This Christmastime

Christmas Alone

take me anywhere i go
white trees and mistletoe
i'm sorry i was wrong
and i can't believe he's gone
daddy
i'm coming home
this christmastime

I wrote about Mascott's beautiful music and her latest album Art Project last month. I just got this Christmas collaboration done with Gramercy Arms today and had to share. Not the most upbeat holiday song, but enjoy!

Mascott and Gramercy Arms - This Christmastime : This Christmastime Single

Visit her label Red Panda Records and become her friend on MySpace.

Just A Friend

Lissy Trullie and Adam Green covering Biz Markie's Just A Friend.

Sunday Soul - Como Now

"Deep in the heart of Panola County, Mississippi lies Como, a small rural town where children and grown folks alike have been living and breathing gospel for as long as they can remember. In the summer of 2006, Daptone Records placed a small ad in local papers and on the radio inviting singers to come down to Mt. Mariah Church to record their songs. The result is COMO NOW, a stirring collection of traditional and original a cappella gospel from the voices of Panola County’s own families."

Even before getting a chance of hearing the actual CD, the first thing that came to mind when I first learned about Daptone Records' latest release, Como Now, was John and Alan Lomax, the great American folklorists and musicologists who traveled all over the country in order to preserve music that was culturally rich and represented a heritage that would be a crime to lose. The Lomaxs gathered together field recordings (over 10,000) from rural folks from all walks of life which were then passed on to the Archive of Folk Song in the Library of Congress, who then made them available to the public as LPs on 78s.

The Lomaxs believed in the cultural significance of the countries' folk heritage, including that of its African Americans (Leadbelly's career would be launched with the help of John Lomax). Along with the music were included liner notes penned by those who recorded the music, notes that make the music come alive even more (and within which the recorders passion for their work is evident). Here is an example which pertains to Trouble So Hard, a song recorded in Livingston, Alabama in 1937, which you can enjoy below.

Anyone who has visited a rural Negro church, where the congregation sings from the heart instead of out of hymn-books, cannot fail to have been touched by the fire, the solemn dignity, the grand simplicity of the Negro spirituals.

One of the elders of the congregation, an old man or woman whose long experience in the church enables the singer to match the song precisely to the tempo of the meeting, begins slowly. The congregation responds with a faint chorus. The leader singes his line again, this time more strongly. This time the response is stronger. By the end of the first or second chorus, the spiritual will have gathereed together all the voices of the church in to a swelling a rolling chorus. Each participant takes his own part, from the shrillest falsetto to deepest bass, and improvises within it. As the songs proceed, sometimes for hours on end, the rhythm of hands and feet joins the thunder of the singing with the thunder of a chorus of drums; the tempo increases slowly and inevitably until the whole audience sways with ecstasy. The air is punctuated with the shrill screams and the hoarse ejaculations of the worshippers who have become posessed, or, as they put it, 'got happy.' The posessed ones leap and fling their arms about in blind spasms of hysteria; they sometimes roll on the floor or walk across the benches; on occasion they lie on the ground for hours in a trance-like state.

Out of such passionate religious meetings came the Negro spirituals which provided comfort with visions of a heavenly reward. The setting and the manner of these songs are strongly reminiscent of African religious practice; but the content, flowing out of the Bible and the noble folk hymns ofthe whites, is distinctively Afro-American. These inspired and beautiful songs are more moving that almost any other American music.

Como Now carries on with this tradition, recording locals of Como, Mississippi, an area where Lomax gathered some of his recordings over fifty years before. It's pure, unadultered, a cappella gospel, sung by those who find great meaning in it. Much like Mavis Staples' album I wrote about last week, this is music that matters. Music that is not just for entertainment purposes, though it admirably suits that purpose in addition to its more divine ones. Music sung by ordinary, everyday people that transcends much professionally recorded secular music in beauty and power.

The Como Mamas - Trouble In My Way (Feat. Mary Moore) : Como Now


Dock and Henry Reed and Vera Hall - Trouble So Hard : Afro-American Spirituals, Work Songs, And Ballads

Visit the Daptone Records website.

