Vinyl Player.

Unrecorded Hank Williams tunes to be released.

2011-08-04T17:14:00.000+03:00

There will be a collection album released in October, titled The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams, that will feature songs left behind by Hank Williams, when he died in 1953, only 29 years old. The artist line up includes names like Bob Dylan, Merle Haggard, Sheryl Crow and Levon Helm. This project was originally planned to be a solo album released by Dylan but it eventually evolved into this collaboration album, maybe a good thing? We'll have to wait 'till October 4th to find out.

Track listing:

01. Alan Jackson - You've Been Lonesome, Too
02. Bob Dylan - The Love That Faded
03. Norah Jones - How Many Times Have You Broken My Heart?
04. Jack White - You Know That I Know
05. Lucinda Williams - I'm So Happy I Found You
06. Vince Gill and Rodney Crowell - I Hope You Shed a Million Tears
07. Patty Loveless - You're Through Fooling Me
08. Levon Helm - You'll Never Again Be Mine
09. Holly Williams - Blue Is My Heart
10. Jakob Dylan - Oh, Mama, Come Home
11. Sheryl Crow - Angel Mine
12. Merle Haggard - The Sermon on the Mount

Review: Brian Setzer in Helsinki 22.7.2010

2011-07-28T18:12:00.000+03:00

The undisputed King of Rockabilly brought his riot with him to Helsinki last Friday night. With him was none less than the former Stay Cats drummer Slim Jim Phantom. The set delivered to the full packed arena, was classic Setzer-billy with no bigger surprises, even though I at least wasn't expecting a rocking version of Johnny Cash's legendary Folsom Prison Blues. Despite the almost unendurable heat in the ice hall (ironic huh?) the audience was alive bursting out to enormous applauds and screams after every single song.

The show basically consisted of two sets, first Brian did a set "alone" and then called out Slim Jim on the stage and went on doing some of Stray Cats greatest hits. As a little curiosity there was a big straight-up-bass-solo-orgy-thing with Brian's regular bass player (can't remember his name), Slim Jim and Brian Setzer himself (!) playing the bass simultaneously.

All in all it was a fairly good gig that didn't present any surprises, but then again it wasn't necessary, Brian is a hell of a guitar player and that alone should be enough for anybody.

Set List:

Ignition
'49 Mercury Blues
This Cat's On A Hot Thin Roof
Drive Like Lightning Crush Like Thunder
8 Track
Slow Down
Folsom Prison Blues
Put Your Cat Clothes On
Blue Moon Of Kentucky
Pickpocket
--------with Slim Jim Phantom------------
Rumble In Brighton
Runaway Boys
She's Sexy + 17
Stray Cat Strut
Cry Baby
Red Hot
Fishnet Stockings
--------Encore----------------------------
Rock This Town
Seven Night To Rock

Dan Peek former America member and founder has passed away on Sunday

2011-07-26T22:01:00.000+03:00

In 1977 when Dan Peek left the folkrock band America after he re-discovered his fate after years of fighting with alcohol and drug problems, America was one of the hottest folkrock bands. They had found success immediately, getting to the top of the charts already with their first single release, Horse With No Name. After leaving America, where Peek wrote some songs, played lead guitar and sung the high harmonies he pursued a career as a christian singer.

Dan passed away on Sunday July 24, 2011. He was 60 years old and is survived by his wife Catherine.

As his website reports, Dan Peek is now i Heaven.

For The Victims and their relatives and friends in Norway

2011-07-23T09:42:00.002+03:00

On Friday the capitol of Norway was struck with a bomb attack killing at least 7 persons and injuring several more, at the same time at a youth camp, a man believed to be the same person who stood behind the bomb, shot at least 80 persons to death. Our thoughts go to the Norwegian people.

RIP Alphonso "Fonce" Mizell

2011-07-14T08:17:00.046+03:00

Alphonso Mizell best known as one of the members in the Motown songwriting group Corporation as well as the producer for several Jackson 5 songs as well as Donald Byrd, Bobbi Humphrey and A Taste of Honey's albums, died at the age of 68. The cause of death is still unknown.

Fonce started out with his brother Larry, playing trumpet in several bands in New Jersey where the brothers came from. Early groups that Fonce and Larry played in includes doo-wop group Nikons and jazz quartet Vanlords.

In 1969 Barry Gordy the founder of the legendary Motown recordlabel, assembled a group of songwriters and producers to write and produce new songs for the next big thing, The Jackson 5, The group was called The Corporation. From '69 through '71, Mizell was among The Corporation, that came up with more or less every Jackson 5 song from that period of time.

When Motown moved to LA, in 1972, Fonce teamed up with his old mate from Howard University, Donald Byrd. They went on to create a new mix of sounds that later was to be called fusinon jazz.

There's absolutely no doubt that Alphonso Mizell has influenced the music we hear around us today, for example mopdern hip-hop star Tupac have stated that he have been listening to those records Mizell produced after leaving Motown. Here's one of the songs Mizell have laid his trademark on Jackson 5's ABC, a true classic.

Grass Roots frontman Rob Grill dies aged 67

2011-07-13T06:56:00.000+03:00

Rob Grill have been reported dead as of July 11. Grill had been suffering from various health issues prior to his death that included a stroke. Rob was the lead singer and bassist for the rock group Grass Roots that had their first hit in 1967's Let's Live For Today, a year later they scored even bigger with Midnight Confessions. Grass Roots was never no one-hit wonder though, even though they never really made their break through on the European markets, in 1975 they had had 29 singles on the Hot 100 chart.

Mark Dawson, who was featured in the 2011 line-up of the band, told the press that Rob died in his wife's arms listening to Let's Live For Tonight. Maybe it's a bit romanticized picture, but nevertheless, Rob Grill will be missed.

Cool Pics: Alice Cooper rocks out in Leijonat jersey

2011-07-12T11:12:00.000+03:00

Alice Cooper appeared on stage in the jersey for the Finnish National Ice Hockey Team, that won this years World Cup. Cooper was the warm-up act for Iron Maiden at their concert at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, Finland last Friday.

A CCR Reunion on it's way?

2011-07-12T09:34:00.000+03:00

John Fogerty said in a recent interview to Calgary Herald that he doesn't "feel an intense bitterness anymore" against fellow ex-CCR members drummer, Doug Clifford a bassist Stu Cook anymore. The relations between Fogerty and the two other surviving members of the legendary rock band have been bad for a very long time already, Fogerty refusing to play with them at the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame anniversary concert and suing them so late as 1997 for performing under the Creedence Clearwater Revival name.

However Fogerty underlines that there's no plans yet on any reunion, but he is open for the possibility of a reunion "somewhere down the line". Well, it's a step towards the right direction anyway. Let's just hope that Doug and Stu also are still positive for reunion after all bullshit from John's side.

Aerosmith hits the studio!

2011-07-07T11:45:00.002+03:00

Aerosmith started recording their new album today. Joe Perry tweeted earlier today, "Aerosmith hits the studio with Jack Douglas today". This means that the recording process has started a week earlier than originally planned, wich has to be good news for the band wich future have been a bit at stake lately. In addition Aerosmith announced a tour of Japan for this fall starting 22nd November.

Aerosmith haven't released any new material since 2001 so this should really be a good sign, and I personally believe that making a new album is one of the best ways to keep the band together. Especially with Stevern Tyler appearing on American Idol and making his solo debute it almost seemed for a while that the tale of Aerosmith was over, but no, not yet anyway.

Review: Various Artists - Rave On Buddy Holly

2011-06-29T21:34:00.000+03:00

Rave On Buddy Holly is a brand new tribute album to Buddy Holly, including an impressive artist line-up from Paul McCartney to Cee-Lo Green. Giving the wide diversity of artists and the genres they represent it isn't that much of a surprise that the alum is kind of a ragbag, having said that it's for the most parts a good ragbag. Instead of singing the songs straight forward in the way Buddy Holly did them there is a real effort put into trying to add a twist to them and to make a personal stamp. This definitively makes it stand out from other tribute albums.

Some of the highlights of the album is Cee-Lo Green's take on You're So Squre and McCartney's crazy version of It's So Strange as well as Nick Lowe's Changing All Those Changes and She & Him's Oh Boy. Then there is of course the ones that doesn't work that well in their new modified shape like Words Of Love by Patti Smith and Lou Reed's take on the classic Peggy Sue.

All in all this makes a good tribute album that stands out from the lot with it's brilliant artist line-up and it's attempt to spice up the good old Buddy Holly classics. You don't need to be a Buddy Holly fan in order to really enjoy this record.

3/5

Tracks:

01. The Black Keys – Dearest
02. Fiona Apple – Everyday
03. Paul McCartney – It's So Easy
04. Florence + The Machine – Not Fade Away
05. Cee-Lo Green – (You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care
06. Karen Elson – Crying, Waiting, Hoping
07. Julian Casablancas – Rave On
08. Jenny O. – I'm Gonna Love You Too
09. Justin Townes Earle – Maybe Baby
10. She & Him – Oh Boy!
11. Nick Lowe – Changing All Those Changes
12. Patti Smith – Words Of Love
13. My Morning Jacket – True Love Ways
14. Modest Mouse – That'll Be The Day
15. Kid Rock – Well All Right
16. The Detroit Cobras – Heartbeat
17. Lou Reed – Peggy Sue
18. John Doe – Peggy Sue Got Married
19. Graham Nash – Raining In My Heart

Glen Campbell diganosed with Alzheimer's

2011-06-23T21:20:00.000+03:00

Country singer and guitar player Glen Campbell has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Glen is now 75 years old and will retire completetely from music after finishing his latest album and doing a farewell tour. The new album will be called Ghost on the Canvas and is scheduled for release August 30th. The album will contain guest performances by for example Brian Setzer.

Glen, you'll always be the man.

My Tribute to Clarence Clemons

2011-06-22T09:45:00.001+03:00

Clarence Clemons, one of my big musical heroes, passed away last Sunday June 18th. Clarence is most known for his work with The E Street Band which he joined already in 1972, and it was also by listening to those early Springsteen records, especially Born To Run, that I really got into Clarence and the whole sax-sound thing, and ever since then have the saxophone been one of my favorite instruments.

The story of how Clarence joined Springsteen's band is one of the great myths in rock n' roll history and it goes something like this: Clarence had been recommended by a friend to join Bruce's band. Clarence found out that Springsteen was doing a gig in a New Jersey rock club and decided to go there and ask him if there was a possibility he could join The E Street Band. It was a rainy and windy night outside and when Clarence opened the door to the club it was ripped away by the wind and Springsteen, paralyzed by fear, agreed to let Clarence join the band, "Sure whatever".

The Big Man, Clarence's nickname was also featured in one of my favorite songs from my favorite record of all time, Born To Run which is Tenth Avenue Freeze Out, "Well a change was made uptown and the big man joined the band". And suddenly the whole mood of the song switches from "All alone" and "can't go home" to positive after a brief sax solo by Clarence. Just pure musical genius.

The big song for Clarence from Born To Run was though of course Jungleland, an epic song with it's climax in a long sax solo that has become quite the trademark for The Big Man. It's often also the emotional (and musical) climax of almost every Springsteen convert. (Starting at 4:25)

Clarence Clemons have also worked on other projects as well on the side, for example played in the first All-Starr band with Ringo Starr and made a bunch of solo records, with guest performances by, for example, Jackson Browne. Most recently Clarence was featured on Lady Gaga's song Edge Of Glory, maybe not that glorious of a last stamp in music history.

Just the pure rush of excitement and anticipation when Bruce calls out "Clarence Clemons on saxophone" and a beautiful solo starts, the E Street Band will never bee the same again, it's as big of a loss as loosing The Boss himself.

Leslie West in stable condition after surgery

2011-06-21T21:36:00.000+03:00

Legendary guitar virtuoso Leslie West just had a surgery in his right lower leg in Mississippi. He's now recovering and in stable condition. Furthermore his forthcoming album The Unusual Suspects will probably delay it's release until West has completely recovered. The album will include guest performances by Billy Gibbons and Slash with others. The reason for the "life-saving" surgery, according to Rolling Stone, was that Leslie's leg started to swell up as a result of type 2 diabetes.

RIP Clarence Clemons 1942-2011

2011-06-19T10:35:00.002+03:00

Clarence Clemons, January 11, 1942 - June 18, 2011

Clarence Clemons who suffered from a stroke, last Sunday have now passed aged 69 on June 18 2011. Clarence have been with Springsteen in the E Street Band since the very beginning in 1972 until most recently when he took a break from touring because of his heart problems. There's so much that can be written about Clarence, but I'll just say that The E Street Band won't be the same without his saxophone playing and leave you with this, Jungleland.

Clarence, you will truly be missed.

New Album Coming From Duane Eddy

2011-06-17T17:47:00.000+03:00

Legendary guitarist Duane Eddy who begun his career in the 1950's with instrumental hits such as Rebel Rouser is about to release his first album in 24 years. Eddy, now 73 years old, have teamed up with producing legend Richard Hawley and is soon to release the album Road Trip. The album will contain classic Duane-six string sounds with some spices added by Hawley. The whole album have been record in Sheffield, UK in Hawley's own private studio. Sincerely waiting a lot on this album to ship.

Review: Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band Live in Riga June 14, 2011

2011-06-16T08:05:00.029+03:00

I had the opportunity and pleasure to see Ringo Starr live with his All Starr Band in Riga at the Hockey Arena, Arena Riga on their Summer Tour of 2011, June 12. And let's just begin this review by stating that it was a hell of a great show (!). Both Ringo Starr and his band seemed to be in very good shape and played with a lot of passion and skill, of course, but most important is the passion and the feeling. The band Ringo uses on his 2011 tour is by the way the same as he used in 2010, that is to say; Wally Palmar on guitar, Rick Derringer also on guitar, Garry Wright on keyboard, Richard Page on bass, Gregg Bissonette on second drum set and Edgar Winter on everything else, as Ringo himself put it (keyboard, sax, drums). And as usual each supporting band member got two songs of their own to perform (except session musician Gregg Bissonette).

But what makes a gig great isn't just the skill of the band or the sound technicians professionalism. No, it also takes a certain moment, unique small experiences that makes the difference from the lot, and this concert was full of these little Ringo-moments. Or maybe that is a wrong term to use since they weren't only presented by Ringo but also by the other band members like Richard Page's very beautiful rendition of Broken Wings, Bissonette's and Winter's drum orgy or Rick Derringer's guitar solo in Rock N Roll Hoochie Koo.

And then there was Ringo, Ringo, Ringo, Ringo and Ringo, as the audience also shouted repeatedly when asked what his name was, "makes you feel goooood inside" was the response from Mr. Starr. Other little unforgettable moments was Ringo's shout out to the "back row" (my row) after dancing to both Photograph and after that to Act Naturally.

Maybe it's just me, who is accustomed to the stubborn quiet Finnish audiences, but in my opinion the audience was just superb, keeping in mind that the Arena was only half-full they made the appearance and sound as if it was over booked. The audience even kept giving applauds to the roadies and sound technicians who came on the stage to carry away the equipment in hopes for an encore (that Ringo never gives). Anyways the show ended in a sing-along of With A Little Help From My Friends/Give Peace A Chance with 90% of the audience coming down from their seats on the floor trying to reach the scene.

I had a blast. One of the best gigs I've ever been to and quite certainly the best arena gig.

