My new 8 Tracks mix (9 songs, 35 minutes) is pretty much inspired by Treme, the new show on HBO by David Simon, brains behind The Wire. I hagiographied The Wire here before. Treme is set in New Orleans a few months after Hurricane Katrina, I've only seen 2 episodes so far but it's shaping up as not disappointing my sky high expectations. It's a very sad fact I think Channel Nein has the rights to it in Australia, y'all ain't never gonna get to see it if you wait for them.
I've seen Dr John a few times before and since this time of year is saturated with gigs I might have missed him this time round, except he was at The Basement and the chance to grab the show in such a small venue was too much to pass up. Lead guitarist from the Lower 911 John Fohl warmed up the place with some very impressive blues, which also set an appropriately old school tone. The album they released last year didn't impress me very much, so honestly I was pleased the show was three quarters classics. Iko Iko, I Walk on Gilded Splinters, When the Saints, Goodnight Irene. It was, as the young people say, awesome. Pure New Orleans. Dr John even busted out the guitar which I hadn't seen live before.
Speaking of New Orleans, Lil Band o' Gold are here for Byron. I have their first album and would love to see them but they're only sideshowing in Melbourne and ... Moruya. What the heck is in Moruya??
Best Dylan Album -- Equal winners: Together Through Life and Christmas in the Heart (I'm with Tom Russell on this gem)
Best Non-Dylan Albums:
I think if you looked at my most played album released in 2009 it would be Leonard Cohen: Live in London but I'm gonna exclude live recordings, reissues and compilations from this ...
1. Easy Come Easy Go - Marianne Faithfull. I got this back in January and here it still is, top of the list.
2. Blood and Candle Smoke - Tom Russell. Typically full-bore TR effort of weaving biography and myth, now with mariachi horns
3. The Bright Mississippi - Allen Toussaint. Refreshing, transfixing, dreamy masterclass
4. Midnight at the Movies - Justin Townes Earle. No sophomore nerves here, proving the first album was not a fluke.
5. Hills and Valleys - The Flatlanders. Slipped a little in list over time but still an album of a grade Americana song to song
6. Traditions in Transition - Quantic and his Combo Barbaro. Genre tinkering with respect and passion, Latin on the wild side
7. One to the Head, One to the Heart - Gretchen Peters. What I said at the time
8. A Friend of a Friend - David Rawlings Machine. Should be higher really, but couldn't drop anything.
9. Mountain Soul II - Patty Loveless. Infectious bluegrassy country, highly polished but full of affection
10. Get Out While You Can - Dan Sultan. Well now, I only got this yesterday so given a few more days it could have really shot up the charts. Brilliant collection of soul, country and blues and heaps more soul. Dan is a star, no doubt.
11. Potato Hole - Booker T From the show in April
12. What Have You Done My Brother? - Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens. Preach it, sister
13. Dirt Town City Limits - Mat d and the Profane Saints. See Jim's great review.
14 Today, Tomorrow and Forever - Pete Molinari feat. The Jordanaires. Only an EP, but a perfectly formed one.
15. For the Mission Baby -- Malcolm Holcombe.
16. Ready for the Flood - Gary Louris and Mark Olsen. Was rather "meh" on it for eight of the last nine months but sort of started to grow on me ....
17. Animals in the Dark - William Elliott Whitmore. Should be higher also, what can you do? Lists are stupid. Hat tip Phineas, some very cathartic tracks on here believe me.
18. Cotton - Sam Baker. Also needs more time but exceptional story songs and that kind of creaky Texas voice I love.
19. Lucky One - Raul Malo A little bit country, a little bit croony, very pleasant listening.
20. The Soul of Black John - John Black
Update: Bah I forgot about Shemekia Copeland's Never Going Back. Bah! Should be in the top 10, if the top ten could have 15 places.
The Flatlanders -- YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dr John & the Lower 911
Lyle Lovett
Béla Fleck and Oumou Sangaré
Buddy Guy
Jeff Beck
Robert Gordon
Peter Green & friends
Justin Townes Earle
I'll keep an eye out for the Sydney show/s of Orquestra Buena Vista Social Club too but they'll probably play somewhere horrible like the Opera House so I'll stay home and listen to Bebo Valdes records.
