The Bottle –
Gil Scott-Heron
Heard
11/23/2015 around 12:00, at Zoe’s Kitchen (Kentlands)
Monday, November 23, 2015
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Serendipity #50
Mexican
Radio – Wall of Voodoo
Heard
11/18/2015 around 6:00, at Jerry’s Subs (Fallsgrove)
Madeleine Peyroux, The Barns at Wolf Trap, 11/17/2015
Row L, Seat
106 (further back than usual, but dead center)
Nice show!
Main level was pretty full (did have 3 empty seats next to me). Slightly
smaller combo on stage even than I had expected, just Madeleine, plus two other
wonderful musicians on guitar and upright bass, who also contributed harmony
vocals on a few songs. (Sort of thought they might have someone on keyboards.)
Started with
“Take These Chains From My Heart” (popularized by both Hank Williams and Ray
Charles) and “Between The Bars”. Several songs in, paid tribute to the late
Allen Toussaint with a politely funky version of “Everything I Do Gonna Be
Funky (From Now On)”, followed by a few songs with just Madeleine and her
acoustic guitar. Other highlights included “Don’t Cry Baby” and Randy Newman’s “Guilty”.
Really
kicked it into gear at the end, concluding with three tracks from her
breakthrough Careless Love album:
Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me To The End Of Love”, “Don’t Wait Too Long”, and the
title track. They then encored with the final cut from that CD, “This Is Heaven
To Me”. No intermission – whole show ran just under 90 minutes, meaning that I
actually made it home around 10:00.
Monday, November 16, 2015
The Brothers Four, Bethesda Blues & Jazz Club, 11/12/2015
1960s folk
legends the Brothers Four, still with one original member, had done a nice set
in an area church a few years back; this time they occupied the much larger
Bethesda Blues & Jazz Club for an enjoyable performance, with a two-hour show
divided into two sets. Most of the tables were filled, although the
theater-style seats in the rear were empty (as they don’t go on sale until the
table seats have sold out).
The group’s
trademark vocal harmonies worked well on such slow tunes as “Try To Remember”
and two of their best-known hits, “Green Leaves Of Summer” and “Greenfields”
(their next-to-last pre-encore number). The most enthusiastic crowd reactions,
however, seemed to come on the uptempo numbers where Mark Pearson pulled out
his banjo, such as their four-song “bluegrass medley”. Their two encores were a
stunning version of “Shenandoah” and finally “Michael Rowed The Boat Ashore” (a
personal favorite of mine from my childhood).
The previous
time I saw them, they did a great, sad song about the end of an old family farm
– I hadn’t heard it before, and they didn’t do any kind of introduction. Based
on the lyrics, I was finally able to chase it down (I thought) on the Internet:
“Time To Be Planting Again” by Leslie Eliel. They started into the song
Thursday night, but once they got into the chorus, I wondered about whether I
had found the correct song, despite the many similarities. Apparently Mark and
Leslie wrote the song together but decided to go in different directions with
the chorus, as the Brothers Four title their version “Heart Of The Heartland”.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Allen Toussaint
Legendary
New Orleans songwriter, producer, and pianist Allen Toussaint died November 9
at the age of 77. Although a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,
Toussaint was certainly not a household word, although most folks would
recognize some of the biggest hit songs he wrote – “Mother-In-Law”, “Southern
Nights”, and “Yes We Can Can”, among others.
My favorite
Allen Toussaint songs and versions:
On Your Way Down – Trombone Shorty (with Toussaint on piano)
A Certain
Girl – Warren Zevon
All These
Things – The Uniques
Working In A
Coal Mine – Lee Dorsey
I Like It
Like That – The Dave Clark Five
Freedom For
The Stallion – The Hues Corporation
LP #4 The Beat Farmers – Tales Of The New West (1985)
While the
Beat Farmers did a number of great songs after their debut album – most notably
“Riverside”, “Road To Ruin”, and a great cover of Neil Young’s “Powderfinger” –
they never put together an entire studio album nearly as great as this one. In
addition to “Reason To Believe” (one of the few covers of a Springsteen song
that completely surpasses the Boss’s original), the band also did nice versions
of Lou Reed’s “There She Goes Again” and John Stewart’s “Never Going Back”.
What really makes the album work, however, are the originals, written by
current band members Buddy Blue and Jerry Raney, and close associate (and
future member) Paul Kamanski. The production by Steve Berlin (of Los Lobos) and
Mark Linett is also impeccable.
The Beat
Farmers are one of the best exemplars of the 1980s “cowpunk” movement, although
unlike bands such as the Long Ryders their music steered clear of political
overtones. Allmusic.com probably summarized their sound best: “country, rockabilly, and roots rock with
punk energy and a raucous sense of humor.” While “Lost Weekend” is probably the
song that best summarizes these elements, their best-known track is probably
the short-and-strange “Happy Boy”, which was popularized by Dr. Demento and
still gets some airplay today.
Favorite
tracks:
Goldmine
Reason To
Believe
Bigger
Stones
Selfish
Heart
California
Kid
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Shuffle #77 (November 10, 2015)
Shower The
People – James Taylor
Rikki Don’t
Lose That Number – Steely Dan
A Woman In
Love (It’s Not Me) – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Help Me,
Rhonda – The Beach Boys
Love And
Happiness – John Mellancamp
The Mary
Ellen Carter – Schooner Fare
Tears Dry On
Their Own – Amy Winehouse
Bigger
Stones – The Beat Farmers
Mr. Dream
Merchant – Jerry Butler
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Shuffle #76 (November 7, 2015)
Bring Me
Some Water – Melissa Etheridge
Mixed-Up,
Shook-Up Girl – Patty & The Emblems
Karma
Chameleon – Culture Club
Raised By
Wolves – U2
Silent
Morning – Noel
The Price
You Pay – Bruce Springsteen
Peaceful
Easy Feeling – The Eagles
It’s Late –
Ricky Nelson
Paradise --
Coldplay
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
LP #5 Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run (1975)
There
certainly was never any doubt that a Springsteen album was going to be high on this
list. There was a lot of doubt, however, about whether it would be this one, or
the previous The Wild, The Innocent &
The E Street Shuffle.
Let’s see: “Thunder
Road” and “Jungleland” vs. “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” and “4th Of
July, Asbury Park (Sandy)”. “Born To Run” or “Kitty’s Back”. It was a close
call, but as someone said recently, sometimes you gotta make the hard choices.
Favorite
tracks:
Jungleland
Born To Run
Tenth Avenue
Freeze-Out
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)