StephanNatural

“Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it.”

- Emily Dickinson

Song Review: I’m With Her - “Different Rocks, Different Hills” (Live at Sunset Sound)

Here’s a little secret: I’m With Her are most together when playing alone and live.

The band’s new, live-in-studio rendition of “Different Rocks, Different Hills” bolsters the case made by similar treatments of ofher tracks from Wild and Clear and Blue.

The band clearly realizes it, too, or Sara Watkins, Aoife O’Donovan and Sarah Jarosz wouldn’t go through the trouble of making these little gems.

Gathered around a single mic playing fiddle, guitar and banjo, respectively, the three Hers sing so purely, play so perfectly, one has to wonder why the band puts itself through traditional recording sessions. Doing as they do in concert, they could’ve recorded their latest LP this way, made a better record with much less effort and put more time into songwriting, which is where Wild and Clear and Blue - and “Rocks” - falters a bit.

Grade card: I’m With Her - “Different Rocks, Different Hills” (Live at Sunset Sound) - B

Song Review: Norah Jones - “Long Time Gone” (Live at Home)

In her music room, solo-electric, unmic’d and without a net, Norah Jones added some twang to the Everly Brothers’ “Long Time Gone.”

This is Jones reviving a pandemic-era tradition of home-video releases whose conspicuous absence is underscored with the arrival of “Long Time Gone.”

With her country-music-inspired playing and yodeling-on-the-choruses vocal delivery, Jones brings a Hank Williams vibe to this cover of the Brothers in a welcome return to one of the good things that came out of COVID.

“I was trying to do the harmonies and the melody there, so that’s why I kept going way up high,” Jones said when it ended.

Grade card: Norah Jones - “Long Time Gone” (Live at Home) - A