I bought this postcard at a souvenir shop on Beale St, Memphis in late July this year. I have it magnet-ed on my fridge. Mary Lou Williams, legendary jazz musician. I have a lot of her material, she started playing professionally at age 6 : one of those amazing creatures who were absorbing the rhythm from birth and went from there.
I just love this picture. I mean, Beale St is one of the few places on earth you will find a postcard of Mary Lou Williams so I love the fact I could get it anywhere. That discovery was special. But apart from that, it is just such a fun, carefree picture. Fun but with her virtuoso music career right there. The woman and her piano. She played with Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, Thelonious Monk, Art Blakely, Dizzy Gillespie and everyone else. She was a formidable arranger and composer. And her solo work is unique -- not that I'm claiming to be omniscient about jazz but Black Christ of the Andes has got to be a part of its own thing. There are fewer than a dozen solo releases in almost 40 years, I've read a lot of the stuff online but I'd like to read something more substantial about the religious reasons she had for going in and out of the business that way. Duke University has a Centre for Black Culture named after her. She is buried in Pittsburgh.
As quoted on Wikipedia:
""I did it, didn't I? Through muck and mud."
The Buddha did not say it better. What more can you ask of life?
According to the back of the postcard, this picture was taken by Chester Higgins Jr in 1975.
Here is an MP3 of a Mary Lou Williams interview from the "A Grand Night For Swinging." It's only the interview, not the music.
I've been listening to the audiobook of Michael Conolley's The Scarecrow and the moral is all about how easy it is for freaky serial killers to track your every move via the Internet. Like, you can know exactly what I'm listening to when via my lastfm page which updates what I'm playing live. Have at it, stalkers! Incidentally, this is the first novel I've read where people actually use the Internet the way I do -- not that I stalk people and hide them in the car boot, but I mean, look any and all things up in Google Image Search as second nature. Anyway.
There were the heady days of 26-28 August where I listened to Nina Simone straight for two days. You can never have two much Nina, but this Philips box set is quite indispensable as the definitive collection of the Nina force, force of personality and force of musicianship. The peak of her vision realised (not that she had troughs) and a sublime listen from beginning to end.
More lately, I had a big raid on eMusic which I haven't done since the changes in July. But a few things showed up I particularly wanted and they started giving people 50 "loyalty" credits - more than a whiff of desperation about that move but I'll take 'em. I more or less get every new Afrobeat or Afrorock release that comes up, the latest is a really fabulous collection calledThe Legends of Benin. The label Analog Africa is always a solid bet. The first track "Dadje Von O Von Non" by Gnonnas Pedro & His Dadjes Band is pretty much the perfect (to me) family reunion between African and "western" funk. Here's Honoré Avolonto - Na Mi Do Gbé Hué Nu on YouTube. More such meetings are on Many Lessons: HipHop, Islam, West Africa from the "world" music specialists Piranha out of Germany (as so many of these labels are), I listen to a bit of hip hop but my tastes are quite narrow (so far) and lean towards the fusiony end of the spectrum and it's good if you like such things.
And then I got Town and Country by Humble Pie. Going through a 60s British blues/rock supergroup phase. Still chucking on Blind Faith a lot. Using this ripper music search engine an eMusic subscriber developed I discovered Humble Pie. You plug in an act and it spits back a heap of similar/related artists. It brings up a lot of artists I know which is good because you can see how well calibrated to the original name it is, but also heaps of new folk. It's optimised for eMusic (clicking on the photos takes you to their eMu page and greyed out photos means no albums on eMu) but it's great just to find people generally. Anyway, Humble Pie, apparently "hard rock" (70s performances on YT bear this out) although this is their acoustic blues-rock album. I don't really know anything about Peter Frampton and Steve Marriott, apart from their names (years of reading Mojo and Uncut cover to cover) but this is pretty good in a generic late 60s British rock blues type way but it's one of the generic sounds I like.
Natural Born Boogie:
El Barrio: The Bad Boogaloo Nu Yorican Sounds 1966-1970 brings the music of Spanish Harlem to you. Features La Lupe, the Queen of Latin Soul.
