Skin Break
This trailer is self-explanatory. The beat goes on. . .
(Hat tip to the fine mp3 blog everythinginmyipod.)
Dub Collision mix – Cheap Blues
All over the place blues, so cheap for you.
1 Jay McShann – Some Kinda Crazy 2:41
2 Bob Brozman & Djeli Mousa Diawara – Maloyan Devil 5:59
3 Kelly Joe Phelps – Little Family 3:57
4 Imperial Kings – Love Blues 4:20
5 Geoff Muldaur & The Texas Queens – Hard Time Killin’ Floor 4:19
6 Papa Mojo – Bunkie Boogie 3:01
7 Jim Dickinson & Chuck Prophet – Down In Mississippi 4:07
8 John Campbell – Lockdown 3:51
9 Tab Benoit – What I Have to Do 5:00
10 Joe Barry – Rollin’ Bones 2:15
11 Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood – Driftin’ 5:41
12 Better Days – New Walkin’ Blues 6:17
13-14 Robert Randolph – You Got to Move-Goin’ In the Right Direction 12:48
15 The White Stripes – Death Letter -> Motherless Children -> Death Letter 8:01
16 The Black Keys – When The Lights Go Out 3:13
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
<- a taste
Cheap Blues – mp3 via Rapidshare (tagged for iPOD and ready to go!)
Mr. Grinch
Highly recommended from two years ago:
Aimee Mann - One More Drifter In the Snow
My own xmas podcast comp is in the works.
Graham Parker – the year, 1976
33 years ago, 1976, was the bicentennial year, but for me it was mainly the year I latched onto a dream job running a record department in the back of a book store in the college town of Middlebury, Vermont. Very soon after my arrival I struck up a friendship with a like-minded jazzbo and began sitting in on his weekly radio show on the college station, WRMC. One way or the other, I would spend one radio slot a week there for nine years, mostly presenting jazz on Tuesday nights under the title Groovin’ High. Tidbit: for two years CNN’s Frank Sesno read the news after my show.
So, this was the background for 1976. Graham Parker released two superb recordsHeat Treatment and Howlin’ Wind in the same year! I have to confess too: to my tastes, both records wiped away my fascination with the Boss, who had released Born to Run the previous year. To place these records in context, both Elvis Costello and the Sex Pistols would issue their debut records the next year. Meanwhile, the FM radio dial was increasingly dominated by corporate rock.
Parker recorded for Mercury, yet their hype machine fell short with his one-two punch in 76. There really wasn’t a place for pub-rock driven singer-songwriter rock and roll on the stateside dial. I didn’t need any extravagant pitch. As soon as I learned that Parker had hired en-mass the legendary Brinsley Schwarz outfit to be his back-up band I was off my rocker. They were my favorite countrified import from the isles, and Silver Pistol (1971) and Nervous On the Road (1972) remain among my favorite listens in the down home vein of The Band and Better Days and Bobby Charles. Okay, as it turned out: guitarist Schwarz and keyboardist Andrews, and they picked up buddy Martin Belmont from Ducks Deluxe.
Billy Rankin-drummer
Bob Andrews-piano
Nick Lowe-bass
Ian Gomm-guitar
Brinsley Schwarz-guitar
Only a little of that flavor is in the mix of Parker’s two opening shots. Parker is a ferocious soulman and one of the great rock-and-roll songwriters, and the Brinsleys morphed into The Rumour so as to match the ferocity with their own fervor. No hits was the reward for two statements of fierce rock and roll. Only surprising—since the era’s trends were unkind to so much terrific music—in that the two records have nary a bad cut, and, including lots of hit-worthy cuts.
(I count Heat Treatment, Black Honey, Pourin’ It All Out, and Fool’s Gold, just from Heat Treatment.) It was the same result for Squeezing Out the Sparks, released in 1979, albeit at least it is considered one of the great rock records. However, it came out in even more ungenerous times: 1979 was the year disco broke through, and, punk ruled most muso’s hearts.
Quality wins out in the end. Graham Parker has been churning out grown-up rock and roll ever since that bicentennial year–enough so that he is one of the masters.
