FEATURING…
Grandaddy • Sleater-Kinney • Wimps • Vampire Weekend • Oscar Scheller • Rostam • The Strokes • Clairo • Eternal Summers • Naomi Punk • Public Practice • Tweens • Yeah Yeah Yeahs • Remember Sports • Swearin’ • The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir
Read MoreDead Movie Stars
Guitarist Wayne Kramer has made a lot of music since the MC5 and being imprisoned. His first solo effort was a 45 for Jake Riveria's Radar label in 1979, and for that he worked with producer Martin Rushent. His solo albums show a range of musical interests and abilities. When he played in my Tower, this was certainly one of his most power numbers, as it captures his flair for jazz, performance narratives and much more. It was a joy to present him and if you have not been listening to his work over the past 30 years or so, start now!
Read MoreThe Price of Love
After 1962 the Everly Brothers pretty much stopped having big hits in the US. They remained more popular in the UK and in 1965 they reached #2 over there with, to me, one of their greatest records, The Price Of Love. In the UK it has had many interesting covers, as the Status Quo did it in the late 1960s and in the mid 1970s Brian Ferry made a very good version. The song does not seem as popular here, though not that long ago Buddy Miller did it and did it very well. The Everly's version, the big UK hit really must be heard!
Read MoreThe Feminine Look
Mickie Most is mostly known as a producer, and sometimes as a producer who really hacked off his own artists, like Donovan and Terry Reid and the Yardbirds. Still, he was very successful over more than two decades. Early on, though, Most was a singer. He wad a good deal of success in S Africa during the beginning of the 1960s, returning to London in 1962. Most was one of the first producers to use Jimmy Page and Big Jim Sullivan regularly, and this 1963 example, though the lyrics are a bit stereotyped, has much wonderful Page!
Read MoreSitting By The Window
The weather here in Chicago has alternated between beautiful and then cold and damp. It has been raining again for hours and promises to rain off and on ALL day. In that spirit, let's hear this Moby Grape which includes the rain among its mise-en-scène to an emotional lament. It really is a moving and beautifully sung record!
Read MorePut It In
Drummer and producer Bill Curtis oversaw the rise of The Fatback Band and he has been involved in many aspects of r&b, funk, latin and rap for decades. This is one of his earlier productions featuring guitarist and singer Johnny King. It borrows from River Deep Mountain High to develop a strong and memorable groove. It seems to have been released in 1968.
Read MoreBetter Beware
I just love the music Esther Phillips made. Though she had a tumultuous life and battled drug use, she made her singing mark on blues, r&b, jazz and soul, just to cite the most obvious. She was an accomplished singer at age 15, and had big hits on her own or with Mel Walker. Most of her early records were overseen by the great Johnny Otis, and she benefited from his big band. Better Beware opens with staccato lead guitar from Pete Lewis leading to and a stirring arrangement. After Phillips has her pointed say, Ben Webster enters on sax, relaxed at first and then he gets going. Lewis follows him. It is truly amazing how much music and emotion fit into less that two minutes and forty seconds!
Read MoreEvil Ways
Because of Santana, the Willie Bobo tune, Evil Ways, has become well known. It was written by Bobo's guitarist, Clarence Henry and appeared on album in 1967. A rock group from East L.A., The Village Callers, recorded their version in the late spring of 1969 for the L.A. label Rampart, and it did well enough in California markets that it was picked up by the Bell label in September. It's popularity was noticed by employees of CBS in San Francisco, and they started a campaign to have it released as a 45, since Santana's Jingo had died. They were successful and at the very end of December, Evil Ways became the second Santana 45, and hence a big hit. It isn't just that the Village Callers deserve some note; their record is also really great and deserves to be heard. If it is really true that the accomplished pianist Hector Rivera had something to do with their management, that would also give the Callers a direct tie to the N.Y.C. latin soul and boogaloo scene. But I have no idea if that is actually true.
Read MoreGoing Back Home
Harmonica Slim (Travis Blaylock) has spent most of his musical life as a sideman, playing on records that are not by him. He has made one well respected album and at least four 45s. This is on the earliest, and it is a beautiful example of harmonica blues. He has the right, almost natural tone and though it was most likely recorded in Los Angeles, it could pass for something done in Chicago during the mid 1950s, which is when it was recorded. Once upon a time, blues records like this were not uncommon. That is not at all the case now.
