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Ali Farka Touré himself is a farmer and local (what… chief? mayor? paterfamilias?), who tends to his village first and his music second. In 1995, he reputedly begged off a US tour claiming that he could not leave his home because if he did, he risked losing his land in an armed skirmish. When in 1998, one of his US labels, Hannibal, wanted to record a new record with him Touré insisted the producers bring a mobile recording rig to his compound at Niafunké. The stunning resulting album, aptly titled Niafunké, was recorded whenever farm chores did not press and whenever the mood struck to pick up his guitar.

In 2000, Touré decided to come to the USA for one last tour before devoting all his time to a village irrigation project. I was lucky enough to see his New York date, August 8, 2000, and I can’t ever forget it. A big man in person, on stage he looked ten feet tall, wielding his electric guitar like it was a toy and wrenching from it some of the most searing melodies I have ever heard. He was playful, switching between guitar and njerka (a small one-stringed fiddle) and stopping to explain to the New York audience what he was singing about in the eleven languages he writes in. About halfway through the show, he struck on the game of lifting his leg way up in the air and bringing it down onto the stage with a huge *boom*. His band worked the *boom* into the deep percolating groove they had built, and soon Touré was *boom*ing away, each one accented by a chord from his guitar that sounded like trees breaking in the wind. The entire night was unforgettable and absolutely one of a kind. Ali Farka Touré is often compared to John Lee Hooker, whose elemental blues sound seemed to emanate from some half-remembered Mali of the mind, but on that night Ali Farka Touré sounded like Timbuktu.

Before the show, I shared a cab with record producer and Hannibal label owner Joe Boyd, who asked me about African music and what I thought about it. I mentioned Ali Farka Touré, Johnny Clegg, Fela Kuti and a few others before bringing up Angelique Kidjo, who had just released her pop-inflected album Oremi the previous year. Boyd looked at me quizzically and said, “you like that? That speaks to you?” I admitted that it didn’t really, it just sounded nice, and he told me that someday, smart kid that I was, I would figure it out, I would get it.

Later that night, I got it.

I should also mention that on that same night, I met Mr. Touré briefly in his dressing room, where he took my stammered compliments with leonine reserve (I speak no French; he gave no indication whether English was among his many tongues). Up close, he seemed positively regal. It was not just that was a large man, but he radiated a genial calmness, a sense of presence, that made it seem that he was simply… in charge. When I saw him on stage seemingly shooting lightning from his fingertips or dancing with his one-string gourd fiddle, It was then that I got it. The god dances and we all must watch. That night was the best concert I have ever seen, or hope to see; it literally changed my life. And now, he’s gone. And if his passing matters this much to me, who orbited him once for about forty-five seconds, in Mali it will surely be met with public fetes and much sorrow.

If you have not yet begun your collection of Ali Farka Touré recordings, I would recommend starting with Talking Timbuktu, which is in some ways his most accessible album. Made with Ry Cooder, it is a little less skeletal (and a little more Western) than much of Touré’s other work, and is a good point of entry to his music and to Malian music in general. After that, you can take your pick of any one of a number of his records: I am partial to Niafunké and The Source, though many people swear by his self-titled debut on Mango, or Radio Mali, a collection of radio broadcast recordings. You should also check out his last album, 2005 Grammy winner for Best World Music Album, In The Heart of the Moon, which he recorded with Kora master Toumani Diabate. In something of a departure from his other albums, Touré gently winds circular rhythmic guitar lines around and underneath the ethereal waterfall plinking of Diabate’s kora (a kind of many-stringed west African harp). Although it was never intended as one, it is a fitting capstone to the career of a giant of Malian music.

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Musically, the album tends to stick to easy tempos and sparse arrangements organized around acoustic guitar, keyboards, and the Chicas’ twining harmonies. Because of this, matters sometimes threaten to succumb to the dreaded mid-tempo syndrome. But although the dreaded mid-tempo syndrome has rendered hundreds of otherwise fine albums as sleep-inducing as a bathtub of warm syrup, on Bloom, Red & the Ordinary Girl the live-sounding, spacious production and gorgeous singing helps to make sure that mostly doesn’t happen.

Tres Chicas’ secret weapon, however, is definitely masterful songwriting. Each of the Chicas wrote songs for this album, and working together must surely have raised their game. There are so many styles, voices, and narrative devices here that it’s possible to believe that they are the work of a dozen different writers.

Take “My Love,” “Shade Trees in Bloom,” and “Red,” three selections from the middle of the album which also happen to be the sources of the album’s title. I suspect each was written by a different Chica, because they are so distinct yet so absolutely in line with what Tres Chicas are about.

