Music Blurbs, Vol. 9

More of my capsule commentaries.

Crash Test Dummies
Brad Roberts’ distinctive and inimitable vocals helped propel Crash Test Dummies’ “Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, Mmm” to to the very top of singles charts in nine countries worldwide in 1993. Oddly enough, the song only made it to #14 in the band’s native Canada. But the Manitoba, Winnipeg group earned Platinum or better for three of its albums in the Great White North. They also landed more than a dozen of their singles on the Canadian charts. Nominated for three Grammys and 11 Junos (the Canadian equivalent), the Dummies won one of the latter. Combining good-natured melodic sense with thoughtful and introspective lyrics, the Crash Test Dummies have earned a loyal following, one that has followed the band from its 1988 beginnings, through two hiatuses and into current day. Since 2017 the band has toured with its original lineup – Roberts plus keyboardist Ellen Reid, bassist Dan Roberts and drummer Mitch Dorge – and released a single, “Sacred Alphabet” in 2023

Arrival From Sweden
With an acronymical name based on its four members (Agnetha, Benny, Björn and Anna-Frid), ABBA was one of the most successful groups in pop history. Winners of the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest (for their eighth single “Waterloo”), ABBA scored more than a dozen Top 40 singles in the U.S.; in the UK and their native Sweden, the group was even more successful. ABBA songs like “Dancing Queen,” “SOS,” “Fernando” and “Knowing Me, Knowing You” remain popular the world over. Though the group’s initial run ended in 1982, the music and leacy endures. There’s a popular ABBA museum in Stockholm; the group has been the subject of numerous documentaries; ABBA’s music was adapted into a successful Broadway and West End musical, Mamma Mia!, later a successful motion picture. So it should come as no surprise that an ABBA tribute group – from Sweden, no less – would be a popular touring enterprise. Founded in 1995 by Gothenburg’s Vicky Zetterberg-Norbäck and Rutger Gunnarsson, Arrival From Sweden features 10 or more musicians playing live (in other words, no backing tapes), delivering the sounds and sights of ABBA for modern-day audiences.

Ronnie Baker Brooks
Acclaimed blues guitarist and soul singer Lonnie Brooks had a stellar career, working in Chicago’s West Side and releasing scattered singles throughout the ‘60s. In 1969 he landed an album deal. By the late 1970s he would be featured on an Alligator Records compilation, and soon thereafter he joined the label. Between 1978 and 1999 he would release nine albums for Alligator. He passed away in 2017, but his legacy has been carried on by son Ronnie Baker Brooks. Born – like his father before him – in the Windy City, the younger Brooks launched his recording career in 1998, recording for Watchdog and Provogue. In a sense he has come home with his latest: Blues in my DNA finds him on Alligator Records. The album is an unabashed nod to Brooks’ father. With a variety of songs that touch on Chicago blues, Memphis soul and more, Ronnie Baker Brooks demonstrates that melodic guitar artistry runs in the family. A regular performer at the Odyssey East Lounge in Chicago’s South Side, Brooks is currently on a tour that takes him throughout the Western U.S. before a run of festival dates. Dad would have been proud.

Dream Theater
One of prog-metal’s most acclaimed groups has returned to its roots – and its most celebrated lineup – for a new album and tour. Dream Theater’s Parasomnia was released February 7. The group began in 1985 and hit its stride when vocalist James LaBrie joined a few years later. The band’s fifth LP, 1999’s conceptually-based Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory marked the recorded debut of Dream Theater’s classic lineup: LaBrie plus guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung, drummer Mike Portnoy and keyboardist Jordan Rudess. That prolific and creatively fertile lineup would yield six studio albums and four live albums. Following the release of 2009’s Black Clouds & Silver Linings, Portnoy left the band; he would go on to take part in myriad other projects including the progressive supergroup Transatlantic. After more than 12 years away from the group he had co-founded, Portnoy rejoined Dream Theater in 2023. With the classic lineup back together, the band began work on its 16^th studio album. Parasomnia’s loosely conceptual nature has been earning critical praise, and within days of release the album shot to the top spot on metal album charts.

Heart
When Heart came on the scene in 1973, the band led by sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson earned a lot of notice; fans and reviewers often couldn’t get past noting that a rock band with women in it – much less one led by them – was quite unusual. True as that was at the time, the reality could have threatened to overshadow the quality of Heart’s music. But the band – often described at the time as a female Led Zeppelin – was too accomplished to let that happen. Heart delivered the goods with style: well-written tunes, sharp hooks and the arena-worthy vocals. The group’s self-penned ‘70s hits (“Magic Man,” “Crazy On You” and “Barracuda”) all rocked hard, with as much swagger as one would have heard from contemporaries like Aerosmith and Cheap Trick. Heart’s fortunes began to flag a bit in the early ‘80s, but they roared back with their self-titled 1985 hit LP. Today, the band’s days as a creative unit are long over; Heart’s most recent studio release – itself a collection of re-recorded songs from the group’s catalog – is nearly a decade old. But as a live band, Heart remains as rocking and entertaining as ever.