Mavis Staples' Hope

Yes. Oh yea
We are so happy to be with you tonight.
I tell you it’s a double treat
We’re at the hideout and we’re at home
We’ve come tonight to bring you some joy, some happiness, inspiration, and some positive vibrations.
We want to leave you with enough to last you for maybe the next 6 months

Music can be viewed through so many different lenses. It could be labeled simple entertainment: something to listen to to pass the time, to avoid silence, background filler (Musak). You could consider it a luxury: something commodified for the benefit of some wealthy record executives and occasionally a few dimes make their way to the musicians. You could elevate it to a higher level and consider another possibility, that it’s an auditory performance of art. While many of us (especially those of us reading this) would not want to imagine a life without music of some sort, our lives would still continue on. Our need for music is one of desire, not of survival.

That’s not always been the case though. Music used to matter. Music was a tool of consciousness, a tool of survival, a tool of self-empowerment, a tool of political critique. You could make arguments for various contemporary artists: early U2, the We Are the World recording, Fela Kuti. While most of us have no direct conscious connection, try to travel back to the 60’s and the Civil Rights Movement here in the United States. At that time, there was music being made that mattered, music that carried the hopes of an entire population of disenfranchised citizens.

Mavis Staples was brought into that music, and to this day carries forth those ideals so they will not be forgotten, and her latest album, Live, Hope at the Hideout, continues with that tradition. The quote at the top is from Mavis, as she greeted the crowd at the Hideout in Chicago, Illinois on June 23rd, 2008. The last comment about enough hope for 6 months is no arbitrary number: it refers to the presidential inauguration day.

The album is all about hope and the problems that hope overcomes. It’s expressed in Mavis’ singing of traditional spirituals that embodied the Civil Rights Movement, songs like Eyes on the Prize, Wade In the Water, Waiting For My Child, This Little Light, We Shall Not Be Moved, Will the Circle Be Unbroken (which Mavis discusses as the very first song her father Pops Staples taught her and her siblings), and On My Way. It’s expressed in songs she originally performed with her family as the Staples Singers, songs like Why Am I Treated So Bad and I’ll Take You There. It’s expressed in the classic J.B. Lenoir song Down In Mississippi and the Buffalo Springfield song For What It’s Worth (which begins the album with it’s opening lines “Something’s happenin’ here / what it is ain’t exactly clear – but by the end of the album, you know exactly what’s going on here).

This live release follows on the heels of 2007’s We’ll Never Turn Back, an album also much in the spirit of the 60’s Civil Rights Movement, and it includes several of its tracks. And while I thoroughly enjoyed the last one, there’s just something so powerful about hearing Mavis perform these songs live. I was able to catch her over the summer, although it wasn’t in nearly an intimate setting as the Hideout, and was absolutely drawn in. To hear her here though, it’s such a pleasure. At times spiritual, and others defiantly growling, her voice betrays none of her age and stills carries a power to connect the listener with her songs of a past our country needs to overcome and move past, but not forget.

I’ll get off of my pulpit now and simply ask you to listen to Eyes on the Prize (which includes Mavis’ opening welcome at the top of the post) below and then purchase a copy of this album for yourself.

Mavis Staples - Eyes on the Prize (live) : Live: Hope at the Hideout

and an older one:

Johnnie Taylor,Eddie Floyd,William Bell,Pervis Staples,Carla Thomas,Mavis Staples,Cleotha Staples - Soul-a-lujah : The Complete Stax-Volt Soul Singles 1968-1971 (Disc 3)

Visit her website, her label Anti-, and become her friend on MySpace.

Al Green, Live

Way back in August, while lamenting the loss of Isaac Hayes, I mentioned my desire to check out one of the few remaining soul legends, Al Green. Well, last Friday night I got my chance to see him at the Showcase Live in Foxborough, MA, and it was well worth it, let me tell you! Always known as the smooth ladies man, Green played the part to the T. Throughout the show he tossed roses out to the crowd, all the while moving around like a man a third of his age. Seriously, I was amazed how much pep he still has in his step!