Set List:

It Don't Come Easy
Honey Don't
Choose Love

Hang On Sloopy (Rick Derringer)
Free Ride (Edgar Winter)
Talking In Your Sleep (Wally Palmar)
I Wanna Be Your Man
Dream Weaver (Gary Wright)
Kyrie (Richard Page)
The Other Side of Liverpool
Yellow Submarine
Frankenstein (Edgar Winter)
Peace Dream
Back Off Boogaloo
What I Like About You (Wally Palmar)
Rock N Roll Hoochie Koo (Rick Derringer)
Boys
Love Is Alive (Gary Wright)
Broken Wings (Richard Page)

Photograph
Act Naturally
With A Little Help From My Friends / Give Peace a Chance

Show time: aprox. 2h

Carl Gardner of The Coasters has passed

2011-06-15T09:46:00.000+03:00

Carl Gardner both founder and front man of the pop and r&b group The Coasters that reached their pinnacle of success in the 1950s passed away June 12 at the age of 83 years. The Coasters have always been on of my own personal favorite vocal groups and this is very sad news, the only comforting factor is knowing how much great immortal music Carl Gardner did with the Coasters. Here's on of their biggest hits Poison Ivy:

Carl Gardner had before the Coasters played in an earlier vocal doo wop group called the Robins, after their breakup he formed The Coasters in 1955. The Coasters came to bee unquestionably one of the biggest infuences on early rock n' roll music with hits like Poison Ivy, Young Blood, Yakety Yak and Charlie Brown. The other Coasters members were Cornell Gunter, Billy Guy and Will Jones.

Review: Neil Young And The International Harvesters - A Treasure

2011-06-14T10:00:00.003+03:00

Volume nine in the Neil Young Archives Series catches Neil Young and The International Harvesters live in 1984-1985. This record is simple rock solid pure country music. Listening to this record makes you believe that Neil Young never done anything else than country music, its delivered with such passion and authenticity. Especially tracks like Bound For Glory, that could be taken straight out of Johnny Cash's or Willie Nelson's repertoire or the rolling Southern Pacific are closing in on country perfection, even though Young denies a such thing exists on the second to last track Nothing Is Perfect, a powerful country slower with fitting lyrics.

Now, why didn't you do more stuff like this, Neil?

5/5

Tracks:

01. Amber Jean

02. Are You Ready For The Country?

03. It Might Have Been
04. Bound For Glory
05. Let Your Fingers Do The Walking
06. Flying On The Ground Is Wrong
07. Motor City
08. Soul Of A Woman
09. Get back To The Country
10. Southern Pacific
11. Nothing Is Perfect
12. Grey Riders

Clarence Clemons in critical condition

2011-06-13T17:56:00.001+03:00

As you already may have heard E Street Band's long time member and saxophonist Clarence Clemons has suffered a stroke and is reported to be in bad condition but now recovering at his home in Florida. Clemons have suffered from health problems already for quite some time and have even been on a break from touring with Springsteen. Clemons have been in the E Street Band for nearly 30 years, and that have undoubtedly occupied most of his time but that doesn't mean he hasn't have time for other things in music as well. Clemons have for example played on Joe Cocker's and Aretha Franklin's albums and most recently on Lady Gaga's new disc as well as been a guest performer on the season finale of American Idol.

Several of my friends told me already about a year ago after seeing Springsteen in Tampere that Clemons didn't seem to be in very good condition.

Hope you get well soon Clarence.

Andrew Gold dead at 59

2011-06-06T21:13:00.001+03:00

The year was 1977 when Lonely Boy, Andrew Gold's only major hit was released, now 34 years later Los Angles Times sadly reports the singer-songwriter dead. Gold had had problems with his cancer for several years now and slept away last Friday. Andrew Gold is also well known for his work with Linda Rondstadt with whom Gold played in sessions and live as well as wrote and arranged songs for. Other acts Gold worked alongside with includes fellow singer-songwriters Carly Simon and James Taylor. He will truly be missed, but his songs will live on forever.

The Godfather of Rap, Gil Scott-Heron has died

2011-05-30T18:07:00.000+03:00

The music world was struck on Friday with yet another death of a true legend, Gil Scott-Heron, a poet, musician and writer, died June 27 2011, aged 62. Scott-Heron had already for several years fighted with an heroin addiction and has only put out one record since 1982, nut he still did live gigs and once in a while stopped by a studio to record new material.

Scott-Heron will be remembered as one of the inventors for rap music. Gil never made a major breakthrough and never reached masses, but his work is very well known by modern rap artists who also often don't hesitate to pay tribute to one of the founders of the genre, for example Eminem made a tweet about how much Scott-Heron have influenced him and the whole genre soon after the news of his death landed.

Scott-Heron's maybe biggest hit was the partly spoken word sung song The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. Scott-Heron himself, much like Dylan, always denied that he wrote protest/political songs, and he has often commented that his work should be taken with humor.

RIP. And here's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised:

HAPPY 70TH, BOB!

2011-05-24T18:30:00.004+03:00

Unquestionably one of the biggest icons of popular music, Bob Dylan turns 70 today. Of course the years doesn't seem to slow him down, he's maybe even better now than a couple of years back. Dylan climbed to stardom as a sort of a miss-fit in the mid-sixties with his folk songs, often described as protest songs due to their controversial lyrics, Dylan though has always denied he's made any political songs, even less protest songs. From there on it has been music history with songs known by everybody like Mr. Tambourine Man, Knocking On Heavens Door, Like A Rolling Stone and Times They're A-Changing. He's career pinnacles also includes playing in the self-ironical rock n' roll super group with the greats of George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty. Despite some rough times, especially in the 70's and 80's and a much debated heroin addiction, The King of Folk is still going strong at 70 years behind him, and hopefully many productive once ahead. But what the heck, Dylan doesn't need a presentation.

From his newest album from 2009:

A true classic:

And one of my personal favorites:

These three vids should get your birthday celebration started, I'll be on my way to brush some dust of my too seldom played Dylan records...

Classic Album: Little Richard - Here's Little Richard

2011-05-18T17:17:00.000+03:00

Released: March 1957
Format: LP
Label: Specialty Records

Little Richard made his long-play debut in 1957 when this album came out. Little Richard wasn't though unknown at the release he had already gained huge success with his singles and what this release did was simply collecting all of the great singles on one disc. And with such rock n' roll classics as Good Golly Miss Molly, Tutti Frutti, Slippin' And Slidin', Ready Teddy, Long Tall Sally and True, Fine Mama it definitely earns it's place among the greatest rock albums ever, oh I almost forgot Rip It Up, every song on this album is truly a classic.

Here's Little Richard also came to be the highest charted album Little Richard ever released climbing to #13 on the Billboard Pop Chart. It was not long after the release of his debut album that Little Richard became religious and quit with Specialty and went on doing gospel records that didn't do at all as good as his three first rock n' roll albums. Little Richie then returned to "secular" music again in '62, but he never reached as high on the sky of stars as he did with his first album.

Personnel:

Little Richard – vocals, piano
Lee Allen – tenor saxophone
Alvin Tyler – baritone saxophone
Frank Fields – bass
Earl Palmer – drums
Edgar Blanchard – guitar

Tracks:

01. Tutti Frutti
02. True, Fine Mama
03. Can't Believe You Wanna Leave
04. Ready Teddy
05. Baby
06. Slippin' and Slidin'
07. Long Tall Sally
08. Miss Ann
09. Oh Why ?
10. Rip It Up
11. Jenny Jenny
12. She's Got It

Pink Floyd to reissue classics and rarities, big scale.

2011-05-15T19:31:00.000+03:00

September 26th will be the day to hit the stores in order to get your hands on a new Pink Floyd box set including all 14 studio albums remastered, Beatles style. Of course you could alternatively purchase all the albums separately on the same date. Also September 26th marks the day a six-disc version of Dark Side of the Moon will appear along a 2-disc version and a remastered vinyl version. A similar reissue will be done with The Wall (6-disc and 3-disc versions released Feb. 27th) and with Wish You Were Here (5-disc and 2-disc released Nov. 7th).

Not a Floyd fan? maybe this could get you into the band, also on November 7th a Best of collection titled A Foot in the Door: Best of Pink Floyd will be released.

I'll probably go for the box-set myself but the choice is yours to make.

John Walker, of the Walker Brothers, dies aged 67.

2011-05-10T09:37:00.000+03:00

I'm truly sad to announce that another great musician have died, John Walker died on Saturday 7th of May. John Walker who is best known for being the singer and guitarist for one of the marginal bands of the British Invasion in the 60's, The Walker Brother, died after suffering from liver cancer.

John Walker was born in America but did a reverse British Invasion moving to London and joining a band, The Walker Brother, there. Even though the group was a bit over-shadowed by other "bigger" bands, especially in USA, they had a number of hits including The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore, Make It Easy On Yourself and My Ship Is Coming In.

Though Walker had his biggest success in the mid-60's he continued to tour and making music 'till the last, having his last concert only a few weeks before his death on Saturday.
John Walker was 67 years old.

Review: Emmylou Harris - Hard Bargain

2011-05-07T15:02:00.000+03:00

This beautiful and very emotional record starts with The Road a song about Harris late collaborator Gram Parson, like The Road, most of the tracks on the album are written by Emmylou, something that she doesn't do too often, and after listening to this record it makes you wonder why. The exceptions are the title track written by Ron Sexsmith and Jay Joyce's Cross Yourself.

Harris voice is as beautiful as ever, but it has gained some depth and age, much like Johnny Cash on his American recordings, this fits like a glove to these moaning and longing songs that the album is filled with. A definitive highlight of the record is the very beautiful ballad My Name is Emmett Till, gives me goosebumps every single time I hear it.

The overall sound is very minimalistic dragged through a slick Nashville studio production and again reminds me of Cash's American sessions.

It's very early on to say this but this is probably going to be one of my favorite records from 2011.

5/5

Tracks:

01. The Road
02. Home Sweet Home
03. My Name is Emmett Till
04. Goodnight Old World
05. New Orleans
06. Big Black Dog
07. Lonely Girl
08. Hard Bargain
09. Six White Cadillacs
10. The Ship on His Arm
10. Darlin' Kate
11. Nobody
12. Cross Yourself
13. To Ohio

Classic Album: Derek & The Dominos - Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs

2011-05-04T19:15:00.000+03:00

Released: November 1970
Format: double-LP
Label: Polydor/Atco

It's been 40 years since the release of this true classic. It was the only studio album ever released by Derek & The Dominos, a band featuring guitarist/singer Eric Clapton, keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, drummer Jim Gordon and bassist Carl Radle.

The work on the record, or on something as they didn't know what they were actually doing, began when Clapton and fellow Delaney and Bonnie and Friends member Bobby Whitlock sat down to write some songs that eventually ended up on the final product. Additionally 5 covers were added to the final record, Nobody Knows You When Your Down And Out, jammy Key To The Highway, Have You Ever Loved A Woman, Hendrix's Little Wing and It's Too Late.

Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs, or simply Layla, have been hailed as one of the highlights on Clapton's bright career, and not without a good reason it's a magnificent mixture of rock, blues and even a little gospel and country. One of the things that makes the this record so special is the perfect symbiosis of two guitar gods Eric Clapton and Duane Allman from The Allman Brothers Band. The band had already travelled to Miami in order to start recording for the album when Allman was invited by Clapton to join the sessions after they had met at a Allman Brothers gig in Miami.

Even though almost every tack is a small masterpiece in their own, you can't get around it that Layla is the big track on this album. The song, written by Clapton, tells of his love for his friend's and fellow musician George Harrison's (The Beatles) wife Pattie Boyd (Boyd later also married Clapton, and has said that also Bell Bottom Blues from the same record is written about her as is Wonderful Tonight). Layla was recorded on two different sessions, the later part being record even several weeks after the first part was put down.

Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs was a bit of a let down failing to chart in Britain and not climbing very high on the charts in the States neither. This could be due to the fact that nobody really knew that Eric Clapton was in the band, a decision Eric himself made when forming the band, he didn't want his reputation and celebrity get in way of the band being just that, a band.

Tracks:

01. I Looked Away
02. Bell Bottom Blues
03. Keep on Growing
04. Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
05. I Am Yours
06. Anyday
07. Key to the Highway
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
08. Tell the Truth
09. Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad?
10. Have You Ever Loved a Woman
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
11. Little Wing
12. It's Too Late
13. Layla
14. Thorn Tree in the Garden

Personnel:

Eric Clapton - rhythm, slide and acoustic guitars, lead vocals
Duane Allman - Slide and lead guitar

Bobby Whitlock - Organ, piano, vocals, acoustic guitar
Jim Gordon - Drums, percussion, piano
Carl Radle - Bass, percussion

Review: Stevie Nicks - In Your Dreams

2011-04-29T08:31:00.021+03:00

On Stevie Nicks first album in a decade she puts her bluesy voice down on a large variety of tracks from rocking pop songs Secret Love, In Your Dreams, Annabel Lee to old-school For What It's Worth and You May Be The One to pure bluesy rock Wild Sargasso Sea, Soldier's Angel and Ghosts Are Gone.

The album sounds like a pleasant mixture of old and new, and most pleasantly it works. The songs have a kind of mysticism to them, Stevie singing about ghosts and vampires. The stories are beautifully told by Stevie's voice that shines especially on slower New Orleans, which is the absolute highlight of the album.

I can see why the modern sounds on tracks like Moonlight and Secret Love could be a problem for some fans of Nick's, but it didn't actually bother me at all, the CD sounds very current and at times I almost forgot that Stevie actually is 62 not 22 years old.

The record is closed with a very beautiful duet ballad Cheaper Than Free.

Trying to conclude everything In Your Dreams sounds fresh but still familiar at the same time, Stevie stills sounds wonderful and everything else also seems to be working, the track listing is a nice variety of genres... Just make sure you get this record when it's released 3rd May (!)

4/5

Tracks:

01. Secret Love
02. For What It's Worth
03. In Your Dreams
04. Wide Sargasso Sea
05. New Orleans
06. Moonlight (A Vampire's Dream)
07. Annabel Lee
08. Soldier's Angel
09. Everybody Loves You
10. Ghosts Are Gone
11. You May Be The One
12. Italian Summer
13. Cheaper Than Free

Review: Brian Setzer Orchestra - Setzer goes Instru-MENTAL!

2011-04-28T08:15:00.001+03:00

Brian Setzer was one of the center figures for the Rockabilly revival in late 70's, with his band Stray Cats, after that Brian went solo for a while only to after a short while form a big band named simply Brian Setzer Orchestra. After leaving Stray Cats Setzer could take more freedom to do whatever he wanted and when he eventually would get bored with his "rock n' swing" music with the big band he could take on solo projects to explore new ways of making music.

His newest album, Setzer Goes Instru-MENTAL!, is one of these it's pretty much a back to basics album filled with, as the title suggests instrumentals. Brian tackles classic rock n' roll/rockabilly songs like Blue Moon Of Kentucky and Be-Bop-A-Lula but he's not limited to just rock out as he also pick's up the banjo to do some incredible work on bluegrass standard Earle's Breakdown.

As always Brian Setzer shows off his incredible guitar playing talent that can't stop surprising and amazing me. The only building brick of the album is basically Brian playing the guitar(s), but that doesn't mean it makes this release thin or boring, actually quite the opposite, as an instrumental recording it works damn great, but it doesn't really bring anything new, we already know that brain can play anything with strings attached to it.

3/5

Tracks:

01. Blue Moon Of Kentucky
02. Cherokee
03. Be-Bop-A-Lula
04. Earle's Breakdown
05. Far Noir East
06. Intermission
07. Go Go Godzilla
08. Lonesome Road
09. Hillbilly Jazz Meltdown
10. Hot Love
11. Pickpocket

Phoebe Snow, passed away yesterday aged 58.

2011-04-27T15:29:00.000+03:00

Phoebe Snow (1950-2011) died last Tuesday, from complications since her brain hemorrhage in January 2010.

Phoebe Snow, became known for her mixture of folk guitar playing, blues, jazz and soulful voice. the pinnacle of her musical career was the 1975 mega-hit Poetry Man, that reached number 5 on Billboard Pop Charts, it also got her a Grammy nomination and the cover of Rolling Stone. Short after the big success Snow cut down on recording and especially performing since she wanted to take care of her brain damaged daughter. Phoebe Snow was though performing until 2008, when she had to quit due to own health issues (her daughter had died the previous year).

