Flashback .... Discovering New Voices!!

Occasionally you stumble onto something unknown, new and exciting. When you stop and think about it, that's probably how one discovers all their favorites. There had to be an initial experience with all records, sounds, musicians, etc.. Maybe that's what keeps browsing through record stores, reading articles and reviews and listening to the radio so exciting .... The chance each day that you might find something new.

A Saturday evening in Borders Books and Music. Hard to believe that it was almost twenty years ago (1996). I put on the headphones at a random listening station for new music releases. A new name, I had no idea what I was about to hear. I imagine that I did take notice that the recording was on Peter Gabriel's, Real World Records label. Big City Secrets, Joseph Arthur's first record! Using a variety of musical instruments and sounds. I initially assumed from the label association that he was British. There's even something inside that sounds as it was influenced a little by Peter Gabriel. Turned out that he's from Ohio. He's been nothing but prolific since though he's slowed down a little in the past two or three years. Maybe because he always seems to be involved in multiple projects.

He's also a painter!! His work is seen in the cover artwork of several of the albums that followed.

Big City Secrets Review by All Music Guide

In The Gloaming

One of the great albums to come out of the 1990's is Jolene's, In The Gloaming. Labeled as Alternative Country or Americana, it's just a great Rock record.

Usually not a issue with my favorite records, I don't recall now how that I first became aware of it. Maybe from one of several magazines at the time that would release music sampler discs with each new issue? Maybe something heard on the radio or a random online video? Possibly on a listening station at Borders? Maybe just a chance taken? (I've certainly  been guilty of taking chances on unknown music more than once.)

The record is strong throughout. No filler material found here. Ringing guitars, yearning, emotional vocals and great songwriting!! It's one of my Desert Island Discs. A classic in my estimation!!

The band released three or four additional records before seemingly fading from the radar. If you google Jolene, you'll likely get a ton of results for Dolly Parton's song of the same name.

Three Great Old Songs

The Dutchman by Steve Goodman .... About an elderly Dutch couple. The husband who is senile and his wife who's lovingly taking care of him. It's been a favorite of mine almost as long as I've been listening to music.
Favorite lines ....
"Margaret comes to take him home again
Through unforgiving streets that trip him, though she holds his arm
Sometimes he thinks he's alone and he calls her name."

Hasten Down the Wind by Warren Zevon ..... I was introduced to Warren Zevon's music when he opened in a 1976 or 77 concert in Portland for Jackson Browne. I ran out and bought his (sorta) debut album the next day. Zevon could rock and he could write some aching ballads. This is one of his most aching ballads. Also recorded by Linda Ronstadt.
Favorite lines ....
"So he's hanging on to half her heart
He can't have the restless part
So he tells her to hasten down the wind."

No Regrets by Tom Rush ..... A parting of two people. The title says it all. He has a couple of versions on records. One a gentler, more acoustic recording and the other with an screaming electric guitar. Both are powerful.
Favorite lines ....
"Our friends have tried to turn my nights to day
Strange faces in your place can't keep the ghosts away
Just beyond the darkest hour, just behind the dawn
Still feels so strange to lead my life, alone."

Could Have Been My Parents Playlist

Foggy outside. Dreading going to work in the morning. Late Sunday evening. The Music Choice cable TV audio theme channels. The Singers & Swing channel. Still developing an appreciation for the genre. I surely need more of these sounds in my collection. I love the mood created. I usually get overly nostalgic with music from my youth but these sounds are from times before I was born (assumedly) so I'm doing OK with it ......

