2 stars (out of 4)

Steve Earle’s latest album, “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive” (New West), shares a title with a historical novel he was writing (to be published in May) and the last single Hank Williams wrote in his brief lifetime. Most of these 11 songs share Williams’ sense of mortality and try to glimpse at the world beyond the one we see. The performances are mostly stripped-down country-folk tunes, outfitted with sighing pedal steel and fiddle under the direction of producer T Bone Burnett. At times it feels like a period exercise, Earle and his accomplices evoking a hoedown in need only of a few hay bales (“Little Emperor”), ancient troubadours jamming around the Maypole (“Molly-O”), and over-served saloon denizens leading a jaunty sing-along (“Gulf of Mexico”). A few specific references to modern events are sprinkled throughout, but mostly Earle sings in unusually hazy generalities or clichés (“Every Part of Me,” “Lonely are the Free”). The tepid music doesn’t help, with only the distorted vocal and blues harmonica on “Meet Me in the Alleyway” disrupting the rocking-chair flow. Maybe working on a novel distracted Earle, but the feisty dust-kicker of old appears to have taken this one off.

greg@gregkot.com

To record his latest album, “No Better Than This” (Rounder), John Mellencamp hatched a plan with producer T Bone Burnett. They would set up a mono tape recorder and a single microphone and knock out a bunch of new songs with a small band.

It was old-fashioned recording in the extreme, with an added twist: The “recording studios” were the First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Ga., a sanctuary for runaway slaves before emancipation; Sun Studios in Memphis, one of the birthplaces of rock ‘n’ roll; and the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, where blues legend Robert Johnson recorded.

It all might sound like a gimmick, but the music’s rambunctious charm and playful spirit argue otherwise. It adds up to one of Mellencamp’s best albums, in a career that has seen the former John Cougar move from a Springsteen-lite phase (“I Need a Lover”), find his niche as a small-town storyteller (“Jack & Diane”), become the unofficial voice of Farm Aid (“Rain on the Scarecrow”) and reinvent himself as a folk-oriented singer-songwriter. In 2006, he dropped his long-standing opposition to licensing his songs for use in TV commercials; his song “Our Country” appeared in a car ad and then anchored his final album for a major label, “Freedom’s Road.” But now he’s an independent artist, and he says his days of listening to record company executives’ advice about how best to sell and market his music are over. In a recent interview, Mellencamp discussed his life as a “recovering” rock star.

3.5 stars (out of 4)

John Mellencamp has revitalized his career in recent years by teaming up with T Bone Burnett, a producer who prefers to document performances with grime intact rather than doctor them up into shiny new toys for radio programmers. After collaborating on the 2008 release “Life Death Love and Freedom,” Mellencamp and Burnett take that no-frills approach to an extreme on “No Better Than This” (Rounder), the latest album in a career that spans 35 years and 40 million domestic record sales. Whatever you think of Mellencamp, this is the kind of record that will compel a re-evaluation, an out-of-leftfield shot that mostly works because of its modesty, shagginess and humor – qualities not normally associated with the singer in the past.

The album was recorded in three historically resonant locations: the First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Ga., a sanctuary for runaway slaves before emancipation; Sun Studios in Memphis, one of the birthplaces of rock ‘n’ roll; and the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, where blues legend Robert Johnson recorded.

Burnett set up a single microphone and a vintage reel-to-reel recorder in each of these rooms to capture Mellencamp and his band as they performed 13 original songs drawing on blues, folk, gospel and rockabilly. The mono recordings may initially sound like dusty transmissions from another planet to ears attuned to highly compressed modern productions, which create an unnatural relationship between voice and instruments. On “No Better Than This,” Mellencamp’s nicotine rasp sits inside a cocoon of stringed instruments and percussion; the sound field is a democracy of instruments, the mix a warm blend of complementary sounds that is a step away from a spontaneous field recording.

Mellencamp’s songs generally avoid the type of ponderous big statements that can undercut his music in favor of blues- and folk-based stories populated with devils, death, mayhem, but also a touch of mirth. Mortality underlines everything, but the music brims with life: loose, a bit ramshackle, as if refusing to take itself too seriously. The lack of conventional production gimmicks telescopes the songs and the performances: Miriam Sturm’s violin flirts with mischief and anxiety on “Right Behind Me”; “No Better Than This” channels the chugging clickety-clack of a vintage Johnny Cash single; “Thinking About You” is one of those little charmers about everyday life that could’ve sprung from John Prine’s imagination; and the epic narrative “Easter Eve” manages to sound both rambunctious and easygoing. No wonder the album winds down with barely audible chuckle.

greg@gregkot.com



    Sponsored Link: Amazon's John Mellencamp Store