More Vic Chesnutt

Checking out more of his music. His early recordings are haunting and at the same time, full of beauty. How did I overlook this music for all this time?

If you happen to find yourself led to purchase his music, look for the recent remasters that are plentiful in bonus tracks.

All Music Guide

Vic Chesnutt

Singer/Songwriter from Georgia. His third album from 1993 with additional tracks added when remastered last year on New West Records. Unique voice and style. Haunting in spots, funny in other moments.

My introduction to his music was several years ago on the "Sweet Relief II: Gravity of the Situation" benefit recording of various musicians covering his songs.

One of the bonus tracks on this record is a cover of Bob Dylan's, "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine."

Highly recommended!!!

Lost and Found Gene Clark

I love these old, lost recordings from 1967. Re-discovered and released  for the first time, just a few days ago. For myself …. the evolution of the Singer/Songwriter, Folk/Rock style of music. And such a great, plaintive voice carrying these songs. It would have been a sin for these recordings to remain lost.

It's fascinating to read about the musicians from this time, who were exploring new territory opened up by The Beatles and Bob Dylan. Now days these names are considered as greats but most were just starting out back then. How they joined up with, worked with and split from each other and then reforming with other musicians in various working arrangements and creating even more new music. And then the even newer names coming up behind them, continuing on. Just reading about it all you get the sense that it was a process played out over a decade when it was actually just a few years.

Is there anything or anyone comparable to that now? Or was that era something unique that could have only happened when it did, with it's surrounding events and circumstances?

Country Joe & The Fish

Found this past weekend while rummaging through the used vinyl bins, "new arrivals," of my local record store. Psychedelic-Country-Folk sounds from the 1960's. (That's a style?) A genre/era that I'd like to expand in my collection.

People actually give this kind of classic and historic stuff up? There should be a voice in their head that tells them not to let it go.

Maybe it has special meaning to me because I lived through those years? Listening mostly though to the top-40 hits on AM-radio. Now at age 62 I find myself catching up with sounds I missed out on back then.

I did have a record collecting mentor in the early 70's that introduced me to Country Joe McDonald and specifically "The Fish Cheer" through the Woodstock Records. Rod Robinson, the older brother of one of my friends. I wonder what he used to think of me, this naive and goofy looking kid who he had three or four years of life and music listening experience on. I was like an attentive student eager to take in whatever he was willing to play for me. Eric Burden and The Animals, The Guess Who, Neil Young, Iron Butterfly, The Beatles and their later albums, Creedence, CSNY and much more. New sounds for me. A new type of education. Those memories have always stayed close. He also introduced me to FM-radio.

Short Playlist

Sunday evening playlist …..

• Son Volt - Driving The View
• The Sadies - It's Easy (Like Walking)
• Richard Buckner - Town
• Hiss Golden Messenger - John The Gun
• Colin Linden - George Chuvalo
• The War On Drugs - Pain

Starting when I was a teenager in the early 1970's, I've tended to have a ever changing list of musicians that I overdose on for a period of time. Richard Buckner and Hiss Golden Messenger seem to be those choices for the last year or two. Taking the places of Colin Linden, Joseph Arthur and Son Volt/Jay Farrar.

Others who have spent time with that status ….. Jackson Browne, Neil Young, Warren Zevon, Peter Gabriel, U2, a return of Jackson Browne in the 1990's, The Subdudes, Yo La Tengo ….. Just a few that come to mind. 

First Day Of June Morning Sounds

Sometimes it takes most of a lifetime to appreciate some things. In this case Jazz/Blues vocals from a 1961 recording sounding like the songs are actually from a decade or two earlier. I suppose I could go read the album's liner notes but I'd rather just stay in my chair and enjoy the sounds.

While during my teenage years it might not have been seen as cool among my friends this music is actually the definition of "cool."

Little Feat Playlist

Sometimes a person is just in a unavoidable Little Feat kinda mood. A song suddenly comes to mind and an hour or two later .....

• Truck Stop Girl - Working across the street from a truck stop, I've seen a few respectable truck stop girls in my lifetime. Could have even loved one or two had I not been so damn shy.
• Fat Man In The Bathtub -  "Juanita, my sweet Juanita, what are you up to"
• Loved and Lied To - Haven't we all felt that way at least a time or two?
• Front Page News -  Not to be confused with 'Second Hand News' by Fleetwood Mac.
• Under the Radar - I've always tried to exist under the radar. It's much quieter and more sane there.
• Long Distance Love - First heard this song on a vinyl Jackson Browne bootleg recording. I loved his introduction and solo piano version of the song. My introduction to the name, Lowell George.
• Heaven Forsaken
• Old Folks Boogie - Since I'm officially at some places considered, 'old folks' .... not that I'm complaining about the senior discounts.
• Fighting the Mosquito Wars
• Hangin' On To the Good Times
• Long Black Veil - The Fred and Paul at Stonehenge video!!!

