Serendipity #29

See The World – Gomez

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKJJRnuCwF4

Heard 1/27/2015 around 5:45, at Jerry’s Subs (Fallsgrove)

LP #24 Cold Blood (1969)

What’s wrong with this recipe?

Start with a great bluesy singer, Lydia Pense. (Think Janis Joplin without the death rattle.) Stir in some Latin percussion and a great horn section, add great material to work with, and hook the whole thing up with legendary rock promoter Bill Graham.

You’d think you would wind up with an act that was every bit as successful as, say, Santana, or Blood, Sweat & Tears. Instead, other than at a concert by the band I went to last year, nobody I mention them to has ever heard of them. This album did manage to reach a respectable #23 on Billboard’s sales chart when it came out, and they put out some good stuff afterwards as well.

Fortunately, the best of their music is easily available in digital form, although finding CDs can be hit or miss.

 

Favorite tracks:

I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free

I’m A Good Woman / Let Me Down Easy (really need to be heard back-to-back)

If You Will

Shuffle #46 (January 25, 2015)

There’s No Other Like My Baby – The Crystals

Zydeco Dog – Zachary Smith & The Dixie Power Trio

Watershed – Indigo Girls

Teach Your Children – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Dead And Gone – Gypsy

If I Wanted Someone – Dawes

Stay – Jackson Browne

Shuffle #45 (January 24, 2015)

Mr. Blue – The Fleetwoods

Bubbly – Colbie Caillat

It’s All In The Game – Tommy Edwards

The Carnival Is Over – The Seekers

Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl) – Looking Glass

Lonesome Hound – The Beat Farmers

Nightshift – The Commodores

Thieves In The Temple – Prince

Walking Down Your Street – The Bangles

Just Another Day – John Mellancamp

LP #25 Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express – Closer To It! (1973)

I honestly can’t remember when or why I bought this album. It came out while I was in college, but I can’t remember any friends who were familiar with the band, or hearing any of their stuff on the radio. Possibly I just liked the cover art.   ;-)

 

Organist Brian Auger started out doing straight jazz in the 1960s, moved over to rock/R&B (hiring Rod Stewart for one of his bands), and finally managed to sucessfully fuse the two. According to the liner notes for the 2006 CD reissue, the band basically invented “acid jazz”; I would characterize it as “rock-influenced jazz with incidental vocals”, but what the heck. The sound is heavy on percussion, often with a Latin flavor, and Auger’s Hammond organ, with the vocals (also by Auger) mixed to be much less prominent.

 

By the way, the booklet for the CD has a great poster from a 1973 concert. The following is in large type at the top, surrounding a photo of the band:

 

TRENTON STATE

COLLEGE UNION BOARD

PRESENTS …

BRIAN AUGER’S

OBLIVION EXPRESS

 

Followed by (in smaller type, with a much smaller photo):

 

WITH SPECIAL GUEST

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

 

Favorite tracks:

Happiness Is Just Around The Bend

Voices Of Other Times

Inner City Blues

Shuffle #44 (January 17, 2015)

Prayer In Open D – Emmylou Harris

Love Ain’t For Keeping – The Who

Your Love Is King – Sade

Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall – Coldplay

Your Good Thing (Is About To End) – Lou Rawls

Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me – Gladys Knight & The Pips

Ain’t It Fun – Paramore

Titanium – David Guetta f/ Sia

The Gentle Rain – George Benson

Shuffle #43 (January 10, 2015)

Remember (Walkin’ In The Sand) – The Shangri-Las

Rattler – The Seekers

Funny Not To Care – Lake Street Dive

Deep & Wide & Tall – Aztec Camera

Snow Queen – Blood, Sweat & Tears

Leaving On A Jet Plane – Peter, Paul & Mary

Check Out Your Mind – The Impressions

Let’s Go Crazy – Prince

That’s All Right – Elvis Presley

Favorite (live) Albums

Since I finished posting my favorite 100 songs of all time, I’m turning my attention in 2015 to favorite albums. As with the songs, I decided to spread the love around by having no more than one album per artist. I also ruled out best-ofs and other compilations, since it seemed to me that these would have an unfair edge. (Might possibly get around to doing a separate list of those later.)

 

After starting to figure things out, I decided pretty quickly that 100 would be much too high a number for albums; 25 seemed to be about right. I did cheat a little by coming up a separate list of my 5 favorite live albums, rather than including those in the main list.

