Blog: Hyperbolium

January Gerry Rafferty , 63, singer-songwriter Don Kirshner , 76, song publisher and television host Charlie Louvin , 83, country music singer John Barry , 77, film score composer February Sir George Shearing , 91, jazz pianist March Ferlin Husky , 85, country music singer Jet Harris , 71, guitarist Ralph Mooney , 82, steel guitarist Pintop Perkins , 97, blues musician April [...]

Stellar live recording of the Move at the Fillmore in 1969 The Move is barely known in the U.S., but its impact on the late-60s British rock scene, and all that tumbled from it, reverberates through to today. By the end of their run, they'd evolved an artier sound that would find full-flower as founders Roy Wood and Bev Bevan, and latter-day member Jeff Lynne, decamped to form the Electric Light Orchestra. But in their prime, they were a rock powerhouse that matched up to the Who's incendiary music and daring social antics. The [...]

Mother-daughter vocal duo harmonize on country-tinged modern pop Singer-songwriter Jaymie Jones is known as part of the sister harmony pop act Mulberry Lane. Signed to Refuge/MCA, they released a trio of albums and charted with the original song "Harmless." Jones' latest project is another family affair, but this time as a duo with her 14-year-old daughter Kelli. Produced by Don Gehman, and backed by top Los Angeles session players (including the rock solid drumming of Kenny Aronoff), the songs range from the twangy "River/White Christmas" to the bubblegum pop-rock "All I Need." What ties [...]

Mother-daughter vocal duo harmonize on country-tinged modern pop Singer-songwriter Jaymie Jones is known as part of the sister harmony pop act Mulberry Lane. Signed to Refuge/MCA, they released a trio of albums and charted with the original song "Harmless." Jones' latest project is another family affair, but this time as a duo with her 14-year-old daughter Kelli. Produced by Don Gehman, and backed by top Los Angeles session players (including the rock solid drumming of Kenny Aronoff), the songs range from the twangy "River/White Christmas" to the bubblegum pop-rock "All I Need." What ties [...]

Seductive folk-pop duets from a one-man-band The Monotrol Kid (born Erik van den Broeck) is a Belgian folksinger who's gigged around Europe and released a single ("Almost"), EP ( Today was a Good Day ), and now this 10-track album. Recorded entirely on his own in a home studio near Brussels, his sound favors that of Elliott Smith and early R.E.M, with dashes of Cat Stevens, Don McLean, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan; his double-tracked duets suggest Simon & Garfunkel, Blind Pilot and the Delevantes. The album hits its deepest moment halfway through with [...]

An excellent cover of Brenda Lee's " Christmas Will Be Just Another Lonely Day " by Wye Oak, live in The Onion's A.V. Club studio. Sorry for the short commercial in front of the music; that's how The Onion helps pay the bills.

Downtown jazz band plays funky soul Steve Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra is a New York nonet, featuring a five-piece horn section of brass and reeds, a foundation of guitar, bass, and drums, and drop-ins of violin and banjo. They've made a practice of not practicing, learning tunes and working out arrangements on stage and in the studio, giving their records the vitality of live performance seasoned by the simmered qualities of a road ensemble. Their repertoire mixes jazz-age standards with reworked contemporary pop songs, mating '20s and '30s classics with the works of the [...]

You can get a feel for the music issued on the Truth & Soul label by noting that they still release old-school vinyl singles. Two solid shots of soul at a time. They also release full albums, of course, and digital, but their musical ethos is rooted in a time when singles dominated radio, and radio dominated listeners' imaginations. In March the Brooklyn-based T&S will release their second album on veteran soul singer Lee Fields . Now in his fifth decade as a vocalist, the edges in Fields' voice are especially well fitted to the throwback sound [...]

Buddy Holly, Paul Anka and Jerry Lee Lewis The recent PBS tribute to Buddy Holly, Listen to Me , revealed this interesting tidbit: Holly's hit song "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" was written for him by Paul Anka! Perhaps not as surprising when you consider that Anka also wrote the theme song for the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Tom Jones' "She's a Lady," and the English-language lyrics for Sinatra's signature "My Way." On top of all that, he donated his composer's royalty for the song to Holly's widow, Maria Elena.

Sophisticated modern folk-pop John Mieras is a college educated musician whose background in choral conducting, counter-tenor singing and French Horn are balanced by the informal schooling he received picking guitar with his grandfather. His voice has the high purity of Don McLean, backed on the opening "Love & Rent" by harmonies that suggest CS&N. His music could be classified as contemporary folk, but in the rich veins explored by Paul Simon, Elliot Smith and others who ventured beyond the acoustic guitar and stool. You can hear a suggestion of Simon's Andean flavors in the [...]

