Kathleen Loves Music

I guess I’m in a 50s frame of mind. Life is But A Dream by The Harptones is one of those that I was too young to hear when it came out in 1956 (thank goodness I’m finally too young for something). But in 1969, as I was trying to listen to absolutely everything in my college radio library, I stumbled upon in an Old Town Records compilation, and it’s melody and harmonies (led by an incomparable Willie Winfield) have reverberated in my skull ever since. Unfairly, I never paid attention to too much else by them, but if I never heard another song ever I’d still be satisfied.

A bit of record biz trivia: Old Town Records was founded by an MF-ing New York distributor named Hy Weiss who, legend had it, was quite a ball-breaker; he even claimed to be the inventor of payola’s $50 handshake. Though my friend Richard Foos, Rhino Records founder and producer of [Read more…]

Dion is truly one of the greatest singers of the last 50 years. (Anyone care to disagree?) The great songs prove it, but a wonderful trifle like might give some better manifest evidence.

(I posted the cooler album cover, but to be fair my pristinely mastered version comes from my friend Richard Foos’ incredible Doo-Wop Box.)

Geez, I hated this record.

We were 18 and living in a broken down residence hotel in New York, having played in rock bands since we were freshmen in high school, trying very hard to be hip, when Rodney brought it in from his father’s record collection. We’d heard of Coltrane, had no idea who Cherry was, and every time we put on this track we waited about two minutes and *shuddered* before we scratched it off the turntable. It took me years to figure out that it was an anomoly in Coltrane’s discography.

And it was a few years before I got the session was Coltrane’s way of examining the new music being ushered into being in the early 60s by Ornette Coleman (who’s band was playing with Trane and who composed most of the tracks).

I came to love . A lot. The composition, the playing, the players. Yeah, out there. But, yeah, cool.

The radio was on an NPR story and I wasn’t really listening that closely. It seemed strange to me that I’d never heard the song, and why was Sam Cooke signing with James Brown’s Famous Flames? But when James Hunter started speaking with a thick English accent it snapped into focus.

From what I can tell James toured with Van Morrison in the 90s and he has that same reverance and soul for 50s and 60s R&B. Which is just fine with me. The band lopes and rocks, his voice and guitar groove along, the songs do a nice job. The figures are a little sloppy, the singing a bit ragged, but it all fits together really nicely. And it’s fun for someone to commit so completely to this kind of music in today’s harder, edgier world.

Leave it to the English. They love our American music, more than we do sometimes.

–Fred

Silly record but I love it anyway. A totally unpretentious privately pressed local record with 12 tunes about the joys of living in an RV and the benefits of owning a mobile home. Written by Sacramento area RV dealer Ron Schmeck who does a good job pointing out the drawbacks of maintaining a traditional home. Mowing the lawn always was a pain in the ass, and yeah, I DO hate dealing with annoying neighbors — and the co-op board now! I wonder sometimes if I’d be better off with a Good Sam Club membership and an Airstream.

Music is standard late ’70s c&w fare with fiddles and twangy guitar, and vocals that are fairly nondescript, but the lyrics and concept are free of irony and one of a kind. The highlight being the classic “outsider” anthem “I’m Proud to own a Mobile Home”.

–Matthew

I have to say that if come upon this album cover (or any of her others I’ve seen) that would have been it. No chance.

Luckily I’ve got Mike.

Michael’s been my friend since high school, and he’s always been my most reliable musical guide. Our core tastes aren’t really the same, but we overlap in a lot of different areas, including 70s pop/funk. And, unlike me, he’s a careful, thoughtful listener who gives everything a chance, no matter that a picture’s worth a thousand words. He puts together ruminative compilations for all his friends, finding just the right combinations where his taste and yours are in sync. It was on one of those CDs I found Nikka Costa.

Seems like she’s popular in South America (Jerry Lewis is popular is France; wait, that’s unfair), her husband/producer is an Australian rocker. At first I thought was a Sly Stone side from 1971, but [Read more…]

Click here to order this Aimee Mann track from Amazon.

Michael

Probably because of my organ playing white soul days in high school, I find that my post avant-garde jazz listening tends towards the funk. And for some reason “Brother” Jack McDuff is one of my funkiest. (Along with Reuben Wilson and Lonnie Smith.)

I reintroduced myself to McDuff through his latter day, past his prime, Concord recordings. A trifle for sure, but still rockin’.

[Read more…]

When I got into the cartoon business in 1992 one of my first areas of research was cartoon music. After I finished my analysis of why I thought that Hoyt Curtin was the most underestimated composer/arranger in the business I looked around and found that John Kricfalusi had started the re-discovery (probably the discovery actually) of one wacked out dude, Raymond Scott. (In his search for ‘real’ cartoon scoring for Ren & Stimpy, John licensed several original Scott recordings.)

Anyone who has spent anytime watching Looney Tunes has heard so I’ve put an alternative arrangement of that one from 1938.

I’ll let you do your own searching as to the breadth, quality, and craziness of Scott’s output, but from time to time I’ll put up some other tracks of his. Enjoy.

Fred

“Now is the time…”

So begins Allen Toussaint’s inspiring and rocking remake of his composition that gave The Pointer Sisters their first pop hit, and Lee Dorsey a heck of a catalog track. I’ve loved every version of this song, and while I was never a huge fan of Toussaint’s solo recordings, with he’s got me cold. (Turn this one up loud.)

And it’s even more incredible when you realize Arrayit[/media] was recorded days after the 67 year old Toussaint was found after everything he had –his home, his studio, his arrangements…everything in his life– were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina.

My wife was so moved by Irma Thomas’ performance and addition to the lyrics on that she began trying to line up the record company to put out a music video that could be used to draw attention to the plight of the hurricane victims (Ms. Thomas had just finished mortage payments on her club before the [Read more…]