man, even Toms casual conversations are poetry..what a mastery of the english language..
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/s...439272,00.html<http://observer.guardia
n.co.uk/omm/story/0,13887,1439272,00.html>
1 In The Wee Small Hours by Frank Sinatra (Capitol) 1955
Actually, the very first 'concept' album. The idea being you put this record
on after dinner and by the last song you are exactly where you want to be.
Sinatra said that he's certain most baby boomers were conceived with this as
the soundtrack.
2 Solo Monk by Thelonious Monk (Columbia) 1964
Monk said 'There is no wrong note, it has to do with how you resolve it'. He
almost sounded like a kid taking piano lessons. I could relate to that when
I first started playing the piano, because he was decomposing the music
while he was playing it. It was like demystifying the sound, because there
is a certain veneer to jazz and to any music, after a while it gets traffic
rules, and the music takes a backseat to the rules. It's like aerial
photography, telling you that this is how we do it. That happens in folk
music too. Try playing with a bluegrass group and introducing new ideas.
Forget about it. They look at you like you're a communist. On Solo Monk, he
appears to be composing as he plays, extending intervals, voicing chords
with impossible clusters of notes. 'I Should Care' kills me, a communion
wine with a twist. Stride, church, jump rope, Bartok, melodies scratched
into the plaster with a knife. A bold iconoclast. Solo Monk lets you not
only see these melodies without clothes, but without skin. This is astronaut
music from Bedlam.
3 Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart (Straight) 1969
The roughest diamond in the mine, his musical inventions are made of bone
and mud. Enter the strange matrix of his mind and lose yours. This is
indispensable for the serious listener. An expedition into the centre of the
earth, this is the high jump record that'll never be beat, it's a merlot
reduction sauce. He takes da bait. Dante doing the buck and wing at a Skip
James suku jump. Drink once and thirst no more.
4 Exile On Main St. by Rolling Stones (Rolling Stones Records) 1972
'I Just Want To See His Face' - that song had a big impact on me,
particularly learning how to sing in that high falsetto, the way Jagger
does. When he sings like a girl, I go crazy. I said, 'I've got to learn how
to do that.' I couldn't really do it until I stopped smoking. That's when it
started getting easier to do. [Waits's own] 'Shore Leave' has that, 'All
Stripped Down', 'Temptation'. Nobody does it like Mick Jagger; nobody does
it like Prince. But this is just a tree of life. This record is the watering
hole. Keith Richards plays his *** off. This has the Checkerboard Lounge all
over it.
5 The Sinking of the Titanic by Gavin Bryars (Point Music) 1975
This is difficult to find, have you heard this? It's a musical impression of
the sinking of the Titanic. You hear a small chamber orchestra playing in
the background, and then slowly it starts to go under water, while they
play. It also has 'Jesus Blood' on it. I did a version of that with Gavin
Bryars. I first heard it on my wife's birthday, at about two in the morning
in the kitchen, and I taped it. For a long time I just had a little crummy
cassette of this song, didn't know where it came from, it was on one of
those Pacifica radio stations where you can play anything you want. This is
really an interesting evening's music.
6 The Basement Tapes by Bob Dylan (Columbia) 1975
With Dylan, so much has been said about him, it's difficult so say anything
about him that hasn't already been said, and say it better. Suffice it to
say Dylan is a planet to be explored. For a songwriter, Dylan is as
essential as a hammer and nails and a saw are to a carpenter. I like my
music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in - so the bootlegs I
obtained in the Sixties and Seventies, where the noise and grit of the tapes
became inseparable from the music, are essential to me. His journey as a
songwriter is the stuff of myth, because he lives within the ether of the
songs. Hail, hail The Basement Tapes. I heard most of these songs on
bootlegs first. There is a joy and an abandon to this record; it's also a
history lesson.
7 Lounge Lizards by Lounge Lizards (EG) 1980
They used to accuse John Lurie of doing fake jazz - a lot of posture, a lot
of volume. When I first heard it, it was so loud, I wanted to go outside and
listen through the door, and it was jazz. And that was an unusual thing, in
New York, to go to a club and hear jazz that loud, at the same volume people
were listening to punk rock. Get the first record, The Lounge Lizards. You
know, John's one of those people, if you walk into a field with him, he'll
pick up an old pipe and start to play it, and get a really good sound out of
it. He's very musical, works with the best musicians, but never go fishing
with him. He's a great arranger and composer with an odd sense of humour.
