No Posts for a day or two....

On a short break....back soon.....

JJ Grey, 1

Okay, the sound could be better, but dig the STYLE in this performance:

"Orange Blossoms"

JJ Grey is one of those guys who really does bring the flavor of the place where he grew up:  in the country, near Jacksonville, FL.  Nearly everything written about JJ & his band Mofro references their
"swamp" sound, but these aren't the swamps of the Louisiana bayou, thick with moss.  They're the swamps of the northernmost Everglades, clean and clear (at least where the developers haven't gotten to 'em yet).  And Grey's music has that blend of clarity and funk that you hear in some of the best deep Southern soul, undoubtedly one of his strongest inspirations.

For a taste of that, check this version of "The Devil You Know" by 100 Proof (Aged in Soul):\

"The Devil You Know"

Those are the first two tracks of Grey's lates album, "Orange Blossoms".  But he's done four already, and they ALL are solid & worth checking out.  Here's one of the older songs:

"Mississippi"

JJ Grey & Mofro are out on tour right now, and they'll be playing at Shank Hall in my current hometown of Milwaukee *tonight*.  Here's one more taste of their live shows:

 "War"

Good stuff.

Jason Narducy (Verbow), 2: Rockets Over Sweden

Not sure about this video, but I'm VERY sure about the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeq0oaROvMM

It helps to turn it WAY up:)

When I wrote about Verbow June 9, I mentioned this "other" group that Jason Narducy led after Verbow split up. Since then, I've listened over and over, with ever-growing pleasure, to the one recording issued by that group, Rockets Over Sweden. That six-song ep, "Penny Coliseum", may be a little hard to find, but trust me, IT'S WORTH THE EFFORT. It may have the most straight-up rock songs that Jason Narducy ever writes, and wow is he good at those.

Based on this excellent article published after Verbow's reunion show, it doesn't sound like we'll ever hear any more from Rockets Over Sweden:

http://www.luminomagazine.com/mw/content/view/3003/1

but you can see one fairly sketchy live video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBro9_E2C_Q

and I hope you'll check out "Penny Coliseum" sometime. Those songs are worth some trouble to find!

Vertical Horizon, 1

(Certainly not the perfect music video, but...) the perfect pop song?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZoD8JEFjAE

Lots of people apparently thought so in 1999, when that song was a rather large hit. As with so many "major label success stories", though, the sequel was not so happy. Vertical Horizon, who'd been slogging it out for eight years before BMG "discovered" them, managed to re-release their back catalog and eke out one more album after the big hit before they parted ways in 2003.

But they kept playing, and last year--SIX YEARS later--Vertical Horizon finally got another album out. It's actually pretty good. And it has a surprise: Rush drummer Neal Peart guests on four songs, and contributes lyrics to the final track ("Even Now"):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMQxvDVzd4M

Yes, it's a BALLAD and it does not sound like Rush, but it's sweet, isn't it? Even if it does sound like you might hear it on American Idol someday:)

The salvation of this band for me: Matt Scannell, the lead singer & songwriter. When he gets to be himself, it's pretty good. Remember that perfect pop song? Listen to it this way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZl_146aR68

Yeah, that's right:)

Rockin' Dopsie, 1

"The Crowned Prince of Zydeco" (according to the title of one of his early cassettes), Rockin' Dopsie might never have eclipsed Clifton Chenier, but he sure knew how to party:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a_0BAW71E8

and I bet you won't forget that melody for awhile! Rockin' Dopsie (born Alton Rubin in Carencro, LA, in 1932) spread the gospel of zydeco around the world. He never really achieved "mainstream" success (although he added some tasty spice to Paul Simon's "Graceland"), but he left a fine legacy of recordings and performances. And his son, Rockin' Dopsie Jr., carries on the tradition with their band The Twisters.

Rubin wasn't a great songwriter like Chenier. But he *was* a great accordionist, and he knew how to run a band. On recordings, his music is best appreciated live, as on the fine "Big Bad Zydeco" (1988) and on the small label release "In New Orleans" (recorded 1984, released 2002). And it's definitely worth checking out any videos of Rubin or his son that get posted online. For example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a_0BAW71E8

(That's Rockin' Dopsie, Jr., on washboard.) Although Rubin died in 1993, it's clear that the music lives in. And in this renewed time of trouble for the Gulf and our country, that's one reason to rejoice.

Willy Mason, 1

One hit? I wonder.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3BCRsuQmQA

"Oxygen" got Willy Mason the Big Break: several times. When someone who was just passing through Cape Cod heard him play it live on the radio, and hooked Mason up with Conor Oberst. When a BBC dj saw him play it at SXSW and put it on the radio. And most of all, when people all over the world heard it on his first album "Where the Humans Eat" in 2004.