Mid-1930s transcriptions of Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers To mark one-hundred years since the birth of Roy Rogers (November 5, 1911), Varese Sarabande's put together a set of twenty-one early tracks by Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers. Rogers, still performing under his birth name, Leonard Slye, formed the group in the early 1930s with Bob Nolan and Tim Spencer, and they quickly added fiddler (and bass vocalist) Hugh Farr. Before moving on to a film career as Roy Rogers in 1938, he and his fellow Pioneers became the model [...]

Nashville country artist goes direct to his fans Jeremy McComb's 2008 debut, My Side of Town , was the product of serendipitous Nashville connections. Signed to J.P. Williams' Parallel Entertainment, home of Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy, McComb recorded a debut whose mainstream production was salted with an earthy voice and a couple of terrific songs, including the original " This Town Needs a Bar " and a honky-tonk cover of Bob Dylan and Old Medicine Crow's " Wagon Wheel ." But when follow-up projects failed to [...]

It's hard to believe that the bubblegum group that hit with "Simon Says" and "Indian Giver" also produced one of the greatest Phil Spector tributes of all time, "When We Get Married." Their last single for Buddah, it barely bubbled under at #118 in 1969, and marked their last chart appearance. But 40+ years later, it still packs an incredible Spectorian wallop thanks to Richie Cordell's take-no-prisoners production. MP3 | When We Get Married 1910 [...]

• 1910 Fruitgum Company - When we get married

Organ trio riffs on '60s and '70s Italian soundtracks Given the obscurity of the titles, all but the most devoted Italian cineastes will have to take this trio's word that these organ-jazz arrangements are based on movie soundtracks. Their best-known inspirations, Ennio Morricone and Piero Umiliani, are augmented by Gianni Ferrio, Piero Piccioni, Luis Bacalov and others. The selections mix breezy sounds of mid-60s la dolce vita with a good measure of early-70s exploitation cinema. Vince Abbracciante's Hammond, Farfisa and Rhodes range from jazz cool to psych-soul heat, and the rhythm section plays with [...]

An oddly sequenced collection of Diamond's diamonds As anyone familiar with Neil Diamond's career will know, he's had more hits that could fit onto a single CD. But drawing across his stints on Bang, Uni, Capitol (for which he recorded the soundtrack to The Jazz Singer ) and Columbia, this twenty-three track set shows Diamond's maturation from Brill Building songwriter to hit-making singer to worldwide superstar to reinvented elder statesman. Of course, given the set's non-chronological programming, you'll only hear the actual arc of his artistic development if you [...]

Complex, soulful singer-songwriter Americana Nashville-based singer/songwriter Jeff Black has some heavy friends, including mandolinist Sam Bush, guitarist Jerry Douglas and singer/songwriters Matraca Berg, Gretchen Peters and Kim Richey. And though they all lend a hand on his fifth solo album, it's Black's voice – both singing and writing – that gives the album its soul. Black also played most of the instruments, overdubbing himself on guitar, banjo, keyboards, bass and percussion, but the only hint of one-man-bandism is the music's tight grip on the songs. Black's voice takes on many different shades, at various [...]

Texas honky-tonker conjures the Sun spirit of Johnny Cash Dale Watson hasn't exactly kept his musical debt to Johnny Cash a secret, but just how thoroughly he's absorbed Cash's roots has never been more apparent than on this new release. Recording in a trio (with "the Texas Two"), Watson's baritone and tic-tac guitar, Chris Crepps' upright bass and Mike Bernal's snare drum are warmed by Sun's famous acoustics and slapback echo. The fourteen original songs tip their hat more than once to Cash's early works, but at the same time they stay true to [...]

Joey Ramone meets Stiv Bators and Handsome Dick Manitoba This three-song EP could easily be lumped into the neo-Ramones category, but as Jason Diamond of Impose Magazine suggests , there's a strong helping of Stiv Bators' post-Dead Boys pop, and the opening monologue (which tells kids to smoke, drink, fight and eat pizza) rolls in the self-aggrandizing style of the Dictators' Handsome Dick Manitoba. The closing "Bored Out of My Brains" is among the best Ramones songs never actually written or recorded by the Ramones. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com] [...]

Vibraphone master gives holiday classics an exotica twist Together with Martin Denny, vibraphonist Arthur Lyman defined the Hawaii-based instrumental style known as "exotica." After recording the seminal Exotica album with Denny's combo, Lyman struck out on his own, recording numerous jazz-flavored exotica albums for the Hi-Fi and Life labels, including the classic Taboo in 1958. This holiday entry was originally released in 1964, and features Lyman's exquisite mallet work on a dozen titles. In Lyman's hands, these classic Christmas songs take on [...]

Bakersfield country legend sings original holiday fare Buck Owens was no stranger to holiday recordings, having released Christmas with Buck Owens and his Buckaroos in 1965 and Christmas Shopping in 1968. By the time of this album's release in 1971, Owens was recording duets with Susan Raye, and riding the tail of their first three hits, this holiday album was released. Ten of the eleven tracks are originals, capped by Raye's solo cover of Gene Autry's "Here Comes Santa Claus." The songs [...]