Rainer
The Westwood Sessions
Volume I
OWOM Recorded Products
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These are recently discovered tapes of sessions Rainer did both solo acoustic and with his 3 piece band Das Combo (Nick Augustine bass, and Bruce Halper on drums) during the 1980s. They are the first section of a planned trilogy and represent some of the best and most vibrant music of Rainer’s too short career. He was someone who was not as appreciated in America as he was in Europe. He was a musician’s musician, Robert Plant used him in sessions, and Billy Gibbons was a big fan. He was a master of the Dobro and slide guitar and his exceptional style fused and incorporated; finger picking, slide guitar, tape loops, and electronic manipulation and this uniqueness is what earned the accolades of his peers. His music is based in the blues and the songs on this disc, he wrote 5 of the 12 also includes songs by the likes of Willie Dixon, J.B. Lenoir and Bessie Smith as well as one by his musical Compadre and champion in bringing these tapes to life Howie Gelb of Giant Sand.
This disc can serve as both an introduction to the complexity of his music at the same time it is starkly simple. Rainer was taken from his too short time here by a brain tumor in 1997 after an illness of nearly 2 years and this disc can stand as one of the great accomplishments of his, or any life, in both scope and actualization. An aurally stunning piece of work that shows the might and power of his electric work, “Fear”, and the sensitivity and shear beauty of his acoustic work, “Zealots Serve Dogmas”, both tunes he wrote. Special nods to Eric Westfall for his work on the production and mixing of this dazzling disc.