Encompassed

Clive Gregson may not be the best known of Nashville’s transplanted British musicians, but he’s certainly among the best. Long familiar to discerning pop-music fans for his Stiff Records group Any Trouble (“Open Fire”), as well as his albums with Christine Collister and his stint in Richard Thompson’s band, Gregson has made Nashville his home for the past two years. Although in that time he’s recorded and released one marvelous solo LP, 1995’s People & Places, on Nashville’s Compass Records, he’s played surprisingly few gigs here.

Which only makes his appearance Thursday night at the Sutler that much more worth seeing. At an NEA Extravaganza performance at the Bluebird last winter, Gregson dazzled the audience with fleet-fingered picking and hilarious between-songs commentary on subjects ranging from his career to his hairline. Best of all were the stunning ballads he played from People & Places, which segued stealthily from rueful humor to heartbreak, often in the space of a verse. As a perfect closing touch, he finished with a killer acoustic version of the Oasis hit “Wonderwall.”

At the Sutler Thursday night, Gregson will probably preview new songs from his upcoming Compass release, which is due in stores Aug. 20. He’s currently in the studio with Compass label head Alison Brown’s band, and Compass cofounder Gary West is producing. “It’s a wonderful record,” said Brown, who happened to be in the office answering phones the day we called. “It sounds like grown-up Any Trouble.” That’s a good sign, especially since the label also hopes to compile an Any Trouble best-of CD at some point. Gregson plays at 9:30 p.m.

Has anyone had a worse streak of luck getting a record career going than Jonell Mosser? One of the most popular Nashville club draws of the past decade, the indomitably hardworking Mosser was tagged as a most-likely-to-succeed for years, entertaining nibbles from numerous labels, recording with everyone from Etta James to George Jones, performing with Bonnie Raitt, Ringo Starr and B.B. King, and even lobbing a cover of Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads” onto the Boys on the Side soundtrack.

A year and a half ago, Mosser finally recorded a full LP with hot producer Don Was for his Karambolage imprint on MCA Records. Everything looked peachy. A month after she delivered the record, though, Was decided to discontinue Karambolage—and Mosser’s label debut has languished in the MCA catacombs ever since.

Mosser’s luck is on the upswing, however. In a neat reversal of fortune, a set of demos Mosser began recording two years ago has blossomed into a full-fledged album release by Winter Harvest Records, the Nashville label that has issued uncharacteristic acoustic records by Steve Earle and Mark Germino. After years of close calls, Jonell Mosser will finally have a record in stores on July 3—the eve, ironically enough, of Independence Day.

Entitled Around Townes, the CD features Mosser performing 13 songs by esteemed Texas troubadour Townes Van Zandt. A couple of years ago, Van Zandt asked her to record some demos of his music that he could pitch to artists like Bonnie Raitt and Wynonna. Duped copies of the demos have turned up all over town ever since. When Winter Harvest’s Owsley Manier approached Mosser earlier this year about turning the tape into an entire record of Van Zandt’s songs, she agreed.

The finished record, produced by Mosser, Manier and Greg Humphrey, pairs Mosser’s celebrated Molotov-cocktail vocals with Van Zandt’s gift for evocation—a combination that holds promise, especially for those who suffered through Van Zandt’s reportedly bewildering performance at a recent Green’s Grocery/Tin Pan South gig. Among the LP’s special guests are Delbert McClinton (on “If I Needed You”), Johnny Neel (“All Your Young Servants”) and John Cowan (“A Song For” and “Be Here to Love Me”). Also included are such Van Zandt staples as “Saint Joan the Gambler” and “No Place to Fall.”

As for Mosser’s MCA tapes, those may soon see the light of day. We have been instructed not to say more.

After a well-received appearance last year on Late Night With Conan O’Brien, Nashville’s Los Straitjackets return to the NBC show on June 28 at 11:30 p.m. to plug the release of their new Upstart Records LP Viva! Los Straitjackets. (The album’s title, coincidentally, is the same phrase a sombrero-clad Quentin Tarantino shouted at the band from his car after one of their West Coast gigs.) Produced once again by Ben Vaughn and featuring more cool Brad Talbott cover art, Viva! Los Straitjackets finds the band flexing its twin-guitar muscle into the realms of Stax soul and film-noir evocation. As a preview of their Conan O’Brien appearance, catch the band at 12th & Porter June 15. Belated congratulations to bassist Scott Esbeck, who married former Scene art critic and WRVU personality Regina Gee at an antebellum home in Natchez, Miss., last March.