During his set (which seemed to go by way too quick, and which didn't include an encore, unfortunately), he played some of his well loved hits (Let's Stay Together, Here I Am (Come And Take Me), and the show stopping closer Love and Happiness) as well as some from his new album Lay It Down (including the title track), some gospel (as you'd expect from the Reverend - Amazing Grace of course), and a 60's medley including My Girl, (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay, I've Been Loving You Too Long, (I'm not 100% sure about this one, I knew it was another Otis Redding track, and I knew it when I heard it, I just can't remember it now) as well as a few others. And like I mentioned above, the Reverend never let up moving around the stage giving it his all. Backing him wa a 13 member band that came together tight and played some sharp tunes.

There's still time to catch him in your town if you're lucky enough to live in Indianna or Missouri. Check out dates at the bottom to see if you're in luck. If not, and if you still haven't picked it up, I'd heartily recommend the new album.

Al Green - Lay It Down (feat. Anthony Hamilton) : Lay It Down

and some older ones:

Al Green - Look What You Done For Me : Look What You Done For Me 7"

Al Green - La-La For You : Look What You Done For Me 7" B-side

Get them both on The Immortal Soul of Al Green.


Visit his website, his label Blue Note Records, and become his friend on MySpace.

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Remaining Tour Dates

11/28/2008 Horseshoe Casino Hammond, IN
11/29/2008 Midland Theatre Kansas City, MO

The BPA visits Seattle

I wish Emmy the Great would put out a proper album here in the States. For feck's sake, why hasn't some label picked up on the fact that she's got serious import potential? In the meantime, here she is performing with the newly surfaced Brighton Port Authority.

Become the BPA's friend on MySpace.

and since it tis the season...

Emmy the Great - Christmas In Prison : It's Not Like Christmas

Become her friend on MySpace.

Sunday Soul - Never

I can't sleep at night
and I can't eat a bite
I guess I'll never be free
since you got your hooks in me

Whoooa, baby someday real soon
and it won't be long
you're gonna wake up
and find that your baby's gone
but if you ever want to call
pick up your telephone
and oh you can betcha' baby
that I'll come runnin' home
so you know how it is
and you know just how I feel

I'll tell you I ain't never
never
never, no no
loved a man the way that I
I love you

Probably the most emotional, soulful soul song I've ever heard. Yea, it's that much better than the original album version, and yea, that means you should listen to it.

Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You) (Demo) : Rare & Unreleased Recordings

Sunday Spotlight - The King Blues Revisited

It's either feast or famine, and this week it's a full spread. After reading about the Alan Cohen Experience earlier today, now you get a chance to taste something quite different.

You might remember me mentioning The King Blues a couple times over the last year. The first time was back in February when I wrote about their debut album's release here in the States. Then in May I gave a sneak peak at the title track from their upcoming album Let's Hang the Landlord. Well, time has rolled by, and that new album is now coming out. For today's Spotlight, Johnny "Itch" Fox, frontman and main songwriter in The King Blues, shared his thoughts and the story behind the albums third track, The Schemers, The Scroungers & The Rats. As always, text in red is his, and mine is in black.

The King Blues - The Schemers, The Scroungers & The Rats : Save the World, Get the Girl

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There are many political songs written about work or lack of jobs or working hard but I wanted to do one about simply not wanting to work. It was half inspired by an Ali G quote when he interviewed Tony Benn he asked him "Everyone is banging on about the right to work, but what about the right to not work?". Of course it was a joke - Sacha Baron Cohen was portraying a character so ignorant he assumed striking workers were striking through laziness - but I thought it raised an interesting point.

Working for someone else is an accepted part of life I wanted to in some way question. The old school British attitude that ‘as long as you’re working you’re alright’ needs to be challenged. I don’t think that having a job by default makes you worthwhile. I’d respect someone more for enjoying their life, helping others, seeing their family and getting the most out of the short ride we’re on rather than cold calling me to sell me something I don’t need.

There’s a part of me that believes a good government wouldn’t strive to create more jobs but fewer. Let’s share out the work that NEEDS to be done and leave the rest of the time for enjoyment. Every generation we live shorter and work longer. There are many people in this country who choose not to work, for whatever reason, and this is a song for them.

And a few more Q's for Itch:

1.) The band has always been politically active, and there's some of that evident on the new album, but there are also some more personal songs that delve into touchy feely subjects like love. Was there a conscious shift in writing the album?