Also features the track Happy Soul With a Hook by Dave Cortez which I seem to have on about five different compilations by now. For Latin but with a much deeper level of pure funk, try Si Para Usted: The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba. Waxing Deep is/was a great Latin soul/funk podcast, the podcast is in hiatus but they've branched out into being a label. Si, Para Usted: The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba Volume 1 was a great collection of 60s and 70s tracks, and so I immediately bought Volume 2 and even bought a hard copy. Having the liner notes is fine, and it's nicely put together all round.
I've got the new Allen Touissaint record Across The Bright Mississippi on order so I went revisiting his oeuvre, which basically means ... take your pick of any New Orleans music from the 1960s on. Super Bad by Don Covay is according to Herr Doktor Guugle a collection of the soulmeister's 70s cuts and its quite an intriguing mixture of styles from rock (one song sounds like mid 60s Stones), country ballad touches to varying flavours of soul and funk a la New Orleans. Allen Toussaint - Saint Of New Orleans is a compilation with a couple of songs sung by Touissaint and a stack of others written and produced by his. This Lee Dorsey/Toussaint track isn't on there but it's just too good.
And finally, a version of "Sea of Heartbreak" from Rosanne Cash's forthcoming album featuring Bruce Springsteen got released on iTunes this week. Sea of Heartbreak is one of my favourite songs. Cash slows it right down, for a song about how sad, lonely and adrift the singer is, it's usually done in a very bouncy way. Bruce might be trying too hard to croon in the background, let Bruce be Bruce and not Ray Price but I like it more each time I hear it. The chorus is still one of the most singalongable in history.
Country music death beats fear not because I have the new Delbert McClinton, the new Guy Clark, the new Kris Kristofferson and some others coming up in the rotation!
Before my trip I made sure to get three anticipated singer-songwriter countryesque records to spend some quality time with, Journeyman's Wager by Chuck Mead (singer of BR549), Everything you Love Will Be Taken Away by Slaid Cleaves and Beautiful Day by Charlie Robison. After listening to each of them about ten times over a month .... well, I don't have much to say. I can remember the song titles of about two tracks from each, and fewer lyrics or hooks. Journeyman's Wager is the one I feel I should give another shot, there are some catchy up tempo acoustic countrybilly tracks on that one -- such as I Wish it Was Friday. Can't argue with the sentiment anyhow.
I will recommend Dirt Town City Limits by Mat d and the Profane Saints. Jim Pipkin does a great job reviewing it at Hickory Wind, and I'm grateful he pointed out. I haven't got the CD yet -- I will when it gets added to CD Baby -- but I love the tracks on the website. i got Mat d.'s solo record Gasoline Rattle which i also enjoy but I really love the fullm on full band sound on this new one. Check it out!
Of other new records, I listened on rotation all weekend to Quantic and his Combo Barbaro's Traditions in Transition. Quantic is a ackshully a lad from Worcestershire named Will Holland who for many years has been exploring eclectic nooks and crannies of funk and soul under various names and combinations of musos. A few years ago the record the Quantic Soul Orchestra did with singer Spanky Wilson was scorching.
On Traditions in Transition he takes on Latin sounds, and it was recorded in Cali, Colombia with various big names of the genre. It traverses a lot of styles but I like his stuff because it never feels like a dilletante wunderkind dabbling in something exotic, even when there are some subtle hiphop beats under a track it all feels loved. Some are more funky, some dreamier, some more traditional ballroom style Latin, some vocals and some instrumentals, there is even an Indian (as in the sub continent) influence, but all pretty hot.
Apart from that my favourite record at the moment is the Blind Faith album, the one with the Bill Henson-esque cover! I went download shopping for Derek and the Dominoes (after watching this) but Blind Faith was cheaper. All those EC super groups sound the same anyway.
