Dan DeLuca’s Mix Picks: Ray Charles, the Beths, A Tribe Called Quest, and another Tierra Whack track
What our music critic is listening to this week
Ray Charles, Modern Sounds in Country & Western, Volumes 1 & 2. R&B star Ray Charles broke the rules in 1962 when he cut two albums’ worth of the kind of country hits he grew up listening to in Greenville, Fla. The results defied orthodoxy: a black man singing country music with strings and a vocal chorus four years before Charley Pride hit the charts and were a runaway success, having a profoundly influential effect on a young Gram Parsons, among many others. Concord Records has reissued both on vinyl, and they’re streaming for the first time.
The Beths. Future Me Hates Me, the debut album by this New Zealand band, is a power-pop marvel, a crafty collection in which the edgy and anxious songs by leader Elizabeth Stokes are lifted by unstoppably catchy songcraft, with buoyant melodies and vocal harmony. Sunday at First Unitarian Church.
Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest by Hanif Abdurraqib. Columbus, Ohio, poet and critic Abdurraqib follows up his sterling They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us essay collection with a searing, thoughtful coming-of-age story about hip-hop, race, and the beloved Native Tongues jazz rap luminaries fronted by Q-Tip and the late Phife Dog.
Mike Krol. Milwaukee-bred low-fi garage rocker and graphic designer Mike Krol keeps up the winning streak that began with his 2015 Merge Records debut, Turkey ,with the new Power Chords, a hard-hitting dynamic set that delivers on its title. Wednesday at Boot & Saddle.
Tierra Whack, “Clones.” The second new song from the Philadelphia rapper to drop in February, which her fans called “Whack History Month.” It’s a collaboration with Philly producer Nick Verruto and cleverly expresses a commonly voiced theme among rising rappers: That she’s the best, and everybody else is a copycat.