JOHN HAMMOND
Wicked Grin
Pointblank Records
· Hammond and Waits take on all contenders – and win.
Most cover and/or tribute albums are pointless/unimaginative/banal/godawful affairs. The exceptions stand out for a reason. But Wicked Grin is both challenging in its conception and flawless in its execution, and the result is a modern masterpiece.
On the face of it, the pairing of John Hammond with Tom Waits's songs is an unlikely enterprise. But one play of Wicked Grin and all you can think is "why didn't they do this long before now?" Plenty of other artists have covered Waits, to varying degrees of success, but Hammond's strength is his ability to reinvent each song. What results is a weird, funky, devilish new hybrid – half Dr. John, half Dylan à la Time Out of Mind.
Waits himself is an active participant in the experiment, playing guitar (and occasionally piano) on the bulk of the tracks and serving also as producer. As for Hammond, his own playing has rarely sounded better than on tracks like "Heartattack and Vine" and "Big Black Mariah," but it's his vocal performance that stands out head-and-shoulders here. Looking back on a career that's already had more peaks than the Rockies, Hammond's singing on Wicked Grin will stand out like Mount Logan (or whatever it's called these days).
Everyone else – give up now.
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