“My Love” is a gently swaying love song that paints in deft strokes a story of slightly distressing devotion with lines like “I’m not Jesus Christ, I’m just an ordinary girl/ and everywhere I go, you go/ Under high silver skies, you shelter me from rain/ you make it very plain you’re mine, my love.” Is this love actually shelter, or is it stifling and crippling? The song never quite decides.

Next is the quiet “Shade Trees in Bloom.” In stark contrast to “My Love,” this song’s lyrics are plainer and more direct, almost sounding like the “straight from my heart” centerpiece of a lost Broadway hit, with stanzas like

All quiet now, just listening
Sometimes what you think is the end is the beginning
I’ll put you to sleep but you keep laughing
Let’s put our arms together, baby, we’ll see what happens

On the chorus, one of the Chicas breaks out of the harmony to sing in ascending intervals “I want something beautiful, I want something good,” a sentiment almost corny enough to roll your eyes to but redeemed by the performance. The song edges right up to maudlin without stepping over the edge.

Different again is the vituperative heartbreak of “Red,” in which the three sing, “You have gone off to another, one who you think suits you better/ I don’t wish you well, and I’ll see you in hell/ And I’m sitting here burning your letters,” like a young Elvis Costello circa All This Useless Beauty. Even though not every lyric on the album works perfectly, most artists don’t show this much range in a career, much less in the span of three songs.

It is good that Cary, Lamm, and Blakey have decided to make Tres Chicas a permanent thing. They are talented songwriters, and Bloom, Red, & The Ordinary Girl is packed with fine writing that only rarely dips into anything resembling the standard folk/country coffeehouse confessional mode. Although some of the imagery is a bit overcooked, and a couple songs do melt into mid-tempo torpor, those aren’t fatal flaws in an otherwise accomplished and thoughtful and… (pretty? that’s condescending)... and, and… luminous batch of alt-country songs. All twelve songs together in a row can be a little too much to take, but my iTunes’ shuffle function proves that on their own, each one is a gem. I’m not going to like this album in every mood, but it sure sounds nice right now.

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Between 1993 and 1998, Pansy Division released six albums in this vein on the Lookout! label, albums that helped define that now legendary label’s ‘90s-era sound. Like label-mates Green Day and Screeching Weasel, Pansy Division relied on fast tempos, trashy guitars, and a knack for big pop hooks tied to snotnosed lyrics. By 1994, the band was supporting Green Day on national tours, and became de facto poster children for the nascent queercore movement. They have since jumped to Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles label, where they released their seventh album in 2003.

The new Essential Pansy Division, out now on Alternative Tentacles, is a witty, thoughtful, and often profane thirty-song stroll through the band’s career. The running order jumbles up songs from all seven of their studio albums, so that 1993’s “Fem in a Black Leather Jacket” sits next to “Who Treats You Right” from 2003’s Entertainment. I would like to kvetch, because I’m a kvetch and a pisher besides, that ordering the tracks in this way obscures the band’s musical and conceptual growth, but that isn’t really true. Like the Ramones before them, Pansy Division have not really changed their modus operandi in fifteen years, preferring to refine and embellish a winning formula.

Have they matured musically? Well, “He Whipped My Ass In Tennis (Then I Fucked His Ass In Bed)” is no more or less hooky than “Cocksucker Club,” recorded a good dozen years before. Have they matured lyrically? Well, if you consider a song about circle jerking called “Alpine Skiing” an improvement over the older “Groovy Underwear,” then sure. But what is really striking is that Pansy Division have been models of consistency throughout their career. Individual songs may be a little stronger or weaker, but they have found a winning formula that works for them, and it’s a good one.

What makes Pansy Division more than just a very gay Barenaked Ladies, though, are the deep songs. Right in there with all the endless dicks (viz. “Dick of Death,” “Touch My Joe Camel,” “Horny In The Morning") are a few songs that hit with an ugly punch. “Denny” is about a porn actor from before the days when they knew about AIDS:

Denny picked me up, Denny did me
He’s got a tattoo of his dick on his belly
It was double vision disorienting
Denny’s kind of a dorky fella
Denny’s dramatic, Denny’s dark
He ain’t nothing like the restaurant
He’s got HIV+ tattooed in black
In 6 inch letters on his back
He said, “I want them to see
What they’ve done to me.”

“Deep Water” is written from the point of view of some anonymous kid tortured with guilt and repression and waiting for the day he can leave home. “I Really Wanted You” is a bittersweet song about an old crush getting married (to a woman, presumably). On a lighter note, the jaunty “No Protection” is about shooting down a guy who wants to ride bareback, sung through a vocoder (like what Cher used on “I Believe") over a disco beat. Songs like these deepen and complicate the bouncy, happy sex romp that Pansy Division normally sings about, and coming as they do between songs about blowjobs, they pack surprising power.

