Sorry folks for the late post, I have few free time these days due to the Top 200 AMF album poll I'm running. This is another of my favorite albums.
This beautiful LP was part of my father's collection when I discovered it. It features a great vocalist and guitar picker in 12 gospel-blues songs as he sang them in the streets of New York City. The album was recorded in a 3 hour session on August 24, 1960.
This is pure top notch acoustic blues and one of the very first masterpieces of the folk/blues revival of the sixties.
I'll discuss the man Gary Davis later but you can check out his bio here.
Sorry guys i haven't got much time these days due to my work with Acclaimed Music's album poll, in which you can still take part (more details here. )
While I'm knee-deep (and soon chest-deep) into lists of favorite albums, here's an artist who will have at least 3 or 4 albums in my top 200.
Brassens is the first thing I remember, musically speaking. My grandfather used to play these 10-inch (25 cm) LPs, I was 3 or 4 years old and soon I knew some songs by heart and sang them in my grandparents' garden.
My father played these records too, singing along. I listened to them with my sisters and grew up with this music. That's probably why I love folk music today.
And Brassens still rules : he's folky, and sometimes jazzy à la Django (most of the time just a double bass and two accoustic guitars), he's the hell of a songwriter, he's an exquisite poet (much better than Brel to me, much more literate), he's fun, go to his biography on wiki or AMG if you don't know him.
The songs ? about God (the hilarious "Le Mécréant"), death and murder ("Le gorille"), love ("Je m'suis fait tout petit", two of his very best songs), and of course, booze ("Le Bistrot", about a bartender's wife).
"Le Gorille", one of his very first songs, was banned from airplay because of its lyrics. It even caused Brassens' mother, a devout Catholic to boycott his concerts.
You'll find English subtitles in this video to learn why. Brassens is old and sick in the video so the performance is not as good as in the record.
Ever since the beginnings of the country industry, singers and musicians were fascinated by the blues. Although the most famous of them was Jimmie Rodgers and his blue yodels, others like Darbie & Tarlton, Dick Justice recorded numerous blues songs, but the Allen Brothers' music was so rooted in the blues that Columbia catalogued their recordings as "race" performances, which caused them to leave the label.
Austin and Lee Allen were from a poor family of Chatanooga sawyers, and spent a part of their youth as itinerant musicians especially on miners camps in the moutains. There they probably met a lot of other songsters, black and white, and learnt a lot from them. The songs they recorded between 1927 and 1937 were mostly personal compositions (a rare fact at that time) inspired by blues standards and jug band numbers. They often wrote about current events : "Jake Walk Blues" is a commentary on the Jamaican ginger ("jake") food-poisoning episode that made headlines that year.
Although they were good singers and valuable banjo/guitar players, Lee's kazzo playing is the duo's trademark. As Bill C Malone says , "he took this child's toy of presumed limited range and converted it to a lead instrument of exceptional flexibility. On Allen Bros recordings the kazoo is used like a trumpet; the result is a sound not unlike that heard on Charlie Poole's string band recordings, a syncopated but structured swing."
Like a lot of musicians who recorded in the twenties, their onstage repertoire was wider than just the blues.
As a bonus, here is a good example of their uptempo, swinging songs.
I'm a list maniac. There is no cure for that. So I spend a lot of time hanging out on the Acclaimed Music forum with my list maniac (and music nerd) friends. I'm running a poll this month called "list you 200 favorite albums of all time" (all genres) and if you're a list maniac don't hesitate and participate !
So this month I will post about my favorite roots albums and the first of all (#8 in my all-time list which contains a lot of "non-roots" material).
I doscovered this forgotten gem by chance at the library while looking for some Doc Watson stuff. To this day, no folk-country album (I'm not counting compilations) has had such an effect on me. The 12 songs encompass some of the best styles in traditional American music : old Appalachian ballads (a great rendition of Clarence Ashley's "The Cuckoo"), hillbilly music (a cover of Jimmie Rodgers' "Rough and Rowdy Ways"), bluegrass (Lester Flatt's "Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms"), blues (a wonderful version of Mississippi John Hurt's "Stackolee") or murder ballads, with the "Lawson Family Murder", a terrible story sung in a gentle manner, which makes it even more stunning. The only other song on this subject that could pair it might be Suicide's "Frankie Teardrop", which tells the same story in a completely opposite manner.
