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While some 1,200 bands were careening around New York City in hope of career advancement during the annual CMJ Music Marathon, a collection of veteran rock and bluegrass stars, promising newcomers and some of today’s best musicians were on stage at the Beacon Theatre on Broadway. On Tuesday evening, Elton John and Leon Russell introduced their new album, “The Union,” and last night, T Bone Burnett led John, Russell and a squadron of artists in what he calls The Speaking Clock Revue.
Last night’s event was a fundraiser for Participant Foundation, which is dedicated to supporting arts and music education in public schools. But it was also a tribute to record producer Burnett and his house musicians, including drummers Jay Bellerose and Jim Keltner, guitarist Marc Ribot and bassist Dennis Crouch, who learned 60 songs to work both gigs. Many singers who fronted the band performed songs they recorded with Burnett and his mates.
Elvis Costello, who also served as the revue’s master of ceremonies, offered “Brilliant Mistake,” a song he released in ’86, and “A Slow Drag with Josephine” from his forthcoming album “National Ransom.” Both were produced by Burnett, as was “Low Down Country Blues,” a disk from Gregg Allman to be released early next year. Recovering from liver-transplant surgery, Allman was much thinner than in recent years, but his raspy-blues voice was true. The Beacon Theater is the Allman Brothers Band’s home away from home – Allman let slip they’ll return next March for another long stint – and the crowd welcomed his new material. But when he played his chestnut “Midnight Rider,” they roared in appreciation.
With the Ribot-led band at their backs and Costello waving the performers to center stage, the revue never seemed harried or too much of a good thing. Tanned and in bright spirits, John Mellencamp visited his Burnett-produced “No Better Than This” and Jeff Bridges, borrowing a Gretsch electric guitar from Jackson Smith, performed two songs from the soundtrack from “Crazy Heart,” produced by, you guessed it, T Bone Burnett.
Introduced by Costello as “America’s greatest country singer,” 83-year-old Ralph Stanley delivered bluegrass and gospel with his miraculous quivering voice, ending his brief set with “Man of Constant Sorrow” which was featured on the Burnett-produced soundtrack to the Coen Brothers’ film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” Though Ribot excelled – he opened the revue’s second half with a knotty solo rendition of “Don’t Blame Me,” a song Rudy Vallee popularized in the ‘30s – perhaps the night’s best performance on guitar was turned in by James Shelton, Stanley’s long-time sideman who, in a quiet, unassuming way, flatpicks so deftly that it seems as if there’s another invisible guitarist nearby.
Not-so newcomers like the dazzling, Chris Thile-led bluegrass quintet the Punch Brothers and Jim James of My Morning Jacket – neither of whom has had an album produced by Burnett – worked without the house band, and James’s solo version of MMJ’s “Wonderful (The Way I Feel)” was particularly affecting. With striking poise, Karen Elson showcased two songs from her debut disk “The Ghost Who Walks.” She and the Secret Sisters, who seemed giddy with delight, provided background vocals for Costello and others, giving the revue a sense of shared adventure. The Punch Brothers backed the Secret Sisters, whose Burnett-produced debut was released last week.
The evening’s climax was the return of Elton John and Leon Russell. Not only a return in the sense that Russell has been away from the spotlight for decades – his career has already been rejuvenated by the John-Russell album “The Union,” produced by Burnett – but it was a return to the stage the two singer-pianists occupied the night before, fronting the same band, featuring Burnett’s players augmented by a four-piece brass section and a four member soul-gospel choir. With Bellerose working the toms with mallets, Russell and John pounded out six songs from their new album – on “Gone to Shiloh,” Gregg Allman filled in for Neil Young, who sings on the disk – and the entire ensemble returned to sing a seventh track from the disk, “There’s No Tomorrow.”
On the previous night, Russell opened the show with a review of his bygone hits including “Song for You” and “Delta Lady” before being joined onstage by John, who blew him a kiss and beamed as he watched the white-haired Russell at the opposite grand piano. The duo played “The Union” in order from start to finish, thus concluding with Russell’s “In the Hands of Angels” in which he thanks John and Burnett for reviving his career.
But Elton John had more to say. When he returned to the stage for his solo set, he revisited songs to commemorate his 40 years of performing in the States, playing from his 1970 albums “Your Song,” a lengthy “Take Me to the Pilot,” “Burn Down the Mission” and a scorching “Ballad of a Well-Known Gun” featuring a biting Ribot solo. John is clearly thrilled by the reaction to Russell’s return: “Thank you for making this a party like I hoped it would be,” he said of the Beacon concert. But his set, backed by an aggressive, inventive collection of superb musicians, demonstrated that he too is in a period of revival. Burnett’s kind of organic music suits him just fine. When he sang a wall-rattling version of the self-deprecating “The Bitch is Back,” Elton John was making a statement that seemed truer than it has in decades.
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