Phoebe Snow will be truly missed, and make a superb addition to the great orchestra above.

Review: Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis - Here We Go Again: Celebrating The Genius Of Ray Charles (feat. Norah Jones)

2011-04-22T17:08:00.024+03:00

Recorded live in New York in 2009 outlaw country legend Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis with his Jazz band plays tribute to one of popular music's biggest names, Ray Charles. While the album at parts sounds very good, at other times it gets just a bit too jazzy, and a bit to little r&b and country, which Ray Charles was. The long solos and instrumental parts even gets boring at times like in Hit The Road Jack where I almost forgot what song I was listening to. Singer Norah Jones also drops by to sing and to do a duet with Willie. The album's highlights are Hallelujah I Love Her So, Unchain My Heart and the romantic slower duet with Norah Cryin' Time,

Willie and Wynton does Ray Charles justice with this release not stretching to long from the roots but just enough to make it interesting. It's recommended for a die-hard Nelson fan (like myself) to get this record, otherwise you are probably though better of listening to The Genius himself.

2/5

Tracks:

01. Hallelujah I Love Her So
02. Come Rain Or Come Shine (Norah Jones)
03. Unchain My Heart
04. Cryin' Time
05. Losing Hand
06. Hit The Road Jack
07. I'm Moving On
08. Busted
09. Here We Go Again
10. Makin' Whoopee
11. I Love You So Much It Hurts
12. What'd I Say

Music Cities: Detroit - The Music That Born and Died With The Car Industry

2011-04-20T16:46:00.001+03:00

In the late 1950's American car industry was booming when almost 4/5 of all cars in the world were produced in The States, and the heart of the vehicle industry was in the city of Detroit. When more and more factories opened in the city many migrated to the city, most from the south, in search for jobs at the assembly line. This of course built up a big black community in the city and of course also many great black musicians arrived to the city. One of them was the great bluesman John Lee Hooker, who more or less revolutionized the blues with his simple primitive sound that was all about the rhythm of the song.

But it was not Blues that would be what made Detroit famous it was the new sound of pop music, soul. Barry Gordy who also like John Lee Hooker came to the city to work in the factories started a record label, that would become maybe the most famous label of all time, Motown. Motown would become with it's distinctive sound a factory for pop hits that put out chart toppers like from an assembly line. It was very strict producing at Motown and there wasn't much room for the artists own opinions, but it was a recipe that worked and by the time of the mid-sixties Motown dominated the charts.

At the same time as Motown was happening in Detroit another kind of youth music was beginning to find it's way, influenced by the British Invasion, young white working class rockers with the legendary MC 5 in the center started a new alternative music for youngsters. The Grande De Ballroom in Detroit was to become the heart for this new psychedelic sound.

Grand De Ballroom today

23 July 1967, mayhem struck. The social and racial pressures in the city finally exploded and riots broke out on the streets. The riots lasted for 5 long days and cost the lives of 43 people. After this the music city in Detroit changed and became more serious and political it wasn't just love and singing birds anymore. The old Motown hit Dancing In The Street became the official unofficial anthem of the riots. Marvin Gaye was one of the major old Motown singers who went serious and started to put the political criticisms of the city into his songs.

Also MC 5 changed direction, forming the White Panther Party in protest of what was going on in the city with police arresting people for just showing their dislike for racism and poverty. the music of MC 5 also changed it was now more angry and screaming, they wanted to be heard in order to change the world around them.

MC 5 also influenced other bands to go political with for example Funcadelic mixing black Soul and white Rock n' Roll to create Funk. But because John Sinclair, their manager, got arrested for smoking marijuana their big national and international breakthrough never happened.

Instead it was another band that would steal the center stage for a moment, The Stooges. Their primitive sound was the new sound of Motor City, Detroit Rock n' Roll. This was also the starting point for punk. The Stooges time in the spotlight wasn't though very long-lived since Alice Cooper Band moved into town and took over.

As the 70's rolled on Detroit's importance in music business declined, as did the car industry when factories moved to cheaper places, even Motown moved out to LA in 1972. Some of the old soul singers started working on a more hard funk. But Detroit music hasn't been forgotten since Motown is still playing on radio stations, The Stooges are more popular than in their prime in the sixties and Alie Cooper band was lately inducted into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame.

Review: Robbie Robertson - How To Become Clairvoyant

2011-04-14T09:52:00.000+03:00

You can't say that Robbie Robertson have had a very productive solo career after The Band, but maybe it was worth waiting a decade on his newest baby: How To Become A Clairvoyant. Robbie Robertson is down to basics with songs about love spiced up by his trademark guitar playing and this time around there's fellow guitarists contributing on the album like Eric Clapton and Tom Morello. The slow rockers have a very intimate feel to them and some kind of mystique that also can be found on Leonard Cohen's later songs, some good examples of these are Madame X and the title track How To Become Clairvoyant.

There's no big surprises on the record and the guesting stars don't make much of a fuss about themselves, but it's a solid straight record that will be almost perfect when you're in the right groove for these haunting dark love songs. A definite highlight for me on the album was the second song When The Night Was Young.

4/5

Tracks:

01. Straight Down The Line
02. When The Night Was Young
03. He Don't Live Here No More
04. The Right Mistake
05. This Is Where I Get Off
06. Fear Of Falling
07. She's Not Mine
08. Madame X
09. Axman
10. Won't Be Back
11. How To Become Clairvoyant
12. Tango For Django

Classic Album: Queen - Night At The Opera

2011-04-12T16:44:00.002+03:00

Released: November 1975
Format: LP
Label: Parlophone (Europe) / Elektra (US)

Queen is without a doubt one of the biggest bands of the 20th century, and if they were to be described by only one song I don't think I would be the only one to choose Bohemian Rhapsody from their 1975 album A Night At The Opera.

But the album is of course also filled with other rock classics, which makes it truly a classical rock record, and maybe Queens' best known album. Another big Queen hit on the album is You're My Best Friend, one of the few songs that bassist John Deacon ever wrote. It was a very successful song especially in the States where it still lists as one of the most played songs on radio today.

Before Night At the Opera, Queen had have major success with not least their latest album Sheer Heart Attack and the single Killer Queen, but still, they were all more or less broke. This of course made the band very angry about their contracts and the management, especially Freddie were very frustrated something he tried to put down in the opening track Death On Two Legs.

Drummer Roger Taylor have later told that the band was very much influenced by The Beatles' later records (from Revolver onwards) where the band used the studio almost as an instrument. And yes there's a lot of the same stuff that Beatles and Hendrix experimented with on this record, but the technology had of course evolved since the late sixties so there was a lot more possibilities. One can't be without giving credit to the splendid engineer Mike Stone who worked with the band to get all the stuff to work, at some times all the tracks were already in use so the guitars had to be done on the vocal track (!). The Beatles influences is also very clear on the tracks Lazying On A Sunday Afternoon and Good Company.

One thing that maybe made the record so great back in the day (and still is), but that could also have sinked it, was the fact that all of the band members contributed with their own songs, but the overall sound of the band stayed the same even though the songs in themselves could be very much different from each other, Beatles again anyone?

Another highlight on the album is Brian May's songs 39, a great alternate folk song that tells the story of an astronaut going away to find new planets and then returning to earth 100 years later.

Night At The Opera took Queen to another level, from being just another somewhat successful rock & roll band they went to being one of the biggest things in music business, that played (as the first band ever) in Hyde Park in front of thousands of people. This was probably the most important album in Queen's discography.

Tracks:

01. Death On Two Legs
02. Lazying On A Sunday Afternoon
03. I'm In Love With My Car
04. You're My Best Friend
05. 39
06. Sweet Lady
07. Seaside Rendezvous
-------------------------------
08. The Prophet's Song
09. Love Of My Life
10. Good Company
11. Bohemian Rhapsody
12. Good Save The Queen

Personnel:

Freddie Mercury – lead and backing vocals, piano.
Brian May – guitars, harp, banjolele, backing vocals, lead vocals on "'39" and "Good Company," toy koto, twelve-string guitar, harp.
Roger Taylor – drums, percussion, lead vocals on "I'm in Love with My Car," trumpet vocals on "Seaside Rendezvous," backing vocals
John Deacon – bass guitar, double-bass, electric piano.

Review: Paul Simon - So Beautiful or So What

2011-04-06T16:47:00.001+03:00

Paul Simon's new anticipated album, So Beautiful or So What, is superb. It combines Paul's heavy, serious and often very dark lyrics with the classic Paul Simon sound, a mix of folkrock and ethnic rhythms. The album features maybe Simon's most serious lyrics ever, Paul tackling questions of life and death, the meaning of life, beauty and so on. But it doesn't always seem that dark and serious thanks to Paul's ability to craft melodies and combining them with exotic rhythms.

A good example is the first track on the album, Getting Ready For Christmas Day, an alternate Christmas song, telling the story of a soldier spending the holiday in Iraq. Another definite highlight is The Afterlife, which as the name suggests is about life after death, Paul having a very personal impression of what it could be like. Another of my personal favorites on the album is Questions For The Angels, a slow but intense track about belief.

I have no other choice but to agree with Rolling Stone on this one, The best Paul Simon album since Graceland, no doubt. But still there could have been more of the intense ballads like Questions For The Angels, and a thought that ran through my mind was that some of the up-tempo rhythms and guitar riffs drives the focus away from the lyrics, that definately deserves all the attention. But still a very, very good album.

4/5

Tracks:

01. Getting ready For Christmas Day
02. The Afterlife
03. Dazzling Blue
04. Rewrite
05. Love And Hard Times
06. Love Is Eternal Sacred Light
07. Amulet
08. Questions For The Angels
09. Love And Blessings
10. So Beautiful Or So What

Billy Joel cancels autobiography

2011-04-01T17:51:00.000+03:00

I'm sad to announce that the autobiography by Billy Joel scheduled to be released in June, won't come out at all since Joel have cancelled the whole project. He feels that everything he has say about his past have already been said through his songs.

"It took working on writing a book to make me realize that I'm not all that interested in talking about the past, and that the best expression of my life and its ups and downs has been and remains my music"

- Billy Joel on Thursday

Buffalo Springfield is back!

2011-03-30T19:41:00.000+03:00

Last October history was made when the legendary LA folkrock group Buffalo Springfield reunited at the Bridge School Benefit, this was the first time the original members played together again since their break-up in 1968. Now, all the rumors have been proven true, Buffalo Springfield will go on tour again! Even though it will be a very short tour with only seven dates, I'm getting the vibes that more is to come, David Crosby also commented that he is confident that the band will soon announce more dates.

Buffalo Springfield at their reunion in 2010

Joining the three original members still alive, Neil Young, Stephen Stills and Ritchie Furay are Joe Vitale (drummer for Crosby, Stills & Nash) plus Rick Rosas (Neil Young's bassist). If your a fan of 60's folk and have the fortune to be able to go and see the reunion of the band, it will surely be a spectacle you don't want to miss.

The dates listed below:

June 1, Fox Theater, Oakland, CA
June 2, Fox Theater, Oakland, CA
June 4, Wiltern Theater, Los Angeles, CA
June 5, Wiltern Theater, Los Angeles, CA
June 7, Santa Barbara Bowl, Santa Barbara, CA
June 8, Santa Barbara Bowl, Santa Barbara, CA
June 11, Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, Manchester, TN

Randy Travis - a quarter century with music

2011-03-29T22:19:00.003+03:00

A quarter century in music is for sure a great accomplishment, and what a better way to celebrate it than with an Anniversary album. Country legend Randy Travis will release his 25th Anniversary Duets CD on June 7th. The guest stars featured on the album are a nice mix of new and old, the older legends includes Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, George Jones and Don Henley (The Eagles), while Brad Paisley, Josh Turner, Carrie Underwood and Tim McGraw represent the new kids. Something tells me that this release is going to be something great, maybe it is the fact that country duet albums usually turns out better than others, or maybe it's the fact that it's an anniversary celebration, which should mean that a lot of effort is put in by, not only Travis & Co. but also by producers, mixers, promoters, etc.

Randy Travis is also celebrating online at www.randytravis.com where visitors can take a trip down memory lane with Randy, featuring photos and videos telling the tale of Randy Travis.

Track Listing:

01. Everything and All, featuring Brad Paisley
02. A Few Ole Country Boys, featuring Jamey Johnson
03. Forever and Ever, Amen, featuring Zac Brown Band
04. He Walked On Water, featuring Kenny Chesney
05. T.I.M.E. featuring, Josh Turner
06. Love Looks Good On You, featuring Kristin Chenoweth
07. Better Class of Losers/She’s Got The Rhythm (And I Got The Blues) medley, feat. Alan Jackson
08. More Life, featuring Don Henley
09. Can’t Hurt A Man featuring, Tim McGraw
10. Promises featuring, Shelby Lynne
11. Is it Still Over? featuring Carrie Underwood
12. Road To Surrender, featuring Kris Kristofferson & Willie Nelson
13. Diggin’ Up Bones, featuring John Anderson
14. Someone You Never Knew, featuring Eamonn McCrystal
15. Too Much featuring, James Otto
16. Didn’t We Shine, featuring George Jones, Lorrie Morgan, Ray Price, Connie Smith, Joe Stampley & Gene Watson

Classic Album: Carole King - Tapestry

2011-03-22T16:51:00.001+02:00

Released: January 1971
Format: LP
Label: Ode Records

Few albums feature songs that all would make it as singles, Carole King's Tapestry is one of them. All of the songs are small masterpieces in their own, which makes the album a huge masterpiece, right? Most notably I Feel The Earth Move, It's Too Late and You've Got A Friend, that also all made it to number one on the Billboard charts, not to forgot (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, that Aretha Franklin had recorded earlier, when King was still just a songwriter in the famous Brill Building.

But also the whole album was a chart success being on the top for 15 weeks, and then staying on the chart for 305 weeks (!), still holding the record for longest consecutive time on the Billboard chart for a female singer. But it wasn't just the public that fell in love with King's masterpiece, it was also a huge critical success back in the day, and still is, reaching spot #36 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

The feel of Tapestry is folk with a strong flavor of jazz, the songs are raw and emotional. Carole King sings intensely and honestly without any unnecessary frills. It transfers the beautifully crafted songs and lyrics straight to the listener and makes a strong impact, this is one of the main reasons this record became a classic.

Fellow Los Angeles immigrant and singer/songwriter James Taylor is also featured on the album playing the acoustic guitar. James Taylor is often credited to being the one who got Carole King to leave writing for others behind her and start recording her own songs. In Tapestry's credits James Taylor is also listed as playing the Granfalloon, a sort of philosophical religion were individuals admit they belong to a specific group of people for example, hippies or communists. Despite the odd credits, Tapestry is a must listen for every music fanatic, and a true singer/songwriter classic.

Tracks:

01. I Feel The Earth Move
02. So Far Away
03. It's Too Late
04. Home Again
05. Beautiful
06. Way Over Yonder
----------------------------------------------------
07. You've Got A Friend
08. Where You Lead
09. Will You Love Me Tomorrow? (Live)
10. Smackwater Jack
11. Tapestry (Live)
12. (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman

Personnel:

Carole King – piano, keyboards, vocals, background vocals
Curtis Amy – flute, baritone saxophone, soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, string quartet
Steve Barzyk – drums
David Campbell – cello, viola
Merry Clayton – vocals, background vocals
Terry King – cello, tenor saxophone, string quartet
Danny Kortchmar – guitar, conga, electric guitar, voacals
Russ Kunkel – drums
Charles Larkey – bass, electric bass, string bass, string quartet
Joni Mitchell – background vocals
Joel O'Brien – drums
Michael Pultand
Ralph Schuckett – electric piano
Barry Socher – violin, tenor saxophone, viola, string quartet
Perry Steinberg – bass, violin, tenor saxophone, string bass
Joni Mitchell – background vocals
James Taylor – acoustic guitar, (granfalloon), background vocals
Julia Tillman – vocals, background vocals

Music Cities: Los Angeles

2011-03-20T13:26:00.001+02:00

This is the first post in a brand new series that will cover the biggest and most important music cities, that means cities that have formed the music culture and have become a home to musicians from all over the world. It seemed logical to start with the undisputed Music Capitol of today, La, The City of Angels.