And of course there is Doc and son's performance. Doc Watson is one of the best acoustic guitar players of the century, taking picking to unbelievable heights. Not only is he a technical virtuoso, but his playing is almost laid back and seems effortless. Everything is done at home, the sound is incredible, and the music is fast, fun and unpretentious.
I do hope I have convinced you to get that masterpiece. If you love the music I post here, you will love this album.
Track list :
1 Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms 2 My Rough and Rowdy Ways 3 The Wreck of the Old Number Nine 4 Gambler's Yodel 5 The Cuckoo 6 Stack-O-Lee 7 Willie Moore 8 Travelin' Man 9 The Tragic Romance 10 Texas Gales [instrumental] 11 The Lawson Family Murder 12 Alabama Bound
Led by Paulino Bernal, this conjunto started recording in the 1950s, and became the best of its generation. It was a classic tejano group, with Paulino on lead vocals and accordion and his older brother Elias on bajo sexto and harmonizing. Like many conjuntos, they started in South Texas, playing in bars for blue-collar immigrants to support their family.
I really love their modern sound and their harmonizing is divine. And they were the first tejano band to play rock 'n' roll, as you can hear on the second track, a cover of Larry William's "Bonie Moronie".
There's a great Arhoolie compilation of them (see the image above) that you can download at e-music.
If you're interested in Tejano music, check this article from the University of Texas site.
Perfect for reading Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy. God, that is a great series of novels, the perfect companion for the music on River's Invitation.
I've started receiving albums and e-mails about new artists and it's always a pleasure. Some were off-topic, some I didn't like enough, but I took KJ Walker's Cd with me when I went to the mountains and listened to it in the car.
I really liked his brand of roots rock, with a Californian flavour, especially in Kj's mellow vocals. The songwriting is solid most of the time, reminiscent of Roy Orbison, Tom Petty , and the melodies and beats are versatile enough.
I picked "Without You" a great love song, probably because it reminds me of the later Bruce Springsteen (didn't I tell you that Bruce is my favorite singer ?)and because of its nostalgia, but there are other highlights, from the ballad "A house In My Heart" to the driving rock'n roll beat of "Thinkin Of You".
According to his bio Kevin J Walker is a veteran of the Los Angeles blues circuit who started to play in the streets of Europe. And last but not least, just like me, he was born in Paris.
Just before I went on holidays, I received this wonderful box set, a best of Chris Strachwitz's Arhoolie label. I had burned it a few years ago but having the real thing is really something different : the liner notes are fantastic !
The man behind that label, Chris Strachwitz, is one of the most important record makers in roots music, and the equal of an Alan Lomax. Born in Germany, he arrived in the States at age 16, and like a lot of Europeans, was fond of traditional music. The box set follows his musical discoveries : first , the blues (especially from Texas, since Chris was living in San Francisco) and old-time country, then Cajun and Zydeco, Norteno, and his last love, sacred steel.
The first CD is focused on the 1960's. Chris, a school teacher then, started his label from scratch, making recording trips to meet his favorite artists : the great Sam Lighting Hopkins in the Houston ghetto, JE Mainer in the Appalachian, and one-man band Jesse Fuller in "San Francisco Bay" (his very first recording, made in 1954 at Jesse's house).
Highlights of this first cd include a lot of great bluesmen (Big Joe Williams, Lil' Son Jackson, Fred McDowell...) but I picked two artists that really owe to Mr. Strachwitz : Texas songster Mance Lipscomb and the Zydeco king Clifton Chenier.
So if you really love down home music of all kinds, don't hesitate and buy this wonderful box set. I had mine for 45 dollars and it's not much compared to its content (the music, of course, but also the liner notes). And you will support a great label !
Paris area, France, born 1970
What I value in music is personal expression (that's why I love blues and folk) and how it reaches your inner being, something that is far beyond the range of words and reason. But nevertheless I still try my best to put words on these feelings.
The mp3 links on this blog are for nonprofit educational purposes, but I will respect the wishes of any rightsholder. If you are the owner and you object to your work being featured here, please contact me at nicolas [at] riversinvitation.com for prompt removal.
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