It's a song that opens doors. And maybe a song that defines a musician, for better or worse. Mostly better, I guess. It's certainly a good song, but it's *not* the only good song that Mason's written. The two albums that Mason's released have lots of others, like this one from "If the Ocean Gets Rough" (2007):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLiqZ7BdpAI

But, well, that second (and so far, last) album came out in 2007--ages ago, in the "pop market" terms beloved of his label(s) EMI UK/Virgin UK. So, what's up?

Well, if this little slice of life is any indication:

http://vimeo.com/1899737

Willy is doing just fine. In fact, based on this other one here--and the fine song he sings----

http://vimeo.com/5611740

I'd have to say, "better than fine".

Let's go see him, next time we get the chance, and find out for ourselves.

Franz Berwald, 1

I love all kinds of music, by all kinds of musicians. But I've always had a soft spot for musicians who are innovators, outsiders, or both.

And Franz Berwald (1796-1868) certainly was both. The son of a German concert violinist, he grew up in Stockholm, Sweden at a time when it was impossible to make a living as a composer there.

But that didn't keep him from trying. Berwald had a couple of relatively happy stays in Vienna, where he married, wrote his first symphony, and had two of his operas performed successfully. But he always came back to Stockholm, despite a near-total lack of recognition from the Swedish public and critics.

To support himself and his family, Berwald tried his hand at the glass-blowing business, and made an unsuccessful attempt to run a sawmill. Finally, he found a niche in the relatively new field of physical therapy. Throughout it all, he never stopped composing, although he gained no recognition until the very last years of his long life.

Berwald's music sounds strikingly original even today, with novel formal construction and strong, beautifully developed themes. He was fondest of his operas, but his symphonies are his best-known works. Championed by Sixten Ehrling, Neeme Jarvi, and Herbert Blomstedt, they have been performed around the world, and even have made it (finally) into the "standard repertoire" in Scandinavia. I once saw Blomstedt give a particularly moving performance of one of the symphonies with the San Francisco SO, who went on to make fine recordings of all four with him.

This lovely version of the first movement of Berwald's Symphony No. 3, with Roy Goodman and the Swedish RSO, gives you a good idea of his music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9akDcG4Sfk

Berwald's chamber works are equally original and often very moving. Here's the first movement of the Grand Septet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcytdk5FwM0

I hope that you will explore more of this man's fine music, and that looking at the woodcut in the last video wasn't too disturbing.....you can see that he was a determined man, can't you?

Fontella Bass, 1

So, you KNOW this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXSocE_M1G4

"Rescue me, take me in your arms
Rescue me, I want your tender charm
'Cause I'm lonely and I'm blue
I need you and your love too
Come on and rescue me...."

...but, do you know Fontella Bass?

She grew up singing gospel with her mom, but soon found her way into the bar circuit, singing with blues great Little Milton and soul legend Oliver Sain. Early in her career, she recorded a top-10 R&B hit with Bobby McCLure:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufQQUdeCaec

(anyone else hear the blueprint for Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell there?)

Then she made her solo debut with THAT song....and, by the way, she didn't just sing that song, she WROTE it. And she refused to roll over when Chess Records wouldn't give her the writing credit, or her royalties. Which pretty much killed her "career". A few singles and one album later, she found herself off the label and a virtual exile in Paris.

Which wasn't that bad. In Paris, she made two great albums and the legendary Theme De YoYo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=perVFDDy_xg

with the Art Ensemble of Chicago and her husband, the trumpeter Lester Bowie (whom she'd met in Little Milton's band). Returning to the States, she recorded her best solo album, "Free" (1972) and the great lost single "Who You Gonna Blame". They were huge artistic successes and even bigger commercial failure.

Soon afterwards, Bass quit performing and stayed home to raise the four kids she had with Bowie. And that was that, except.....it wasn't.

In the 90s Bass made her comeback as a gospel singer, with the albums "No Ways Tired" and "Travellin'". Her voice is a little more reined-in than you might expect, but the songs are wonderful, and so is she. Others noticed, and she got to do the occasional guest spot, like this memorable one, where she first appears just over 50 seconds in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F1RVXfiWEE

Oh, and, those royalties? After over 30 years and countless lawsuits, Bass finally started collecting them. Sometimes, things DO turn out right.

Tinariwen, 1

Many musicians write and sing about living hard lives. Some of them actually have lived them. And a few have lived through, and done, things that most of us only can imagine.

In the words of their FaceBook page, "Tinariwen are poet-guitarists and soul rebels from the Southern Sahara desert. Their music expresses the aspirations of their people, the Kel Tamashek or 'Touareg' of the southern Sahara desert. The guitar is their weapon. Simplicity is Freedom."