Los Angeles - From Surfboards and Flower Power to Rap

New York had been the dominating city of music output in North America for several years already, but this was soon to change since the west coast would very soon grab the title of music capitol and then hold on to it through several decades, and still actually claims to be The Capitol of music. It's the end of the 1960's a decade that saw the British Invasion when the hottest groups and acts came from across the Atlantic, and those who didn't come from UK made sure that they at least sounded like the British groups. Like already said, NYC was where the American music business was happening, with companies pushing out songs to the artists from places like the legendary Brill Building.

LA had of course always had it's own music scene but it sure wasn't no export material, and it was dominated by fairly unknown African-American jazz groups. In short California wasn't hip at all at the time. The group that would start the development that changed the musical map in America totally, was a boy group, actually not from LA but from Hawthorne nearby, called The Beach Boys. They made the Californian surfing culture a part of their sound and songs and suddenly California was hot.

However it would still take some years before the music scene would shift totally from east to west. Ironically it also was something that started out in New York that would more or less kill the city's music business. It was the new coming of Folk music with Bob Dylan in the lead, back in LA a new group of young boys was listening with sharp ears to what was happening in New York at the time, which was two things it was Dylan, and it was The Beatles, so what would happen if you mixed both? The Byrds was born, and Folk Rock was born.

It was essentially folk music and folk that would become the corner stone in LA's music business, something that would even become more important with the emerging hippie culture, and the psychedelic sound. It was again ironical that what would become the center of LA's music scene had already been it in the 1940's and early 50's, but then lost it's importance, I'm of course talking about the Sunset Boulevard. Back in the days it was a strip controlled by the mob and filled with exclusive clubs for pop standard singers like Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. In the late 60's it would go through a renaissance and become the home to groups like The Byrds, The Doors, Buffalo Springfield and Crosby Stills & Nash.

On Sunset Blvd. also lay the most legendary music venue in LA at the time, The Troubadour, which would become home to the new singer/songwriter movement, with artists such as Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins and James Taylor. In 1969 also the pinnacle of hippie culture, The Woodstock Music Festival, was held featuring many of the LA groups.

Woodstock 1969, The crowd

In 1970 the folk rock sound would become more and more just rock and less and less folk with groups like The Eagles and Toto emerging from the already commercial record labels in LA, in the dawn of folk rock in late 60's labels like Asylum Records had a revolutionary way of doing business since they didn't want to interfere with the artist work, nor rip off the artists of money, all this would soon change since LA would start making "Commercial Rock". Gone were flower power, pot, peace and the rebellion and dollar signs started appearing also in the performers eyes. Still, the music coming from LA was amazing.

In 1980's two different genres started conquering the music business, both started out as small underground indie genres, but today they almost dominate the music business, and both started out in LA. Rap and Hard Rock. Today, if you want to make a name for yourself with music, Los Angeles is the city to travel to, no doubt. And since LA is also home to Hollywood, where most of the movies comes from, one could say that LA is the center of popular culture.

True British Legend Jet Harris has died

2011-03-19T18:52:00.000+02:00

I'm sad to announce that former The Shadow's bassist Jet Harris (born 1939) passed away on Friday. Media reports that Harris died of cancer. Jet Harris have been credited as the man who named one of British music history's greatest bands, The Shadows. The band is mainly known as the backing band of another true British legend, Cliff Richard. Jet Harris was also famous for playing with fellow Shadow Tony Meehan after The Shadows replaced him with Brian Locking in 1962, they had a major UK hit with Diamonds in 1963.

Jet Shadows maybe one of the greatest bass players ever, and also maybe one of the most over-looked.

"Jet was exactly what the Shadows and I needed - a backbone holding our sound together"

-Cliff Richard

In loving memory of Jet Harris:

Country singer Ferlin Husky has passed away

2011-03-18T17:51:00.000+02:00

Ferlin Husky 1925-2011

Ferlin Huskey passed away, to the great orchestra above, on Thursday. Ferlin had had heart problems for a long time already, and he had to cut down on performing and making music already in the 1970's. But that didn't mean he didn't make a large footprint in especially country music's history. Ferlin Huskey who started out in the 1950's was one of the first country artists who made it to the Billboard charts, he was there when country music got popular both nationally and internationally, also being one of the first country singers on national TV in the US.

Ferlin Huskey had a lot of sucess in the 50's and early 60's but was then more or less forgotten because of his early retirement from music, he was fortunately brought back to the big public's eyes in 2010 when he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Here's one of his best songs:

Review: New York Dolls - Dancing Backward In High Heels

2011-03-16T12:57:00.001+02:00

The third album release since the legendary group from the 1970's reunited in 2004, or reunited is actually a wrong word to use since there's only two of the original members left, guitarist Sylvain Sylvain and singer David Johansen. Dancing Backward In High Heels is also probably their best album of the three, it sees the band stepping out from their comfort zone, trashy growly rock. For one this album is much closer to their roots in soul and blues music than anything they've ever done before.

The slow soulful Kids Like You shows the actual strength of Johansen's voice and the up-tempo Round And Round She Goes touches rockabilly, while the slick produced I Sold My Heart To The Junkman and Baby Tell Me What You're On, is going to split the opinions, because they actually sound like they've been recorded by some of today's contemporary rock groups, for me they worked. End Of the Summer again takes a lot from reggae (didn't see that coming), but actually sounds pretty good (even in my reggae hating ears). Of course there's a truckload of basic Dolls also in here for example Streetcake, Funky But Chic and Talk To Me Baby.

But even though it's great to see The Dolls stretching out and trying new genres and messing around with them, it also makes the record a bit of a mess where you don't have any idea of what the next track is going to sound like. The record also ends oddly with four live tracks, they seem a bit miss placed and I can't really figure out the idea of them being on the record, not enough money to make a separate live album?

Even so it's definitely something every music digger should pick up, not to mention Dolls fans.

4/5

Tracks:

01. Streetcake
02. Talk To Me Baby
03. Fabulous Rant
04. I'm So Fabulous
05. Fool For You Baby
06. Kids Like You
07. Round And Round She Goes
08. You Don't Have To Cry
09. I Sold My Heart To The Junkman
10. Baby Tell Me What You're On
11. Funky But Chic
12. End Of The Summer
13. Coz I Sez So (Live)
14. Funky But Chic (Live)
15. Hey Bo Diddley (Live)
16. Pills (Live)

Classic Album: John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band

2011-03-15T14:14:00.002+02:00

Released: December 1970
Format: LP
Label: Apple ( EMI )

Distant church bells ringing and the sound of the needle rasping the vinyl, suddenly John's voice bursts out in one of his most beautiful songs, Mother. This was the first record John Lennon released after the breakup of the Beatles earlier that year, and it is crystal clear when you listen to the record that John wanted to take distance from the group and the kind of material they had recorded. This was the beginning of a new John.

He could now do whatever he wanted without needing to compromise with other group members, but of course Yoko Ono was a big influence to John also on this record, which can be seen already in the name; Plastic Ono Band. Musically the tracks featured on the album were simpler and stripped down from all extra, and the focus was now on the raw, emotional lyrics. John Lennon have commented in some interview that he wanted to do a record about himself, and all of the songs on this record is about John and his life.

Even though Plastic Ono Band was a statement from John's side that he was now completely over The Beatles, not all ties to the former band was cut since Ringo Starr is featured on the album giving his distinctively phenomenal drumming especially on I Found Out, this could actually be some of Ringo's best drumming he has ever done. Officially Phil Spector was producing this record, officially. It's been disputed what the actual role of Spector was in the producing process, Ringo have for example noted that he don't even remember Spector being in the studio(!)

The album also features one of John Lennon's most straight forward political songs, where he don't bother hiding the message behind metaphors and rhymes but spits it right at you. Working Class Hero, even though John actually wasn't very much "working class" he had grown up in a higher middle class family and after the fame and fortunes that Beatles brought he defiantly wasn't economically working class.

Plastic Ono Band, definitely earns it's place among the biggest classics of popular music and it's also definately the best record of John's.

Tracks:

01. Mother
02. Hold On
03. I Found Out
04. Working Class Hero
05. Isolation
----------------------------------

06. Remember
07. Love
08. Well Well Well
09. Look At Me
10. God
11. My Mummy's Dead

Personnel:

John Lennon - vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, keyboards
Klaus Voormann - bass
Ringo Starr - drums
Phil Spector - piano
Billy Preston - piano
Yoko Ono - wind
Mal Evans - tea and sympathy

New Records Coming

2011-03-12T16:07:00.002+02:00

As writing about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 2011 Inductees have taken up most of my time for this blog recently, I'll make this one post to sum up some of the new records coming out.

Cliff Richard has announced that he will do a new album, this time he will tackle some of the biggest Motown hits, and team up with soul legends, but also recent R&B singers.

Mark Knopfler announced on his Facebook page that he is going into the studio to cut a new record. No more details available.

Tom Waits also posted on Facebook that he will start making a new record soon.

Brian Setzer's new record Instru-MENTAL! will be available on April 19th. Like the name suggests it will be an instrumental record, but with some extra flavor since Setzer will cover some of his bluegrass and jazz favorites on the record, not really what you would expect to hear on a Setzer record. One of the bluegrass songs can be heard here: Listen to Earl's Breakdown by Brian Setzer

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees 2011 - part seven: Art Rupe & Jac Holzman

2011-03-12T12:46:00.001+02:00

And here it is, the last post of the humble mission to present all the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees for this year. I've decided to present both Art Rupe and Jac Holzman in the same post, after all there's a lot of similarities both will inducted into the non-performer category, and both are record producers and label owners. First off Art Rupe.

Art Rupe

Art Rupe's record label Specialty Records was founded in 1946. The company started out exploring the Big Band genre and sound, both also had a very strong gospel catalog, the later would soon emerge to be a huge success. Art Rupe himself loved gospel music very much, something he picked up from his teenage years singing in a church choir.

From his early gospel artists can be named The Soul Stirrers (with Sam Cooke singing lead) and Little Richard. Rupe would later decline from releasing some of Sam Cooke's early soul songs, because he thought it could harm his gospel credibility.

1952 marked a turning point in Specialty Records, history, Art Rupe first traveled to New Orleans to audition some groups over there and ended up recording with Lloyd Price and a young Fats Domino playing piano in a gospel group. He was also noticed about an unknown gospel singer called Little Richards who wanted to audition for him. After the first recording session Specialty Records, had it's first Rock & Roll record, Tutti Frutti.

Art Rupe stopped producing records in the early 60's, and only came back for a short time in the later 60's to re-release some R&B classics. Rupe still remained in the business as a publisher until 1991 when he sold the label to Fantasy Records (sold to Concord Music Group in 2004).

Jac Holzman

Jac Holzman founded his first record company Elektra Record's while still in college in 1950. Elektra Records concentrated on folk music and their biggest achievements include discovering Judy Collins. Nonsuch Records founded by Holzman in the 60's was his second record company, mainly recording different kind of ethnic records but also older genres like ragtime and baroque. Elektra records later went on to recording with such acts as The Doors, The Stooges, Queen and The MC5's.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees 2011 - part six: Alice Cooper

2011-03-11T12:14:00.000+02:00

Alice Cooper - The Band

Category: Performer
Presented by: Rob Zombie

Alice Cooper was born in1968 when Vincent Furnier both changed his own name and the name of his band to Alice Cooper, this was the beginning of a success story firstly with the band until 1973 and then later on as a solo rock act. However it is Alice Cooper, the band that is to be inducted into The Hall, not Alice Cooper, the man, so this post will focus on the original band (1969-1973).

The Band's lineup consisted of Alice Cooper on vocals, Glen Buxton on lead guitar, Michael Bruce on rhythm, Dennis Dunaway on bass and drummer Neil Smith. One of the main reasons for the early success (besides the great music of course) was the radical way Alice Cooper (the man) looked on stage, wearing feminine clothes and using make-up. Alice Cooper have later commented his look that he wanted to be a rock-villain not a rock-hero like everybody else. Of course dressing up like this also creates negative response, but someone have said that all press is good, and nevertheless it was a huge success among teenagers.

Eventually Alice Cooper got signed to Frank Zappa's new record label that was founded to record with "bizarre music acts". Their first album released in 1969 with a lot of psychedelic sounds was a failure both critically and commercially. This however didn't stop the band from trying and after an incident while playing live with a chicken ending up on stage and Alice throwing it in the audience where the spectators tore it to pieces, The Band hardened up and started playing what they called "Shock Rock".

In 1970 the success finally came, with their third album Love it to Death, which produced the hit single I'm Eighteen. The next album Killer (1971), including hits like Be My Lover, the album continued the victory march, and next year the band released their maybe best known song School's Out as a single, it went to the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

By the end of 1973, the band released their last album together Muscle of Love. The band more or less broke up after the album release due to disagreements concerning their stage performances, Alice Cooper wanted to keep the dramatic theatrics that had became something of a trademark for the band while the others wanted to scale down on the show and concentrate on the music. Eventually everyone started recording solo material, and the band was gone.

Notable Albums: Love it to Death, Killer, School's Out

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees 2011 - part five: Dr. John

2011-03-10T12:22:00.000+02:00

Dr. John - The Man Who Made New Orleans Pop Again

Category: Performer
Presented by: John Legend

Native New Orleanian Dr. John started making music mainly as a guitarist already in the late 50's and also had an early hit with Storm Warning in 1959. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately knowing the outcome) his musical career took a turn when he lost his ring finger in a fight defending his friend and band mate, and was unable to play the guitar again, he then picked up the bass guitar but soon discovered the piano, which also became Dr. John's main instrument.

True to the musicians of that era also Dr John or John Rebenack Jr, which was his real name, moved in 1963 to LA to jump start his career. Shortly after the arrival to the city of angels John started working as a session musician, working with the likes of Sonny & Cher and Canned Heat.

Dr. John's own solo career started in the late 60's, with his first album release Gris-Gris (1968). John had already from the very beginning his own musical style mixing traditional New Orleans rhythm & blues with new psychedelic sounds and throwing in some voodoo clichés. In 1971 Dr. John released his fourth album featuring Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger, The Sun, Moon & Herbs, now the voodoo was cut out and the weight lay on the New Orleans influenced sounds mixed with contemporary rock. In 1972 he took the Orleans sound even further with Gumbo, where he covered several of the big New Orleans songs from his youth.

From here onwards until today also funk music have been a heavy influence in Dr. John's work. Even though Dr. John had a lot of success of his own he never quit being a session musician and played for example on fellow 2011 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductee, Neil Diamond's successful album Beautiful Noise (1976).

Nowadays Dr. John is still recording and still going on the road to please his large fan base.

Notable Albums: Gris-Gris, The Sun, Moon & Herbs, Gumbo

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees 2011 - part four: Leon Russell

2011-03-09T13:37:00.001+02:00

Leon Russell

Category: Recording Excellence (Sideman)
Presented by: Elton John

Leon Russell was born April 2, 1942 in Oklahoma. He started his musical career while in high school performing at local night clubs and bars. The group Russell was playing with was called The Starlighters and included J.J. Cale in the line-up as a guitarist while Leon played keyboard.

He eventually moved to LA in order to make a real breakthrough in music business. Soon afterwards he became a full time session musician working first with legendary producer Phil Spector and playing on for example Byrds records. During the sixties he also had sessions with almost every single big act in the business during that time including; Frank Sinatra, Rolling Stones, Jerry Lee Lewis, Beach Boys and Willie Nelson.