8 Rum Sodomy and the Lash by The Pogues (Stiff) 1985
Sometimes when things are real flat, you want to hear something flat, other
times you just want to project onto it, something more like.... you might
want to hear the Pogues. Because they love the West. They love all those old
movies. The thing about Ireland, the idea that you can get into a car and
point it towards California and drive it for the next five days is like
Euphoria, because in Ireland you just keep going around in circles, those
tiny little roads. 'Dirty Old Town', 'The Old Main Drag'. Shane has the
gift. I believe him. He knows how to tell a story. They are a roaring,
stumbling band. These are the dead end kids for real. Shane's voice conveys
so much. They play like soldiers on leave. The songs are epic. It's
whimsical and blasphemous, seasick and sacrilegious, wear it out and then
get another one.
9 I'm Your Man by Leonard Cohen (Columbia) 1988
Euro, klezmer, chansons, apocalyptic, revelations, with that mellifluous
voice. A shipwrecked Aznovar, washed up on shore. Important songs,
meditative, authoritative, and Leonard is a poet, an Extra Large one.
10 The Specialty Sessions by Little Richard (Specialty Records) 1989
The steam and chug of 'Lucille' alone pointed a finger that showed the way.
The equipment wasn't meant to be treated this way. The needle is still in
the red.
11 Startime by James Brown (Polydor) 1991
I first saw James Brown in 1962 at an outdoor theatre in San Diego and it
was indescribable... it was like putting a finger in a light socket. He did
the whole thing with the cape. He did 'Please Please Please'. It was such a
spectacle. It had all the pageantry of the Catholic Church. It was really
like seeing mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Christmas and you couldn't
ignore the impact of it in your life. You'd been changed, your life is
changed now. And everybody wanted to step down, step forward, take
communion, take sacrament, they wanted to get close to the stage and be
anointed with his sweat, his cold sweat.
12 Bohemian-Moravian Bands by Texas-Czech (Folk Lyric) 1993
I love these Czech-Bavarian bands that landed in Texas of all places. The
seminal river for mariachi came from that migration to that part of the
United States, bringing the accordion over, just like the drum and fife
music of post slavery, they picked up the revolutionary war instruments and
played blues on them. This music is both sour and bitter, and picante, and
floating above itself like steam over the kettle. There's a piece called the
'Circling Pigeons Waltz', it's the most beautiful thing - kind of sour, like
a wheel about to go off the road all the time. It's the most lilting little
waltz. It's accordion, soprano sax, clarinet, bass, banjo and percussion.
13 The Yellow Shark by Frank Zappa (Barking Pumpkin) 1993
It is his last major work. The ensemble is awe-inspiring. It is a rich
pageant of texture in colour. It's the clarity of his perfect madness, and
mastery. Frank governs with Elmore James on his left and Stravinsky on his
right. Frank reigns and rules with the strangest tools.
14 Passion for Opera Aria (EMI Classics) 1994
I heard 'Nessun Dorma' in the kitchen at Coppola's with Raul Julia one
night, and it changed my life, that particular Aria. I had never heard it.
He asked me if I had ever heard it, and I said no, and he was like, as if I
said I've never had spaghetti and meatballs - 'Oh My God, Oh My God!' - and
he grabbed me and he brought me into the jukebox (there was a jukebox in the
kitchen) and he put that on and he just kind of left me there. It was like
giving a cigar to a five-year old. I turned blue, and I cried.
15 Rant in E Minor by Bill Hicks (Rykodisc) 1997
Bill Hicks, blowtorch, excavator, truthsayer and brain specialist, like a
reverend waving a gun around. Pay attention to Rant in E Minor, it is a
major work, as important as Lenny Bruce's. He will correct your vision. His
life was cut short by cancer, though he did leave his tools here. Others
will drive on the road he built. Long may his records rant even though he
can't.