In closing, I have to say that I am so used to hearing boy-meets-girl songs, hetero-themed get-it-on songs, and the like, that listening to thirty gay-themed punk songs in a row induces a little bit of vertigo. It’s not just a simple matter of Pansy Division swapping out “dick” for “pussy” in their lyrics; the differences are deeper, fundamentally cultural. If you’ve ever spent more than a few days in England, you’ll know what I mean when I say that it’s the little things that are the most surprising. People look the other way before crossing the street. Bar etiquette is different. Standing in line is different. The money is funny colors. Every where you turn there’s people speaking a language that you understand, but saying things that you have to think a little about to really comprehend.

Although my days of listening to Pansy Division albums ended about the time I graduated college and no longer had access to everyone in the dorm’s record collection (ten frigging years ago!), which means I’m not completely up on what the kids are listening to these days, I can say for sure that The Essential Pansy Division is a well put together compilation, perfect for the gay nephew, homophobic uncle, or SoCal punk fan in your life. Also included is a DVD disc of live performances, TV appearances, and videos that, though inessential, do make this the only Pansy Division album you will ever need to buy.

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Of historical note is the fact that the album contains the very first recordings by alt-country icons Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, and John Hiatt.  If like me you only know these artists by their later work, Heartworn Highways is a bit of a revelation. Though a little rough and maybe a little less accomplished than their later stuff, the songs here belong unmistakably to their creators. John Hiatt’s sharp lyrical poetry, Rodney Crowell’s gift for atmosphere for melody, and Steve Earle’s scrappy defiance (and leftism) are already in full view. But these treasures are only the smallest part of what makes Heartworn Highways worth a listen.

The song that kicks off Heartworn Highways, “L.A. Freeway” by the great and reclusive Guy Clark, sets the tone for the album. Clark’s plaintive song conjures a laid-back atmosphere that, like most of the recordings here is Most of the tracks here are really intimate - living room intimate, front porch intimate. More than that, “L.A. Freeway” serves as sort of a mission statement for the album as a whole with its theme of leaving the urban life behind and getting back to one’s roots.

The homey, homespun vibe continues straight through until the last notes of the closing song, a Christmas Eve jam on “Silent Night” with Clark, Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, Steve Young, Susannah Clark (guy’s wife), and Richard Dobson. Along the way, chairs creak, whiskey is sipped, audience members have important questions for whoever’s singing, microphone stands make noise, and people come and go.

Guy Clarke contributes three other songs to the album, including an early version of his classic “Desperadoes Waiting For A Train,” about “a man who was kinda like my grandfather, but was really my grandma’s boyfriend.” It is a perfect song about how this man helped raise him, with lyrics as sharp as a knife and scenes as sharply drawn as any ever have been, and it is made even stronger by the care the producers have put into sequencing the record. You see, just before “Desperadoes” is a wonderful David Allan Coe song called “I Still Sing The Old Songs” which closes with a few lines from “Red River Valley.” “Desperadoes” opens with a mention of the same song. Rather than seeming gimmicky, touches like these elevate Heartworn Highways from a mere compilation to a statement about what country music meant to some of its future saviors.

It should be clear by now that I am not so much reviewing this album as falling in love with it. This was not a sure thing - I don’t always have patience for confessional living-room singers and their confessional living-room songs. Performances like these live or die on the quality of the writing. But despite the fact that these are songwriters still learning their craft (Townes Van Zandt’s “Waiting Around To Die” is actually, so he claims, the very first song he ever wrote), there really isn’t a single dud, outright cliche, or bit of hokey filler here. And although the homespun authenticity of the whole thing sometimes feels a little studied, a little put-on, that’s a minor sin to commit in the making of music this good. I could try to run down more highlights from this album, but the truth is, you’re either going to dig all of it or none of it, and I wouldn’t feel right choosing this Steve Earle song over that Townes Van Zandt when they are all pretty much gold.

If Hank Williams III’s most recent album is his Moby Dick, a strenuous and difficult work about struggling with forces beyond his control, Heartworn Highways is more like Lake Wobegon Days, an intelligent, smart, and unpretentious album of people singing songs about living the way they want to, and what it means to them. Heaven and hell don’t seem as close as friends, whiskey, and the velvet black of a Tennessee night, and all these geniuses love each other’s company. It’s just a little sad that all these artists who showed so much promise in 1976, who were kicking hard against the rigid conformity of Nashville’s establishment, still remain marginal (if highly respected) figures in the scene they tried to topple. Still, whatever happened after, and whether or not their revolution succeeded and on what terms, Heartworn Highways is a fine chronicle of a great time in country music history.

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