The tribute album is a tricky musical beast. Ideally, the newer versions of the songs should highlight melodic, lyric or timbral elements of the original that have inspired contemporary artists to pursue their own work. As with the recent Gram Parsons or Hank Williams III tributes, this ideal is often the case. That is, excellent musicians from a variety of musical traditions get together to produce a multifaceted, entertaining, and altogether new album.
Naturally, neither these, nor most tribute albums, are without a scant few throwaway songs tossed in as filler from contemporary pop (in the case of Johnny Cash tribute album "Kindred Spirits," country) artists. These inclusions listen as little but self-congratulatory industry masturbation, the tribute artist presenting an obligatory watered-down imitation of the original artist's work.
Ultimately, such an act does a disservice to all parties involved, usually highlighting the lack of substantial emotion in the contemporary musician's work, while reducing the influence of the original musician's songs to timbral kitsch (as with Hank Williams' imitation of Cash's drawl and orchestration). Less serious transgressions include pretty pop songs by competent artists.
"Kindred Spirits" opens with such a pretty pop song. Dwight Yoakam's rendition of "Understand Your Man" is energetic, heartfelt (in as much as one can feel someone else's music and lyrics), and ultimately enjoyable. There are no holes in the performance, and though it is hardly record-breaking in any emotive capacity, it has an effortless feel to it without bordering on flippancy. Similar songs on the album are Travis Tritt's "I Walk the Line" and Hank Williams Jr.'s "Big River" -- both middling pop tracks.
Bob Dylan's "Train of Love" serves as a fine song with the rest of the tracks on this album, but does little for either Dylan or Cash, in that it is fairly forgettable in light of the rest of their careers. Further stacking the odds against Dylan is the fact that his contribution was taken from a different televised tribute event that rendered his introduction, "sorry we can't be there, but that's the way it is." This is puzzling at best. The prime offender on the album, however, is Little Richard's rollicking Get Rhythm, a breakneck rockabilly song with energy to spare, but little else.
Rosanne Cash's "I Still Miss Someone" is a fine performance, though its emotional intensity is trite within the context of the album. Like watching a Star Search balladeer emote over "Unbreak My Heart", one can't help but realize that the emotion expressed through the song is either manufactured or has little to do with the song itself. In fact, this song underscores the problems of both tribute albums in general and the emotional pretense implicit in the pop music tradition of performing someone else's lyrics.
Similarly, Bruce Springsteen's excellent "Give My Love to Rose" has its authenticity called into question by the insertion of a golly-gee "Thanks, Johnny" at the end of the song. Even Springsteen's populist appeal can't quite redeem the redundancy of saying "thank you" on a track in a tribute album.
Redeeming the ambiguity and spotty quality of the other songs on the album are Keb' Mo's "Folsom Prison Blues" and Steve Earle's Hardin "Wouldn't Run." "Folsom Prison Blues" is performed as a good, simple blues rendition of a great song. Though Keb' Mo' may reinterpret the meaning of the song to suit him (changing what might be read as the imprisonment of a cold-blooded killer to wrongful punishment of an innocent man), the result is great.
In spite of the offenses of perfunctory renditions and poor imitations of familiar material, one key function of the tribute album is to have fun with a musical legend.
Though the problems of such (often baseless) idol worship inherent in singling out individual artists as "legends" or "heroes" becomes apparent before one finishes reading the cover of a tribute album (e.g. Kindred Spirits: A Tribute to the Songs of Johnny Cash, Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons), it is somewhat comforting to think of these musicians gathering to celebrate good music written by someone who enjoys creating it.
This album is such a case. Though leaning at times toward shallow impersonation and occasionally to whitewashed pop filler, the fun feel of this album, accentuated by the occasional gem, makes it a worthwhile listen.