16 Prison Songs: Murderous Home Alan Lomax Collection (Rounder Select) 1997
Without spirituals and the Baptist Church and the whole African-American
experience in this country, I don't know what we would consider music, I
don't know what we'd all be drinking from. It's in the water. The impact the
whole black experience continues to have on all musicians is immeasurable.
Lomax recorded everything, from the sounds of the junkyard to the sound of a
cash register in the market... disappearing machinery that we would no
longer be hearing. You know, one thing that doesn't change is the sound of
kids getting out of school. Record that in 1921, record that now, it's the
same sound. The good thing about these is that they're so raw, they're
recorded so raw, that it's just like listening to a landscape. It's like
listening to a big open field. You hear other things in the background. You
hear people talking while they are singing. It's the hair in the gate.
17 Cubanos Postizos by Marc Ribot (Atlantic) 1998
This Atlantic recording shows off one of many of Ribot's incarnations as a
prosthetic Cuban. They are hot and Marc dazzles us with his bottomless soul.
Shaking and burning like a native.
18 Houndog by Houndog (Sony) 1999
Houndog, the David Hidalgo [Los Lobos] record he did with Mike Halby [Canned
Heat]. Now that's a good record to listen to when you drive through Texas. I
can't get enough of that. Anything by Latin Playboys, anything by Los Lobos.
They are like a fountain. The Colossal Head album killed me. Those guys are
so wild, and they've gotten so cubist. They've become like Picasso. They've
gone from being purely ethnic and classical, to this strange, indescribable
item that they are now. They're worthwhile to listen to under any
circumstances. But the sound he got on Houndog, on the electric violin
...the whole record is a dusty road. Dark and burnished and mostly
unfurnished. Superb texture and reverb. Lo fi and its highest level. Songs
of depth and atmosphere. It ain't nothin' but a...
19 Purple Onion by Les Claypool (Prawn Song) 2002
Les Claypool's sharp and imaginative, contemporary ironic humour and
lightning musicianship makes me think of Frank Zappa. 'Dee's Diner' is like
a great song your kid makes up in the car on the way to the drive-in. Songs
for big kids.
20 The Delivery Man by Elvis Costello (Mercury) 2004
Scalding hot bedlam, monkey to man needle time. I'd hate to be balled out by
him, I'd quit first. Grooves wide enough to put your foot in and the
bassplayer is a gorilla of groove. Pete Thomas, still one of the best rock
drummers alive. Diatribes and rants with steam and funk. It has locomotion
and heat. Steam heat, that is.
and then blogged about some more
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/observer...in_shakin.html<http://blogs.guardian.c
o.uk/observer/archives/2005/03/16/screamin_hollerin_shakin.html>
Martinis & Bikinis
Sam Phillips
Virgin, 1994
Peculiar, innovative, soulful, and reasonably undiscovered, with a deeply
expressive voice and challenging and unusual topics for songs. Kurt Weill
with a revolver. Her cracked vocals and surreal lyrics make for an odd and
familiar ride. She and producer T- Bone Burnett make her face yellow and her
hair red, and give her a third eye, and together they make tough records.
She's Dusty Springfield via Marianne Faithfull with a dash of Jackie De
Shannon, but very much her own woman.
Shakin the Rafters
The Abyssinian Baptist Gospel Choir
Sony, 1960
Tony Bennett said this is the greatest rock and roll record ever recorded.
You can feel why in these wild powerful performances, produced by John
Hammond in the early 1960 s (John was, among other things, an avid fan of
gospel). This choir is barely containable. This recording puts you in the
choir with them. Astonishing, awesome. You will be saved.
Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues
'The Masked Marvel'
Charley Patton
Revonant, 2001
Beautiful retrospective on one of the pillars of the Delta Blues. Clearly
not only a blues man but a songster as well and a teacher to all who would
follow.
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music
Ray Charles
ABC Paramount, 1962
I knelt at the altar of Ray Charles for years. I worked at a restaurant, and
that's all there was on the jukebox, practically, that and some Patsy Cline.