Read MoreFEATURING…
Aerosmith • Cat Power • FIDLAR • Lana Del Rey • David Bowie • Wesley Willis • Ty Segal • No Parents • Amyl And The Sniffers • Ezra Furman • Fea • Downtown Boys • Courtney Barnett • Sleater-Kinney • Beverly • Mikey Mike
Read MoreFEATURING…
Zwan • The Strokes • Local H • The Cars • Remember Sports • Lisa Prank • Trampled by Turtles • Billie Eilish •Mark Ronson • The Ronettes • Macy Gray • Lizzo • The Black Lips • Ronnie Spector • Daniel Johnston • Supergrass
Read MoreFEATURING…
120 Days • Interpol • Karen O • LCD Soundsystem • Parquet Courts • Rilo Kiley • Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band • Julia Jacklin • Wilco • Ezra Furman • Warren Zevon • The Breeders • Grapetooth • Pulp
Read MoreFEATURING…
Titus Andronicus • The B-52's • Wavves • Madonna • N.W.A. • Cansei De Ser Sexy • Sleigh Bells • Lily Allen • Arctic Monkeys • Nico Vega • Tart • Queen • David Bowie
Read MoreINTERNET STREAMING AND WHY IT'S OK AND NOT
I don't if any of this makes sense, but Work is for workers, and play is for players…
Read MoreTart Live at WholesomeStudio. Detroit at its finest.
Read MoreI Can’t Stand the Rain
Still raining, and so wet I'm not dreaming. Some main roads are flooded and still the rain comes. Since I've posted this great Ann Peebles hit before, let me note that many other people have covered it, including Lowell George (a good version) Seal (also good) and Tina Turner (not so good). The biggest hit version was by Eruption, in 1977, as it was a top ten hit everywhere in Europe and even made the top 20 here in the US. It is pretty good, and the lead singer at that time, Precious Wilson, can sing! So may the rain dissipate.
Read MoreToday at the Soul Station, I present the Isley Brothers' Brother, Brother, Brother and 3+3 albums. I think these are two of their very best albums.
Read MoreBruca Manigua
Arsenio Rodriguez was one of the most important figures in the rise and development of Afro Cuban music for several decades beginning in the late 1930s. His contributions are immense. The Orquesta Casino de la Playa, with Miguelito Valdes on vocals, was one of the first bands to record a song by Rodriguez, even before he began making his own recordings. This song, Bruca Manigua, with lyrics in Bozal, has been recorded many times since, by Nilo Menendez, Xavier Cugat, Orquesta Afro-Cubana Batamu, and more recently Buena Vista Social Club. This version is by a group that is basically a mystery. It may, or may not, have been recorded in Cuba, though the Coast label was apparently based in the US. The band also had a 78 on the Mexican Peerless label. There is no vocal and the arrangement clearly has some jazz influence, in addition to the way it ends, with a repeating montuno part that almost gets at the mambo. It is, even without the lyrics, quite beautiful and powerful!
Read MoreTalkin’
Into the mid 1970s Barry White used a group named White Heat as his touring band. White and singer-producer Bob Relf oversaw the group's RCA album in 1975, but sometime after that there were disputes, and all but one member of the group left White. Then that band became Hot Ice, with an album in 1977. Later this record was released as by Smash. Smash then became Switch and finally DeBarge. The White Heat album is really great and covers several aspects of funk and soul, even getting a little trippy, as in this track which works on a slow funky groove, has nice fuzzy lead guitar and strong horns before its downtime ending.
Read MoreVido’s Bop
You don't hear much about tenor player Vido Musso. He emerged from the big band era of the 1930s, and by the time he was a main soloist for Stan Kenton it was the mid 1940s and Musso, along with Kai Winding, Pete Rugolo, and others in Kenton's band he began to be attracted to be-bop. Musso flirted with it in early 1946 for Savoy, and with a few of the same cats, cut this boppish track in 1947. It really is more the tune and the arrangement here that is boppish, as for the most part, the fine solos are still mostly in the swing thing. It shows how many aspects of what Gillespie and Parker introduced became made and remade after their most influential recordings of 1945 and 1946. Musso has his own sound and mildly gruff approach and at his best seems reminiscent of Lockjaw Davis, Lucky Thompson and Illinois Jacquet, who were all his contemporaries.
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