Sep 232024
 

Silver Patron Saints Jesse MalinYou’ll know Jesse Malin possibly best from his address book, stuffed full the big names who are more than happy to sing alongside him. This does him a disservice, as his four-decade-plus career, two-plus of which have been as a solo artist, has produced a glut of well-received albums, nine in the studio and two live. So, regardless of heavy friends, you could say Jesse Malin can stand perfectly well on his own two feet.

Except now, tragically, he can’t. Malin sustained a spinal stroke in May of last year, effectively severing his spine, decimating any use below the level affected. He is now paralyzed from the waist down. He is 57, so still in his prime, as an exponent of muscular heartland rock and roll music.

Time to put that address book into use. Actually it was they that came to him, so as to enable Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin to exist. This package serves as both benefit and tribute, and it has quite the roster, with a list of the great and the good rubbing shoulders with the simply celebrated.

So we got Bruce Springsteen, always one of Malin’s biggest champions, side by side with Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day. There’s also representation from some of the seers of urban “rawk”, Willie Nile and Alejandro Escovedo. Lucinda Williams (who produced one of his albums) appears, as do a number of Brits, including Elvis Costello and Graham Parker. In fact, given it has always been the UK that has given Malin some of his staunchest support, his releases often on or for record companies based there, there is also support from a younger wave of UK artists perhaps less acknowledged this side the pond, artists like Frank Turner.

How do you begin best to describe the sort of music made by Malin, without just listening those who provide similar? My best bet is to suggest it the sort of music you would enjoy listening to in a bar, with, preferably, a bevy of electric guitars, pounding piano bolstered by an organ backdrop, impassioned vocals and, perhaps, some cheese cutter sax. That the bass and drums are driving should come as a given. So far, so E Street band, but they weren’t the first and certainly not the last. And with Silver Patron Saint boasting 27 tracks (available on triple vinyl or two CDs), where to begin?

Well, as Bleachers lead off the album, let’s go there. The New Jersey band, with a sound built much on the template depicted, actually do something a little more laidback for “Prisoners of Paradise.” An out and out rocker in Malin’s hands, Bleachers deliver it with a widescreen cinematic field, with flourishes of synthesized orchestration. It’s a good start, followed by Adam Duritz’s distinctive voice adding kudos to the Counting Crows rendition of “Sheena,” which is a classic two keys and guitar blueshirt ruckus.

That’s as much softener you need before the Boss blusters in. Strangely, Springsteen manages to sound less like himself than do many of the other parties present, but hey, he’s here and that alone will sell it a few more copies. “She Don’t Love Me Now” is the song, a pleasant 50’s big-ballad throwback, with an arrangement that mimeographs the original, Malin did it better.

Up next, Billie Joe Armstrong makes “Black Haired Girl” his own. It sounds initially, and unsurprisingly, like his own band, even as he affects little change in the arrangement or tempo. Dinosaur Jr. employ surprising restraint for the bluesy “Brooklyn,” J. Mascis sounding almost sweet, but it takes Frank Turner to be first to do anything much different to the material, imbuing “About You” with the full Nebraska, if sweeter toned. “Turn Up the Mains,” next up, one feels is more a vehicle for anyone who wonders how a superstar congregation of Alison Mosshart, Wayne Kramer, Tom Morello and Steve Van Zandt might sound. The answer, unsurprisingly, is bar-band superior, and undoubtedly fun for the performers. (A bit like the Stones, actually!)

Lucinda and Costello reprise earlier duet duties they have shared for “Room 13.” It’s notable as much for hearing how the voice Williams is currently occupying sounds so good, and how Costello’s doesn’t; he’s forcing his voice into a register it doesn’t suit any longer. The song and arrangement are so-so, but Williams makes it all OK. The Wallflowers are just a mess, for “Don’t Let Them take You Down (Beautiful Day)” sees Jacob Dylan aping his dad’s ragged 1970s holler. (Actually, it isn’t soooo bad, but some of the two-dimensional presentations are getting a tad relentless.)

I’d love to say Spoon ladle in something a bit different for “The Way We Used To Roll,” but they don’t, the diet still suffering from too much similar fare. Thank Rocky O’Riordan, then, for her bittersweet rendition of “Shane.” Who she? You might know her better as Cait, onetime Pogues bassist and ex-Mrs. Costello, her unreconstructed vocal and Irish twang perfect for this weepie. Best song thus far? Could be, and managing to extinguish the memory of the Lucinda Williams BVs on the original.

Butch Walker, arguably fitting a similar bill to Malin in the pecking order, does much what was asked of him for the glam-rocky “In the Modern World,” which totally sidelines you for what’s up next; Susanna Hoffs, her voice immediately recognizable after an organic piano intro. Much of a queen of the cover version these days, her delivery of “High Lonesome” is little short of wonderful. If replacing the abrasive guitars with rolling piano adds a level already, her singing then multiplies that effect legion.

