Raitt, Earle
Salute NRBQ
R.E.M.'s
Mills, Yo La Tengo also contribute to tribute
album
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| Bonnie Raitt, Mike Mills of R.E.M.,
Los Lobos, Peter Wolf, Steve Earle, Yo La Tengo, Ron
Sexsmith and Widespread Panic are among the acts
featured on an NRBQ tribute album due out in May on
Spirithouse Records. The album is the brainchild of
executive producer Danny Bernini, a professed NRBQ
enthusiast who also mixed their 1999 self-titled
release.
"I grew up thinking they
were in the same realm as the Stones and Led Zeppelin,"
says Bernini. "It wasn't until I was a teenager that I
realized they weren't a household name. They're great
songwriters, but they've never hit in the mainstream
because they've always been a little left of center."
NRBQ's off-kilter approach made Raitt -- who chipped
in her version of "Me and the Boys" -- a longtime fan.
"As legions of loyal 'Q' fans will tell you, NRBQ are
the best under-appreciated band around," she says.
"Absolutely rockin', raucous, original, musical,
virtuouso, hilarious, eclectic, tender, consistently
excellent, unpredictable, always stretching, always
grooving, never boring; simply one of the most brilliant
bands America has produced."
Yo La Tengo's reading of NRBQ's "Magnet" (from the
band's 1972 album Scraps) was born last year
during YLT's Hanukkah shows in Hoboken, New Jersey. "The
first time we did the Hanukkah shows, Terry Adams [NRBQ
founder and keyboardist] sat in with us for one of our
sets," says frontman Ira Kaplan. "We did a few NRBQ
songs, including 'Magnet.' We were all excited about how
it sounded with Georgia [Hubley] singing, so when we
were asked to contribute a song to the NRBQ tribute, it
was the first thing we thought of."
NRBQ are also the subject of a new documentary by
The Simpsons executive producer Mike Scully.
Featuring interviews with Raitt, Keith Richards and
Elvis Costello, the one-hour program will air January
26th on A&E. Scully terms NRBQ as the "unofficial
house band" of The Simpsons, a tradition that
will continue with his upcoming sitcom The Pitts,
which will feature the new NRBQ track "It's the Pitts,"
as the show's theme song.
"They're still as much fun and still as great live as
they were thirty years ago," says Scully. "They have the
same sense of spontaneity. You could see them every
night for a week and not see the same show twice."
COLIN DEVENISH
(December 20, 2002)
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