Leon Russell also made a name for himself as a songwriter, his maybe best known song is A Song For You covered by numerous artists. In 1971 Leon Russell appeared on the first ever charity concert George Harrison's Concert For Bangladesh. During his career Russell also released a bunch of solo albums, and a respectable amount of collaboration albums for example One For The Road live album with Willie Nelson in 1979.

Most recently Leon Russell has released a duet album with another piano playing legend Elton John, The Union, one of the best albums of 2010. The Union is in many ways a back-to-the-roots-album including great western themed songs.

Notable Albums: Leon Russell And The Shelter People, Retrospective, One For The Road, The Union

Phil Collins Retires from music to be a dad.

2011-03-09T12:04:00.000+02:00

Last week music press close to exploded with the headlines of Phil Collins retiring from music business. I didn't want to cover the story before there was an official announcement from Phil, and what the reasons were. Some of the reasons the press gave last week was that he didn't fit in in modern music business and that he didn't feel loved or that he wanted to concentrate on Alamo full time.

Now however Phil Collins have given a comment to all of these speculations on his website, http://www.philcollins.com/news/breaking-news-message-phil

Collins tells that the only reason for quitting is that he wants to be a good dad for his two little boys and don't be distracted by his career. Fair enough, respectable choice, but still... Hopefully he will do a comeback after some years.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees 2011 - part three: Tom Waits

2011-03-08T12:38:00.000+02:00

Tom Waits - The Coolest Guy to Walk on This Planet

Category: Performer
Presented by: Neil Young

It's hard to not recognize a Tom Waits song, with his cool distinctive sound, a mix of jazz, blues and heartland rock. Waits' first album was released in 1973, but it didn't make that much of a success upon the release, that is before Eagles covered the opening track Ol' 55 in 1974 on On The Border.

Tom Waits' song have since then throughout his career been covered by artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stewart, Robert Plant, Johnny Cash, Elvis Costello, and the list goes on. But Tom Waits has also had a lot of success with his own versions of his songs as well.

In 1983 he switched record labels from Asylum Records to Island Records, this marked a turning point in his career. Waits now became more experimental with his music and started discovering and mixing genres that weren't at all pop at the time, from rural blues to cabaret and Latin genres like tango and rumba. He also started fooling around with sounds and wanted to try new kind of instruments. He used for example traditional African and Asian instruments but also made up his own, like putting strings on a dumpster can.

Tom Waits has also during his long career recorded a bunch of movie soundtracks as well as appeared himself as an actor in some movies, most recently in Book of Eli. Today Tom Waits is still going strong, touring and recording new material.

Notable Albums: Closing Time, Heartattack and Vine, Bone Machine, Mule Variations

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees 2011 - part two: Darlene Love

2011-03-07T12:43:00.002+02:00

Darlene Love - The One Who Made It as a Background Singer

Category: Performer
Presented by: Bette Midler

The year is 1962, local high school group The Blossoms with lead singer Darlene Love (born Darlene Wright) starts working with producer Phil Spector. Darlene Love & The Blossoms soon became an early trademark for Spector's new "wall of sound". Darlene Love & The Blossoms released some singles during the sixties but without any mind-blowing success. However they sang backing vocals for some of pop musics' greatest names; Elvis Presley, Tom Jones, Sam Cooke, The Beach Boys, Sonny & Cher, Dianne Warwick, Johnny Rivers, need I go on?

We can't forget however some of their successfull songs from the 60's, the uncredited He's A Rebel (1962), Today I Met The Boy I'm Gonna Marry (1963), Christmas (Please Come Home) (1963). Darlene Love & The Blossoms were also featured on Elvis' 1968 Comeback Special.

Going into the next decade Darlene Love took a break from music to concentrate on her family. In 1973 she made a small comeback as one of the background singers on Cheech & Chong's Basketball Jones.

Fans had to wait for the real comeback until the 80's when Darlene Love again could be found on lists of performers in venues like Roxy in LA and Bottom Line in NYC. She also made a truckload of guest appearances on others records like U2 and Cher. She also ended up on Home Alone 2's soundtrack with a song written by E Street Band's Steven Van Zandt. From 1986 onwards she is also featured on the last episode before holiday break on David Letterman's Show with Christmas (Please Come Home).

Notable Albums: newly released, The Sound of Love: The Very Best of Darlene Love

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees 2011 - part one: Neil Diamond

2011-03-06T13:18:00.001+02:00

This marks the beginning of a series of posts that will bring clarity to those who aren't familiar with this years Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees. The series will start with one of my personal favorites Neil Diamond.

Neil Diamond - From Professional Songwriter to Rock Star

Category: Performer
Presented by: Paul Simon

Neil Diamond has been given the nickname "The Jewish Elvis", and not without reason, he is one of the biggest singer/songwriters of the 20th century, and is still going strong in present day, rocking sold-out arenas at the age of 69.

Neil Diamond started his musical career as a songwriter for Don Kirshner in the Brill Building, alongside writer such greats as Carole King and Neil Sedaka. His most notable work as a songwriter for others was the 1966 Monkees hit I'm A Believer, that Diamond himself also recorded later on. Another artist who recorded an early Diamond song is Elvis Presley when he added Sweet Caroline to his Vegas repertoire in 1970.

The first turning point of his career was when he in 1966 got signed to a small indie record label called Bang Records. With Bang he recorded some of his careers highlights including Solitary Man, I'm A Believer and Kentucky Woman.

The victory march continued in the 70's with the new record company, MCA Records. The 70's showed Neil getting more confident on the stage and making the concert into a real event, but the music also got more depth and variety. From his 70's recordings it isn't easy to not mention greats like Song Sung Blue, I Am... I Said, Cracklin' Rosie and Holly Holy.

Even though Neil Diamond had his musical peak in the late 60's and 70's he is still going strong with recent album releases including an emotional record Home Before Dark (2008), produced by Rick Rubin and his most recent album Dreams, where Diamond covers intimate versions of some of his favorite rock songs. Dreams was also one the best albums released last year. It is a mystery why Neil Diamond hasn't been introduced to The Hall before now, fortunately the mistake will be corrected this month.

Notable Albums: Hot August Night, Beautiful Noise, Jazz Singer, Home Before Dark

Classic Album: Leonard Cohen - Songs From A Room

2011-03-05T08:09:00.058+02:00

Released: April 1969
Format: LP
Label: Columbia

Few artists make their breakthrough immediately with their first album release, Leonard Cohen was one of these selected few. He had already established something of a cult in the US and UK, so his second release only 4 months later was much anticipated. The sound on Songs From A Room has developed since Songs of Leonard Cohen and is now much more mature and varying, perhaps some of this change can be credited to producer Bob Johnston, who've made a splendid work with the album.

Songs From A Room features some of Cohen's greatest songs, both lyrically and musically. Bird On The Wire have been covered by many artists like Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Joe Cocker. Other remarkable songs on the album is The Partisan based on a French poem and set during the World War II among the French resistance, also including a verse in French, and Story of Isaac that can be interpreted as an anti Vietnam War song.

Even though Songs of Leonard Cohen is by most critics hailed as the better of these two albums that established the Canadian poet in music business, I beg to differ, Songs From A Room is definitely the highest peak on Cohen's career.

Tracks:
01. Bird On The Wire
02. Story Of Isaac
03. A Bunch Of Lonesome Heroes
04. The Partisan
05. Seems So Long Ago, Nancy
--------------------------------------------------
06. The Old Revolution
07. The Butcher
08. You Know Who I Am
09. Lady Midnight
10. Tonight Will Be Fine

Personnel:

Ron Cornelius - acoustic & electric guitar
Bubba Fowler - banjo, bass, violin, acoustic guitar
Charlie Daniels - bass, violin, acoustic guitar
Bob Johnston - production, keyboards
Neil Wilburn - engineer

Billy Joel autobiography coming summer 2011

2011-03-04T21:46:00.001+02:00

Billy Joel have recently written an autobiography of his life. The book will cover recording and writing processes of his most notable work, but will also give some insight to the darker side of the Piano Man since he will be describing his drug and alcohol problems and his failed marriage in the book. The book titled The Book of Joel is due to be released June 14th.

We'll have to wait and see if Joel will try to get his revenge on Elton John int the book, after all payback is a bitch. right?

"My People" in support of the protests in the Muslim world.

2011-03-03T10:48:00.001+02:00

I've now played this song over and over again about 10 times this morning, and what a song. Yusuf Islam's (formerly known as Cat Stevens, before conversion to Islam) My People, which he wrote in support of the ongoing protests in the Muslim world. The song is available for free downloading on Yusuf's site: http://www.yusuf.ae/. The original idea was to feature background vocals by people who had recorded them and then sent them via facebook to Yusuf, creating a massive sound wall of voices from all around the world. The innovative idea was however too hard to execute since not everybody could hold the right key, and the recording equipment used varied a lot in sound-quality. But even though the wall of voices had to be left out it's still a magnificent piece of work.

Heart problems for "The Big Man"

2011-02-26T14:47:00.004+02:00

Clarence Clemons also known by the nickname given in the 1975 Springsteen song Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out "The Big Man", has heart problems, not romantically, but the real kind. He told Rolling Stone in a recent interview that he was exhausted after the last show with the E Street Band, and is needing more surgery. Clemons have also previously had problems with his health and gone through a couple of surgeries before. He also told RS that he would love to tour with Lady Gaga. Clemons also appeared on a new song by the teen idol. Even though he would love to tour with Gaga this doesn't mean he is quitting the E Street Band. Clarence didn't confirm the rumors that Bruce and the gang would go on tour in 2012, but he didn't deny it either.

So fingers crossed, both for Clarence getting better and Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band going on tour in 2012.

Paul McCartney to debut with ballet in September

2011-02-25T19:10:00.001+02:00

Ocean's Kingdom a new ballet set to be released in September 2011, is "kind of a love story" according to writer Paul McCartney. Paul McCartney who previously has stepped out of the pop-writing box by making a classical record Liverpool Oratorio in 1991, have now written a ballet assisted by composer John Wilson. The choreography was made by Peter Martins. According to NY Times the ballet will be around 45 minutes long and divided into four acts and feature 40 performers.

It's nice that Macca tries new things in music but seriously, it would be great to get a new studio album sometime soon, pleaaaase?!

Classic Album: The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds

2011-02-17T08:11:00.001+02:00

Released: May 1966
Format: LP
Label: Capitol

Supposedly one of the greatest albums of the decade, Pet Sounds wasn't as big of a success as the previous Beach Boys records, commercially that is, critics hailed it, and have ever since hailed it as one of the best albums of all time. For example it made it to position #2 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time.

The Beach Boys had now courage to start experimenting with different kinds of sounds, like vocal harmonies layered upon the tracks, and different kind of noises, like barks and bells. But Wilson hadn't lost his skill to craft catchy pop melodies, added all of the above into one mix you get a great pop/rock record, that doesn't sound like the lot. The Pet Sounds hit shelves all over the world roughly at the same time as some unknown band from Liverpool released Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club's Band, it was these three albums that lead pop into the psychedelic era in the later years of the 60's.

It was also an Beatles record that originally inspired Brian Wilson to start writing on what would become Pet Sounds, Rubber Soul, which he hailed as the greatest album of all time. Before starting the recordings on Pet Sounds Brian Wilson had quit touring with the rest of the Boys, so while the band was touring he was in the studio writing stuff for Pet Sounds.

The method used recording Pet Sounds is very much similar to the one Phil Spector used on the other side of the Atlantic. Wilson first recorded an instrumental backing track , and then added layers of noises, sounds, and vocals upon that. He also explored the methods of using the studio itself as an instrument, varying the echo and treble etc. The Beach Boys used a lot of session musicians while recording Pet Sounds, as can be seen on the personnel list.

Tracks:

01. Wouldn't It Be Nice
02. You Still Believe In Me
03. That's Not Me
04. Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)
05. I'm Waiting For The Day
06. Let's Go Away For Awhile
07. Sloop John B
------------------------------------------------------
08. God Only Knows
09. I Know There's An Answer
10. Here Today
11. I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
12. Pet Sounds
13. Caroline, No

Personnel:

The Beach Boys
Al Jardine – vocals, tambourine
Bruce Johnston – vocals
Mike Love – vocals
Brian Wilson – vocals, organ, piano
Carl Wilson – vocals, guitar
Dennis Wilson – vocals, drums
-------------------------------------

Arnold Belnick – violin
Chuck Berghofer – upright bass
Hal Blaine – drums, percussion
Norman Botnick – viola
Glen Campbell – guitar
Frank Capp – percussion
Al Casey – guitar
Ray Caton – trumpet
Jerry Cole – guitar
Kyle Burkett – guitar
Andrew Maxson – bass
Gary Coleman – percussion
Mike Deasy – guitar
Al de Lory – piano, harpsichord, organ
Joseph DiFiore – viola
Justin DiTullio – cello
Steve Douglas – saxophones, clarinet, percussion, flute
Jesse Erlich – cello
Ritchie Frost – drums, percussion
Carl Fortina – accordion
James Getzoff – violin
Jim Gordon – drums, percussion
Bill Green – saxophone, flute, percussion
Leonard Hartman – English horn, clarinets
Jim Horn – saxophones, flute
Paul Horn – saxophone
Harry Hyams – viola
Jules Jacob – flute
Plas Johnson – saxophones, percussion
Carol Kaye – electric bass
Barney Kessel – mandolin, guitar
Bobby Klein – saxophone
Larry Knechtel – organ
William Kurasch – violin
Leonard Malarsky – violin
Frank Marocco – accordion
Gail Martin – trombone
Nick Martinis – drums
Terry Melcher – tambourine
Mike Melvoin – harpsichord
Jay Migliori – saxophones, clarinets, flute
Tommy Morgan – harmonica
Jack Nimitz – saxophone
Bill Pitman – guitar
Ray Pohlman – mandolin, guitar, electric bass
Don Randi – piano
Jerome Reisler – violin
Lyle Ritz – upright bass, ukulele
Alan Robinson – French horn
Joseph Saxon – cello
Ralph Schaffer – violin
Sid Sharp – violin
Billy Strange – guitar
Ron Swallow – tambourine
Ernie Tack – trombone
Paul Tanner – electrotheremin
Darrel Terwilliger – viola
Tommy Tedesco – guitar
Julius Wechter – percussion
Jerry Williams – percussion
Tibor Zelig – violin

Nat King Cole Show to be re-released on iTunes

2011-02-15T08:00:00.022+02:00

Nat King Cole Show was the first national variety show to host an African-American, however sadly the show was not long lived. It started in November 1956 on NBC, and due to low ratings and viewer rates it was shut down in December 1957. Despite it's short life Nat King Cole did some of his greatest performances on the show and it also featured acts by artists such as Count Basie, Sammy Davies Jr., Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett and Cab Calloway.

Maria Hawkings Ellington, Nat King Cole's widow have all these years saved copies of the original tapes, and they will now finally be remastered and released again digitally, on iTunes. It's estimated that the price will be somewhere around 2 $/show.

Here's something I found on Youtube: Nat King Cole singing the classic I've Grown Accustomed To My Face. And what a great version!

Grammy Awards 2011

2011-02-14T09:35:00.003+02:00

Congratulations to all of the Grammy Award winners!

Here's a list of some of the "old" winners:

Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance:

Paul McCartney - Helter Skelter

Best Rock Song:

Neil Young - Angry World

Best Rock Instrumental Performance:

Jeff Beck - Hammerhead

Best Historical Album:

The Beatles - Stereo Box Set

Best Long Form Music Video:

The Doors - When You're Strange

Once again congratulations to the winners.

An update on Billy Joel's and Elton John's fight behind the curtains

2011-02-11T19:59:00.001+02:00

The drama between Elton John and Billy Joel continues.

