Why should Sister Sadi and Brother Butki have all the list fun with the lists of the moment and such? Here then are some records that I just can't get enough of lately.
"There'll Be Moonshine in Them Old Kentucky Hills" by
Stringbean
I've recently discovered this slammin' Stringbean
cut, which best I can tell dates from 1963. It's a classic old timey bluegrass
banjo cut. It's a really sweet and sentimental ode to brewing the moonshine
and whacking revenuers in them beautiful hills.
I realize I'm a sucker for something like this. For starters, both of my grandfathers were known to run bootleg liquor in Kentucky during the Prohibition. Sucker or not though, this is a gem.
Indeed, I'm so taken with it that I have named it the official theme song for MoreThings.com. It's available for a Free Download Right Here along with a bunch more Stringbean.
"Original Faubus Fables" by Charles Mingus
Working out from the mother's milk of country and rock, I'm still struggling
to get my mind around the more highbrow end of jazz. Mingus was definitely
toward that highbrow end, but he kept some of those basics working, the blues
and gospel and New Orleans stuff setting up or underlying the more extended
and intellectual excursions.
I'm listening to the nine minute version included in the Ken Burns series, which appears to have been recorded in 1960. You can hear some of the New Orleans parade stuff going in parts of it, with the emphasis on the off beat, and the call and response stuff. Then you get the meatier solo sections. There's a trumpet solo just past 100 seconds that particularly sends a little tingle up my spine. It's righteous stuff.
He's carrying on in the lyrics about Nazis and swastikas, Jim Crow and the Klan. This turns out to be addressing one of those ridiculous segregationist Jim Crow governors whom I'm fortunate enough to not have had to know much about. Orval Fabus was the governor of Arkansas in 1957, promising blood in the streets of Little Rock if they tried to integrate Central High. "Why's he so sick and so ridiculous?" The tone comes out more gentle mockery than righteous anger. Swingin' stuff anyway you look at it.
"Hora Decubitus" by Elvis Costello
This is the first cut on the brand new My Flame Burns Blue album,
recorded live in 2004 in the Hague with the Metropole Orkest, a unique
combination jazz/classical orchestra.
This is, coincidentally, a Charles Mingus composition for which Elvis Costello wrote a lyric at the request of the widow Sue Mingus. This is swingin' and jammin' all kinds of ways, with special good from the classical strings that you wouldn't expect on a jazz recording.
The melody scats right along about the bird on his window refusing to be caught with Elvis waxing poetic in an affirmation of life written just after 9/11.
"It's Only Make Believe" by Conway Twitty
For someone who was playing constantly on the radios of my childhood, I've
been admittedly slow in picking up on the coolness of Conway. Partly from
hearing a disproportionate amount of his lesser stuff from his last few years,
I never properly appreciated the man. I've lumped him in with Kenny Rogers as
a failed crappy rocker gone country.
Imagine the opening of my eyes a couple of months ago seeing him performing this song on a 1969 Hee Haw. The 1958 original is where he made his name, and now I'm seeing what the ladies were going so crazy over. This ain't some cheesy contrived ode to seeing the condition of his condition.
Instead, this turns out to be a really good dramatic rock and roll bolero. It's in the range of classic Roy Orbison, "Cryin'" and such. Plus, it's good enough to stand in their company. Not only that, but by my figuring, this was while Roy was still recording mostly pedestrian rockabilly for Sun, two years before his big breakout hit "Only the Lonely."
"Stupid Girls" by Pink
I'm not saying that Pink is the greatest artist going, but she's head and
shoulders above the teen girl crap with which she would mostly be compared.
She's actually about something.
This song has a couple of pretty good hooks, and some decent melodic development. I don't know if it's a classic tune, but it sounds pretty sharp.
Moreover, it has some real spirit, a rebuke of weak, stupid girls shaming and degrading themselves, becoming skanks to try to impress the boys. Pink's not interested in being a "pull-my-hair-I'll-suck-it girl." She's got a noteworthy slam of all the Paris Hilton wannabes with their "itsy bitsy doggies and their teeny weeny titties."
This record has far more of the classic animating Pentecostal fire of real rock and roll than any crappy Coldplay, I'll tell you that. And it has a lot more meaningful lyric than some supposedly profound Pearl Jam nonsense.