The leader of Tinariwen is Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, born in what now is northern Mali. As a small child, Alhabib saw his father killed by Malian soldiers. He grew up in refugee camps in Libya and Algeria, learning his people's traditional music but also listening to Algerian rai, Moroccan chaabi, and Western rock and blues, which became significant influences on Tinariwen. Alhabib met the original members of Tinariwen in Algeria, where they participated together in military training for projected Tuareg insurgencies, recruited additional members and built up their own collective.

After returning to Mali in 1989, several of the members of Tinariwen actually *did* participate in an armed insurgency, which ended in a peace agreement with the Malian central government in early 1991. Then they lay down their weapons, became full-time musicians, and began spreading their message a new way. "From the Kalashnikov to the guitar.....only the positive".

But still they were rebels: they made cassettes and distributed them around a region with no radio, no newspapers and (then) no Internet, building a following the only way they could. They built a recording studio and invited other musicians to come there and record for free. And they played on until the Western world "discovered" them, launching them on a series of worldwide tours and recording dates.

So what does the music sound like? Listen (and watch):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcqlOq1cjjc

And if you want to take a little more time to hear Tinariwen's story first hand, watch this 11-minute video from Al Jazzeera English:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MHAKNL-Vkg

"The desert shows you nothing; you must find everything....."

Tinariwen play at Millenium Park in Chicago on Thursday, June 17. I'll be there, and I hope that some of you can too!

Verbow, 1

I believe that the band Verbow is the best thing ever to come out of my soon-to-be new hometown, Evanston, IL. But then, I also believe that Verbow is just one of the best things ever:)

Jason Narducy & Alison Chesney formed Verbow in the mid-90s as an outgrowth of their duo Jason and Alison, where she played cello and he played guitar and sang. With a bassist and drummer, they carried those elements forward to build one of the most powerful bands I've ever heard. Not just loud.....POWERFUL. Because of her imaginative cello playing and arrangements. Because of his beautiful songs and singing, and his powerful & gorgeous guitar. Because the band was tight but never formulaic.

Verbow played lots of great shows, released two amazing studio albums, and then broke up. You can hear those studio albums on MySpace:

http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.artistalbums&albumid=white-out-8103960&artistid=14069793

and there are some good live videos on YouTube (although the sound isn't great). Here's one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqSoHY-Bres

After the band broke up, Jason became the bassist in Bob Mould's band, and Alison transformed herself into the "experimental" cellist Helen Money:

http://www.helenmoney.com/launch.html

Jason also formed the band Rockets Over Sweden. They released an ep featuring some of his best songs and singing, along with a feast of power chords. Recently Jason's been heard in the band Boston Spaceships. He also plays the occasional gig around Chicago, and continues to tour and record with Bob Mould.

This month Verbow released "Live at Schuba's", a compilation of performances from 1998-2001. Containing many of their best songs, it's worth checking out. They did a well-received reunion show at Schuba's this May to celebrate the release. So maybe we'll see them again...........

Yank Rachell, 1

Yank Rachell may have been the world's greatest blues mandolinist. Blues MANDOLIN? Yeah, you read that right. Listening to him, you wonder why there aren't hundreds of people using the mandolin to play the blues. Seems like you can go places with that mandolin that you can't reach any other way. And Mr. Rachell explored a lot of them in his long, productive life.

Born in Brownsville, TN, in 1910, Yank was in the right place at the right time for the blues recording boom of the late Twenties. He joined up with the guitarist Sleepy John Estes and harmonica/jug player Hammie Nixon in one of the great Memphis jug bands, playing the parks and clubs around Beale Street. Rachell and Estes got enough notice to be able to record 20 classic sides for Victor in 1929. There's a nice little tribute site for Rachell on MySpace where you can hear a couple of those sides:

http://www.myspace.com/yankrachell

Yank was a pretty fair singer, as you'll hear on "38 Pistol", but it's a little hard to hear his mandolin through all that surface noise! As with so many other musicians, the Depression hit his career very hard. But he kept on, and "discovered" (and made some great records with) the first Sonny Boy Williamson. After Williamson was shot to death, Rachell married, settled down to working "straight" jobs, and just about stopped playing music altogether.

Until the folk/blues revival! After his wife's death, Rachel reunited with Estes and Nixon in Chicago, and made some great records in the early-to-mid 1960s. In his mid-fifties, he sounds better than ever. Here's a wonderfully grainy 55 second clip of Rachell and Estes in 1969 (just click on Real Player or Windows Media Player on the web page to choose how to play it):

http://www.adelphirecords.com/video/YankSleepy.html

Yank settled down in Indianapolis, where he performed regularly, and he kept recording right up until his death in 1997. To my ears he never lost much, even well into his 80s.