I was dubious that the streaming would be more trouble that its worth -- watching YouTube on there is fine, but the buffering would get tedious over a concert length experience. Extremely surprised and delighted that on wifi flcking between songs and concerts was no slower than doing so in the iPod where the files are right there. Over 3G its noticebly slower changing songs but still quite alright. So I lay in bed and sampled some Delaney and Bonnie -- with Dominoes trio Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock and Carl Radle, as well as Leon Russell and Rita Coolidge, in the band -- some Bruce from 1977, some George Jones, some Booker T and the MGS. Of course presumably it is a bandwidth hog and so more suited to those unlimited plans Oz telcos decline to give us. But still, four hoofs up.
Here is my latest 8tracks, a semi-late Friday night and RIP Koko eight songs which clocks in at just over 30 minutes. There are a few mournful eMusic references tucked away in the lyrics too. ;-(
Countryesque/Folkish/Rawk Hogtied Revisited by The White Buffalo
I bought The White Buffalo's first and only EP off iTunes in 2007 after reading about him in, of all places, MX (the freebie "newspaper" they give you on the train at peak hour) and this is his only recorded output since. So, prolific he is not. But he has an attention grabbing voice and and a nice sound and sometimes weird songs. The Last Pale Light In The West by Ben Nichols Lucky One by Raul Malo
A little bit country, a little bit croony, very pleasant listening. Desert Rose by Chris Hillman Brossa D'ahir by Pep Laguarda
Long lost Catalan 70s psych-folk. With harmonica! Five stars. Dans les airs by Le Vent du Nord
I saw Genticorum at the Blue Mountains music fest last year and enjoyed their traditional Quebec thig very much, Dans les airs do something similar and so I like them a lot too. I'm not at all into Celtic music generally in its more pure forms, and Quebec folk has a lot in common with that but has something else that makes it listenable and indeed compelling. I think it might be the tickity tackity tick percussion thing (technical term.) Dengue Fever Presents: Sleepwalking Through the Mekong by Jean-Marie Riachi
Jean-Marie Riachi is actually the director of Sleepwalking Through the Mekong, a doco about the band Dengue Fever and all the music on the album is by them and some other ungooglable Cambodian acts. Dengue Fever is a Californian band with singer Chhom Nimol who plays surf psych garage rock sung in Khmer. Me love. The new Dengue Fever songs on this are great, particularly "One Thousand Tears of a Tarantula" which has a more greasy funked up type sound than previous records. AND it still makes me crave green chicken curry whenever I hear it.
Jazz/Soul Greatest Hits by Al Green Call Me by Al Green Shakti by David S. Ware Bad! Bossa Nova by Gene Ammons Afirika with Angelique Kidjo by Christian McBride 7 X 7" = Funk by Various Artists - P&P Records Five Peace Band Live by Chick Corea & John McLaughlin
I saw these guys at the Opera House, except with Brian Blade on drums instead of. (Brian Blade incidentally is the brother of Brady Blade, also a drummer, familiar from frequent work in the studio and touring bands of Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Buddy Miller and others.) I don't really get it but I like it. Like, when I read a pop sci book on physics and I sort of barely grasp what the sentence is saying while ever my eyes are locked on that sentence, but as soon as I blink, no hope. Good News From Africa by Dollar Brand / Abdullah Ibrahim Henry Stone's Hidden Treasures by Various Artists Night Hawk by Coleman Hawkins Soul in the Hole by Shawn Lee
Via the eMusic radio show, I heard the awesomely named Lucille Bogan's (aka Bessie Jackson) "Shave 'Em Dry" which somewhat stopped me whatever long weekend pottering I was doing at the time. Of course sexual references are everywhere in this pre-war stuff, no shock there but ... yoiks. Naturally it was not officially released and I couldn't google up corroboration for the claim in the comments at 17 Dots that its the first F word on record but its 1935 so it seems plausible. I was shocked, shocked I say. So shocked, I immediately downloaded the three alternate versions they have on eMu.
