Track Listing

1. Go To Mexico
2. Closer To You
3. Easy Rider
4. It Would Be So Easy
5. Red River Valley
6. Poet
7. I Want To Be Loved
8. Lost
9. Strike A Match
10. Tarot

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31215 in Music
• Released on: 2006-04-03
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

CD Description
While many jazz singers chase the ghosts of yesteryear revisiting the same vocal standards again and again, Cassandra Wilson has chosen a different path. She retains her fluid, smoky, and sometimes throaty phrasing, but paints with a more expansive palette. THUNDERBIRD finds Wilson digging still deeper into American blues and folk traditions while producer T. Bone Burnett frames her voice with spacious production, highlighting acoustic and electric guitars, percussion, and judiciously sampled rhythms. The songs, a mix of originals and thoughtfully chosen covers--from the contemporary (Jacob Dylan's "Closer To You") to the ages-old ("Red River Valley")--are driven not so much by swing as by the innately compelling sway of Wilson's voice.

Customer Reviews

The Spell Is Broken


On buying Blue Light Till Dawn, I was immediately bewitched by Cassandra Wilson.

And so it continued through New Moon Daughter, Travellin' Miles and Belly Of The Sun. Her singing was the best thing on Wynton Marsalis's Blood On The Fields, and she was a fantastic addition to the personnel wherever she appeared on a Steve Coleman project: Beyond All We Know (from Black Science) reaches the sublime, and even on subsequent versions without her (on Resistance Is Futile and Lucidarium), I can't help but hear her voice in my head. That exemplifies the way in which Wilson is able to make a song her own, as witness her version of Joni Mitchell's Black Crow, or inject an otherwise banal ditty with some raison d'être, as with Last Train To Clarkesville (formerly a singalong chanson for the Monkees). Hers is also the voice that opens Anatomy Of A Groove, the M-Base Collective's 1992 album, also featuring, and led by, Steve Coleman, and other exemplary appearances include on Greg Osby's Season Of Renewal (her voice on the title track having the same effect as on Beyond All We Know) and Steve Williamson's Rhyme Time.

So when Glamoured was released I bought it automatically, and that was where I began to have my doubts.

And with Thunderbird, I really feel there needs to be a rethink.

The opening track, Go To Mexico, sounds like it was badly edited, so I think it's best to pass over that.

Closer To You is pleasant enough, but apart from some nice, funky bass, has nothing to place it amongst the best of her material. I Want To Be Loved has some great slide, but again Wilson fails to raise it to the level I've come to expect from her, although I could see it being great performed live in a roadhouse.

It Would Be So Easy resembles Simply Red's Something Got Me Started from Stars. Though I liked Mick Hucknall's crowd a little, the resemblance doesn't help.

Easy Rider is the first of two atmospheric "traditional" songs, this one down and bluesy, Red River Valley more folky and sung almost a capella, apart from the excellent slide interspersed between verses. These are the two best tracks on the album, and showcase Wilson's voice perfectly.

The rest of the tracks, while having their moments (some good sound effects on Strike A Match, for example, and nice harmonica on Tarot), don't really excite as previous material has.

Though not such a good songwriter, in some ways Wilson was a consolation for the ending of Joni Mitchell's musical career. But whilst some of Mitchell's lower points (Wild Things Run Fast) could be passed off as experiments that didn't work, two below par albums in a row might make Thunderbird look part of a trend.

However, don't get me wrong. This album is as worth having as most vocal collections released in recent months - not as good as Lucinda's West, sure, but it stands strong among most of the rest. It's just that, when you find the sorceress has turned human, you can't help but be a little crestfallen.

If the two previous reviewers are fans, I would hate to be critiqued by one of Cassandra Wilson's enemies
I think the other reviewers have been excessively harsh and, in my view, both unjust and inaccurate in their review of Thunderbird. In fact while echoing their views on past triumphs, I think that Thunderbird is an many ways more accessible to new audiences of Cassandra's work. I would also say the tracks on this release do not exhibit any of the traits Cassandra has had in some of her earlier work to be on ocassion rather self-indulgent in the treatment of certain pieces. So Cassandra, just like Mr Dylan had to do when he went electric, do what you think is right and you will carry many of your less vocal fans like me along with you.