 

 

Favorite Live Albums

 

5.  The Robert Cray Band – Live From Across The Pond (2006)

 

As with Richard Thompson and James Hunter, I’ve always felt a little jealous of Robert Cray – it seems unfair that one person should be so gifted as a songwriter, singer, AND guitar player. Cray has gotten some static over the years for not being a pure enough bluesman; while his lyrics are as bluesy as you can get, his music leans more on Southern soul than it does on the traditional 12-bar blues idiom. Although this 2-disc set omits a couple of my favorites (“Strong Persuader” and “Night Patrol”), Cray and his band (especially keyboardist Jim Pugh) are great live, and this probably serves as a better introduction to his music than any of his studio albums do.

 

Best tracks:  Phone Booth, Poor Johnny, Right Next Door (Because Of Me), Bad Influence, The One In The Middle

 

 

4.  Into the Mirror: Del Amitri Live in Concert (2014)

 

Since Del Amitri is one of my all-time favorite bands, this one is a no-brainer, although (1) I’ve only had it for a couple months, and (2) it’s a limited edition. (From the band’s Facebook page: “Demand for the live album of this year's tour was so great that it sold out on the day of release. We have decided to make the tracks available digitally over the holidays - you can now purchase the tracks from "Into the Mirror" at iTunes, Amazon, Spotify etc, etc, etc. (No more cds though, I'm afraid; if you want the nice box and the booklet you will have to steal one.)”)

 

The band broke up in 2002, but decided to get together for a 20-date UK reunion tour in January-February 2014. (If they had picked a more tourist-friendly time of year, I almost certainly would have planned a vacation in England to overlap with one or two of the shows.) This double-CD set documents the tour, featuring most of their most familiar tracks plus a few that were new to me. The band sounded as though it had never left, and the crowds were appropriately enthusiastic.

 

Best tracks:  Always The Last To Know, Be My Downfall, Roll To Me, Driving With The Brakes On

 

3.  The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East (1971)

 

One of the all-time classics, dating back to my college days, by the greatest blues/rock/jam band of all time. The only problem is that listening to it properly in the car requires some planning, since 2 of the 7 tracks are each over 19 minutes long. (It does make for a nice round-trip drive to Nats Park, though.)

 

Best tracks:  Stormy Monday, In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed, Whipping Post (all 23:03 of it)

 

 

2.  The Youngbloods – Ride The Wind (1971)

 

To the best of my admittedly hazy recollection, this was the first LP I bought after enrolling at Lebanon Valley. I didn’t buy it at the college bookstore, but at a newspaper/magazine store a few blocks off campus that had a small selection of records. It was pretty much of an impulse purchase – I loved their modestly-successful single “Sunlight” and had picked up “Get Together” when it was first released in 1967, two years before it hit the top 10 – and this album contained both songs.

 

Interestingly enough, I didn’t realize when I bought it that it was a live album, since nothing on the outer packaging explicitly says so (although I might have guessed from the length of the 6 tracks). Like the Allman’s effort, it was recorded at the legendary Fillmore East in New York (over three nights in 1969). Turned out the Youngbloods were a pretty great jam band in their own right, although with more of a folk-rock feel. I’ve never been a huge fan of jam bands in general, since I’ve heard too many overextended performances that simply meander aimlessly, but here the band manages to stretch out the songs nicely from the original studio versions without losing the main thread (or the listener). They also had a sense of humor; “Sugar Babe” is one of the few songs in my music collection to feature a kazoo.

 

Best tracks:  Sunlight, Ride The Wind, Sugar Babe (basically side one of the original album)

 

 

1.  Eva Cassidy – Live at Blues Alley (1996)

 

I’ve raved enough about Eva Cassidy elsewhere, so I won’t repeat myself here. This was Eva’s first solo album (on an obscure local label, naturally), and in fact the only solo album released during her lifetime. Despite her shyness, she was a dynamic live performer, and one who refused to limit her repertoire to a single genre; she could mesmerize an audience whether doing jazz, blues, standards, folk, or soul. In addition to Eva’s vocals, the arrangements and band on the album are superb. This set doesn’t include “Over The Rainbow”, but otherwise is a great introduction to her work.

 

Best tracks:  People Get Ready, Stormy Monday, Blue Skies, Fields Of Gold

Favorite Christmas Songs

By popular request, I gave it some thought and made a list of my favorite 10 Christmas songs of all time. (A little late for this past December, but really early for 2015.) 

1. White Christmas – The Drifters
2. Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town – Bruce Springsteen
3. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – The Pretenders
4. Please Come Home For Christmas – The Eagles
5. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love
6. Blue Holiday – The Shirelles
7. Christmas Auld Lang Syne – Bobby Darin
8. All I Want For Christmas – Timbuk 3
9. Merry Christmas Baby – Charles Brown
10. The Christmas Song – Nat King Cole

Serendipity #28

On And On – Stephen Bishop
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYM0z-IgGUs
 

Heard 1/2/2015 around 11:45, at Wegman’s (Germantown)