Like many good things in American music I first heard this from degenerate English record collectors . Barbara Lynn Ozen, from Beaumont, Texas played guitar left-handed with style and grace, wrote and sang a handful of classic R & B numbers before disappearing from the music scene to raise a family. Influenced by Guitar Slim, Gatemouth Brown, and Elvis, she fronted an all-girl band called Bobbie Lynn and the Idols, before being discovered and recorded by Huey Meaux . In the late 90's Barbara returned to recording and performing. She's playing at the Ponderosa Stomp in [...]
This is NOT breaking news. There's been a lot of hub bub about this over the last several years. The title of this record was taken from a book about black-face mintrelsy and the white American working class of the 19th century. There was the revelation that Dylan lifted lyrical passages from a Japanese novel about a gangster's dying confession. Then, the Dylan slueths uncovered a variety of references to everything from F. Scott Fitzgerald to the musical appropriations illustrated below. I prefer appropriation , the post-modern term for borrowing, although some will claim it [...]
Great songs are timeless, and great songwriters know this. Harold Arlen was one such songwriter. Below, are a few selections of his songs spanning 70 years. Arlen was born Hyman Arluck, the son of a cantor from Buffalo, New York. He started his career playing piano in the red hot jazz band The Buffalodians, and moved on to the Cotton Club, Broadway and later Hollywood. If you don't know his name, you know his songs. "One for My Baby (and One for the Road)", "Blues in the Night", "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive", "It's Only A Paper Moon", "That Old Black Magic", [...]
Sixty years ago today, Charlie Parker entered C.P. MacGregor Studios in Hollywood for his first session in over seven months. Two fine ballads were recorded: "Dark Shadows" and "This Is Always" with singer Earl Coleman, who was there at Parker's insistence and Ross Russell's dismay. His previous session, on July 29th, 1946 yielded two of the most harrowing and tortured ballads ever recorded, "Lover Man" and "The Gypsy". There was a panic on Central Avenue and Bird, dope-sick and strung out suffered a breakdown, that landed him at Camarillo State Hospital the following day. As painful as they are are, [...]
Alright folks, back to the shellac. Let's get one thing straight. Hank Snow loves women, and he doesn't discriminate. In the sampling below, he's got a Spanish fireball: who "made a perfect date and in her Cadillac-8 love began to expand"; an Arabian Baby; and in my personal favorite, Hank falls for a multi-instrumentalist of stringed instruments fom Memphis, Tennessee. I think I see what he means. [...]
Photo: Bob Dylan and Suze Rotolo © Don Huntstein It's Valentine's Day. It's snowing in New York City Bob Dylan Sings Sam Cooke. Listen: "Cupid" mp3
Okay. Here's another group of small records with big holes loosely themed for romance and matters of cupid. Dion sings "Love Came To Me" with a cool Bronx swagger. Joe Jeffrey pledges his love. Anyone know anything about this guy? Arthur Conley sings "Let's Go Steady", the B-Side of his smash 1967 hit "Sweet Soul Music". I always liked this one better. Produced and co-written by Otis Redding, it's a killer, with a funky Booker T and the MG's backing. George Jones, America's greatest soul singer gives us "Take Me". Check out how he flubs the first line. Doesn't matter- [...]
Listen: "Strange Love" mp3 Buy Listen: "Love Is Strange" mp3 Buy "How you call your loverboy?"... Special Bonus mp3 : HERE Buy
Let's just declare this Valentine's Week. Valentine's Day is is for greeting card companies, florists, Al Capone , chocolatiers, and restaurants that would like to sell you a prix-fixe meal. No songs of ill will at the flu this week. Below are a few testimonials of love. First off, The Falcons from 1962 Featuring Wilson Pickett on lead vocals. There's a lot of talent in this group, joining him are, among others, Eddie Floyd , Sir "Mack " Rice , and Robert Ward on guitar leading the excellent Ohio Untouchables. Then, we get "I [...]
Photo: James Moody, 1951 © Herman Leonard When I was a teenager, whiling away in my lonely purgatory waiting 'til I could get the fuck out of St. Louis, I used to hang out at a record store called Vintage Vinyl . It was a small place back then with records everywhere, from the floor to ceiling. The proprietors must have taken pity on me. Everyday I was in there looking through the stacks of used records seeing what came in, what I had never heard, asking stupid questions, listening and learning. [...]
