Various artists, “If You’re Going to the City: A Tribute to Mose Allison” (Fat Possum)
It may be a tired cliche to say someone was one of a kind, but Mose Allison most definitely was.
A jazz and blues pianist whose songwriting career meshed lyrics with Mad magazine wit, keen philosophical observations and pure melodies that he sang in a cool conversational voice, Allison, who died three years ago at age 89, was an inspiration to everyone from Pete Townshend to Van Morrison.
In an album benefiting the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, a true collection of greats — from Fiona Apple and Bonnie Raitt to Taj Mahal and Iggy Pop — put their own artistry at the service of 15 outstanding Allison tracks from across his extensive career.
It’s their diversity and personalized takes on the songs that makes this album so enjoyable. There’s been many versions of Allison’s songs over the years and several here are absolutely marvelous.
They include Loudon Wainwright’s guitar-and-voice take on “Ever Since the World Ended,” with its upbeat descriptions of post-apocalyptic life, Dave and Phil Alvin’s fierce version of “Wild Man on the Loose,” Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite’s fiery “Nightclub” and Iggy Pop’s late period Miles Davis-like adaption of the title track.
With Apple backed by, among others, Benmont Tench and Fred Tackett, the all-too-brief “Your Molecular Structure” applies scientific terms to explain the whys and hows of physical attraction but ends in most primal fashion — “Your molecular structure baby, ooh wee!”
Other highlights are live versions by Raitt of “Everybody’s Crying Mercy” and Richard Thompson of “Parchman Farm.” Robbie Fulks puts a folky spin with banjo and fiddle on “My Brain” and daughter Amy Allison and Elvis Costello close the album in fine fashion on the sophisticated “Monsters of the Id.”
The album comes with a bonus DVD of a 2005 documentary about Allison by Paul Bernay, “Ever Since I Stole the Blues,” that shows in what high regard far more famous musicians held him.
NEW YORK (AP) — Google said Sunday that it is expanding the shopping features in its AI chatbot by teaming up with Walmart, Shopify, Wayfair and other big retailers to turn the Gemini app into a virtual merchant as well as an assistant.
An instant checkout function will allow customers to make purchases from some businesses and through a range of payment providers without leaving the Gemini chat they used to find products, according to Walmart and Google.
The news was announced on the first day of the National Retail Federation’s annual convention in New York, which is expected to draw 40,000 attendees from retailer and technology companies this week. The role of artificial intelligence in e-commerce and its impact on consumer behavior are expected to dominate the three-day event.
“The transition from traditional web or app search to agent-led commerce represents the next great evolution in retail," John Furner, Walmart's incoming president and CEO, said in a joint statement with Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichaei.
Google’s new AI shopping feature works this way: if a customer asks what gear to get for a winter ski trip, for example, Gemini will return items from a participating retailers’ inventory.
In the case of Walmart, customers who link their Walmart and Gemini accounts will receive recommendations based on their past purchases, and any products they decide to buy via the chatbot could get combined with their existing Walmart or Sam's Club online shopping carts, according to the statement.
OpenAI and Walmart announced a similar deal in October, saying the partnership would allow ChatGPT members to use an instant checkout feature to shop for nearly everything available on Walmart’s website except for fresh food.
Google, OpenAI and Amazon all are racing to create tools that would allow for seamless AI-powered shopping by taking chatbot users from browsing to buying within the same program instead of having to go to a retailer’s website to complete a purchase. The race between OpenAI and Google has heated up in recent months.
Before the recent holiday shopping season, OpenAI launched an instant checkout feature within ChatGPT that allows users to buy products from select retailers and Etsy sellers without leaving the app.
San Francisco software company Salesforce estimated that AI influenced $272 billion, or 20%, of all global retail sales, in one way or another during the holiday shopping season.
Google said the AI-assisted shopping features in Gemini only would be available to U.S. users initially but that it planned to expand internationally in the coming months. Shoppers initially only can make payments through the cards linked to their Google accounts but soon will be able to make purchases using PayPal, the company said.
The aim of deploying chatbots in e-commerce is to make it easier for people to find what they’re looking for. Instead of entering search terms and keywords, they can type or use voice dictation, and refine their searches through a conversational back-and-forth. Tech companies also are rolling out “AI agents” that are a step beyond today's generative AI chatbots, though their ability to buy products on behalf of consumers is still limited.
“I’m under no false belief that there’s going to be a snap of the finger and then all of a sudden, agentic commerce is going to get everywhere," Mike Edmonds, PayPal's vice president of agentic commerce and commercial growth, said at Sunday's convention. But he cautioned retailers against taking a wait-and-see approach.
Shopify founder and CEO Tobi Lutke told a small group of reporters on Thursday that many people like the experience of “having a personal shopper who really gets them, understands them and can fit something in your budget," but Shopify also wants to make it doesn't “over automate."
“The person, the shopper, is in charge, and they can make the final call, but also we make it so that people find the perfect product for themselves,” he added.
Walmart's Furner said Sunday that the largest employer and retailer in the U.S. is trying to “close the gap between I want it and I have it” with the help of AI.
He and Pichaei announced from a stage at the National Retail Federation conference that Walmart plans to expand drone delivery service to 150 more stores in partnership with Wing, a division of Alphabet. The addition will bring Walmart's drone delivery locations with Wing to 270 by 2027, stretching from Los Angeles to Miami, the companies said.
FILE - Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai speaks at a Google I/O event in Mountain View, Calif., Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
