New releases mark many happy returns

The theme of returning is as common as dirt. But like all great concepts, it never grows old if done well.

The most basic urge to return has to be that of going back home, especially if the vacating was forced, as in war or disaster. Another strong incentive for returning to a place (or person) is to redress an old wrong, to take care of unfinished business.

These two motives are well represented in two great new releases.

ANTOINE “FATS” DOMINO is a rock and roll deity. His career as an innovator was relatively short and is long since over, but his mark was made with a chisel on the stone tablet of music history.

Fats’ genius was making party and make-out music from both sides of love. Whether he’s got a “Whole Lotta Lovin'” on his plate or he just lost his best gal (“Ain’t That a Shame”), his irresistible good nature and swinging rhythms carry the day.

It would be the height of presumptuousness (and uncool) to say Fats suffers from agoraphobia (the fear of leaving home), but it’s very clear: the man simply doesn’t like to leave the house.

Home for him was the lower Ninth Ward. When Katrina came he, of course, stayed. He was one of those who had to be plucked off his roof by helicopter. He symbolizes the diaspora of New Orleanians.

So it’s fitting if not also inevitable that a tribute album to him would be entitled “GOIN’ HOME.”

It’s also fitting that spread out over two discs are an eye-popping assemblage of mega pop stars and local talent. For example: B.B. King, John Lennon, Elton John, Neil Young, Tom Petty, Robert Plant (twice), Robbie Robertson, Los Lobos, Lenny Kravitz, Randy Newman, Paul McCartney and on and on.

Locals include Art Neville, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Marc Broussard, Dr. John, Galactic, Theresa Andersson and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

Tribute albums long ago became cliché and each new one brings faint hope – a batting average of .500 can be considered a success. But “Goin’ Home” has no whiffs, only doubles, triples and homers. And the pacing is superb, what with faithful renditions scattered nicely among the more adventurous reworkings.

All but a few cuts were recorded specially for this project with a core band and the same producer (John Lennon’s contribution coming from his Rock and Roll album).

Of particular note are a cockwalking Taj Mahal having a ball with “My Girl Josephine,” Robert Plant fronting the swamp-pop gurus Lil’ Band o’ Gold on “It Keeps Rainin’,” Plant singing with the stately and sacred Soweto Gospel Choir on “Valley of Tears,” Corinne Bailey Rae (!) putting the wicked back into “One Night (of Sin),” which was recorded live at Tipitina’s, and Robbie Robertson’s tour de force with Galactic, “Goin’ to the River.”

Seriously, I had to stop typing the last sentence by sheer force of will, because every damn song has its own charms.

If even more reason was needed to buy this record, then know that the profits go the Tipitina’s Foundation, which aids New Orleans musicians in need. Buy a copy for you and all your friends.

BETTYE LaVETTE is 61 years old and, by all available evidence, having the time of her life.

She broke out in the late Sixties on Atlantic Records (home of Aretha) and after one Top Ten hit, “My Man – He’s a Loving Man.” But she quickly got lost in the shuffle and the changing times and tastes, much like her contemporary, Candi Staton.

The capper was Atlantic’s recording, but then shelving, “Child of the Seventies,” made at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala., (Garden of Eden for countless southern soul classics by Otis, Aretha, Etta et.al.).

LaVette returned to brilliant form on last year’s “I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise.”

But she had business to take care of, unfinished, in Alabama. Hence, her new “THE SCENE OF THE CRIME.”

Backed improbably but superbly by the Drive-By Truckers with a few special guests, Ms. LaVette returns to Muscle Shoals and gets the best revenge possible – much more than getting even, she gets way, way ahead.

She’s not a songwriter, but an impeccable song-chooser and interpreter.

Eddie Hinton’s “Still Want to be Your Baby (Take Me Like I Am),” Frankie Miller’s “Jealousy” and Willie Nelson’s “Somebody Pick Up My Pieces” are given definitive readings.

John Hiatt’s “The Last Time” and W.T. Davidson’s “They Call It Love” are also crank-worthy.

Hitting like a Taser (bro) is the album’s showstopper, “Talking Old Soldiers.” LaVette nails the Elton John-penned song to the floor, rips it up and then runs it bleeding up the flagpole. I just turned 50, and this song resonates.

“Before the Money Came” is the overt in-your-face comeuppance to her past transgressors, and it walks up to the line of spite but then gracefully just tells the truth. And that truth is that LaVette should have been recorded and successful way before this, but she’s OK now – especially with setting the record straight.

“Bleeding” was a word not haphazardly chosen in the last sentence. LaVette’s voice is a wonder. Dry as New Mexico, it courses with raw power, full-blooded and nakedly emotional.

The “improbable” backing of the Truckers perfectly supports her wonderful instrument with all types of cool guitar (resonating, twanging and crashing by turns) and the rhythm section shows a heretofore absent swing. This record hit me hard on the first listen and has only gotten better. Very rare.

In the eyes of some, coming home and going back to the scene can have a sense of failure, of not letting go. These artists have no place for such shame, only honor.