the audience started laughing. And Peanut said, ‘What is wrong with you?’ He said, ‘I can do these lines. I can do this entire act without you. I can do both parts.”’
We interrupt this Cincinnati story to reiterate that Peanut is a dummy — or puppet, depending — just one of Dunham’s half-dozen or so characters, including a curmudgeon named Walter and a jalapeño on a stick. Peanut may be the weirdest of the bunch. He’s got a purple face and green hair, one shoe, and, well, no brain function. Anyway, on with the story.
“I looked at Peanut, and I said, ‘Go ahead,’” Dunham says. “I had no earthly idea what was going to happen next. So Peanut starts acting out both parts. And he’s a horrible actor. Even his own lines he’d do completely over the top. The audience totally got it, though.”
Let’s hope so. It stands to reason, though, that Dunham would speak so realistically about his characters. He’s been working professionally as a ventriloquist for nearly two decades, ever since he was a kid growing up in Dallas. You’ve likely seen him at some point with Peanut, Walter, José Jalapeno, or “someone” else on the The Tonight Show, at comedy clubs around the country, or maybe just via your DVD player. A Comedy Central special 18 months ago spawned a companion DVD called Arguing with Myself, which has sold a staggering half a million copies and has changed everything for Dunham. “Until the Comedy Central special, people knew the jalapeño on a stick, but nobody knew who I was,” says Dunham, whose follow-up DVD and Comedy Central special, Spark of Insanity, are due out this month. “Now people sometimes recognize me.”
Still, fame does have its downside — for example, if people expect him to be funny sans Peanut. He puts it thusly: “I think that I’m probably a big disappointment without the dolls.”
Dolls. That’s it. — Joe Guinto
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