• Duke Ellington / Ivie Anderson - I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good
• Pete Fountain - Avalon
• Jack Teagarden - Beale Street Blues .... Read a Rolling Stone magazine, interview with Jackson Browne many years ago where he spoke of his father recording or playing live music with Jack Teagarden.
• Jackie Gleason - Paddlin' Madelin' Home .... Learning something new. Until now I thought he was known only as an actor.
• Glenn Miller - Tuxedo Junction .... Seem to recall seeing a few of his records in my parents collection.
• The Leiber-Stroller Big Band - Kansas City
• Teddy Wilson / Frances Hunt - You Brought a New Kind of Love To Me
• Billy May - There Is No Greater Love
• Count Basie - Blues In Hoss' Flat
• Django Reinhardt / Stephane Grappelli - St. Louis Blues .... Recognized the players immediately without looking at the caption on the television screen. 
• Helen Forrest with Harry James - Mister Five By Five .... From 1942. I'm fascinated with the sounds that came out during World War II. Wondering what they meant at the time to a nation?
• Sy Oliver - Oh, Them Golden Slippers
• Kay Kyser / Sully Martin - Ma (He's Makin' Eyes At Me)
• Andy Kirk - Bear Down
• Louis Prima / Keely Smith - That Old Black Magic
• Peggy Lee - Why Don't You Do Right .... Fascinated by the lyrics of the songs with vocals. It's like looking into history at decades and generations of peoples attitudes and what music meant to them.
• Billie Holiday - East Of the Sun .... Heard enough in the past to recognize this voice!!

Saturday Evening Listening

A local singer/songwriter. Proving me wrong when I say that there's no good music to be found locally. I stumbled upon a copy of a compact disc that he recently released. Seven solo acoustic songs. Going to have to catch him playing live around town.

Flashbacks To Home Taping Days

In my younger days, I used to record cassette tapes from radio programming. Here's one of my first efforts from 38 years ago. Taken from Portland's KINK-fm radio, "Lights Out" program, which would broadcast after 11pm on weeknights. Mostly material here from ECM Record Label recordings. Music to wind down to at the end of the day. Music for contemplation.

They used to produce regular Rain and Ocean sets as well ..... Music put to the background sounds of ocean waves or falling rain.

This was the result of turning on my tape recorder and letting it record. I would also record specific programming onto a Pioneer reel-to-reel tape recorder then go through the tape and transfer the keepers onto cassette. I still have these theme specific tapes tucked away in shoeboxes in a closet .... Celtic, Folk, Rock, Contemporary Jazz, Oldies, etc ...  I also have dozens of Mix Tapes stored away. Primarily material from the 1970's and early 1980's. It's difficult to part with these tapes. Even if I never find time to listen to most again. There's tremendous sentimental value and memories with each.

Everyone's Gotta Hear Bayou Blues

Finger and toe-tappin', can't resist or deny it, get out of your chair and dance music from the 1950's. Very infectious!! Zydeco meets The Blues meets 1950's Rock.

You might just feel inclined to up and move to Louisiana!!

If I Listen Long Enough To You ....

Vinyl find!! Some of the greatest songs of the 1960's were written by Tim Hardin. Classics like "If I Were A Carpenter" and "Reason To Believe."

Here's a collection of songs written and recorded during that period, 1964-1966 but that never made it to his released albums from those years. It's fascinating fifty years later, hearing these gems for the first time. Especially upon realizing that his sound was a different direction from The Beatles or Bob Dylan. Listening to these recordings is like finding buried treasure!!

No One Can Hear You Read

A film/documentary on the life of Jazz pianist, Errol Garner. A few thoughts that stand out: If he played a song 312 times, you would hear 312 different versions. He never played a song the same way twice. Also the thought that though he couldn't read or write music notes on paper, he was always composing in his mind as he performed. His sister says that at the age of three, he was playing like an adult .... That he never played simple notes like a child might but instead started out at that early age playing chords. Also a story about his playing in a club and suddenly three or four men stood up mid-song .... Not to applaud but in amazement. They wanted a better view of what he was doing with his fingers.

Making The Jazz Scene

A two compact disc compilation of late 1940's Jazz from various musicians ..... Studio recordings from Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Billy Strayhorn and much more. Included is a booklet with liner notes and black & white photoraphs of many of the musicians. This was originally a limited edition of 12-inch, 78-rpm vinyl discs and a collectors item in that format.