Crying Time , Can't Stop Loving You , Let's Go Get Stoned , You Are My
Sunshine , What'd I Say , Hit The Road, Jack . I worked on Saturday nights
and I would take my break and I'd sit by the jukebox and I'd play my Ray
Charles. It was just amazing what he absorbed and that voice, for years it
was just the Genius of Ray Charles ... I also love a record called
Listen . He did Yesterday on electric piano and it just killed me, to
hear that voice, it was like he crossed over a bridge, because he remained
in R&B territory, yet there was something so timeless about his voice, and
hearing him do a Beatles song was just indescribable.
Harry Partch Collection Vol 1
New World Records, 2004
The new CDs have been reissued and the sound is excellent. These are an
excellent introduction to his whole oeuvre. He d worked as a migrant worker
and had been on the road for half his life, and he was one of those rogue
academics who worked outside the matrix. So they feared him and pretended to
admire him. Like most innovators, he becomes gravel on the road that most
people drive on. So he was the first one through the door and the crowd
tramples him. But nobody has done anything like that since. The idea of
designing your own instruments, playing them and then designing your own
scale, your own system of music. That s dramatic and particularly for the
time that he was doing it. It was rather subversive. It s always fascinating
to hear something being played that doesn t sound polished or evolved as an
instrument. It still sounds a little bit like you re hitting tractor parts
or a dumpster door. Or you re still in the kitchen, to an extent. The music
has that extra texture to it. And then of course he s very sophisticated and
well versed in mythology so it s got that other side to it.
Let The Buyer Beware
Lenny Bruce
Shout! Factory, 2004
Awesome in its scope and depth. Hal Wilner compiled this from thousands of
feet of tape. It is the road that all comics of today are driving on.
Last Sessions
Leadbelly
Smithsonian Folkways, 1994
Leadbelly was a river, was a tree. His 12-string guitar rang like a piano in
a church basement. The Rosetta stone for much of what was to follow, he died
in 1949. Excellent to listen to when driving across Texas, contains all that
is necessary to sustain life, a true force of nature. He died the day before
I was born and I like to think I passed him in the hall and he banged into
me and knocked me over.
Ompa Til du Dxr
Kaizers Orchestra
Broiler Farm, 2001
Norwegian storm trooping tarantellas with savage rhythms and innovative
textures. Thinking man s circus music. Way out.
Tom Waits
--
man, even Toms casual conversations are poetry..what a mastery of the english language..
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/s...439272,00.html<http://observer.guardia
n.co.uk/omm/story/0,13887,1439272,00.html>
1 In The Wee Small Hours by Frank Sinatra (Capitol) 1955
Actually, the very first 'concept' album. The idea being you put this record
on after dinner and by the last song you are exactly where you want to be.
Sinatra said that he's certain most baby boomers were conceived with this as
the soundtrack.
2 Solo Monk by Thelonious Monk (Columbia) 1964
Monk said 'There is no wrong note, it has to do with how you resolve it'. He
almost sounded like a kid taking piano lessons. I could relate to that when
I first started playing the piano, because he was decomposing the music
while he was playing it. It was like demystifying the sound, because there
is a certain veneer to jazz and to any music, after a while it gets traffic
rules, and the music takes a backseat to the rules. It's like aerial
photography, telling you that this is how we do it. That happens in folk
music too. Try playing with a bluegrass group and introducing new ideas.
Forget about it. They look at you like you're a communist. On Solo Monk, he
appears to be composing as he plays, extending intervals, voicing chords
with impossible clusters of notes. 'I Should Care' kills me, a communion
wine with a twist. Stride, church, jump rope, Bartok, melodies scratched
into the plaster with a knife. A bold iconoclast. Solo Monk lets you not
only see these melodies without clothes, but without skin. This is astronaut
music from Bedlam.
3 Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart (Straight) 1969
The roughest diamond in the mine, his musical inventions are made of bone
and mud. Enter the strange matrix of his mind and lose yours. This is
indispensable for the serious listener. An expedition into the centre of the
earth, this is the high jump record that'll never be beat, it's a merlot
reduction sauce. He takes da bait. Dante doing the buck and wing at a Skip
James suku jump. Drink once and thirst no more.