Okay, time to shift gears. Two examples of vocalese (lyrical vocal interpretation a jazz solo) and an R & B record by a jazz singer. King Pleasure wrote these lyrics to Lester Young's solo on "Jumpin' With Symphony Sid". Annie Ross interprets Wardell Gray, and Billie Holiday makes a rocking record with Tiny Grimes. Set your dial to "right there close to eighty on the dot". [...]
Update to Larry Williams post: This is (pre Sir Douglas) Doug Sahm doing his version of "Slow Down". Thanks to Will Rigby for hipping me to this. Taken from Norton Records' collection San Antonio Rock / The Harlem Recordings 1957-1961. Listen: "Slow Down" mp3
Larry Williams only recorded for a couple of years at Specialty. From those handful of sessions some of the most influential early rock 'n roll tunes were recorded. Both of these numbers as well as "Bad Boy" were all recorded by The Beatles a few years later. The Stones did their take on "She Said Yeah". The version of "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" here is a continuation of my earlier Guitar Slim post . Once again, chaos reigns supreme at Specialty. This take is vastly different than the version I know from the CD [...]
Listening to these old records requires a certain leap of faith. They are, after all, mostly beat up, juked, worn and somewhat distorted. However, I have found in some circumstances, they are a totally different listening experience than the flattened remastered versions I have come to know and mostly love. This record here is a case in point. I've probably listened to the CD reissue of Slim's Specialty sides a hundred times. They are some of the greatest records made by one of New Orleans' greatest showmen of the fifties. The recordings featured here sound very different than [...]
Blind Boy Fuller says "...can't stand pat, swear you gotta step it up and go." And this record does just that-it moves. The first time I heard this song was on Bob Dylan's excellent and often overlooked Good As I Been to You from 1992, the first of two records comprised entirely of standards and old folk and blues numbers. Bob recorded them in his garage in Malibu after an aborted group of sessions in Chicago with David Bromberg , also entirely of other people's songs, including "Kaatskill Serenade" which I was blown away by [...]
Sam Cooke would've been 76 years old today. It's hard to imagine. This is a sweet recording, one of his last releases on Specialty, and came out concurrently with his first Keen single "You Send Me". The band features Rene Hall on guitar, and the great Earl Palmer on drums. Listen: mp3
Forgive me, please. I'm gonna go out on a limb here. Both of these records are scratchy. One was pressed on shellac 80 years ago, and the other one was pressed on an acetate about 40 years ago. Both records have sinister sounding titles, and feature dissonant strings. One fiddle, the other viola. Both records were purchased on ebay. One of them, I bought for roughly 98 cents in a lot with several other very old records. The other was was originally purchased for a quarter and later resold on ebay for over [...]
5000 Cartier Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana, September 2005. Photograph© Robert Polidori In case you haven't seen it, check out Spike Lee's Katrina Documentary: "When The Levees Broke: A Requiem In Four Acts" . It is, I think, a very important film and required viewing for all Americans or anyone concerned about the damage and carelessness of the policies that the smug and contemptable pricks in Washington have brought forth in our country. Alright, I'm gonna restrain myself and not [...]
In Late 1945 Lester Young recorded this masterpiece in Los Angeles, California. Fresh from a dishonorable discharge from the the army that ended with a stint in the detention barracks for among other things, possession of weed, alcohol and being married to a white woman. Needless to say, Lester didn't sign up on his own volition, nor did his commanding officers in Augusta, Georgia appreciate his special genius. A few weeks after this session he appeared at Norman Granz' Jazz at the Philharmonic, with Charlie Parker who was headed to a different type of detention later that year. [...]
In 1953, Joe Turner cut "TV Mama" featuring Elmore James on lead guitar. It's a fine record. I'm not sure who plays on the flipside as there is little documentation for this session. Sounds like the same band, possibly Elmore James in a non-slide, non-lead role. What's interesting is the piano intro is almost a copy of Elmore's signature riff transposed to the piano. If you take a map, and draw a line from 18th and Vine in Kansas City where Joe Turner got his start, to Lillian McMurry's radio shop in Jackson, Mississippi where Elmore James [...]
Boogie Woogie Flu
Bison - Quill
Neutral Milk Hotel- Aeroplane Over the Sea
Shinichi Osawa – Big Beach Mix 2012
Mr Fogg - Eleven