Yesterday, 10th February, Elton John told about a personal message he had received from Billy Joel on the Tonight Show. Elton told that Billy Joel had stated that he hated him for going public with his accusations against Joel. Elton also told that "He (Billy Joel) wants to punch me in the face".

Now Billy Joel have once again responded to Elton John's comments about him by sending the following message:

"1. I do not hate Elton John
2. I do not want to "punch him in the face"
3. If he wants to call me, my number is still the same.
4. Good luck with the movie.
BILLY JOEL"

This is really getting very childish.

New Details on Paul Simon's new album

2011-02-10T11:17:00.001+02:00

Paul Simon's 12th solo album So Beautiful Or So What will be released April 12th 2011. According to Paul Simon, himself the album will be very different to 2006's Surprise, in fact it will be very different to anything since Graceland. Paul Simon told the press that the songs of the new album were written on guitar, something he hasn't done since his 1972 album Paul Simon. The album's sound therefore circles a lot around Simon's guitar playing and his vocals. The album also has a lot of political messages in the lyrics.

I'm really looking forward to listening and reviewing this album.

Track listing:

01. Getting Ready For Christmas Day
02. The Afterlife
03. Dazzling Blue
04. Rewrite
05. Love And Hard Times
06. Love Is Eternal Sacred Light
07. Amulet
08. Questions For The Angels
09. Love And Blessings
10. So Beautiful Or So What

Also a new single has been released, The Afterlife:

And here's the old single release from last Christmas, Getting Ready For Christmas Day:

And here's Paul talking about the forthcoming album:

Classic Album: Cat Stevens - Tea For The Tillerman

2011-02-06T12:50:00.000+02:00

Released: November 1970
Format: LP
Label: Island Records

In 1969 Cat Stevens had released two somewhat successful pop albums Matthew & Son and New Masters, and he had become a teenage pop star, so the fall was long when he got tuberculosis and was hospitalized. During his time in hospital Stevens questioned his spirituality and his work as a pop singer. When he then got better and started recording again, the material was very much different from what he had done before.

His first comeback album Mona Bone Jakon (1970), was a success when released, and the folk sound of the album was different from other records of that time. Mona Bone Jakon had a very dark tone and feeling to it, and the lyrics often span around death.

Later the same year, Cat Stevens released his first internationally successful album, Tea For The Tillerman. The Tillerman sounded very alike to Mona Bone Jakon, both the lyrics touched more areas, Cat Stevens discussed the problems with modern society (Where Do The Children Play?), the relationship between young and old (Father And Son), love (Sad Lisa, Hard Headed Woman) and religion (On The Road To Find Out). Tea For The Tillerman was an enormous success and reached #8 on Billboard Pop Chart. It has sold 3 times Platinum in the US, and has been listed for example in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

The Tillerman includes many of Stevens biggest hits like Father And Son, Wild World, Sad Lisa, Where Do The Children Play, and Hard Headed Woman.

Tea For The Tillerman also marked the beginning of Cat Stevens peak of his career.

Tracks:

01. Where Do The Children Play?
02. Hard Headed Woman
03. Wild World
04. Sad Lisa
05. Miles From Nowhere
---------------------------------------------

06. But I Might Die Tonight
07. Longer Boats
08. Into White
09. On The Road To Find Out
10. Father And Son
11. Tea For The Tillerman

Personnel:

Cat Stevens – acoustic guitar, keyboards, lead vocals
Alun Davies – acoustic guitar, backing vocals
Harvey Burns – drums
John Ryan – bass
John Rostein – violin

New Rod Stewart + Jeff Beck album coming, and Stewart on tour with Stevie Nicks

2011-02-03T10:44:00.000+02:00

The rumored reunite of Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart is now confirmed as the duo is going to record at least one album together soon. One of the rumored titles for the upcoming album is Unfinished Business, a clever title choice if it will become the title, it's just a rumor.

Rod Stewart and Stevie Nicks also announced recently on the Ellen DeGenres Show that will go on tour together, performing hits from their respective careers, and there will also be some great duets to look forward to like Cat Steven's The First Cut Is The Deepest.

It's good to hear again something from Rod Stewart since it has been very quite on that front since he finished his Great American Songbook project.

Here's the interview with Rod and Stevie on Ellen:

"Though Love" between Elton John and Billy Joel.

2011-02-02T21:32:00.001+02:00

Elton John and Billy Joel have been touring together for several years now, but their most recent tour was cancelled due to Joel's illness. In the recent number of Rolling Stone Elton John made comments about Billy Joel, and urged Joel to seek proper rehabilitation to get rid of his alcohol problems. Elton told RS that it's very frustrating to work with Joel when you never know if the show is going to be cancelled or not. He also said that Billy Joel should start writing new songs again. Elton called their relationship "though love".

Billy Joel have now responded to these accusations, Billy Joel: "I've worked with Elton for such a long time and I've enjoyed our relationship too much to let something as random as these comments change my affection for him, Elton is just being Elton". While he at least officially seems to forgive Elton, it's hard to believe that their personal relationship wouldn't have taken any damage from these public statements, it could very well be that it will be some time before we see Elton and Billy together on the stage again.

Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck to reunite soon?

2011-02-01T22:33:00.001+02:00

In 1965 young Rod Stewart was invited to former Yardbird's member and guitarist Jeff Beck's new band called The Jeff Beck Group. They released two albums both reaching #15 on the US charts. Rod Stewart's role in the band was mainly singing but he did write some songs also. The group reunited in 1985 to record the song People Get Ready, which was included on Becks' solo-album Flash.

Rod Stewart told lately to Rolling Stone that the duo was closing on a reunion, and that they'd have a lunch together already before Christmas. We will just have to wait and see if the reunion is going to happen, and how long it will hold, or will it break up again due to their personal relationship like it did in 1969...

In the meantime, Jeff Beck Group - Morning Dew, from their first album Truth:

Classic Album: Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

2011-01-31T13:03:00.000+02:00

Released: November 1968

Format: LP

Label: Warner Bros.

"I started crying. It just vibrated in my soul" This is how Lewis Merenstein remembers the first time he heard Van Morrison perform the song Astral Weeks, this happened in 1968 at the Ace Recording Studio where Merenstein was sent by Warner Bros. to check out if Van Morrison had what it would take to be signed to the label. Morrison had later that year had a lot of troubles with his current label Bang Records, and was still when he got signed to Warner Bros. legally under contract with Bang.

This however didn't stop him from recoding one of pop music's biggest and most critically acclaimed records of all time. The recording sessions took place in September and October of '68 at the Century Sound Studios, in NYC. The sound of the album is very jazzy, though it also has influences of folk, blues and even classical music, the reason for this is probably that the producer Merenstein had a background in jazz music and the musicians used in the sessions were also all jazz enthusiasts.

Van Morrison have later commented that he starved during the recording sessions, literally. He wrote all of the songs on his acoustic guitar alone locked-in in the studio. Then he just played the songs for the other musicians and told them to do what they felt, the album came together so to say in a way that is very similar to simple jamming.

To list all the good response Astral Weeks has gotten over the years would take a lot of time and a lot of space so I'll just give some examples; Astral Weeks was listed second on Mojo's list of 100 Best Albums and #19 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums list, Stevie Van Zandt from the E Street Band said the album was like a religion to Springsteen and his band, and Martin Scorsese have told that half of Taxi Driver was based on the album.

Tracks:

01. Astral Weeks
02. Beside You
03. Sweet Thing
04. Cyprus Avenue
----------------------------------------------------

05. The Way Young Lovers Do
06. Madame George
07. Ballerina
08. Slim Slow Slider

Personnel:

Van Morrison - vocals, rhythm guitar
Jay Berliner - guitar
Richard Davis - double bass
Larry Fallon - harpsichord on
Connie Kay - drums
Barry Kornfeld - guitar
John Payne - flute, soprano saxophone
Warren Smith, Jr. - percussion, vibraphone
Producer: Lewis Merenstein

Country legend Charlie Louvin dies

2011-01-26T19:52:00.001+02:00

Charlie Louvin (1927-2011) from the country duo Louvin Brothers, died late Tuesday night from cancer, aged 83. Charlie Louvin was most famous for his hits with Ira Louvin like I Don't Belive You Met My Baby and When I Stop Dreamin. The duo was inducted to the Country Hall of Fame in 2001, and according to The Hall, their music have had an enormous influence on the whole genre. The duo split in 1963 and Charlie went on to a successful solo-career. Ira died in a car crash only two years later, in 1965. Their music have been widely covered by artist such as Johnny Cash, The Byrds and Emmylou Harris.

Charlie Louvin, you will be missed.

Review: Wanda Jackson - The Party Ain't Over

2011-01-24T17:16:00.000+02:00

Wanda Jackson, once crowned The Queen of Rockabilly did a comeback in 2003 with her first album since the early 80's with Heart Trouble, and she's here again. Where Heart Trouble was filled with guesting stars doing duets, the new album The Party Ain't Over features only Wanda on the vocals backed up by guitarist Jack White.

Party Ain't Over doesn't only include old rockabilly songs that made Wanda famous in mid-50's and early 60's, but also such classics as Rum and Coca-Cola and country tunes like Johnny Cash's Busted. Other notable covers on the album is Dylan's Thunder On The Mountain and Johnny Kidd & The Pirate's Shakin' All Over.

Jackson covers all of the song with confidence and a professional approach, but it does lack a bit of enthusiasm from Wanda's side, where as Jack White really works hard with his guitar, mastering even Mick Green's licks in Shakin' All Over, not an easy job. But then again Wanda's voice is as phenomenal as ever, and bearing in mind she's 73, she does a hell of a great job on this record.

3/5

Tracks:

01. Shakin' All Over
02. Rip It Up
03. Busted
04. Rum and Coca-Cola
05. Thunder On The Mountain
06. You Know That I'm No Good
07. Like A Baby
08. Nervous Breakdown
09. Dust On The Bible
10. Teach Me Tonight
11. Blue Yodel #6

Wanda Jackson with Jack White at the David Letterman Show, with Shakin' All Over:

Classic Album: Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water

2011-01-23T22:12:00.001+02:00

Released: January 1970
Format: LP
Label: Columbia Records

Bridge Over Troubled Water marked the end of an era, it was the last album produced by the collaboration between Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. After the break-up, shortly after the release of Bridge, both Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel went on with their separate solo-careers, and even though they have from time to time came back together live and even in a studio, there would never be a new album.

The recording of Bridge Over Troubled Water was delayed because of Art Garfunkel starting his acting career in the movie Catch-22, also Simon were offered a role in the movie, but his whole role was later cut out off the script, leaving Simon workless.

The recording finally started in November 1969, but the air was filled with "Beatles' Let It Be" feelings. For example the album was originally meant to include 12 songs but Simon and Garfunkel couldn't agree on the last one, Paul Simon wanting to record his "Cuba Si, Nixon No" track and Garfunkel wanting to do a classical song by Bach.

Despite the troubles between Simon and Garfunkel, the album would become their most successful, selling over 25 million copies worldwide, winning a bunch of Grammies and topping almost every chart in 1970. The album would eventually provide Simon & Garfunkel with 4 smash hits in: Bridge Over Troubled Water, Cecilia, El Condor Pasa and The Boxer. It also included a live covering of Bye Bye Love by The Everly Brothers.

Tracks:

01. Bridge Over Troubled Water
02. El Condor Pasa (If I Could)
03. Cecilia
04. Keep The Customer Satisfied
05. So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright
----------------------------------------------------
06. The Boxer
07. Baby Driver
08. Only Boy in New York
09. Why Don't You Write Me
10. Bye Bye Love
11. Song for the Asking

Personnel:

Paul Simon — vocals, guitar
Art Garfunkel — vocals
Los Incas — Peruvian instruments
Joe Osborn — bass guitar
Larry Knechtel — piano
Fred Carter, Jr. — guitar
Hal Blaine — drums
Pete Drake — Steel guitar, Dobro
Jimmy Haskell — strings
Ernie Freeman — strings

The Man With The Golden Ear - RIP Don Kirshner 1934-2011

2011-01-19T20:39:00.000+02:00

It's September 27th and the year is 1973. American television-history is in the making, a new program Don Kirshner's Rock Concert starts tonight with a Rolling Stones concert from London. The show, that was produced by the late Don Kirshner, ran from 1973 till '81, and featured artists like The Allman Brothers, Eagles, Billy Joel, BB King and Cat Stevens with many more.

The story of Don "Golden Ear" Kirshner starts however in the 1950's with a friendship between Don and Bobby Darin. the two of them started writing songs together, which eventually led to Darin's big breakthrough and the founding of Kirshner's own publishing company Aldon Music.

Aldon Music, was to become one of the great song publishing companies with hits like Breaking Up Is Hard To Do and Locomotion. Among the young writers that Don Kirshner hired for the company were the likes of Neil Diamond, Carole King and Neil Sedaka.

By the time of the mid-sixties it was time to move on, Aldon was sold to Columbia for 4.5 million dollars, and Mr. Kirshner started on a new project, a young TV-series called The Monkees. It wasn't long after that when the Monkee's spurted into fame by directions pointed by Kirshner. After The Monkees wanted to go their own way in music and left Kirshner, he went to promote another TV group The Archies, who eventually also became successful shortly after Kirshner took over the reins.

Kirshner passed away January 17, 2011 after a heart failure, aged 76. He will be missed.

Review: Gregg Allman - Low Country Blues

2011-01-16T08:00:00.006+02:00

It has been 14 long years since Gregg Allman's latest solo album, but the wait is over Low Country Blues will arrive to the shelves January 18th. The name of the album actually reveals a lot of what the album sounds like. Firstly it sounds a lot like Gregg Allman, with his deep southern accent and also the country influenced bluesy tracks are exactly what you would expect from Gregg. So no surprises here.

But, the sound of the record is superb. Heavy bass lines and deep dramatic drums gives it a very moody feeling and with Gregg's vocals on top of this mix it makes it sound complete. The record is in many ways a "back-to-roots" record that has became quite the phenomena for established rockers in the 21st century, but seldom has it worked this well.

The album consists mostly of cover songs by legends like BB King and Muddy Waters, but they all sound new and fresh, and the harsh sound makes them interesting. There is also one original song on the album written by Warren Hayes and Gregg Allman, Just Another Rider, but which also is maybe the weakest link on the album.

The album is produced by the legendary T-Bone Burnett.

If The South had a soundtrack, this would be it.

5/5

Tracks:
01. Floating Bridge
02. Little By Little
03. Devil Got My Woman
04. I Can't Be Satisfied
05. Blind Man
06. Just Another Rider
07. Please Accept My Love
08. I Believe I'll Go Back Home
09. Tears, Tears, Tears
10. My Love Is Your Love
11. Checking On My Baby
12. Rolling Stone

Canada bans Dire Straits classic

2011-01-15T13:01:00.000+02:00

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, which is a fancy word for a bunch of old men in suites from the 19th century who decides what's played on Canadian radio, has decided that Money for Nothing by Dire Straits is too offensive for Canadian radio listeners. The line in the lyrics that caused the ban is "that little faggot" that the Council thought was inappropriate. Really has Canada gone back to the 50's and 60's when every second released song was banned, or what? And besides if faggot is an inappropriate word I think there's a lot of other "inappropriate" words in some of the songs they push to the markets nowadays also...

New Aretha Franklin Columbia box-set arriving March 2011

2011-01-14T20:39:00.001+02:00

Columbia will release a "complete collection" with all of Aretha Franklin's Columbia Records masters. The box-set will include 11 CD's and 1 DVD. Columbia have promised some unissued performances and there will be previously unreleased takes included, but no unreleased masters though.

Still this box-set is going to be an important addition to everyone's musical library, as it documents Aretha's work before she rose to fame during her soulfully years at Atlantic. During her stay at Columbia she didn't sing any of the powerful soul numbers that became her ticket to fame, but pop standards and vocal jazz.

