Ken Richardson

Various Artists: Ghost Brothers of Darkland County

New release (Hear Music/Concord; tour dates)
Photo of Burnett, Mellencamp, and King by Kevin Mazur

Indiana cabin, mid-1900s: Two brothers argue over a girl. One brother accidentally kills the other, and then the fleeing brother and the girl accidentally drive into a lake and drown.

True story. John Mellencamp learned it after buying the cabin in the early 1990s.

Soon after, Mellencamp got the idea for a musical based on that story. By 2000, he had begun work on the score (both music and lyrics), and he asked Stephen King to write the book.

John Fogerty: Wrote a Song for Everyone

New release (Vanguard)
Photo by Nela Koenig

Dusting off old songs, a veteran rocker teams up with (mostly) younger musicians for duets: Often, this can be a recipe for tedium, if not disaster. So it’s a joy to report that John Fogerty’s Wrote a Song for Everyone is among the best of such tributes.

Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City

New release (XL; tour dates)
Photo by Alex John Beck

“Much of the overall sound and approach to the album was [the outcome of] being able to record the drums to tape on an old Ampex machine at Vox Recording Studios. That put us in a different world. There’s a quality that happens with tape; it lets you really crunch and compress the drums, and they don’t get harsh or painful. It has to do with the transients hitting the tape; something changes. Once the drums have been passed through tape to Pro Tools, you can really mangle them and go crazy with them.”

Natalie Maines: Mother

New release (Columbia; tour dates with Dixie Chicks)
Photo by Danny Clinch  © Columbia

"Lots of albums by lead singers might just as well have been made by the band, but I think this is very different from anything the Dixie Chicks could make." So says Natalie Maines about her debut solo album. It's "a new direction," her press release underscores. Most common translation I've seen to date: It's "a rock album."