4 Exile On Main St. by Rolling Stones (Rolling Stones Records) 1972
'I Just Want To See His Face' - that song had a big impact on me,
particularly learning how to sing in that high falsetto, the way Jagger
does. When he sings like a girl, I go crazy. I said, 'I've got to learn how
to do that.' I couldn't really do it until I stopped smoking. That's when it
started getting easier to do. [Waits's own] 'Shore Leave' has that, 'All
Stripped Down', 'Temptation'. Nobody does it like Mick Jagger; nobody does
it like Prince. But this is just a tree of life. This record is the watering
hole. Keith Richards plays his *** off. This has the Checkerboard Lounge all
over it.
5 The Sinking of the Titanic by Gavin Bryars (Point Music) 1975
This is difficult to find, have you heard this? It's a musical impression of
the sinking of the Titanic. You hear a small chamber orchestra playing in
the background, and then slowly it starts to go under water, while they
play. It also has 'Jesus Blood' on it. I did a version of that with Gavin
Bryars. I first heard it on my wife's birthday, at about two in the morning
in the kitchen, and I taped it. For a long time I just had a little crummy
cassette of this song, didn't know where it came from, it was on one of
those Pacifica radio stations where you can play anything you want. This is
really an interesting evening's music.
6 The Basement Tapes by Bob Dylan (Columbia) 1975
With Dylan, so much has been said about him, it's difficult so say anything
about him that hasn't already been said, and say it better. Suffice it to
say Dylan is a planet to be explored. For a songwriter, Dylan is as
essential as a hammer and nails and a saw are to a carpenter. I like my
music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in - so the bootlegs I
obtained in the Sixties and Seventies, where the noise and grit of the tapes
became inseparable from the music, are essential to me. His journey as a
songwriter is the stuff of myth, because he lives within the ether of the
songs. Hail, hail The Basement Tapes. I heard most of these songs on
bootlegs first. There is a joy and an abandon to this record; it's also a
history lesson.
7 Lounge Lizards by Lounge Lizards (EG) 1980
They used to accuse John Lurie of doing fake jazz - a lot of posture, a lot
of volume. When I first heard it, it was so loud, I wanted to go outside and
listen through the door, and it was jazz. And that was an unusual thing, in
New York, to go to a club and hear jazz that loud, at the same volume people
were listening to punk rock. Get the first record, The Lounge Lizards. You
know, John's one of those people, if you walk into a field with him, he'll
pick up an old pipe and start to play it, and get a really good sound out of
it. He's very musical, works with the best musicians, but never go fishing
with him. He's a great arranger and composer with an odd sense of humour.
8 Rum Sodomy and the Lash by The Pogues (Stiff) 1985
Sometimes when things are real flat, you want to hear something flat, other
times you just want to project onto it, something more like.... you might
want to hear the Pogues. Because they love the West. They love all those old
movies. The thing about Ireland, the idea that you can get into a car and
point it towards California and drive it for the next five days is like
Euphoria, because in Ireland you just keep going around in circles, those
tiny little roads. 'Dirty Old Town', 'The Old Main Drag'. Shane has the
gift. I believe him. He knows how to tell a story. They are a roaring,
stumbling band. These are the dead end kids for real. Shane's voice conveys
so much. They play like soldiers on leave. The songs are epic. It's
whimsical and blasphemous, seasick and sacrilegious, wear it out and then
get another one.
9 I'm Your Man by Leonard Cohen (Columbia) 1988
Euro, klezmer, chansons, apocalyptic, revelations, with that mellifluous
voice. A shipwrecked Aznovar, washed up on shore. Important songs,
meditative, authoritative, and Leonard is a poet, an Extra Large one.
10 The Specialty Sessions by Little Richard (Specialty Records) 1989
The steam and chug of 'Lucille' alone pointed a finger that showed the way.
The equipment wasn't meant to be treated this way. The needle is still in
the red.
11 Startime by James Brown (Polydor) 1991
I first saw James Brown in 1962 at an outdoor theatre in San Diego and it
was indescribable... it was like putting a finger in a light socket. He did
the whole thing with the cape. He did 'Please Please Please'. It was such a
spectacle. It had all the pageantry of the Catholic Church. It was really
like seeing mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Christmas and you couldn't
ignore the impact of it in your life. You'd been changed, your life is
changed now. And everybody wanted to step down, step forward, take
communion, take sacrament, they wanted to get close to the stage and be
anointed with his sweat, his cold sweat.