The goal with the release according to Columbia is to state that Aretha Franklin already was a great performer and singer before she went to Atlantic and started recording soul. The box-set will be called Take A Look Aretha Franklin Complete On Columbia and will be released March 22, 2011.

Classic Album: James Taylor - Sweet Baby James

2011-01-11T20:34:00.001+02:00

Released: February 1970
Format: LP
Label: Warner Bros.

In the late 60's Beatles' Apple Corp with it's sworn "holy mission" to bring new talent into music business had gone into a hard period that neared total collapse and chaos due to the break-up and crisis of the fab-four. One of the rising stars on the label was a 21 year old man from Boston, named James Taylor. James had already one release in the Apple catalog James Taylor (1968).

During the summer of '69 James Taylor played for example at the extremely popular The Troubadour. That same summer he also had a terrible motorcycle accidents that got him into a hospital bed. From that bedside he signed his contract with Warner Bros. and just a couple of months later his first album for the company came out.

The album titled Sweet Baby James would become both Taylor's commercial and critical breakthrough. It contains some of his best known songs like Fire And Rain, Country Road and Steamroller, which was covered by Elvis himself at his satellite broad casted concert from Hawaii in 1973. The album also contains the track Suite for 20G, 20,000 dollars being the amount James Taylor would receive from Warner Bros once he had completed the album.

All of the songs included on the album are written by James Taylor except the cover by Stephen Foster Oh! Susanna.

Taylor decided to bing a fellow musical multi-talent into the studio, the presence of Carole King gives a nice extra spice to the record. On Sweet Baby James James Taylor sets the warm easy-listening style that would become his trademark for years to come.

Sweet Baby James has sold 3 million copies in the States alone, giving it 3x platinum it also went to #3 on Billboard, also achieved by the single Fire And Rain. The album was also nominated for the Grammy for the best album.

Tracks:

01. Sweet Baby James
02. Lo and Behold
03. Sunny Skies
04. Steamroller
05. Country Road
06. Oh! Susanna
--------------------------------------------------
07. Fire and Rain
08. Blossom
09. Anywhere Like Heaven
10. Oh Baby, Don't You Loose Your Lip on Me
11. Suite for 20 G

Personnel:

James Taylor - guitar, vocals
Carole King - piano, vocals

Danny Kortchmar - guitar
Russ Kunkel - drums

Jack Bielan - brass
Chris Darrow - fiddle, violin
John London - bass
Randy Meisner - bass
Leland Sklar - bass

Bobby West - double bass

Red Rhodes - steel guitar

Peter Asher - producer

Franklin claims health problem is resolved.

2011-01-07T12:17:00.000+02:00

As reported before Aretha Franklin has been suffering from heath problems since October 2010, when she cancelled all her shows. In mid-December there was a rumor flying around that she would be suffering from cancer. Aretha Franklin have now told the press that the health problem is "resolved" after a successful surgery. She didn't though wan't to discuss what the problem in fact was. Maybe it was cancer, maybe not. The important thing is that she is now feeling well and will hopefully now return to the road again.

Classic Album: Bobby Darin - That's All

2011-01-06T12:49:00.004+02:00

Released: March 1959
Format: LP
Label: Atco

By the time that Bobby Darin stepped into the recording studio in 1958 to record his second long play album he had already established his name as a teenage pop idol, with songs like Splish Splash, Dream Lover and Queen of the Hop. He had appeared on national TV and released one full length album simply titled Bobby Darin. The fact was though that with Rock n' Roll Darin was like a million other guys. That's why he decided to record That's All.

One could think that it's foolish to turn your back on your newly won fans and completely change your style once you've made a name for yourself. But that was exactly what Darin did. He didn't want to be just another rocker, he wanted to be bigger than Sinatra.

That's All consists of big pop standards for example two of Darin's maybe biggest hits (perhaps after Dream Lover) Mack The Knife and Beyond The Sea. The orchestra on That's All is conducted by Ricjard Wess, who does a brilliant job on tracks like I'll Remember April.

That's All was one of Bobby Darin's most successful albums peaking at #7 on the US charts and staying on the charts for a total of 52 weeks(!) The risk was worth taking.

Tracks:

01. Mack the Knife
02. Beyond the Sea
03. Through a Long and Sleepless Night
04. Softly As in a Morning Sunrise
05. She Needs Me
06. It Ain't Necessarily So
-------------------------------------
07. I'll Remember April
08. That's the Way Love Is
09. Was There a Call For Me
10. Some of These Days
11. Where Is the One
12. That's All

Personnel:

Bobby Darin - voals
Richard Wess - conductor

That's All was recorded in different sessions from December 19-24 in 1958, and the set of musicians used for each of the three sessions can be found from here:

Bobby Darin Sessions

(Thanks goes to Laura R for helping with this post)

Top 10 Albums of 2010

2011-01-03T12:36:00.003+02:00

01 John Mellencamp - No Better Than This, Review

02 Bruce Springsteen - The Promise, Review

03 Eric Clapton - Clapton, Review

04 Ray Davies - See My Friends, Review

05 Neil Diamond - Dreams, Review

06 Phil Collins - Going Back, Review

07 Brian Wilson - Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin, Review

08 Tom Jones - Praise & Blame, Review

09 Jerry Lee Lewis - Mean Old Man, Review

10 Elton John & Leon Russell - The Union

Chuck Berry Hospitalized

2011-01-02T22:15:00.007+02:00

The undisputed rock n' roll legend Chuck Berry, creator of classic Johnny Be Goode, fell over his keyboard during his New Years' show at the Hard Rock Hotel in Chicago. Berry was then helped backstage, and after 30 minutes he came back to thank the audience and did his trademark "duckwalk". Chuck Berry's manager told the press that he had performed a little bit off during the show and had had some difficulties while playing the guitar.

On Sunday morning however Chuck Berry was reported to feel good, and is waited to return to his home in St. Louis.

UPDATE [03.01.2011]: Chuck Berry has returned home to St Louis, at this time there is no information whether he will seek additional medical treatment. Berry's manager told via an e-mail that Chuck Berry was suffering from exhaustion. Let's hope that he can return to the road as soon as possible.

Classic Album: Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison

2010-12-28T19:05:00.002+02:00

Released: May 1968
Format: LP
Label: Columbia

"Hello, I'm Johnny Cash", and the public bursts out in applauses, everything sounds normal for Johnny Cash, but it doesn't look normal. Johnny Cash is looking out at Folsom State Prison in California near Sacramento, and the audience consisted of the inmates. But as it's widely incorrect believed this was not Cash's first appearance in a prison. As early as '57 he had performed at Huntsville State Prison, he had already appeared in Folsom in 1966. This time though he was recording the concert.

In January 1968 Cash held two concerts at Folsom Prison which both were recorded and then blended into one record, released in May the same year. In 1968 Johnny Cash had put his drug problems behind him and he was ready to move on with his career, and what a better way than to do a live record in a prison? Cash had already earlier discussed this possibility with the producers at Columbia but was turned down.

However Bob Johnston, the new Cash producer at Columbia agreed with Johnny that this could be a smart move and started pulling the strings. And indeed it would show that this was to bee a smart move, selling 3 times platinum and reaching #13 on the billboard charts and #1 on the country charts. Before the shows at Folsom Johnny Cash and his band were rehearsing in Sacramento were governor Ronald Reagan paid a surprise visit to encourage the concerts.

A year later Johnny Cash did the same trick at San Quentin Prison.

Tracks:

01. Folsom Prison Blues
02. Dark as a Dungeon
03. I Still Miss Someone
04. Cocaine Blues
05. 25 Minutes to Go
06. Orange Blossom Special
07. The Long Black Veil
08. Send a Picture of Mother
09. The Wall
10. Dirty Old Egg-Suckin' Dog
11. Flushed From The Bathroom of Your Heart
12. Jackson
13. Give My Love to Rose
14. I Got Stripes
15. Green, Green Grass of Home
16. Greystone Chapel

Personnel:

Johnny Cash – vocal, guitar, harmonica
June Carter – vocal
Marshall Grant – bass guitar
W.S. Holland – drums
Carl Perkins – electric guitar
Luther Perkins – electric guitar
The Statler Brothers – vocals
Bob Johnston – producer

John Lennon's suit up for auction

2010-12-18T15:00:00.001+02:00

Got some extra cash lying around and want to get your hands on a piece of music history, then here's your chance! The owner of John Lennon's white suit that he used on the cover of Abbey Road is up for sale in an auction in Connecticut. If you feel like spending even more on some Lennon memorabilia you could also purchase his '72 Chrysler station wagon or his blazer he used in the Imagine music video. When both the suit and blazer were sold in 2005 they went for 120,000 $.

Review: Bruce Springsteen - Songs from The Promise @ Circus Hotel, Asbury Park, NJ 15.12.2010

2010-12-16T21:21:00.007+02:00

Bruce Springsteen had a mini-concert at the legendary Circus Hotel in Asbury Park yesterday, the show was streamed online in the US and is now afterwards available internationally until January 1st 2011. Bruce preforms mainly songs from his old-new album The Promise, with a little bonus in the end with the classic Blue Christmas.

The Boss seemed to be in very good shape and the concert was very much enjoyable. even though it only lasted roughly for 30 minutes. Clarence Clemons on the other hand, Bruce's saxophonist, didn't seem to do that well and played his short solos very effortless and sitting down, in between the saxophone parts he lazily shook a maracas, or something like that.

Well what the heck am I whining about? It was a freakin' great show!

Setlist:

Racing in the Street ('78)
Gotta Get That Feeling
Ain't Good Enough For You
The Promise
Blue Christmas

Watch the entire show:

USA/Canada: VEVO.com
Australia:YouTube
Ireland:Irish Times
UKThe Guardian
Germany:Rolling Stone and Yahoo!
France:Deezer
Finland:Iltasanomat
Spain:El Mundo and Marca
Denmark:Politiken
Holland:Nu
Switzerland:Teleboy and Le Matin
Italy:Repubblica
Israel:Walla

Neil Diamond to enter The Hall

2010-12-15T15:09:00.000+02:00

Neil Diamond, who recently released his 31st (!) studio album, will enter the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame. "Any club that has Chuck Berry and Little Richard and The EverlyBrothers is a club that I want to be a part of", was Diamond comment to the press. It has taken quite some time for Diamond to get nominated into the hall, since he's now 69 years old and started in the mid-60's with his recording career. The rules is that one can qualify for the hall of fame 25 years after they released their first record.

Along with Neil Diamond, Alice Cooper, Dr. John, Darlene love and Tom Waits got nominated. Nominees that was not introduced to the hall this time includes Bon Jovi, Donna Summer and Beastie Boys.

Aretha Franklin has cancer!

2010-12-11T10:54:00.001+02:00

According to FOX News Aretha Franklin suffers from Pancreatic cancer. This form of cancer is very critical, and after five years only five percent of the carriers survives. Despite the dark statistics Franklin's doctors said she is doing well all things considered. Aretha Franklin had according to FOX an operation in her hometown Detroit, let's hope that they could remove all of the cancer cells and that the Queen of Soul can soon return to the road.

Jim Morrison pardoned.

2010-12-09T23:47:00.001+02:00

The singer in the popular 60's rock group The Doors, Jim Morrison has now been pardoned posthumously in the exposure case from his 1969 gig in Miami. It's the outgoing governor Charlie Crist who decided to open up the investigation again in order to clear Jim's name, and he succeeded.

More about the incident: http://vinyl-player.blogspot.com/2010/12/did-jim-morrison-expose-himself.html

Classic Album: Roy Orbison - Mystery Girl

2010-12-08T16:56:00.000+02:00

Release: February 1989

Format: CD

Label: Virgin

December 6th 1988 Roy Orbison passed away, at the time of his death he had two albums on the Billboard Hot 100. The first was the collaboration album Traveling Wilburys vol. 1 and the other one was Mystery Girl.

Mystery Girl reached spot #5 on the Billboard list, it also reached #2 on the official UK chart, and that makes it the biggest chart success for Roy. The album name comes from the track written by Bono and The Edge from U2, She's A Mystery To Me.

What's worth a look is the list of album personnel, the likes of Tom Petty, Mike Campbell (from Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers), Jeff Lynne. Both Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne had worked with Orbison previously with The Traveling Wilburys.

Orbison decided to make some remakes of his old hit singles, California Blue and Dream You for example, he still puts the same effort in them, and still hits the high notes, at the same time as he makes them sound fresh and new. It's a matter of taste if you prefer these to the original masters from the 60's. Overall Orbison sounds very, very present on the album, and he had not sounded as good as on Mystery Girl since the beginning of his career. This would've become a real comeback album for Orbison, sadly he never got the chance to make a proper comeback.

Tracks

01. You Got It

02. In The Real World

03. (All I Can Do Is) Dream You

04. A Love So Beautiful

05. California Blue

06. She's A Mystery To Me

07. The Comedians

08. The Only One

09. Windsurfer

10. Careless Heart

11. You May Feel Me Crying

Personnel

Roy Orbison – guitar, vocals, acoustic guitar, backing vocals
Jeff Lynne – guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboard, piano , bass, backing vocals
Tom Petty – acoustic guitar, backing vocals
Mike Campbell – bass, guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, mandolin
Jim Keltner – drums
Howie Epstein – bass, backing vocals
Benmont Tench – piano, organ, cheap strings

"The Greatest Singer In The World"

2010-12-07T17:14:00.001+02:00

"The Greatest singer in the world" is what Elvis Presley said about him.

Roy Orbison passed away 22 years ago, December 6 1988.Roy Orbison died from a heartattack he got just outside of Nashville. At the time of his death he had two albums on the Billboard Top #5, Mystery Girl and Traveling Wilburys vol. 1.

Roy Orbison would have turned 74 yesterday.

This video was broadcasted on TV the night that Orbison passed away:

An even better way of making a salute to Orbison is by listening to his last concert, Oh Pretty Woman:

Review: The Doors - Live In Vancouver 1970

2010-12-05T08:08:00.004+02:00

The Doors Live In Vancouver 1970, recorded June 6, 1970, in Vancouver, Canada. The concert kicks off with Roadhouse Blues, The Doors' freshest hit from their latest album release, Morrison Hotel in February 1970. Roadhouse Blues climbed to #4 on the US charts that year.

The later years was hard times for the band, but they did also make some of their finest works during these last years, before Jim Morrison, the singer and front man, died in Paris in 1971. Both of their last albums LA Woman and Morrison Hotel, were both loved by the critics and the public. At the same time the band had to fight hard to be able to do any work at all. Morrison's drinking had gone even worse and he had also legal troubles at the times being (see post below).

This Vancouver show was to be one of the last the group ever did together, the last ones were held in December the same year. If you compare this show to the one they gave in Seattle, only a day ago, it's like everybody would have became 20 years younger overnight.

The set list consists of a bunch of hits and classic Doors numbers like, Back Door Man, Five To One, When The Music's Over, with more. In the middle of the concert Jim announces that the bluesman Albert King will join them "for a jam session", this leads to some classic blues numbers like Little Red Rooster, Rock Me and Who Do You Love. This adds some needed extra spice for the concert.

The band seems to be very alive through the whole record and keeps up with Morrison's impulses and makes a good base for Jim Morrison to lean back on. Morrison seems to be a bit off and his singing isn't that good, not that it usually is very good live. Towards the end of the concert it seems though to get a bit better, maybe it just took a little time to get warmed up or maybe it was Albert King's presence that made Jim to put himself together.

The casual listener won't find anything on this record of interest, and if they want to get to know The Doors, I would suggest buying a studio album like LA Woman. A 13 minutes long version of When The Music's Over could get a bit boring with it's over-lengthy guitar and synthesizer solos For a fan there is more to take from this recorded, as I'm sure it's one of The Doors' best live shows, at least from the later years.

