If you have an iPhone and are a music lover you could do a lot worse than drop $2.49 on the TuneIn Radio app, which streams radio stations from ... well, just about everywhere. I've only had it a couple of days and haven't explored beyond the USA but I've heard great things about the African, Caribbean, South American stations you can get. Was just tuning into some bluegrass show on the legendary WSM Nashville and then surfed to Cajun Radio 1290 out of Lafayette. Been very impressed with its reliability on 3G, trundling on the bus down George St didn't even upset it. I'm told the bandwidth usage is very reasonable too, so all in all four hoofs and a tail up for TuneIn Radio.
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'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!
As grand as the canyon is, for pure wow value, you know, I really have to say i thought Sedona was tops. My photos certainly, and no photos I've even found on the net, really do it justice. The red rocks loom up to and over the town and are coloured in a most astounding way.
It is also a world's best practice centre of woo being a locus of various vortices, UFO-fanciers, Kokopelli channelers and allied commercial enterprises. A hoot.
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.
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. ;-(
I just recently discovered Smithsonian Folkways has a whole series of podcasts on various aspects of its catalogue, the blues, labour songs, world music, Phil Ochs, several on the Harry Smith Anthology and so on. You can search for them under "The Folkways Collection" and "Smithsonian Folkways" (two seperate things for whatever reason) on iTunes or download them as normal MP3s from their website. They describe the 24-part series as "exploring 20th century human experience through sound" which is rather grand but I can't argue.
I have been really digging them so I thought I would burrow into my Folkways collection and do up a 8 tracks mix in tribute. Along with the early hillbilly and blues and folk you associate with Folkways, the collection includes some of their less well known nooks: some African and Central Asian tracks, a Lithuanian lullaby, some mariachi field recordings and some dude called Blind Boy Grunt.
Well now, this is interesting. I get a lot of music PR blather, and mostly I have no idea how I got on their lists or why, and mostly I delete without even opening. But occasionally you gets a heads up on something that could turn out to be gold.
And thus this showed up today, news of a collection "unifying American folk ballads and traditional Uzbek instrumentation" involving amongst others John Carter Cash, Marty Stuart and Dr Ralph Stanley called Pale Imperfect Diamond. Colelctively known as the Cedar Hill Refugees. Recorded in part at the Carter Family homestead.Some sample tracks are on MySpace, "Bury Me Not", "Keys to the Kingdom", "The Wife of Usher's Well" and "Wildwood Flower." WOW! It works, friends. They are on Twitter.
Intrigued by the music of Uzbekistan, composer and producer Jack Clift began visiting the Central Asian country to learn more about the music though studio work with Jadoo, a group of musicians who improvise using traditional Uzbek music. Clift's first trip took place in 2004 and, almost immediately, he began to identify the similarities between Uzbek music and the music of his youth; he likened it specifically to Appalachian mountain music that stirred his imagination. Rather than think the rhythms and tones a world away from one another, Clift noticed the parallel construction.
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
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
DON'T CRY, I know you're a bunch of damn old hippies.
Apparently HBO is being assiduously frakwitted in issuing takedowns of these Inauguration concert vids so be warned it may suddenly disappear. (YouTube rendition!) Also, make sure your irony metre is sitting down.
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
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.
Townes Van Zandt; Utah Phillips; Ray Wylie Hubbard; Hopeton Lewis; Miriam Makeba; Babatunde Lea, Greg Landau and John Greenham; Irene Kral; Jenny Scheinman; Asha Bhosle, Rahul Dev Burman; Pete Molinari; Anita O'Day; The Dirty Dozen Blues Band; Jakob Dylan
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