12 Bohemian-Moravian Bands by Texas-Czech (Folk Lyric) 1993
I love these Czech-Bavarian bands that landed in Texas of all places. The
seminal river for mariachi came from that migration to that part of the
United States, bringing the accordion over, just like the drum and fife
music of post slavery, they picked up the revolutionary war instruments and
played blues on them. This music is both sour and bitter, and picante, and
floating above itself like steam over the kettle. There's a piece called the
'Circling Pigeons Waltz', it's the most beautiful thing - kind of sour, like
a wheel about to go off the road all the time. It's the most lilting little
waltz. It's accordion, soprano sax, clarinet, bass, banjo and percussion.
13 The Yellow Shark by Frank Zappa (Barking Pumpkin) 1993
It is his last major work. The ensemble is awe-inspiring. It is a rich
pageant of texture in colour. It's the clarity of his perfect madness, and
mastery. Frank governs with Elmore James on his left and Stravinsky on his
right. Frank reigns and rules with the strangest tools.
14 Passion for Opera Aria (EMI Classics) 1994
I heard 'Nessun Dorma' in the kitchen at Coppola's with Raul Julia one
night, and it changed my life, that particular Aria. I had never heard it.
He asked me if I had ever heard it, and I said no, and he was like, as if I
said I've never had spaghetti and meatballs - 'Oh My God, Oh My God!' - and
he grabbed me and he brought me into the jukebox (there was a jukebox in the
kitchen) and he put that on and he just kind of left me there. It was like
giving a cigar to a five-year old. I turned blue, and I cried.
15 Rant in E Minor by Bill Hicks (Rykodisc) 1997
Bill Hicks, blowtorch, excavator, truthsayer and brain specialist, like a
reverend waving a gun around. Pay attention to Rant in E Minor, it is a
major work, as important as Lenny Bruce's. He will correct your vision. His
life was cut short by cancer, though he did leave his tools here. Others
will drive on the road he built. Long may his records rant even though he
can't.
16 Prison Songs: Murderous Home Alan Lomax Collection (Rounder Select) 1997
Without spirituals and the Baptist Church and the whole African-American
experience in this country, I don't know what we would consider music, I
don't know what we'd all be drinking from. It's in the water. The impact the
whole black experience continues to have on all musicians is immeasurable.
Lomax recorded everything, from the sounds of the junkyard to the sound of a
cash register in the market... disappearing machinery that we would no
longer be hearing. You know, one thing that doesn't change is the sound of
kids getting out of school. Record that in 1921, record that now, it's the
same sound. The good thing about these is that they're so raw, they're
recorded so raw, that it's just like listening to a landscape. It's like
listening to a big open field. You hear other things in the background. You
hear people talking while they are singing. It's the hair in the gate.
17 Cubanos Postizos by Marc Ribot (Atlantic) 1998
This Atlantic recording shows off one of many of Ribot's incarnations as a
prosthetic Cuban. They are hot and Marc dazzles us with his bottomless soul.
Shaking and burning like a native.
18 Houndog by Houndog (Sony) 1999
Houndog, the David Hidalgo [Los Lobos] record he did with Mike Halby [Canned
Heat]. Now that's a good record to listen to when you drive through Texas. I
can't get enough of that. Anything by Latin Playboys, anything by Los Lobos.
They are like a fountain. The Colossal Head album killed me. Those guys are
so wild, and they've gotten so cubist. They've become like Picasso. They've
gone from being purely ethnic and classical, to this strange, indescribable
item that they are now. They're worthwhile to listen to under any
circumstances. But the sound he got on Houndog, on the electric violin
...the whole record is a dusty road. Dark and burnished and mostly
unfurnished. Superb texture and reverb. Lo fi and its highest level. Songs
of depth and atmosphere. It ain't nothin' but a...
19 Purple Onion by Les Claypool (Prawn Song) 2002
Les Claypool's sharp and imaginative, contemporary ironic humour and
lightning musicianship makes me think of Frank Zappa. 'Dee's Diner' is like
a great song your kid makes up in the car on the way to the drive-in. Songs
for big kids.