In a way it was conscious, we could easily have made another Under The Fog but we wanted to do an album that pushed forward what the band was about. Overall it's definitely a political record and we're still a political band. We just wanted to give this one more depth so there are songs that deal with more personal issues too. There are still a lot of fairly militant messages scattered throughout the album though. It's a sugar coated molotov cocktail.

2.) Your sound pulls in a lot of very diverse elements: a ukulele laden mix of reggae, ska, punk, British gypsy folk, etc... How the heck did you find two other guys willing to mix things up like you do?

Haha we all just know each other from going to punk gigs in London and we kind of just fell into a band together and I realise how utterly blessed I am to have found other people who are willing to really try anything rather than staying stagnant.

3.) How is the band doing making inroads here in the States? Any plans on touring the U.S. in support of the album?

We've been getting radio play from people like Rodney Bingenheimer on KROQ and the Passport Approved show on Indie 103.1 in LA, and Robert Levy on KDHX in St Louis. We've been featured on some cool blogs as well. We really want to go to the US.

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It's hard to argue with that logic. God knows how many studies and articles there are about the average number of work hours going up and vacation days going down, especially here in the States. Anyway, enjoy listening to the track along with the fourth cut from the album, Underneath This Lamppost Light, a song that reminds me of a working man's version of Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight.

The King Blues - The Schemers, The Scroungers & The Rats : Save the World, Get the Girl

The King Blues - Underneath This Lamppost Light : Save the World, Get the Girl

and an older favorite:

The King Blues - Mr. Music Man (Root-id Re-Rub) : Original version on Under the Fog

Visit their website, their label Field Recordings, and become their friend on MySpace.

Sunday Spotlight - Alan Cohen Experience

Earlier this year (back here in March), I wrote about The Alan Cohen Experience's album Revolutions. Well, Alan and crew are back with a brand new self-titled six track EP that came out a few weeks ago. While lacking any big name historical figures like the last album's Nelson Mandella, Che Guevara, or Fidel Castro, the EP carries on in the same musical vein, appropriating historical events and presenting them in offbeat ways.

Alan was kind enough to take the time to tell me about the first track of the EP, Elephant. As always, text in red is his and questions in black are mine.

Alan Cohen Experience - Elephant : Alan Cohen Experience

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“Elephant”
by the Alan Cohen Experience

On a day in January, I awoke in a friends bed with images of the African wilderness in my head.
There was a soundtrack with a thumping beat, all to the rhythm of the Elephants' feet.
“All's quiet on the waterfront, it's just me and my elephant.”

Immediately I wrote down the verse, and found a piano. I plunked my way through the song once or twice, and went to get breakfast. I stored it in my head as a picture, a thin horizon ending a flat plain, the nighttime stars and moon above. A traveler with his companion. A village celebrating a harvest festival. A song about wandering.

The townspeople dance under the moon
They dance to the sound of the pouring rain
They celebrate the harvest of their fields of grain
They honor all their fathers by proclaiming their names
They feast and then they sleep

I waited months to record the first draft of the song, making a short loop of the music. An attempt a year later led to a full version. The song was not born properly until Roger Greenawalt sprinkled his magic fairy dust onto the recording.

It is built on one chord, a guitar drone. The movement and soul of the song comes from the bass and keyboards, the middle section, and the piano solo, played by Jon Solo. It is meant to mesmerize, to exercise, and to funk-a-cize. It is Duke Ellington conducting Stevie Wonder. It is a Salvidor Dali painting turned into a musical. It is the sensation of standing on your head and unapologetically passing gas.

And three questions for Alan:

1.) On the last album you sang about historical figures that virtually all readers would be able to identify. On this album, you go with the much more recent Judge Roy Moore. Why the big shift, and how did you come to him as the subject of a song?

The main difference between these albums is that the last one, “Revolutions”, was conceived with a purpose, to explore various popular revolutionary figures and events, while this one is just a collection of songs that don't fit into any particular subject. About half of the lyrics were written by my longtime friend, Seth Kroll, including the one about Judge Roy Moore. I have no idea what his inspiration was, except to say that he is the sort of guy that will wax poetic about whatever catches his fancy. One of his prime moments was when he discovered the meaning of life while looking for cream cheese in the fridge.