NSFW, NSF kiddies and NSF anyone who doesn't want to hear some vintage backroom jook joint 3am pr0n. Although it's very scratchy so you have to listen close, very close, to pick up the most scandalous parts. Maybe you have to listen to it very loud on repeat. *cough*
Country/Folk/Rock/Blues Between the Whiskey and the Wine by Miss Leslie (Between the Whiskey and the Wine) 2008 release. Hard core honky tonking. Undone: A Musicfest Tribute to Robert Earl Keen by Various Artists - Right Ave Records (Corpus Christie Bay Darren Kozelsky) Listen to the original instead. It's not bad, quite pleasant but most tribs fall into the "listen to the originals" basket for me. A good new REK original performed by him though. Live at the Palladium in NYC, New Years '77 by Levon Helm and The RCO All Stars (Got My Mojo Working) Featuring Dr John, Paul Butterfield, Duck Dunn, Steve Cropper. Details here. It's a little ropey in a too-many-cooks sort of way but exuberant and definately worth checking out if you are a fan of that whole crew. Animal Party by The King Khan & BBQ Show (Animal Party) Haymaker! by The Gourds (All the Way to Jericho) This is very nice in a background kind of way, I don't know why the Gourds rarely stay long in my head but I enjoy it at time of listening. Broken Dreams by Eleven Hundred Springs Home by Delaney & Bonnie (It's Been a Long Time Coming and Just Plain Beautiful) On the occasion of Delaney Bramlett's death, Mojo online highlighted this 1969 disc (and it's on Stax, and thus on eMu) and it's my January download I probably listened to the most -- 56 times in whole or part according to last.fm, which doesn't include iPod time. It combines the sort of bouncy backporch jamming sound of The Band and that era's country-rock with the soul of Stax, and thus combines two of my favourite things. Most things I have in this ballpark are country-rock with some soul, whereas this is a soul album with those other things creeping round the edges. I like the term "prairie-funk" in that Mojo story. I need more prairie-funk! I'm pretty familiar with the "Further Listening" they list there, but they're not quite the same to my ears. Adam Carroll Live by Adam Carroll (Erroll's Song) Early Tracks Volume 1 by Howie Epstein (Simple Conversations) Collection of lofi bedroom demos from the early 1970s by the late muso who played with too many people to mention. Was my last download so I need more time but early listens promising. But you would expect nothing but quality from someone who played bass on Knocked Out Loaded. For The Love by Tracy Lawrence Shapes Of Things by Jeff Beck (Mr. You're A Better Man Than I) The presence of original 60s stuff like this is a bit patchy on eMu because they're mostly major label but there's a fair bit of quality early Yardbirds and this Jeff Beck collection which covers the essentials (not that I'm an expert.) This is sort of where you really miss the liner notes with digital downloads because I'm not at all sure what is what and where and when, the people at Amazon say its post-Yardbirds but "Mr You're a Better Man Than I" and "Heart Full of Soul" sure sound like the 'birds originals with Keith Relf on vocals to me so I don't know. None of which stops me enjoying listening to it. Tuva Rock by Yat Kha (Amdy Baryp and Khandagaity)
I have to thank Andre in comments for the tip on this one. I reaally love this album, a pretty perfect blend of Tuvan sounds -- the throat singing but also the other traditional musical streams and rock. The other Yat Kha album there is one of covers, including a Hank Williams song that sort of creeped me out. I want to get it but I have to psychologically work up to it. We Can Get Together by Sean Costello (Going Home) Sean Costello was a promising young Atlanta bluesman when he died suddenly last year. Drugs I think, silly boy. This is a tremendous album that I also listened to on high rotation this month -- blues-rock with a side of soul and gospel, he has a distinctive honey-and-whiskey kind of voice that appeals. Jazz/Funk/Eartha The Space Book by Booker Ervin Eartha Kitt in Person at the Plaza by Eartha Kitt (How Could You Believe Me?) Spiritual Jazz by Various (Paul's Ark, Morris Wilson Beau Bailey Quintet) The Best of Jazzman Records (Web Exclusive) by Various Artists (Send in the Clowns, Lorez Anderson) Fiyo At The Fillmore Volume 1 by The Meters Introducing The Tinh Nguyen Quartet by Thinh Nguyen Quartet Bach 2000 by David Matthews And The Manhattan Jazz Orchestra (Air on the G String) Jazz interpretation of Bach pieces. Why not? This Is What We Do by The New Mastersounds (The Tin Drum feat. Sam Bell) At The 5 Spot, Vol. 1 [ RVG ] by Eric Dolphy Sample My Funky Groove by Various Artists
Been listening to the new Marianne Faithfull long player,Easy Come Easy Go. I am going to jump straight to track 10 -- "Sing Me Back Home" with Keith Richards on harmony. A bit of music nerd fan fiction that is, the seamless colliding of a couple different musical-historical slipstreams. Keith and his history with the song via Gram*, his own haunting version from Toronto drug bust boot (that link is YouTube. I put up the MP3 for download at the end of the entry), the whole Marianne bio. Keith provides ghostly harmony on the chorus and some other words/phrases (plus guitar) and I spent a good while fiddling with the equaliser in iTunes to boost the vocals so I could cop a better listen. Their voices spiral towards each other like the smoke from two cigarettes, if you listen closely to the edges of Keith's phrases curl around Marianne's. Of course it's one of the greatest country songs, and she can sound a bit cabaret but always sincere. Marianne Faithfull as death row wretch works, but of course it is the almost-lullabyish promises of the chorus which make it a favourite for interpreting.