"Criminal" by Fiona Apple
Speaking of Pentecostal
fire, there's Fiona
Apple. The Extraordinary Machine album is a modern classic that I
need to write about when I can figure out how to explain just how damned good
it is.
In the meantime, this 1996 classic is her main actual hit single, which only came to my attention last year. Holy crap, but this has my name all over it — and the holy fires of The Spirit all up in it.
If Jerry Lee Lewis were a college girl in 1996, he'd have been coming up with this. It's a highbrow secular gospel song, a confession. For being about a guy, it's very church-y, spilling her guts in confession. "I need to be redeemed to the one I've sinned against."
The melody is highly memorable, and the spiritual fire burns hot, right through the complicated twists of melody and that excellent piano coda.
"If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day" by the Asylum Street
Spankers
I've spent a lot of time lately with the Asylum Street Spankers' awesome Re-assembly
concert DVD. They're so good in so many ways. They have a strong comedy
quotient, and pretty much every group member has at least one groovy original
composition about gettin' high — for example, the song "Gettin'
High."
But these people are serious frickin' musicians, and it's no joke when Guy Forsyth lays down the guitar of damnation, raining razor sharp shards of blues judgment that will put the fear of God into an atheist. This may be the best performance of the Robert Johnson classic that I've ever heard.
"Hee-Haw Breakdown" by Nolan Cormier & The La Aces
I've got no idea who this Cormier guy is, but this song can be found on a 2002
album of Cajun classics. I think I found this while hunting p2p for Stringbean.
Anyway, this does not particularly seem to have anything to do with the TV show, but it's a good piece of Cajun willfulness, built around the imitation of a bucking mule.
"Don't Trust Them New Niggers Over There" by Uncle Ruckus
In theory, this really isn't much of a song. It's just a few lines put
together for a cartoon. Probably wouldn't be that interesting just plopped
down blindly in front of me, but it carries a lot of weight in the context.
This is from the pilot episode of the Boondocks TV series. The Freemans show up for a fancy garden party at the home of the banker who owns their mortgage — only to be targeted for nutsy racial stuff by the crazy old black guy working security.
Uncle Ruckus has completely internalized every worst bit of residual racism in the culture, a survivor of Jim Crow eaten up with self-hatred. All this weird shame comes to a head as a very drunk Ruckus jumps up on the stage in front of all the rich white folks to sing a new song he just wrote. Pointing at the Freemans, he sings "Don't trust them new niggers over there, leaving their nigger essence in the air." Then he passes out on the lawn.
Besides being pretty catchy, combined with the characterization, and the visual images of the guy, this carries a lot of pathos. It might sound dumb for talking about a cartoon, but I really feel Ruckus' pain. Grandpa Freeman apparently does too, emerging in the second episode as his new best friend, playing checkers in the park. That's good. Ruckus needs a friend.
"Cigarettes and Whiskey" by Buck Owens
This has been my favorite song to celebrate Buck
Owens in the wake of his recent passing. It's a novelty song, cast as some
kind of Salvation Army sermon. "A preachment, dear friends, you are about
to receive on John Barleycorn, nicotine, and the temptations of Eve." The
repeated interjections of the drunk calling for "Tiger by the Tail"
really top it off.
"Re-hab" by Stew
Stew, The Negro Problem incarnate, is one of the best songwriters working
today. The guy's a real composer with, like, melodies and such. This
particular cut from his first solo album in 2000 sounds really sweet, with a
pretty melody rolling along.
The tune is a spoonful of sugar, though, for a gently stated but tough judgment of a girlfriend in re-hab for the 22nd time. The coldest part is the key hook, a children's chorus singing "very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very optimistic." Don't worry — there's enough melody to carry the verys.
"Black Sweat" by Prince
Finally, I'm pleased to note that as I write, Prince
has the #1 selling album in the country with his new 3121. I'm not
saying this is going to make you forget Purple Rain, but some of this
stuff is sounding pretty sharp.
"Black Sweat" fits into a recognizable vein of his work, built on some very sharp tricked out drum machine grooves. Hardly anyone but Prince seems able to really make the things come alive, but Prince sure can. This would fit roughly into a mix with stuff like "Tamborine" or "Tick Tick Bang."
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