FOUNDERS’ KEEPERS: The Judds Tribute, Jon Dee Graham, and More

Perhaps we should reconsider last column’s comment about the manufactured consent of celebrity and commerce so as to add a needed caveat, borrowed from a children’s book by Lloyd Alexander: The work doesn’t care who does it. And the best work, the work which endures, doesn’t care who listens, nor how many of them there might be, and rejoices simply to have found an audience.

Take, for example, The Judds, who stepped all the way into the limelight as part of country music’s early ’80s credibility scare, along with Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley. All from the same rough patch of Eastern Kentucky, because terroir matters. Their work endures, in large part, because it is imbued with the magic of who they were, and who they were with each other.

Produced by Brent Maher, who cut the original hits, A Tribute to The Judds celebrates the mother-daughter duo’s 40th anniversary, a milestone made more poignant by Naomi Judd’s death last year by suicide. It also serves as a rebuke to country radio programmers who apparently believe no more than 15 percent of the tracks they play should come from female artists. This set, out Oct. 27, is a reminder how deep the bench of female singers is, even if it produces more singles than home runs during this inning. Witness the opening collaboration, “Girls Night Out,” with Reba McEntire, Carly Pearce, Jennifer Nettles, and Gabby Barrett. One wishes the session had more swing and sway and sass, but the vocals, and the pleasure they take singing with each other, are splendid.

The magic here happens mostly in expected places. Mandy Barnett, Shelby Lynne, and Emily West capture both the joy and vocal interplay of the original on “I Know Where I’m Going.” Relative newcomer Ella Langley’s duet with Jamey Johnson on “Young Love (Strong Love)” revels both in the emotional strength of their voices and the story the song tells. And “John Deere Tractor” (from The Judds’ debut EP), back in the hands of bluegrass vets Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley with Molly Tuttle, is utterly unafraid to bring a listener to tears. Blake Shelton proves an unexpectedly adept harmony singer to Gwen Stefani’s take on “Love Is Alive,” which is, naturally, the first single.

San Diego duo Shhhhh presently occupy the other end of the celebrity spectrum. They released their gorgeous opening EP, Seriously, Shhhh, in August, and it’s a reminder of what too often goes missing from manufactured events: the intimacy of close connection. Or just intimacy. Rheanna Downey and Molly Jenson each have spent 20-odd years, separately, singing in public and writing, trying and failing and trying. Their voices soar and twine and shimmer through five splendid, simply set country-flavored songs (so, pop, maybe?) that clearly matter deeply to them and in which they have invested themselves. “I Know Better” begins with a failing relationship (“I could love you better / If you loved me baby”) but finds solace simply in singing it out, together. Throughout the lyrics are knowing, measured, kind, resigned, and well chosen. The vocal interplay on the simply set “Led Me to You,” which wants tentatively to be hopeful, isn’t showing off, it’s serving the song. Neat trick, that.

Austin confessional songwriter Jon Dee Graham takes the occasion of his death — he lived, after five minutes visiting whatever other place — for reason enough to break a seven-year recording drought. Only Dead for a Little While, out Nov. 10, is a public processing of mortality complete with loud guitars, subtle passages, and, always, the blunt eloquence of his words. It opens with a blast titled “Where It All Went Wrong,” his gruff and ready voice glossing human history. Most of the album is brusquely, tersely contemplative, from “See You by the Fire,” about absent friends, to “There’s a Ghost on the Train,” also about absent friends, to “Brave As Her (Marie Colvin),” about a very particular absent friend. Add in “Lazarus” and “Death Ain’t Got No Mercy” and maybe this isn’t for the young at heart. But it’s the season in which some of us live, and Graham has always excelled at singing the hard parts out loud.

Back in the pre-dot-grunge days, Danny O’Keefe was the quintessential Seattle success story: psychedelic hippie cred from his first band, Calliope, and enough mailbox money coming in, especially from “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues,” to buy a lifetime of modest creative freedom and quiet good works. The two-disc Circular Turns, out Nov. 10, pulls together tracks recorded from 1999 to 2017, along with a 2016 St. Paul, Minnesota, house concert, returning some of his favorites to the marketplace. If he hasn’t quite sought the kind of second act Chip Taylor pursued, nor the evanescence of Willis Alan Ramsey, O’Keefe has retained a quiet, caressing approach reminiscent of Jesse Colin Young. Listen to his intro to the Tim Krekel co-write “Sleep (Anywhere on Earth You Are)” for a sense of who he is, and how it all went. Or just enjoy the memories of “Magdalena” or the songwriter’s take on “Well, Well, Well.” There’s a reason his mailbox stays full. And, yes, “Good Time Charlie” is the encore.