World War II had just ended. I don't know if they were into Jazz but I can visualize my parents in their youth, newly hopeful about their life ahead, listening to these sounds.

It's part of my own maturation process and interest in and appreciation of music history. Prior to ten years ago, I might not have given it a second look. Nowadays it's the sort of thing that I'm on the lookout for.

The Rush For Gold

One that I always come back to. Neil Young's, After the Goldrush. It's so familar now but I can recall a time when the sounds and album cover were new to my eyes and ears. It's easy to forget after so many years, that 45 years ago, the name Neil Young wasn't as well known as it would eventually become. At the time he was relatively unknown in my universe. I didn't know of his Buffalo Springfield roots and the connection with Crosby, Stills and Nash was also new. Nor was it a given that he would still be recording five or ten years down the line. The future for Neil Young was not clear.

This is one of those records where I don't need a lyric sheet to follow along with the vocals. (Not that it would help in this case as the supplied lyric sheet is in Young's less than perfect penmenship and occasionally difficult to read.) I can't sit down and recite the lyrics as poetry but when the music starts the words suddenly return along with accompanying flashbacks of my early teenage years.

This is one of the handful of records that I think of as a personal transition point from listening to the weekly Top-40 hits on AM radio to seeking out vinyl albums and discovering the few but much "cooler" channels on FM-radio in those days. And 45 years later, it still sounds as fresh and vital as it did in 1970.

Random iPod Playlist

The Ipod, with a 9500-ish song library, making the choices on a Sunday evening .....

• Memphis Slim - Big Bertha
• Howlin' Wolf - Somebody In My Home
• Rickie Lee Jones - The Horses
• Loudon Wainwright III - Homeless
• Jackson Browne - Looking Into You ..... Live bootleg version from a concert in Richmond (Virginia, I assume) 5/17/00
• Steve Noonan - Buy For Me The Rain
• Joseph Israel - Gone Are the Days 
• Depeche Mode - Precious .... Makes me wonder how they went from the sounds of the 70's to the sounds of the 1980's? 
• The Allman Brothers - Midnight Blues
• Buffalo Tom - Guilty Girls
• Poco - Faith In the Families
• Patty Griffin - Blue Sky
• Greg Graffin - Talk About Suffering .... This one wasn't random. It suddenly came to mind as I was listening to Patty Griffin's, "Blue Sky."
• Greg Graffin - One More Hill
• BeauSoleil - La Belle De Bayou Teche .... Makes one wish they could speak French.
• The Band - Get Up Jake
• James Taylor - Fire and Rain .... I see all these faces of old friends flash by as we looked back then. 
• Clifton Chenier - All Night Long & Yesterday .... Mix of sounds. A little Cajun, 50's rock and The Blues. 

Friday Evening Reflections

Solo acoustic guitar mastery from William Ackerman. His first album from 1976 on the label he founded, Windham Hill Records. The album's title is, The Search For the Turtle's Navel." 

The label started out with releasing solo acoustic guitar and piano recordings along with some beautiful and reflective photography for the album covers. Ackerman, Alex DeGrassi, Scott Cossu, George Winston, Michael Hedges and a few others, I would look forward to each new release with great anticipation. Eventually there were duet and then ensemble recordings. Other similar labels appeared. Maybe too many, too quickly. By the late 1980's there were a few releases of recordings with "new age" and spacey leanings. The solo acoustic (with no lyrics) and acoustic duet genre that I loved so much was changing and not for the better in my estimation. But there was still that 10-plus year period though where some of my favorite sounds came from. You could possibly say that John Fahey and Leo Kottke explored this musical ground several years earlier but for me the first ten years of Windham Hill were different and special. I still mourn what I identified as its demise.

Traveling Wilbury's Dirty World

Time passes by so quickly. Over twenty-five years ago. Already legends at the time of their formation. The ultimate supergroup!! I love the story behind the ending of this song. George Harrison passed out magazines to each person and asked them to randomly pick out short word combinations or phrases to use. Then they took turns singing their choices. New approaches to songwriting.