Category Archives: Music

Friendlytown

9 September 2024 By in Music Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Steve Cropper of Booker T & the MGs and Stax fame, has released the rockin’ soulful blues album, ‘Friendlytown’ with his new band the Midnight Hour. This is his 120th album that he has either collaborated on or has issued as a solo artist.

The Midnight Hour band includes vocalist Roger C. Reale, keyboardist Eddie Gore, drummer Nioshi Jackson, and guitarist Billy Gibbons. Additionally, Felix Cavaliere, Brian May, Jon Tiven, and Simon Kirk join in on various songs.

At 82 years of age Cropper hasn’t lost a note and has found several new ones. The album is rich, tite, and one of his best.

Cropper, since the late 1950s has recorded with a veritable who’s who of rock, soul, and blues musicians, including John Lennon, Rod Stewart, B.B. King, and many, many others, garnering along way seven Grammy nominations, winning two, including the Best Rhythm and Blues Song, ‘(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay’ with Otis Redding.

Trivia: ‘(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay’ sold 4 million copies as a single, topped the Billboard Hot 100, became the sixth most performed song in 20th century, and the Rolling Stone ranked it as the 26th Greatest Song of All Time.

Source: AllMusic. Apple Music. Graphic: Album Cover, copyright Provogue Records.

9 Lives

2 September 2024 By in Music Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Koe Wetzel, a modern country outlaw not exactly in the mold of Waylon but possibly closer to the man he is named after, David Allen Coe, released his 6th studio album, ‘9 Lives’ in July of this year.  It’s an energetic, genre bending, fun album that refuses to follow any forged paths from his last effort: ‘Hell Paso’.

Discussing his new album with Apple Music he wants his listeners to critique the 13th tracks in their entirety. Hearing what he is as a musician and an artist, stating, ‘So, if they come away from listening to the entire record…be like, OK now we get it a little bit more. Maybe he is a decent artist, a decent musician.’

Decent artist, decent musician and yes, an outlaw. Affirmation (attempting confirmation?) from the chorus of the 13 track on ‘9 Lives’:

The last outlaw alive
The last of my kind
The last one who survived
I can’t believe I’m the last outlaw alive

Source: Apple Music. Graphic: Album cover copyright Columbia Music.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

26 August 2024 By in Music Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Isbell in a 2020 interview said great songwriting required the ability to build a song that goes beyond personal experience into the realm of emotional storytelling. Storytelling about a perception of the world rather than one’s role or experiences in it.

His 2023 album release of ‘Weathervane’ delves predominately into the personal with a nod towards the worldly distractions, more Springsteen than Dylan but it is all a master class in songwriting. Great songwriting is the man not the subject.

Isbell provides 13 tracks of mostly Americana and roots ballads, providing his enchanted interpretations of love, longing, and regret.

The album won the 66th Annual Grammy Award for Best Americana Album.

Source: Apple Music. AllMusic. Graphic: Weathervane album cover, copyright Southeastern Records. The album cover has only two directions S and E.

Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats – South of Here

19 August 2024 By in Music, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Rateliff’s soulful story telling lyrics just get better and better with the release of his 4th studio album in June of this year by the Memphis soul machine label: Stax.

His songs take on a more personal note, encouraged by the album’s producer, Brad Cook, but manage to keep what Jim Shahen of ‘The Journal of Roots Music’ calls a ‘gritty rock ‘n’ soul’ sound that is the backbone of Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats’.

Mojo comments that the 11 album tracks are ‘Deep, rewarding songs, rich in authorly detail, which, not for the first time, position Rateliff, still only 45, as a new Springsteen.’

Source: South of Here Review by Mojo, 2024.  Album Review: Nathaniel Rateliff…by Jim Shahen, 2024, Journal of Roots Music. Graphic: Album Cover STAX copyright.

Six Market Blvd. – Shake it Down:

12 August 2024 By in Music Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Flash in time band 6MB’s 2nd and final album, ‘Shake it Down’ is a Texas country rock album delivering a spiced-up studio album honed in the dives and bars between the concrete of Fort Worth, the college hangouts of Tarleton State, onto the stock yard sights and smells of Abilene.

Clayton Landua, frontman for the band says in a Billboard interview, “Shake It Down” is a mixture of styles, from the Seeger / Dylan vibe of “Stand,” as well as the 70s sounds of “The Painter” and “Say It.”

The band with two well received albums under their belt, the big time seemed close by, when Landua decided to leave the group in 2014 to try something on his own. The remaining members thought about carrying on but not much of nothing went into that future.

If you give the album a listen, and you should, during the 13th track song, ‘Hey Mr. Indian Man’, Josh Serrato, lead guitarist, breaks into Deep Purple’s famous ‘Smoke on Water’ riff for reasons unknown and unstated but it did bring a smile to the lips quickly spreading over to the cheeks with a slow scratch to the head.

Source: Six Market Blvd. by Messick, Lone Star Music Mag., 2024. 6MB Takes Final Bow by Josh Harville, 2014 JTAC. 615 Spotlight by Chuck Dauphin, 2013, Billboard. Graphic Shake it Down Album Cover, Vision Entertainment copyright.

Bone Owens–Love Out of Lemons

5 August 2024 By in Music Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

‘Love Out of Lemons’, Bone Owens second album released in July of 2024, is a rockin’ nod to yesteryear’s bands: Zeppelin, Bad Company, and Tom Petty, with an easy continuous trip to the present sounds of The Black Keys and The Record Company. Every song brings an old memory with a new twist.