Moving on, Graham Parker stamps his authority, his raw vocal and some mean harmonica on “Greener Pastures,” and, stylistically, that is too where we now seem to be. It’s a great version, demonstrating his strength is as much live and alone, as with a band. For “Meet Me at the End of the World,” at first Alejandro Escovedo elects to go all weird on us, for a hypnotic street-savvy swagger down the Bowery, back when it was still dodgy. It shouldn’t work as well as it does, before it then gets a bit E Street on us. The Hold Steady unsurprise for their good natured romp through “Death Star,” sounding, alarmingly, a little like Kiss. Which, given the original sounds like The Cars, is a strange compare.

One feels Tommy Stinson might have done more with the quirky arrangement Malin gave “Riding on the Subway,” but it, in cahoots with his daughter Ruby, it just gets a DIY sub-prime muddy shuffle. But it is followed by another undoubted stand out, a piece of Celtic jug band skiffle, by the Walker Roaders. It took a bit of research to discover this band is something of a supergroup, formed by a(nother) ex-Pogue, James Fearnley, in conjunction with members of the Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly. “St. Mark’s Sunset” is a glorious accordion led roustabout, descending into a joyous singalong.

Back into indoor sunglasses territory, Ian Hunter sounds every inch his 80-plus years, and all the better for that, in my opinion, even if the song, “Dead On,” is standard generic choogle. “Almost Grown” is then just odd. Retaining the Spanish Harlem-esque riff from the original, an augmented Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country try a little too hard to bring something disparate to the party. By the same token, Aaron Lee Tasjan’s Laurel Canyon treatment of “Shining Down” is a success, by virtue of similar intent. Maintaining the same quality, Low Cut Connie drop “When You’re Young” a semi-tone down, and one of Malin’s more commercial songs becomes positively catchy.

The feel of a winning streak into the home stretch continues as Willie Nile blasts his way through “All the Way From Moscow,” although I fear he may just be a winner of the sequencing here, the song possibly getting lost alongside the onslaught of bangers on some of the earlier sides. As, at best, a Rancid agnostic, I didn’t expect to like their take on “No Way Out” as much as I did, but it was way better than the frank din of Agnostic Front’s “God Is Dead.” Which is possibly what they would want me to say.

Between them comes another of the delights this album has on board, namely with Gogol Bordello, who take a circuitous route through the “You Know It’s Dark When Atheists Start to Pray,” pairing syndrums with mariachi trumpets. The project then all shuts down with the rumbustious country-punk of “Frankie.” Performed by Murphy’s Law, stablemates of Agnostic Front, this is a far more palatable taste of punk, that manages to add, rather than detract, from all else here present.

Silver Patron Saints isn’t a half bad set of songs – I count three transcendent covers and only one real clinker. It will, or should, bring much interest into the back catalog of Jesse Malin. And when an artist needs support, financial and otherwise, that’s all one needs to ask from a tribute album. The fact that it’s a true tribute is an added and, frankly, welcome bonus.

One last note: there are already plans to bring at least some of the set to a stage, live and soon, a London date for Jesse Malin and Friends having been set for Mayday, next year.

Silver Patron Saints tracklisting

1  Prisoners of Paradise (feat. Bleachers)
2  Oh Sheena (feat. Counting Crows)
3  She Don’t Love Me Now (feat. Bruce Springsteen)
4  Black Haired Girl (feat. Billie Joe Armstrong)
5  Brooklyn (feat. Dinosaur Jr.)
6  About You (feat. Frank Turner)
7  Turn Up the Mains (feat. Alison Mosshart, Wayne Kramer, Tom Morello, Steven Van Zandt, Mike Watt & Joey C.)
8  Room 13 (feat. Lucinda Williams and Elvis Costello)
9  Don’t Let Them Take You Down (Beautiful Day) (feat. The Wallflowers)
10  The Way We Used to Roll (feat. Spoon)
11  Shane (feat. Rocky O’Riordan)
12  In the Modern World (feat. Butch Walker)
13  High Lonesome (feat. Susanna Hoffs)
14  Greener Pastures (feat. Graham Parker)
15  Meet Me At The End of the World (feat. Alejandro Escovedo)
16  Death Star (feat. The Hold Steady)
17  Riding on the Subway (feat. Tommy Stinson and Ruby Stinson)
18  St. Mark’s Sunset (feat. The Walker Roaders)
19  Dead On (feat. Ian Hunter)
20  Almost Grown (feat. Danny Clinch and Christopher Thorn with Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country)
21  Shining Down (feat. Aaron Lee Tasjan)
22  When You’re Young (feat. Low Cut Connie)
23  All The Way From Moscow (feat. Willie Nile)
24  No Way Out (feat. Rancid)
25  You Know It’s Dark When Atheists Start to Pray (feat. Gogol Bordello)
26  God Is Dead (feat. Agnostic Front)
27  Frankie (feat. Murphy’s Law)

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