Recent Additions 11 ; Over the Rhine : Meet Me at the Edge of the World :

I first became aware of Over the Rhine about 11 years ago when their double CD Ohio was released.  A positive review in The Press was enough for me to seek it out.  Over the Rhine is actually a suburb of Cincinnati  in Ohio but the band is the husband and wife duo of Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler augmented with an array of changing players.  They do mostly their own material which frequently has spiritual and Christian themes, however it is not too overt.  Karin's voice is the band's core asset while it can be gentle and folky it has just enough of a blues edge to it to keep it interesting.

Maybe the 2000's version of Richard and Linda Thompson.

Meet Me at the Edge of The World  continues their  run of strong albums of tasteful folky blues.  I suspect their consistency counts against them with old fans as it can be a little samey but I also suspect that wherever you enter their history might be come your favourite and the album you compare with others.

Standout tracks to me are the title track and All Over Ohio and It Makes No Difference.

I will write about the two albums I like the most Good Dog Bad Dog and Ohio later but if you see this and buy it you wont be disappointed. 

Journey Through the Past 10 : Machine Head : Deep Purple

I was never really a big heavy metal fan - but the occasional album or song struck a chord.  That was the way it was with Machine Head. I bought the Smoke on the Water single when it came out but relied on listening to borrowed copies until I bought it on CD years later.  When flatting in 1979 we of course had Scho with us was a heavy metal and in particular Deep Purple obsessive.

I recall one night somewhere in Hanoi, stumbling into a bar late at night to hear a Filipino Band play a note perfect version of  Highway Star - they did such a good job they encored it three times. On we went to a Karaoke Bar where we attempted to repeat the same!

My introduction to Deep Purple was when I was 11 and I had a copy of 20 Explosive Hits of 71 and Black Night was definitely my favourite track.

  

Journey Through The Past 9 : Jesse Winchester and Bobby Charles

Sad to just read that Jesse Winchester has just died. I wrote about his debut self titled

album on facebook about a month ago.

After reading the obituary I immediately put it on and remembered once again how good it is.  I always think of this as one of a pair the other being Bobby Charles self titled debut.  Both were recorded in Woodstock around 1970, both were championed by The Band with band members featuring on the recordings.

Key Tracks on Jesse's album were Payday, Biloxi  and Black Dog

While both albums have a country folk feel to them Bobby Charles also has an unmistakable New Orleans swagger as well.  Maybe it is having Dr John on piano but really you could not expect anything different from the man who wrote See You Later Alligator. Check out Street People and I must be in good place now.

Another reason I associate the two together is that after searching for them both for a long time I bought them the same day from the same specialist store in Singapore about 15 years ago.  This week I managed to get a vinyl copy of Bobby Charles delivered - soooo goood.

Journey Through The Past 8 : Talking Heads 77, More Songs About Building And Food and Fear of Music

I have been reading this book named after the Early Talking Heads Song Love Goes to Building A Fire about 5 years in the development of music in New York in the mid 70s.  It is a roller coaster of a narrative as the author tracks the parallel and sometimes intersecting paths of Jazz, Salsa, Disco, Minimalism and the Punk of the Max's Kansas City and CBGBs scene.  This was also a time when

Like all good music books it has me both reaching back into my collection to renew myself with old music and taking notes to check out some new music as well.

Fitting somewhere between the minimalism of Philip Glass, some latin influences and with a definitely new sound at the time somewhere between disco and punk came Talking Heads.  It is hard now to think that they shared the bill with the Ramones on most weekends and also on their first tour of the UK.  I picked up Talking Heads 77 and More Songs About Building and Food at the start and end of 1978 respectively. While the former certainly was NOT a hit with my Wainui friends the latter became one of the go to albums of my first year flatting in 1979.

77's songs like titles No Compassion, New Feeling, Tentative Decisions, Don't Worry About the Government and of  course Psycho Killer all provided a new take on looking at

Both albums were produced from songs the band had been developing since they formed in 75.   One review at the time said that they presented in a "Sing if you are proud to be nervous" aura.  That certainly seemed to be the case when I saw them in 1979 in the Wellington Town Hall. Bathed in white light they played songs from both these albums and their then just released Fear of Music.

The whole show was in stark contrast to when I saw them 5 years later when an expanded band bounced around the stage for 90 minutes of a mixture of funk, afro, disco and new wave grooves. I thought it was one of the best shows I had ever seen but Tina Weymouth recalls it as the worst show they ever did.  I like to think that was because it was indeed the last full show they ever did.

There seemed a natural progression from '77 through More Songs, and onto Fear of Music.  Fear of Music had songs like Cities and Life During Wartime that later they would expand in both sound and approach and the start of the inclusion of extra players that became their hallmark for the following few years.

In one interview at the time of the release of More Songs, bass player Tina Weymouth said they wanted "to make their mark on music history" they had not at the time of these albums  but in time I believe they did.

Their journey to that point will be the subject of another post.

Are you ready for the Country 1 : Honky Tonk Heroes by Waylon Jennings

Honky Tonk Heroes was one of the first of the Outlaw Country Albums.  All that really meant was that the artists, instead of being told what to record and with whom started to record what they wanted usually with their own bands.

On this album took a great set of songs by the then (and to many still) unknown songwriter Billy Joe Shaver and recorded them with his own band in an non industry studio.  The result was a much rawer sound.  The songs are uniformly excellent and became standards in Waylon's and later Billy Joe's sets.  Check out the title track and Old Five and Dimers

My record now has a few scratches but it seems to make it sound more Honky Tonk.

To cap it all they added at the last moment, apparently in some sort of trade off with the label, the tremendous Troy Seals and Donnie Fritts song We had it all. A song that later had great versions by Dobie Gray and The Rolling Stones - supposedly one of Keith's favourite songs.

I don't know much about Jazz but I like... Jimmy Smith's Back at the Chicken Shack

Jimmy Smith really owned the organ in Jazz throughout the 60's.   The only problem with that is that his sound became the sound and his early innovations are now just what people expect of organs and it is easy to forget how groundbreaking this must have been.  On Back at The Chicken Shack he is joined by Stanley Turentine on sax and Kenny Burrell on guitar.

I had trouble finding this until I came across it in a four story book shop in downtown Taipei!!

One of my go to chillout albums.

Recent Additions 10 : Dexys - One Day I'm Going to Soar - another high recommendation

In the words of the Greatful Dead - "What a long strange trip it's been" for Dexys.  Originally Dexy's Midnight Runners they have produced three very good and very different albums over a 7 year period as the 70's turned into the 80s.

Of course most people remember them for Come on Eileen and there was definitely case of one song overshadowing and somehow diminishing the rest of their music. All three albums are excellent in their own right and I am sure I will blog about each of them in time.  However the final one, Don't Stand me Down, seemed like a logical end point to an experimental and soulful band.

So it was a bit of a surprise when their latest was released after a 27 year gap.  There had been a few patchy reunion shows and I would guess that most people would not have held much hope for anything that essential.

One Day I'm Going to Soar got the usual gushing reviews that the UK music press reserves for some classic British artists so it took me a wee while to decide to fork out the $45 for a double vinyl.

I AM VERY GLAD I DID

This is a record that deserves all the praise and is definitely worth the wait.  to some extent it is a logical progression from the last, at times inaccessible album, Don't Stand Me Down.  It has a bit more swagger and sway than that one.  While it won't probably sell as well as the earlier efforts - it may well surpass them in artistry and be there best album yet.  The musicianship is excellent, the songs well sequenced. Check out the opening song Now.