In an interview with American Songwriter, he mentions how his songs come and progress—’I’m not that sit down and bang my head against the wall kind of songwriter. I will work on a song, and if there’s an idea that feels worthy, I’ll chase it down a bit. I give time for inspiration to come or something to fall from the ether. I never force it.’

Give a listen to 11 original Owen ear candy tracks establishing the bluesy rock melody and matching lyrics as the king that was and is.

Source: Apple Music. AllMusic. American Songwriter. Graphic: Love Out of Lemons album cover, Thirty Tigers copyright.

Cactus: Temple of Blues—Influences & Friends

29 July 2024 By in Music Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Carmine Appice, rock drummer extraordinaire, in an unguarded moment of over-exuberance has expanded his Cactus band to proportions that could be considered ‘just right’, producing a re-imagined compilation of previously recorded Cactus songs that may be simply stated as full throttle blues, boogie and rock sensations.

Released on disc and vinyl by Cleopatra Records on 7 June 2024, Cactus’ ‘Temple of Blues: Influences and Friends’ showcases 14 of the band’s greatest songs from their first 3 albums that they recorded in the early 1970s.

Appice brings in a who’s who of past and present marquee rockers, including Joe Bonamassa, Ted Nugent, Billy Sheehan, Dee Snider, Pat Travers, Warren Hayes, and many others to compliment the bands songs along with a few blues standards such as Willie Dixon’s ‘Evil’.

Carmine Appice, ranked the 28th ‘Greatest Drummer of All Time’ by the Rolling Stone in 2016, formed and played not only for Cactus but also was an original member of the 60s psychedelic band: Vanilla Fudge, the power rock trio Beck, Bogert, & Appice and was part of Rod Stewart’s backing band.

In the trivia department the ‘Temple of Blues’ cover shows a picture of the original Cactus lineup in the background arch of the temple (from left Bogert, Day, McCarty, and Appice) which comes from a trade ad that ran in a 1970 Billboard issue.

Source: Cleopatra Records. Graphic: Cactus Album Cover, Cleopatra Records copyright.

Twisters: The Album

22 July 2024 By in Music Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

‘Twisters: The Album’ was released on 19 July 2024, the same day as the movie premiered in the theaters. ‘The Album’ contains 29 high stepping and slow rolling country music tracks befitting a movie set in Oklahoma. This is the best original artist’s country soundtrack since the 1980 ‘Urban Cowboy’ which wasn’t exactly 100% country but close enough to make the point that it has been a long time since the genre has played front and center in a big budget movie.

Luke Combs’ song, ‘Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma’, first track on the album, was released as a single in May of 2024 prior to the release of the album and topped out on the US Hot Country charts at no. 4 and no. 23 on Billboard Hot 100.  The album contains additional singles from Miranda Lambert, Tucker Wetmore, Megan Moroney, and many, many more artists.

‘Twisters: The Album’ is an authentic ‘Feeling Country’.

Source: Apple Music.  Graphic: Album cover, Atlantic copyright.

Elvis

8 July 2024 By in Music Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Elvis Recorded Live on Stage in Memphis album was released 50 years ago on 8 July 1974 by RCA Victor. The recording was captured at a Mid-South Coliseum concert in Memphis, Tennessee 14 weeks earlier on the 20th of March.

The Memphis ‘concert’ included two shows each on the 16th and 17th with the actual recording occurring during the fifth show on the 20th. The five sold-out shows were estimated to have sold more than 60,000 tickets with some seating going for as much as $10.

In addition to the Memphis shows a ‘rehearsal’ concert was held in Richmond, Virgina on 18th of March in which the album Forty-Eight Hours to Memphis was recorded. The set lists for the Richmond and Memphis recordings were nearly identical.

Although the concert and subsequent album release were not in the same league as Elvis’ 68 Comeback Special, the Memphis album contained a truer representation of his career and his genre crossing-over appeal.

The album was certified gold, reaching number 2 on Billboard’s Country chart, number 40 on Billboard 200 and garnered another Grammy for Elvis for his rendition of the gospel song “How Great Thou Art”.

The original 1974 album left out the concert songs “Suspicious Minds” and “Polk Salad Annie” but were re-inserted back into the FTD Records 2004 re-issue of Live on Stage in Memphis. Sony’s 2014 40-year re-issue of the album includes the FTD Records 2004 re-issue on disc one plus also including the ‘rehearsal’ concert preformed at the Richmond (Viginia) Coliseum two days before the Memphis concert.

Source:  Sony Legacy Release by Troy Yeary, The Mystery Train Blog and Elvis Australia. Graphic:  Elvis at the Richmond Coliseum, 18 March 1974, Copyright FTD Records.

Blondie

1 July 2024 By in Music, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Fifty years ago in 1974, Debbie Harry and Chris Stein formed Blondie in New York from the ashes of their previous and very forgettable group: the Stilettoes. It was an effort of love between the two but for Harry it also allowed her alter ego to express itself to the world.

Stating in her 2019 memoirs “Face It” she says that in the band she was acting out a role, “I was saying things in songs that female singers didn’t really say back then. I wasn’t submissive or begging him to come back, I was kicking his ass, kicking him out, kicking my own ass too. My Blondie character was an inflatable doll but with a dark, provocative, aggressive side. I was playing it up yet I was very serious.”

The group has released 11 studio albums to date including their 1978 Parallel Lines which reached no. 6 on the U.S. charts and no. 1 in the U.K. The album included their no. 1 smash hit Heart of Glass, a universal lament of unrequited love.

Source: Blondie.net. Face It.  Graphic: Blondie, 1977, no known copyright.