As good as the records are, though, they only barely give an idea of what the man could do live. To see that, watch some of this video of Rachell at the Chicago Blues Festival in Grant Park. It's from May, 1993, when he was *83* years old! Unless you want to hear him tune up and talk about how cold it was outside, you can skip right to about 2:10 into this.........just get prepared to hear something that might be brand new to you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfYMsRzVFXQ

To read an obituary and a couple of great stories about Yank (including one that you can hear him tell on that MySpace page: "My First Mandolin"), visit this short tribute page:

http://www.bluesworld.com/Yank.html

(hey...."Next fall when we're all eating pork, you can eat that mandolin"!!!!!!!!!!!)

If there are folks playing blues mandolin right now that you dig, please tell us about them. That's what that "Comments" thing is for:)

William Elliott Whitmore, 1

I don't remember what I was doing when I first heard William Elliott Whitmore's music. All I remember is that I STOPPED whatever it was. And listened. And then went and found everything that I could lay my hands on about him and his music. And then paid to download as much as I could, and ordered physical copies of what wasn't available to download. And then listened to all of it. A LOT. And loved it even more.

And I love it even more than that now. So I'll keep this brief and just urge you to listen to the music, watch some videos, hear an interview or two with the man, and decide for yourself.

The bare bones: Whitmore's a singer/songwriter who grew up in the hills of Eastern Iowa, on a farm near the Mississippi River. He sings and plays guitar and (sometimes) banjo. His songs express his deep connectedness to the land and his family, friends, principles, loves, hopes, fears and doubts. He is articulate, passionate, and smart. He sings about the big things--life and death, loss and redemption, patriotism and shame--but he keeps it SIMPLE. His guitar and banjo playing aren't flashy, but they work. And his VOICE. Well, just listen to it here (and enjoy learning a little more about his life):

http://www.vimeo.com/7902412

If that intrigues you (and I hope it does), you can find a lot more of his music at his myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/williamewhitmore

If you only have a little time there, at least try to watch the video for "Hell or High Water" and listen to the song "Diggin' My Grave". I hope you'll be glad that you did--and that you feel moved to hear more!

Malicorne and Gabriel Yacoub, 1

The "folk revival" and the rise of folk-rock in the 1950s-1970s created a worldwide platform for hundreds of Irish and Scottish folk and rock musicians. Opportunities were less plentiful for Celtic musicians from non-English speaking areas like Brittany, Normandy and Galicia. One musician who did break through internationally was the Breton harpist Alan Stivell, with his masterpiece "The Renaissance of the Celtic Harp" in 1971.

Gabriel Yacoub, who was a guitarist and singer in Stivell's touring band, soon left to start the band Malicorne. Malicorne's first four albums from the 1970s contain mainly arrangements of French and Bretan fok songs, with a few originals by Yacoub. Some of my favorite folk-rock recordings, they feature beautiful melodies, unusual harmonies, and some tough rock arrangements. Often compared to Steeleye Span, the band really has a very special character of its own. You can hear ten (!) selections from those early albums at the official Malicorne MySpace page:

http://www.myspace.com/malicorneofficiel

With L'Extraordinaire Tour de France d'Adelard Rousseau (1978), Yacoub fully emerged as a songwriter. A concept album about a guild craftsman's journeys through France, and his accompanying spiritual explorations, Adelard Rousseau was a high point. Like the first four albums, it's on iTunes and eMusic. This homemade YouTube video is a haunting accompaniment to the album track "L'Conduit":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN8BO1ayFLc

and will give you a good idea of their special singing style and (in the last minute) their instrumental flavor.

Malicorne later moved in a pop/rock direction that wasn't always successful, either commercially or artistically. But their last studio album Les Cathédrales de L'Industrie (1986) is amazing. Sounding like a bizarre French cross between Peter Gabriel and Laurie Anderson, they create sounds that far transcend that time and space. This recording never was easy to find, and it seems available only via expensive used copies now. But try to hear it if you can!

When Les Cathédrales flopped commercially, Malicorne released a live album and then split up. Yacoub went on to make a series of wonderful solo albums. More about those another time....

The FIgureheads, 1

The Figureheads believe in the power of music: to communicate, to enlighten, to inspire. For the last few years, they've lived that belief by doing workshops in schools, helping kids learn to express themselves through hip-hop. Their messages? Think creatively. Collaborate. Realize your potential.

The Figureheads are an amazing positive hip-hop force themselves, live and on records. Just watch this and you'll see (and hear):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVUfON3veHo

Check their web site at

www.figureheadsinc.org

for more. As always here, your comments are welcome!!!

Why?

This is a blog about music, and musicians, that I love. I write it for the pleasure of sharing. Maybe you'll discover, or re-discover, music that you like here. Maybe you can help me find something special. Whatever happens, this always will be true for me: THE MUSIC AND THE MUSICIANS ARE WHAT MATTER.