Graham Parker tells the story himself on his defunct blog Chairman Parker. It’s an amusing and edifying read.
Graham Parker (home page | Wikipedia)
Essential:
All-time favorites
Brinsley Schwarz – Silver Pistol
Brinsley Schwarz – Nervous On the Road
Graham Parker – Howlin’ Wind
Graham Parker – Heat treatment
Desert island worthy:
Graham parker – Squeezing Out the Sparks
New and likely fab:
Graham Parker & the Rumour – Live in San Francisco
Captain Beefheart’s Rules for Guitarists
6. NEVER POINT YOUR GUITAR AT ANYONE Your instrument has more power than lightning. Just hit a big chord, then run outside to hear it. But make sure you are not standing in an open field.
There’s nine more. See Music Thing.
Drunken Angels
‘Drunken’ in the mystical sense. . . Back in the day, Emmy Lou Harris was it. I’m talking 1973, and seeing her save a performance by a sadly bombed Gram Parsons. Although by then—at 19—I could sing the praises of Dolly and Loretta and, yup, Linda Ronstadt, seeing Emmy Lou sing like an angel in that very dark context was my first encounter with the living deep soul of pure country.
Ahh, but my cosmic cowboy phase soon moderated. Ha, blame it on Blue Note records! The upshot was that outside of a handful of leading lights,( like Rodney Crowell, Rosanne Cash, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Dwight Yoakim,)ccountry and country rock gems had to wind and roll their way onto my radar screen. I didn’t go searching for nuggets and still don’t. So, Wilco sparkled, so did Steve Earle, Will Kimbrough, and but a few others. Americana? Whatever.
The world wide web, of course, significantly improved the ol’ radar system. Nowadays, it’s a snap to dig out a glittering lead out of the various expert discussions happening on mp3 blogs and in forums. It’s funny to not keep up and yet find an embarrassment of riches.
Miranda Lambert tripped my trigger as soon as I checked out a hot tip about her second record, Kerosene. I liked her verve, and wasn’t hip enough to be cynical about the slick Nashville country-rock-pop settings. Her next record, Ex-Girlfriend, rocked harder and in those edgier settings, Lambert loosed a record full of oft pissed off, personal gestures about the man woman thing.
With Revolution, her record from earlier this year, Lambert has crafted a real diamond in the vein of the best countrified singer-songwriters, such as Rosanne Cash. Even though the arrangements are still a bit too shiny, Lambert has waxed a killer set of very personal, witty songs about growing up ‘country’. In a way, she’s a country Sheryl Crow, and that’s a-okay in my book.
Nitin Sawhney & Reena Bhardwaj – Nadia
Nitin Sawhney – home page – wikipedia – myspace
A prince of the asian undergound.
Dub Collision Mix – Sax Gladness
Years ago a fellow jazz fanatic asked me what my favorite instrument was ‘in jazz.’ I blurted out “saxophone.” He told me I had to narrow it down. I thought for a minute, and gave him the correct answer, “Piano!” What had I been thinking initially?
Still, I can’t narrow it, the saxophone, down. You wish for me to weigh preferences between Coltrane and Parker and Lacy? Nocando. . . .between David Murray, Jackie McLean, and Hamiett Bluiett? Idontthinkso.
SAX GLADNESS unissued live recordings
1 The Heath Brothers f. Jimmy Heath – Prince Albert 14:23 (Dec. 1, 1983, Tokyo)
2 Benny Golson – Whisper Not 9:34 (1988, Kyoto)
3 Lucky Thompson – On Green Dolphin Street 6:35 (Nov, 22, 1968, Rotterdam)
4 Dexter Gordon – Society Red 16:17 (Sept. 13, 1988, Tokyo)
5 Booker Ervin – You Don’t Know What Love Is 8:13 (Feb. 18, 1966, Hilversum)
6 Sonny Rollins – Night & Day 11:31 (1965, Stockholm)
Download Sax Gladness (1 file-65 minutes – mp3 320kbs)
Taste: Lucky Thompson – On Green Dolphin Street
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
