“Fragile” – Cassandra Wilson
Yes, this is the Sting song, and leave it to Wilson to affirm for all of us that this is no fluke, it’s no mere cliche, it’s truly one of the great songs of our time. I kid you not. Listen to her deliver the crucial line (“Nothing comes from violence, nothing ever could”) and watch the goosebumps crawl up my arm (well, if you were here, you could). And then listen to how she plays with the chords along the way. She is a force of nature. Check out her unlikely version of “Lay Lady Lay,” also on this new album of hers, Glamoured, and also available to stream on the Blue Note web site.
“Tiny Voices” – Joe Henry
It’s a fine line, with Joe Henry, between hypnotic and soporific; this one lands in the former camp, I think. “Tiny Voices,” the title track from his new album, chugs along with a loopy sort of spaciousness, created by a Beatle-ish kind of kitchen-sink production—you never know what you’re going to hear in the background: clarinets, electric chimes, stray piano glissandos, who knows, and what the heck. Maybe I’ll get sick of it soon, but it charms me at this point, all six minutes, three-seven seconds of it.
“Rush Around” – Edie Brickell
Well, it’s more like half a song than a full song, and it’s languidness threatens to kill it before it leaves a trace, but damn if she doesn’t sound like an old friend after being gone for so long, and hey maybe she’s being kind of playful come to think of it, having a song called “Rush Around” that kicks back and takes its time. Not mind-blowing, certainly, but nice, precise, and worth a listen. But do it soon—this one involves a big-time record label push, so apparently the MP3 will self-destruct on your hard drive after 30 days.
[NOTE: This post, from Fingertips’ earliest months, was recreated from old archives to fit into the newer WordPress format after the fact.]
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