Back in 2008, Grace Potter took a break from her band, Grace Potter and The Nocturnals, to record a solo album with producer T-Bone Burnett, but it never saw the light of day. Potter’s label was unhappy with the softer direction, which they saw as off-brand for the rock star persona they were building off the success of rock songs like “Ah Mary.” And her bandmates didn’t seem big on the idea, either.
So the project was shelved, and Potter returned to the studio two years later with The Nocturnals to record the band’s breakthrough eponymous third album. Eight of the thirteen songs on that album were reworked and re-recorded versions of songs from the Burnett sessions, altered to a more direct rock & roll style that fit the band. Now, seventeen years after her sessions with Burnett, Potter has finally released the original album, titled Medicine.
While Grace Potter and the Nocturnals begins abruptly with a grunt and crunching power chords, signifying the propulsive rock & roll album to come, Medicine sets a different tone. “Before the Sky Falls On Us” slowly fades into a slick groove on upright bass backed by rustic percussion, a gently picked guitar lick that sounds caked in dirt, and a horn section. Instead of a rock collection, this is a meditative Americana album heavy on blues and country influences. ”I saw the lightning come just before the rain, and I felt the knife before I felt the pain,” Potter sings.
Potter’s vocals are subdued, as on most of the album. She spends more time crooning than belting out rock vocals. Though Medicine was recorded in Los Angeles, the songs feel like they’re performed on a sweaty front porch on a hot and humid summer in the Deep South. Dennis Crouch’s acoustic bass is the gritty anchor to Jim Keltner’s earthy percussion, Potter’s voice is soulful with an air of vulnerability, and Burnett’s production ties the songs together in a murky package straight out of the swamp.
The break-up song “Make You Cry” uses a bouncing R&B groove for Potter to threaten walking out on a relationship. “Maybe then you’ll realize that you took my love for granted, and now I’m out the door,” she sings. It’s the most upbeat track on a mostly somber album.
Burnett’s shimmering tremolo guitar in “To Shore” creates a haunting aura of loss. “Don’t you get lonely when the cold wind blows? The smiling faces disappear and all the doors are closed,” Potter sings. The swirling shakiness of the instruments underscores Potter’s unease as she compares her relationship to being on a “losing boat sinking to the ocean floor.”
Fans of Potter’s work with The Nocturnals will recognize most of the songs on Medicine, but these aren’t just demos or alternate takes. Of the songs found on Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, most have the same melodies but carry different emotional stakes. The slower tempos of “Oasis” and “Money,” along with the resonant tone of the acoustic bass, give them a bleaker sound.
The biggest difference is with the title track. The Nocturnals’ version is an infectious rock anthem built around a catchy blues-rock riff. On this album, the same riff is used. Still, with the thumping percussion, horn arrangement, and Burnett and Marc Ribot’s boggy guitar tones, “Medicine” has a smouldering sensuality fitting for the gypsy woman the song describes.
Medicine is an odd album because most of its tracks have already been released in different versions. And this isn’t correcting overproduction mistakes like The Beatles’ Let It Be…Naked or Soundgarden’s remastered Ultramega OK. The songs on Medicine that appeared on Grace Potter and the Nocturnals sound great in both versions, but the songs are so different, they’re not even in the same genre. For casual fans that don’t know any Nocturnals songs other than “Paris,” Medicine’s songs can be enjoyed on their own merits. For the fans that have been singing along to these songs for the last fifteen years, they might sound strange in these different arrangements and a more somber tone. But repeated listens should bring appreciation for Potter and Burnett’s versions and the risks they book.
