Quick Spins

I REMEMBER ELVIS

Wanda Jackson

Legions of singers cite Elvis as an influence. Few, however, can back up the claim as personally and dramatically as Wanda Jackson, who toured with -- and dated -- Presley in 1955. If that hadn't happened, Jackson, then a teenage honky-tonk singer from Oklahoma, might not have embraced Elvis's fusion of hillbilly music and rhythm and blues and gone on to become the "Queen of Rockabilly."

And she certainly was that. In 1957 Jackson went head-to-head with her ex-boyfriend, her feral, growling version of "Let's Have a Party" outstripping the King's. Jackson's unhinged performance on that tune alone is grounds for her overdue induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"I Remember Elvis" would be a worthy tribute if only for the loose-limbed playing of Jackson's band, and for the relish with which she digs into everything from "Mystery Train" to "Heartbreak Hotel." And yet it's more than that. "He took me home in his pink Cadillac," she sings to the bouncing beat of "I Wore Elvis' Ring," the record's one new song. "We sang all our favorite songs/Spinning records all day long."

From the snapshots of Jackson and Presley that fill the CD booklet to the unaccompanied recitation that closes the album, the whole package testifies to a formative, if fleeting, friendship. Maybe best of all, it presents a tender, down-to-earth Elvis, the boy "they called . . . the Hillbilly Cat long before they called him King."

-- Bill Friskics-Warren

THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD

Tortoise and Bonnie "Prince" Billy

First as Palace Brothers and later as Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Will Oldham has trafficked in a shaggy approximation of old-time Americana. The uptight postmodernists in Tortoise, on the other hand, offer a sterile, almost clinical conflation of left-field music that frequently proves as lifeless as it is full of good ideas. Teaming the two disparate talents for "The Brave and the Bold" turns out to be an intriguing idea that largely fulfills its cross-pollination promise.

Featuring 10 songs by artists as diverse as Bruce Springsteen, Milton Nascimento and the Minutemen, the set imposes a sense of structure on the easily distracted Oldham and forces Tortoise to loosen up a little. Sure, none of the songs surpasses or even matches the original, but to their credit, Oldham and Tortoise choose the deconstructionist approach, often jettisoning everything -- from melody to arrangement -- except for the lyrics.

The process transforms Springsteen's "Thunder Road" into a midnight dirge, boils down Melanie's "Some Say (I Got Devil)" into what sounds like a traditional folk ballad, and recasts Richard Thompson's "Calvary Cross" as a syncopated soul track. It's not terribly brave to show off such broad tastes in this age of downloads, mash-ups and heavenly jukeboxes, but it is somewhat bold to assume anyone will hear the fuzzy robot punk-funk of Devo's "That's Pep" or Elton John's "Daniel" as anything other than novelty. That Tortoise and Oldham approach both with the same degree of apparent sincerity, enthusiasm and invention helps them rise above what could have been just another gimmick.

-- Joshua Klein