I like to write concept albums, although in between I record and release one-off songs I have written over the years. There are some themes, however, that I tend to stray towards, one of them being history, another being space and the universe. I also have two songs about elephants and two songs about cookies.


2.) You mentioned that the impetus for the song Elephant were dreams involving African images. As I sit here writing these questions I coincidentally happen to be listening to the new Femi Kuti album. Do you happen to listen to any African music?

I don't really, and I should! When I wrote “Elephant”, I had just been to Africa 4 months prior with my family. I remember getting off the plane in Botswana, and taking picture after picture of the first elephant we saw, eventually realizing that they are everywhere! This song evokes a very specific image to me, which Seth Kroll and I tried to capture in the video. Just a lone wanderer with his companion elephant. I think maybe deep down in my psyche, I was thinking about how if I was to go on an open-ended adventure, an elephant would come in very handy. They really do seem like very thoughtful animals, and they seem to have a good sense of humour. I once read in National Geographic that there are elephants in Gabon that eat mushrooms they find in the jungle and trip out.


3.) I hear that you're already working on your next album, one inspired by Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. Anything that you can share with us about it now?

Sure! It's a chapter-by-chapter musical interpretation of the book. Stephen Hawking gets pretty poetic in some chapters, and the songs reflect that. Some of his whimsical thought-exercises about various features of the universe are simply gorgeous! I am recording it in a studio north of Boston with a friend of mine, who is a very talented and successful musician and engineer.

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Enjoy the song as well as its video, along with the closing track Space Watch, below.

Alan Cohen Experience - Elephant : Alan Cohen Experience
(watch the video)

Alan Cohen Experience - Space Watch : Alan Cohen Experience

Visit his website, his label Famjam Records, and become his friend on MySpace.

A Verve Remixed Christmas

As much as you might want to deny it, Christmas is just around the corner. And with the economy in the shitter, there will probably be some killer deals come Black Friday. Let's avoid the consumeristic optimism though and get to the point of this post. Tired of spinning the same old tired tracks that you listen to every year around this time? Check out the Verve Remixed Christmas CD.

You might remember me writing about Remixed 4 in June. The theory behind the series is simple. Take classic tracks from the deep Verve catalog and spruce them up by handing them over to some tip-top remix maestros, and abracadabra, you end up with something new. I absolutely loved the 4th volume from first to last and had similar expectations for this Christmas album.

While there are some tracks here that I really dig, like the lead-off track Good Morning Blues (listen below), there are a couple songs, like 'Zat You Santa Claus? (The Heavy Remix), the second track, that just don't do it for me. Ironically it's because not enough is done with it to distinguish it from the original song, which is one of my favorite Christmas tunes. If you're familiar with the source material for these remixes, be prepared for some strong and loose re-workings that really make them pop as something new. That being said, you're parents might not go for these being spun while the family sits around to open presents, but it's a solid collection of classics brought into the 21st century.

Count Basie - Good Morning Blues (The Real Tuesday Weld Clarkenwell Mix) : Verve Remixed Christmas

and the original:

Count Basie & His Orchestra feat. Jimmy Rushing - Good Morning Blues : Listen My Children and You Shall Hear

Pick up the Unmixed Version of this album, which includes all of the original tracks.

Visit Verve Records.

Josiah Leming Uncovered

Just a quick post about a young singer/songwriter from Tennessee by the name of Josiah Leming. On the off chance that you watch American Idol (which I don't), you might recognize his name from the seventh season. If you don't, that might be for the best as you'll be apt to give him a fair shot. He just released a five track sampler titled Angels Undercover to amp listeners up for the release of his first full length in January.

My immediate and strongest comparison would be with Keane (who just released a new album of their own last month). Even though a southerner, Josiah's got an English accent and writes a melodic backdrop (quite contrary to the above picture) that certainly reminds me of the British Keane. Anyway, listen for yourself below to Arctic Outcry Wind, the first track from the EP.

Josiah Leming - Arctic Outcry Wind : Angels Undercover

Visit his label Reprise Records and become his friend on MySpace.

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