For the rest, on the concept and guests I'll just quote from the official blub:
All the songs have been chosen by Marianne and Hal [Wilner], and range from Billie Holiday's "Solitude" to "The Crane Wife" by current band The Decemberists. Other tracks are "Sing Me Back Home" by Merle Haggard, "Children of Stone" by Espers, the title track " Easy Come, Easy Go Blues" by Bessie Smith, Morrissey's "God Please Help Me", Dolly Parton's "Down from Dover " and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's "Salvation". Easy Come, Easy Go also includes some interesting guest vocalists; Keith Richards appears on the aforementioned "Sing Me Back Home" Antony Hegarty on "Oo Baby Baby" and Jarvis Cocker on Sondheim's "Somewhere". Other guest appearances on the album come from Rufus Wainwright who contributes powerful vocals to "Children of Stone"' while his aunt and mother Kate and Anna McGarrigle enchant on the "The Flandyke shore". Warren Ellis plays his magic violin on 3 songs, and Nick Cave lends some vocals to "The Crane Wife". Sean Lennon and Teddy Thompson play guitar on a couple of the tracks, and Cat Power harmonizes on "Hold On, Hold On".
Not mentioned there, a cover of Randy Newman's creepy "In Germany Before the War."
I listened to it first without knowing much about the all star cast except for Keith, and it's a testament to the balanced production that I'd think "hm, that's interesting. I wonder who that is, if anybody" and want to look it up, rather than have the guesters smother the song with their presence. The exception to that would by the Smokey Robinson cover "Oo Baby" with Antony doing a wild R 'n' B thing but that's not a bad thing,Marianne Faithfull is allowed to get wild. Especially as the very frst track on the album is Dolly Parton's super-uber-tragic-miserydrama "Down from Dover." I think I'd prefer more restraint on the horns in this one, but it works better than I thought it would. Marianne Faithfull's voice is nothing if not the product of hard-won maturity, and the key to the song is the naivety of the teenage narrator (Dolly can sing it these days and still pass vocally for 18 more or less), but she made me believe. Other highlight's off the top of my head, the folk ballady "The Crane Wife 3" and "Flandyke Shore" and the playful jazzy excursions of the title track and "Black Coffee."
There aren't any songs on it I haven't liked, and I've been playing it mot of today back to back. I'm referring to the 2 disc version, there's also a 1 disc one that doesn't have all these songs.
* Good post. Deserves revisiting. As does that DVD.
So I have these podcasts for this running programme thingy and the music is mostly doof doofy, which is fine as far as it goes. Gets the job done but I decided to make some mixes of my own music in Garage Band. I went through this whole thing of trying to break down the BPM appropriately, but I swear you guys, that is so complicated. I gave up and just chose "exercisey sounding" music in my collection already. It's a bit doof doof, but it's my doof doof. The only really twangy song is Ryan Bingham's Bread and Water but I'll put more effort into finding appropriate country things for the next installment. I have a track from Zydeco legend Clifton Chenier but on reflection it has a rather ... Benny Hill vibe and sort of weirds me out.
