Tag Archives: album-a-day

album a day – screamin’ jay hawkins

Posted on October 12, 2012 by admin| Comments Off

today’s album a day was screamin’ jay hawkins – i put a spell on you.

i don’t know if it was a proper release of his or some oddball compilation, but it seemed like a good sampling of screamin’ jay’s work.

screamin’ jay was a kind of early shock rocker.  he often performed in crazy, macabre outfits, sang in a wild, screaming, howling style and performed with things like coffins and other props onstage.

he had a crazy up and down life.   he had a hit in 1956 with ‘i put a spell on you’.  he went from playing larger venues to things as shabby as barbeque joints.  he was a lothario, eventually fathering as many as 75 children with over 50 women.

at times he had money, then he was broke.  he got the attention of people like jim jarmusch, who used his music and the man himself as an actor in a couple of small parts.  he toured with nick cave and the clash.

there’s a documentary about him i’m going to review, along with a series of other music-based documentaries i’ve been consuming lately.  i’ll get more in depth about screamin’ jay then.

his music is operatic, goofy, creepy and wild.  below, hear his hit:

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album a day – rodriguez – cold fact/coming from reality

Posted on October 4, 2012 by admin| Comments Off

for the past week, my album a day has been these two releases from rodriguez.

he is a recent find for me, thanks to advance word about an upcoming documentary.  what a life.  his life is like a lot of the old bluesmen in that he did music, figured it was going nowhere, and went back to his life.  then some white guys come knocking, looking for the lost genius they idolize.

he is mexican-american and i guess he would be described at folk music or folk rock?    anyways, he gets into music and in 1970 gets an album put out, cold fact.  a year later he puts out another album, coming from reality.

his albums didn’t sell, and he mostly gave up on music.  but imports of his releases filtered out slowly to places like australia and south africa.  he briefly toured in the late 70s.

he stayed popular in these countries, although he really had no idea.  he was living life, and working after finishing college.  in 1998, his daughter found a website devoted to him and discovered the legend that had built up around not just his music, but his identity.  everybody assumed he was dead.

but he lives.   and as a result of his still being alive, he’s enjoying playing his songs live again and getting the attention his music deserves.

of the two albums, i really like cold fact more, but both are great listening.  cold fact is more raw, more potent.  coming from reality is more mature, more produced, almost corporate.

his voice is strong and melodic.  his lyrics are honest and searching.  what a find this guy is.

below you can hear his signature song: sugar man

and below, hear his dylan-inspired song establishment blues or ‘this is not a song, it’s an outburst’.  what a great title.

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album a day – guided by voices ‘class clown spots a ufo’

Posted on September 22, 2012 by admin| Comments Off

today’s album a day was guided by voices – class clown spots a ufo.

guided by voices, or gbv, are definitive indie rock.   the heart of the band is it’s singer/songwriter, robert pollard, who boasts having written over 1500 songs in the bmi catalog.

this can be a good and a bad thing.  this could be a truly great songwriter who is constantly inspired.  or, it could be a songwriter who refuses to let go of any idea, even if it’s not a good one.  added to which, a lot of gbv songs are simple and short, often stopping abruptly in the middle of a tune or morphing into something else.   don’t get me wrong – this is the part of gbv i like, that experimental component a lot of their stuff has.

some of pollard’s songs are truly beautiful, lyrically – and some are just throwaways.  musically, the band is always fun, if not interesting.

below, see one of the few pics i could find with not a single of the members of gbv smoking.   they seem really proud of the fact that they really like to drink and usually at least one of them never stops smoking long enough for even a picture to be taken…

they often sound like they could be a british band, given the singing style.  then they sound prog-rock.  then they sound almost pure pop before seeming like hard driving rock or punk.  i like the varying styles, the hard edge, the soft center and the ebb and flow of it all.

they put out three albums in 2012 alone.  they are prolific, almost too prolific.  but i’d rather have too much of a good thing rather than too little.

below, hear the title track from the release i listened to:

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album a day – merle haggard ‘i’m a lonesome fugitive’

Posted on September 19, 2012 by admin| Comments Off

“i raised a lot of cain in my younger days
while momma used to pray my crops would fail”

today’s album a day was easy to listen to.  it was merle haggard’s classic 1967 album i’m a lonesome fugitive.

merle haggard is a legend so i won’t do the biography/recap section.  but i will say that this album was just as his ‘outlaw country’ phase was ramping up.  in the 70s, you see, rock n roll seemed all about ‘rambling’, ‘gypsies’, ‘gambling’ or ‘indians’ and country went through either a ‘traditional’ or ‘outlaw’ phase.

as far as country went,’outlaw’ was the most interesting.

this music has a slow, lyrical, languid sound.  you can almost hear the hooves of the horse driving the beat.  it’s simple stuff, sweet stuff.  it’s supremely gorgeous and enjoyable listening, even if often there’s not much ‘there’, there.  it follows simple forms to common results, but with merle haggard being a master, it never gets old.

below, hear the sweet, harmonic title track:

“i’d like to settle down, but they won’t let me….”

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album a day – lord sitar

Posted on September 18, 2012 by admin| Comments Off

i haven’t done one of these for a while.  though i have been listening to a lot of random albums, i haven’t been blogging much because i just didn’t care about it for a bit.  now i’m into is so here goes, until i get bored with it or busy again.

today’s album a day was lord sitar’s eponymous lp for capitol records, released in the late 60s.

lord sitar was actually a legendary british session guitarist named big jim sullivan.  he played on and/or arranged many hits in the 60s and 70s.

at some point he learned to play the zitar from vilayat khan, and ended up jamming on zitar with george harrison from time to time.   he released a couple of albums of all-zitar music.

what is a zitar?

the zitar is stringed instrument that is plucked, not strummed.   they are fashioned in a couple of styles and various sizes.   zitars originated in india.  the playing of the zitar was popularied in the west by ravi shankar, who ended up instructing george harrison on the instrument.  it has a very distinctive sound, like the high end of a banjo or guitar being squeezed.    the anatomy of a zitar is below:

and so here we are at lord sitar.  the album is all covers of popular songs.  from ‘if i were a rich man’ from fiddler on the roof to ‘i am the walrus’.  it’s kitschy,  it’s charming and it all sounds great.  it’s fun, with flourishes of flute and masterful arranging that screams 1968.

below, check out a cover of the who’s ‘i can see for miles’.  it’s absolutely classic.

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