2/5

Tracks:

01. Start Of The Show
02. Roadhouse Blues
03. Alabama Song (Whiskey River)
04. Back Door Man
05. Five To One
06. When The Music's Over
07. Applause
08. Love Me Two Times
09. Applause - Jim Talks
10. Little Red Rooster
11. Tuning
12. Money
13. Tuning
14. Rock Me
15. Tuning
16. Who Do You Love
17. Tuning
18. Petition The Lord With Prayer
19. Light My Fire
20. Tuning
21. The End
22. Thank You & Good Night

Did Jim Morrison expose himself?

2010-12-04T12:38:00.000+02:00

"I'm talkin' about love your neighbor 'til it hurts! I'm talkin' about grab your friend! I'm talkin' about some love, I'm talkin' about some love, I'm talking about some love, I'm talkin' about love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love! Grab your (expletive) friend and love him! Come on! Yeah!"

- Jim Morrison, March 1, 1969, Dinner Key Auditorium, Miami

Did Jim Morrison, frontman of the popular 60's group The Doors, expose himself at the concert in Miami 1969? That is the question Governor Charlie Crist asks, as he wants to pardon Jim Morrison's conviction from 1969 of public exposure. Gov. Crist is convinced that Morrison in fact didn't expose himself, and has started a new investigation about what really happened that day. Jim Morrison was sentenced to 6 months in jail and a 500$ fine, Jim never did his jail time.

The Doors' drummer John Densmore has been interviewed by the investigators and he denies that Jim would've exposed himself during the show. Though he admits that Morrison's singing was a bit off that night, and that he was drunk. At one point of the show Jim did stick his hands in his pants and tried to open the belt buckle but according to official sources he failed to open it. (picture)

At another point Jim brought a living lamb up on the stage and started talking about having sex with it, but then stated : "She's too young!".

Willie Nelson arrested, establishes The Teapot Party

2010-12-01T23:21:00.002+02:00

Willie Nelson, America's most famous pot smoker

Yesterday in Sierra Blanca, Texas a border patrol found 6 ounces of marijuana in Willie Nelson's touring bus. The outlaw country legend was then arrested and charged for drug possession. Well it wasn't that much of surprise that Willie would get busted for his smoking, since it was not really unknown to the public...

Now, instead of this being the point where Willie stops smoking and starts a healthier life, he does quite the opposite. As we all know Sarah Palin has her own little tea party, so why couldn't Willie Nelson also has his own? Well that is the question he asked himself and the result was: Willie Nelson's Teapot Party. Yes, it's completely true take a look for yourself: http://www.facebook.com/TeapotParty

And last but not least a short but funny video clip with Jimmy Kimmel, of course about Willie Nelson

New Paul Simon Album coming 2011, Single released

2010-11-25T20:41:00.000+02:00

Paul Simon released this week his first single online from his forthcoming album So Beautiful Or So What. The single, a Christmas tune, what else this time of the year? is called Getting Ready For Christmas. The song sounds kind of weird, not at all like Paul Simon, even though he has experienced with more contemporary sounds in his later years. It is not necessary for Paul Simon to have some kind of a hip-hoppy background singer, it would work just with his voice and well written lyrics. Let's say I'm not jumping up and down over this record, hopefully the full album will be better.

Classic Album: Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run

2010-11-24T00:00:00.001+02:00

Released: August 25 1975
Format: LP
Label: Columbia

In 1975 Bruce Springsteen had released two albums Greetings from Asbury Park and The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle. The young rocker from Jersey was hailed by critics to be the next big thing in Rock N' Roll, nut he had yet to reach commercial success. Columbia, Bruce's record label had already expressed their concerns about Bruce's future on the label, and it was clear that if he didn't make a blockbuster he would be thrown out from the label, and it could have been the end of his career.

The product, Born To Run, was a blockbuster, maybe Bruce's finest work ever. Bruce composed all of the songs for Born To Run home on a piano, this was not usual for Bruce who previously had composed with his guitar, but the piano made it possible to write the beautiful melodies on the record, which would've been impossible to notice on a guitar.

The whole record is about getting away, breaking out and just getting out. This theme can be found in almost all of the songs, Thunder Road. Tenth Avenue, Born To Run, Jungleland, Backstreets and so on. The album is recorded in a technique called "tracking", this was the last time they used tracking for a Bruce record, and the reason is obvious. Tracking means that you first record a basic track with the band ad the add material in layers upon that, like extra guitar riffs and overdubs. The fact that they used tracking for Born To Run made it possible to create the massive sound that can be heard on the record, Bruce didn't just have one guitar, he had four or five doing exactly the same thing.

The drawback with tracking was all the almost infinite alternative takes and layers they made of the songs, and it became very hard to choose what they should use and what not. They even had a sting ensamble to play a part on Born To Run. They spent 6 months just working on Born To Run, the song, not the album (!). To speed up the production they introduced a second producer Jon Landau to the group.

When the recording of the album went over-time the band spent almost 24 hours a day at the studio, and it certainly wasn't all fun and games. Both the piano player Danny Sancious and drummer Ernst "Boom" Carter quit the band after recording Born To Run, the song. These had to be replaced by Roy Bittan, piano and Max Weinberg, drums through auditions with 60 candidates. So a lot of extra work here.

Bruce, almost became a perfectionist during the making of Born To Run. For example when Clarence got in to the band for the saxophone solo in Jungleland, Bruce had written down every single note in the solo, and they spent 16 hours just polishing it till it became almost perfect. When they finally had all the material for the album recorded they had to mix the whole thing together in just one week, to be able to ship the record before Bruce went on tour to promote it. One day before the band left the studio and went straight on tour, the mixing was ready and the album went into printing.

When Bruce first heard the ready record he took it off from the player and threw it into the pool outside and said "Maybe I should just scrap the whole thing". After some pursvading from Jon Landau and Steven Van Zandt, Bruce changed his mind, thankfully. And the reaction was an enormous success Bruce made to the cover of both Time and Newsweek at the same time, and went on a successful European tour, his first one.

It was an explosion.

Tracks:

01. Thunder Road
02. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
03. Night
04. Backstreets
05. Born To Run
06. She's The One
07. Meeting Across The River
08. Jungleland

Personel:

Bruce Springsteen – vocals, guitars, harmonica, percussion
Roy Bittan – piano, Fender Rhodes, background vocals
Ernest "Boom" Carter – drums
Clarence Clemons – saxophones, tambourine, background vocals
Danny Federici – organ, glockenspiel
Suki Lahav – violin
David Sancious – piano, organ
Garry W. Tallent – bass guitar
Steven Van Zandt – background vocals, horn arrangements
Max Weinberg – drums

Wayne Andre – trombone
Mike Appel – background vocals
Michael Brecker – tenor saxophone
Randy Brecker – trumpet, flugelhorn
Richard Davis – double bass
David Sanborn – baritone saxophone

Produced by: Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau and Mike Appel

Review: Bruce Springsteen - The Promise

2010-11-23T08:00:00.003+02:00

The Promise, probably the most anticipated release this year for me. In 1978 Bruce Springsteen released Darkness On The Edge Of Town, one of his most successful albums, and one of my personal favorites. The material from the sessions 1977-1978 that became the Darkness album consisted of much more material than the 10 songs that ended up on Darkness.

The Promise, The Lost Sessions from Darkness on the Edge of Town. The title says it all. The 21 tracks on The Promise is all songs that at some point was just thrown in the garbage bin and not included on the album. But as The Boss himself pointed out in an interview they stand alone very strongly as a double CD. As a matter of fact it doesn't sound like a studio outtakes album or anything like that it sounds like a Bruce Springsteen album from the seventies.

Bruce who grew up during the early days of Rock N' Roll and teenage music got influenced a lot by the likes of Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly but also by great 50's and 60's soul music and Bob Dylan. The influences are easily heard on The Promise. For example on the pop influenced Ain't Good Enough for You.

A thing not very common among double albums is that the second disc is actually a lot stronger than the first one, it is at the same time more complete and more varying in the musical orientations. Especially the first half of the first disc tracks 1-4 doesn't really come up to the same level as the rest of the tracks on the album.

I wouldn't say it is better or even as good as Darkness On The Edge of Town, because let's face it, it's one of his all time greats. But The Promise is neither a bad record not even compared to the rest of The Bosses wide catalog, especially for me being a fan of Bruce's 70's work this is going to be close to my heart for a long time.

Tracks:

Disc 1

01. Racing in the Street
02. Gotta Get That Feeling
03. Outside Looking In
04. Someday (We'll Be Together)
05. One Way Street
06. Because the Night
07. Wrong Side of the Street
08. The Brokenhearted
09. Rendezvous
10. Candy's Boy

Disc 2

11. Save My Love
12. Ain't Good Enough for You
13. Fire
14. Spanish Eyes
15. It's a Shame
16. Come On (Let's Go Tonight)
17. Talk to Me
18. The Little Things (My Baby Does)
19. Breakaway
20. The Promise
21. City of Night
XX. The Way (hidden track)

5/5

Review: Elvis Presley - Viva Elvis

2010-11-22T07:52:00.001+02:00

A couple of years backwards there was a major Beatles album release of the album Love, this album was a soundtrack to the Cirque du Soleil Beatles show. Now, they've made a similar soundtrack album to the new Elvis show. I never liked the Beatles Love record, so I had my doubts when I put the Elvis soundtrack called Viva Elvis in my CD player.

And I have to say it was even worse than I expected, the record is complete and utter rubbish. It even contains a duet track, with a local celebrity, in Finland the duet was Love Me Tender with Anna Puu. I never understood the Christmas Duets that was released in 2009, and there is nothing to understand it is just Sony's way of squeezing every penny from Elvis' legacy. And that's the thing, Elvis is called The King Of Rock N' Roll, and not without reason, it is not needed to remix his songs to make them "new" and "fresh" and to "attract young audiences". Sony, this is not needed, take myself as an example I started listening to The King when I was 10 (!) and I didn't need a hip-hop version of King Creole to fall in love.

The only track that somewhat works is the remixed version of Suspicious Minds, I'm not saying it's great, just that it's the most true to the original track on the album. The rest like I already said is terrible listening, serious raping of Elvis' work. Everyone just keep the distance between your wallet and this album, this goes for fans and casuals.

Tracks:

01. Opening "Also Sprach Zarathustra
02. Blue Suede Shoes
03. That's All Right
04. Heartbreak Hotel
05. Love Me Tender
06. King Creole
07. Bossa Nova Baby
08. Burning Love
09. Memories
10. Can't Help Falling In Love
11. You'll Never Walk Alone
12. Suspicious Minds

1/5

Way to go Italy!

2010-11-19T22:31:00.000+02:00

Okey, If you are reading this from The States you are probably just now wondering about what Italy is, it's a country in Europe, Europe really consists of a bunch of countries. Most of these countries belongs to EU (European Union), an union that basically collects all the leaders of it's member states to fancy meetings and then pays aid to the farmers in the member countries and prints Euros.

Now Italy, a member in EU has decided to spend the money they get from the union better. They used it to host an Elton John concert =D. Yes, it's true. Almost 1 million dollars (7,200,000 €) given by the EU to repair old buildings and create art galleries, were used on the concert the previous year.

Now, sadly, EU is demanding it's money back... Really? Instead of putting the money down on the fields in Italy so that the poor farmers there could harvest their tomatoes and mozzarellas, or whatever they plant over there, they made it possible for these poor souls to go and hear some sweet music. Not a bad thing! So Mr. EU please return the money you are demanding back to Berlusconi, at least he didn't spend it on his (under aged) girlfriend(s)... just saying....

Apple Corps makes peace with Apple Inc.

2010-11-16T18:32:00.002+02:00

The rumors are true! The fight is over! Peace has arrived!

The Beatles will shortly appear in the iTunes catalog. This means the dispute about the company's name and whether or not it has stolen it from the company founded by The Beatles, may be over. This will also mean that also The Beatles has took the step to the future, and their music is now legally downloadable. Doesn't change my life a bit, still buying CD's and Vinyls instead of some bits, but definitely makes The Beatles much more accessible for the casual music digger.

Review: Ray Davies - See My Friends

2010-11-13T15:53:00.001+02:00

Another duet album has arrived to the shelves this year, this time it's the former Kinks front man Ray Davies, who has collected a bunch of big names to cut a duets record with him. The first thing that struck you when you look at the record is the list of guest artists with the likes of Bruce Springsteen , John Bon Jovi, Metallica, Jackson Browne and Amy McDonald, with more, it at least makes it an interesting record.

And it works too, better than duet albums usually do. Ray Davies succeeds to blow some fresh air into his The Kinks classics and the guesting stars adds a nice spice to it. I especially loved Days/This Time Tomorrow, Long Way From Home, Waterloo Sunset, Dead End Street

Then again songs like You Really Got Me (with Metallica) could work for somebody else with it's hard rock version, but personally I thought it was a little bit over the top, and didn't actually fit in at all in the rest of the album. You Really Got Me, is probably the weakest link on the album but there are also other songs that doesn't work that good. But it's still a very enjoyable piece of work, even for a casual listener, and a must buy for a fan.

Tracks:

01. Better Things with: Bruce Springsteen
02. Celluloid Heroes with: Richie Sambora, Jon Bon Jovi
03. Days/This Time Tomorrow with: Mumford & Sons
04. Long Way Home with: The 88, Lucinda Williams
05. You Really Got Me with: Metallica
06. Lola with: Paloma Faith
07. Waterloo Sunset with: Jackson Browne
08. Till The End Of The Day with: Alex Chilton, The 88
09. Dead End Street with: Amy Macdonald
10. See My Friends with: Spoon
11. This Is Where I Belong with: Black Francis
12. David Watts with: The 88
13. Tired Of Waiting For You with: Gary Lightbody
14. All Day And All Of The Night/Destroyer with: Billy Corgan
15. Victoria with: Mando Diao

4/5

Review: Neil Diamond - Dreams

2010-11-08T23:26:00.001+02:00

Neil Diamond continues his work with Rick Rubin, and again like the two previous records, stripped-down is the name of the concept. Even though the record is mostly filled with covers of very famous tracks like, Hallelujah, Blackbird and Desperado, Neil Diamond really does a great job interpreting them, he sings with the kind of warmth and deep emotion that gives you the chills. I'm sure there are a lot of guys out there coming after my balls when I now make the statement that this is the best album ever recorded by Neil Diamond.

On this album everything just seems to come perfectly together, Neil's beautiful voice, the song choices, the nice smooth accompaniment of the band, and the great producing of Rick Rubin. A notable piece on the album is Diamond's rerecording of his early rocker I'm A Believer, this time all of the striking power that busted towards you through your speakers of the old version is gone. This time it's slow, nice, relaxing, classy, simply beautiful.

Of course the album is very moody, but is not a bad thing it makes it seem whole and complete. I think an album with this kind of an track listing it could easily have turned out to be very corny, and it was what I was afraid it would be when I first saw the tracks, don't judge the book by it's cover I guess.

Tracks:

01. Ain't No Sunshine
02. Blackbird
03. Alone Again (Naturally)
04. Feels Like Home
05. Midnight Train To Georgia
06. I'm A Believer
07. Love Song
08. Losing You
09. Hallelujah
10. A Song For You
11. Yesterday
12. Let It Be Me
13. Desperado
14. Don't Forget Me

5/5

Elvis still influences the music business from the grave, this time it's Tom Jone's new album

2010-11-08T16:27:00.002+02:00

Tom Jones told the audience at a gig in Holland this year that his newest album Praise & Blame was influenced by the King himself. Elvis had told Tom during their Vegas years that he should record a gospel album, Tom told him he would do it someday. I guess it's someday now.

Watch the clip and see TJ peform Run On live:

Tom Jones Melkweg Amsterdam 5 November 2010