U2's Songs of Experience

To be filed under Ways I Am Changing In My Older Days: U2's new record has been out for over two months now and I've owned it since it was released, but I've yet to listen to it other then a few short song samples online which left me with no impression at all.

What the hell is going on with me? I used to feel a genuine excitement and urgency about certain things ..... like listening to new offerings from a favorite band but something has apparently changed. Now it's like, "I'll get around to it eventually." And who knows how many 'get around to it's' I have remaining on the timeline of life?

So that's my goal this weekend. To give the sounds a listen!!

Tuesday Evening Playlist

Even a generic Tuesday evening deserves a great playlist. ..... Or in the event I get a call as an emergency fill-in at the local community radio station. I really should have something prepared. Though I could probably wing it.

• Peter Gabriel - Make Tomorrow
• Spoon - Girls Can Tell
• Bob Dylan - Gotta Serve Somebody
• Warren Zevon - Lawyers, Guns and Money / Gorilla, You're a Desperado
• Strawbs - Lemon Pie
• Yes - Owner of a Lonely Heart
• John Prine - Quit Hollerin' At Me
• Craig Fuller - Loved and Lied To

Evening Mystery

What the hell? I hit play on my previously loaded, 5-disc, CD player (Yeah some of us hold out geezers still have our CD players and turntables) and heard Hiss Golden Messenger's, "Heart Like A Levee" album followed by Son Volt's, "Notes Of Blue" record but then what followed that, I can not identify upon listening to the first eight songs ..... which I really hate when that happens, (not that it happens often) ...... but I'm loving these sounds and sooner or later, I'm going to open up the CD player and see what the heck it is!!! But I have to admit to being totally clueless at this moment in time as I'm listening with fascination and I'll probably be kicking myself as soon as the mystery is revealed.

Awwwww the answer is ..... The National, "Trouble Will Find Me." I must have been seriously distracted the first time I listened to this as I have no remembrance of an initial impression. But how could I have overlooked these baritone lead vocals?

For A Winter Night

This Windham Hill label recording is from 1988. Various acoustic instrumental offerings with traditional, folk or classical roots and a feeling of a cold Winter night.

Best when listened to without distraction, late at night (Most music is it seems), with the lights tuned down low and eyes closed.

So Many Roads

Another recent vinyl find! John Hammond's, "So Many Roads" from 1965. The Blues!

There's three members of the future group, The Band, playing with him. Listed in the album credits as Jaime Robertson (Robbie), Mark Helm (Levon) and Eric Hudson (Garth).

Here's some of the other sounds that were going on in the mid-60"s while The Beatles were starting out with their thing ..... Maybe not what John Hammond had in mind but an appropriate album title when you consider the different styles being played at the time .... British Invasion, R&B, Folk, The Blues, etc ....

Loving most things history, I feel wonder and amazement at all these sounds and recordings from forty or fifty years ago and grateful that they didn't get lost over time. There's so much that I never paid attention to or was exposed to while growing up during those years. 1960's Blues-Rock wasn't something you heard much of on the radio back then. Not even on the few FM stations that were starting up. And FM was the place where you could hear different sounds besides the "Top-40" that was being played on AM.
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I think it was 1968. (Actually 1967). I was eleven years old. I heard "Outside Of a Small Circle of Friends" played on the radio. It became a favorite of mine. I'd wait an hour or two just to hear it played again. I have this image burned into memory of sitting in the kitchen late at night and hearing it on the radio. (It must not have been a school night.) I don't recall how high it went on the charts but it received airplay for several weeks.

It was different from what we were mostly hearing. Where did this come from? Phil Ochs? ... I had never heard of him. No idea of his history but indeed he had a music history at that point. One of those songs that sounded upbeat and happy but if you listened to the lyrics .... about a woman being mugged and murdered and the apathy of her neighbors it was anything but cheery.

Many years later, likely in the 1980's, I found the album it was on. Folk Music with songs like "Miranda" and "Flower Lady." I didn't think the record to be like Bob Dylan or other Folk musicians of the time. It was a different style of Folk that I've always loved and that I've since heard in the recordings of people like Tim Buckley, Steve Noonan and the Terry Callier record previously noted here.

Wikipedia - Outside Of a Small Circle of Friends