Waits and Cookie Monster, but the band is solid, and Cohen speaks/sings these pieces of poetic art with his usual heart and flair. There are so many gems here, it’s hard to say any- thing negative at all. The man is a poet of our generation. “Almost Like the Blues” is an im- mediate favorite. There’s really no picking apart a Leonard Cohen album. You either love the man or you don’t, and I do....One of the real treats of 2014 was the reissue of Jimi Hendrix’s first two posthumous releases, The Cry of Love and Rainbow Bridge on both CD and vinyl. I managed to borrow a turntable from a friend and spun Rainbow Bridge, playing it loud. One thing I can say is that I truly love
vinyl better. The sound is so much warmer, like te difference between playing your guitar through a tube amp or a solid-state amp. Rainbow Bridge is composed of recordings
Hendrix made in 1969 and 1970 after the breakup of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Al- though the cover is subtitled “Original Motion Picture Sound Track,” it doesn’t contain any songs recorded during his concert appearance for the 1971 film Rainbow Bridge. Like Cry of Love before it, the album is filled with experi- ments in new guitar styles. Also like Cry of Love, the music here is made up of material in various stages of development and never approved for release by Jimi, but it still stands as a pretty great collection. Two songs by the Band of Gypsys, "Room
full of Mirrors" and "Earth Blues" were recorded in 1969, with drum overdubs by Mitchell. "The Star Spangled Banner" is a 1969 solo studio recording by Hendrix, and bears little resemblance to the awesome live version from the Woodstock soundtrack. The
remainder of the songs were recorded with the Cry of Love group (Mitchell and Cox) in 1970. About half of the album sounds dated, with a real psychedelic vibe, but even the worst Hendrix is very good, and “Hear My Train a Comin’” alone is worth the price of admission. Fans of the left-handed genius will love hearing this on wax once again. I guess it’s true, what goes around comes around...Long time Outlaws guitarist Billy Crain returns with his third solo album, Silent Roar, and it’s another good one. Crain plays all of the instruments, sings the lead and vocal harmonies and produces. Talk about a one-man-band! Crain rocks hard from the outset, with his on the mark song about the demise of classic country music, and how it became “pop music,” or better yet, “Bad Rock” with a fiddle. The heartfelt lyrics are set against a super scorching lead guitar like only Billy Crain can deliver. He follows that one with another brilliant protest rocker, “One Nation (Under Welfare).” Just one of the things I most admire about Billy Crain is his unbridled faith and his open willingness to put his beliefs into his songs, as in the powerful “What Would Jesus Do,” a musi- cal question that poses the question of what Jesus would do in deal- ing with many of the situations we all find ourselves sur- rounded by these days. The album is chock full of great songs, from “Silent Roar” to “Burn,” Billy’s message to the terrorists and evil doers who want to destroy America. Billy pulls no punches. I like that. It is, after all, the truth he is expounding. In a similar vein, Crain speaks his peace about the media celebrities who feed on mayhem in his song
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