20 The Delivery Man by Elvis Costello (Mercury) 2004
Scalding hot bedlam, monkey to man needle time. I'd hate to be balled out by
him, I'd quit first. Grooves wide enough to put your foot in and the
bassplayer is a gorilla of groove. Pete Thomas, still one of the best rock
drummers alive. Diatribes and rants with steam and funk. It has locomotion
and heat. Steam heat, that is.
and then blogged about some more
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/observer...in_shakin.html<http://blogs.guardian.c
o.uk/observer/archives/2005/03/16/screamin_hollerin_shakin.html>
Martinis & Bikinis
Sam Phillips
Virgin, 1994
Peculiar, innovative, soulful, and reasonably undiscovered, with a deeply
expressive voice and challenging and unusual topics for songs. Kurt Weill
with a revolver. Her cracked vocals and surreal lyrics make for an odd and
familiar ride. She and producer T- Bone Burnett make her face yellow and her
hair red, and give her a third eye, and together they make tough records.
She's Dusty Springfield via Marianne Faithfull with a dash of Jackie De
Shannon, but very much her own woman.
Shakin the Rafters
The Abyssinian Baptist Gospel Choir
Sony, 1960
Tony Bennett said this is the greatest rock and roll record ever recorded.
You can feel why in these wild powerful performances, produced by John
Hammond in the early 1960 s (John was, among other things, an avid fan of
gospel). This choir is barely containable. This recording puts you in the
choir with them. Astonishing, awesome. You will be saved.
Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues
'The Masked Marvel'
Charley Patton
Revonant, 2001
Beautiful retrospective on one of the pillars of the Delta Blues. Clearly
not only a blues man but a songster as well and a teacher to all who would
follow.
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music
Ray Charles
ABC Paramount, 1962
I knelt at the altar of Ray Charles for years. I worked at a restaurant, and
that's all there was on the jukebox, practically, that and some Patsy Cline.
Crying Time , Can't Stop Loving You , Let's Go Get Stoned , You Are My
Sunshine , What'd I Say , Hit The Road, Jack . I worked on Saturday nights
and I would take my break and I'd sit by the jukebox and I'd play my Ray
Charles. It was just amazing what he absorbed and that voice, for years it
was just the Genius of Ray Charles ... I also love a record called
Listen . He did Yesterday on electric piano and it just killed me, to
hear that voice, it was like he crossed over a bridge, because he remained
in R&B territory, yet there was something so timeless about his voice, and
hearing him do a Beatles song was just indescribable.
Harry Partch Collection Vol 1
New World Records, 2004
The new CDs have been reissued and the sound is excellent. These are an
excellent introduction to his whole oeuvre. He d worked as a migrant worker
and had been on the road for half his life, and he was one of those rogue
academics who worked outside the matrix. So they feared him and pretended to
admire him. Like most innovators, he becomes gravel on the road that most
people drive on. So he was the first one through the door and the crowd
tramples him. But nobody has done anything like that since. The idea of
designing your own instruments, playing them and then designing your own
scale, your own system of music. That s dramatic and particularly for the
time that he was doing it. It was rather subversive. It s always fascinating
to hear something being played that doesn t sound polished or evolved as an
instrument. It still sounds a little bit like you re hitting tractor parts
or a dumpster door. Or you re still in the kitchen, to an extent. The music
has that extra texture to it. And then of course he s very sophisticated and
well versed in mythology so it s got that other side to it.
Let The Buyer Beware
Lenny Bruce
Shout! Factory, 2004
Awesome in its scope and depth. Hal Wilner compiled this from thousands of
feet of tape. It is the road that all comics of today are driving on.
Last Sessions
Leadbelly
Smithsonian Folkways, 1994
Leadbelly was a river, was a tree. His 12-string guitar rang like a piano in
a church basement. The Rosetta stone for much of what was to follow, he died
in 1949. Excellent to listen to when driving across Texas, contains all that
is necessary to sustain life, a true force of nature. He died the day before
I was born and I like to think I passed him in the hall and he banged into
me and knocked me over.
Ompa Til du Dxr
Kaizers Orchestra
Broiler Farm, 2001
Norwegian storm trooping tarantellas with savage rhythms and innovative
textures. Thinking man s circus music. Way out.
Tom Waits
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