Cassandra Wilson never fails to surprise and inspire. Sexy, honey-velvet vocals wrapped around her own jazzy blue compositions or inventive interpretations of others’ material led TIME magazine to name her "America’s Best Singer" in recent years. On her new CD Thunderbird, which Blue Note Records will release on April 4, 2006, she has collaborated with red hot producer T Bone Burnett to surprise, yet again.
"Working with T Bone took the songs into a whole other place," explained Wilson. "He guided me into the deepest recesses of the material, and that attention to detail and nuance allowed me to delve into my own innermost emotions." What’s emerged is a post modern and, at times, primal take on roots music that begins with the title itself.
The legend of the thunderbird is an ancient myth that survives today in some Native American cultures. In the eyes of the ancients, it was a divine and magical animal sent by the gods to protect them from the powers of evil. The thunderbird brought calm and growth to the region. For Cassandra, the spiritual and magical aspects to this creature perfectly described the environment from which these 10 songs grew.
Deftly combining her own compositions—the irresistible Go To Mexico, the sultry It Would Be So Easy, the lovely Poet and the spiritual and celebratory Tarot—with carefully chosen songs that spoke to her like Closer To You by Jakob Dylan, Easy Rider by Blind Lemon Jefferson, the traditional song Red River Valley and Willie Dixon’s I Want To Be Loved, Wilson has woven her plaintive, delicious voice in and out of these tales of betrayal, intimacy and wonder. T Bone contributed two songs to the album in Lost and Strike a Match.
"With Easy Rider, I had always heard the C.C. Rider version of this song covered, but never heard anyone do the Blind Lemon version, which resonated with me," Wilson says. "Jakob’s song Closer to You was, to me, the epitome of intimacy and I just had to do it, couldn’t help myself!" she teases.
The instrumentation chosen for the songs was also a different experience for Cassandra. The groundbreaking sound that Cassandra crafted with producer Craig Street in the mid-1990’s on such classic Blue Note recordings as Blue Light 'Til Dawn and the Grammy-winning New Moon Daughter, was defined by it’s sparse acoustic guitars. However, keyboards play a much larger role in many of the songs on thunderbird, courtesy of keyboardist (and sometimes electric bassist) Keefus Ciancia, who is also the co-producer of the album.
"I hadn’t worked with keyboards for a long time," says Cassandra, referring to her co-producer as "an alchemist. Keefus is amazing. He’s a texture person, very organic and between T Bone, Keefus and I came a lot of the nuances." Also on the album are uber musicians Marc Ribot and Colin Linden on guitar, Mike Elizondo on electric bass, Reginald Veal on acoustic bass and Jim Keltner, Bill Maxwell and Jay Bellerose on drums. Gregoire Maret also plays harmonica on Tarot.
Ultimately, T Bone was the glue that kept it all together and it was his "secret ingredients," as Cassandra describes them, that added that aural special something you just couldn’t put your finger on. So what were T Bone’s "special ingredients?" "I can’t talk about those," she says. "Otherwise, he’d have to kill me."
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