More or less. In some kind of vagueish order for the first quarter then much of a muchness after. I'll do a relevant 8tracks for it too. Large Hearted Boy has the definitive list of end of year lists.
The Good Life -- Justin Townes Earle Rattlin' Bones -- Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson Gurrumul -- Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu Virtual Landslide -- Pete Molinari (will talk about later) Just a Little Lovin' -- Shelby Lynne One Kind Favour -- BB King Little Honey -- Lucinda Williams Crossing the Field -- Jenny Scheinman Trouble in Mind -- Hayes Carll Harps and Angels -- Randy Newman Waylon Forever -- Waylon Jennings (last recordings, classic songs, produced by son Shooter) Same Old Man -- John Hiatt Venus on Earth -- Dengue Fever (Cambodian-Californian psychadelic south east Asian surf rock) All is Yes -- The Blessing Como Now: The Voices of Panola County, MS -- Various (acapella gospel from the Daptone label) Backwoods Barbie -- Dolly Parton Recovery -- Loudon Wainwright III Honky Tonks and Cheap Hotels -- Whitey Morgan and the 78s (outlaw country) The C.P.T Theorem -- Greydon Square Recapturing the Banjo -- Otis Taylor Modern Hymns -- Darrell Scott Seeing Things -- Jakob Dylan (it grew on me very slowly) Honey Songs -- Jim Lauderdale Akh Issudar -- Terakaft (Tourareg "desert rock") Umalali -- The Garifuna Women's Collective (Afro-Belizean) Mother Earth! Father Sky! -- Huun-Huur-Tu (alt.tuvan Like many people I find the whole throat singing thing pretty fascinating without actually wanting to listen to it while nursing a Strongbow out on the balcony at a summer's dusk. This one I would. Very jaunty! Turkic bluegrass! And they have a girl singer who breaks up the throaty stuff.)
Additional list: some more 2008 jazz I liked in addition to the Jenny Scheinman and The Blessing above. Treat Me Gently -- Dale Barlow, George Coleman, Mark Fitzgibbon, Sam Anning This is Australian. John Shand just happened to review it in the Herald last week, and it just happened to be on eMusic and it just happened to have seven tracks and I just happened to have seven credits left so I got it. And I liked it a lot. De Cuba y de Panamá -- Billy Cobham and Asere The Coalition of the Willing -- Bobby Previte Roll With It -- Corey Christiansen
This is a jazzy, funky, rocky one. No country because my country Chrissie songs are in a format not supported by 8 tracks so I'll do a twangy one when I've done some conversion.
White Christmas -- Bobby Timmons
You're a Mean One Mr Grinch -- Aimee Mann
Christmas is Coming -- John Denver and the Muppets
Do You Hear What I Hear -- Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra
Stone Soul Christmas -- Binky Gripite & The Dee-Kays
A Christmas Duel -- Cyndi Lauper and the Hives (a bit NSF kiddies)
Pretty Paper -- Roy Orbison
Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow -- Jethro Tull
Santa Claus is Coming to Town -- Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis
I Need a Man Down my Chimney -- Barbara Carr
Christmas Now is Drawing Near -- Sneak's Noyse
Angels We Have Heard on High -- The Brian Setzer Orchestra
God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman -- Los Straitjackets
Darlin' (Christmas is Coming) -- Over the Rhine
We Wish You a Merry Christmas -- John Denver and the Muppets
O Come All Ye Faithful -- Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra
Jingle Bells -- Ed Calle, Arturo Sandoval and Jim Gasior
Auld Lang Syne -- Martin Sexton
"In country music, it used to be that the performers' hair was unreal but their songs were down to earth. Now their hair looks more or less natural but their songs are bouffant wigs."
The Oxford American music issue is out. Always worth it, if you can find it here. If you can. tell me where. If not, or until you do, there are some free articles on this here website.
As Zoe snarkily pointed out in comments, now I have these tickets all I have to do now is not forget the show is on. True, I have only really done that once this year but I have already committed to two different parties next Saturday night so such muck ups are never far from happening. So, I made a list of things I am doing so I can obsessively check it every day for the next two months to reassure myself.
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