Courtesy of Twangville, the best music blog on the internets, I’ve queued up Michael Donner & The Southern Renaissance in my Spotify player for the weekend.

Good stuff so far.

Here’s the Spotify link.

And here’s a music video.

When I was a kid, there were these things called newspapers.  Basically, someone took some wood pulp, pressed it into into thin sheets, wrote stuff on it, and sold it to you.  Crazy I know, but it really happened.

Today at work, I walked by my secretary’s desk, and lo and behold, there was one of those newspapers.  Just laying there.  Beside some compact discs, paper checks and Burma-Shave signs.  A cornucopia of dead technology.

Curious, I picked it up.  Before I could reminisce about how it must have been to get day old news in flimsy print format, I noticed another relic of the past.  I read that someone has uncovered a previously unreleased live record by Fever Tree, one of the best (of the 3 or 4) bands to come out of Houston, and it was going to be released next week.  Immediately, I dropped the newspaper, wiped the ink off my hands and ran to my computer to read about this.

It was true!

Not only that, but it turns out Fever Tree’s keyboard player is the organist for St. Luke’s.  That’s the local Methodist Church for rich people.  I go to the local Methodist Church for non-rich people, but Cassidy has attended drama camp and worked as a vacation bible school counselor at St. Luke’s.  So she may have met the guy who might have played on one of my favorite songs ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoIEWdwQZls

I can’t really explain why I dig that song so much, but I have, from the first time I heard it.

That record is not on Spotify, but here’s one (from 1968) that is.  There’s a good Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out cover on there.  Ninety-Nine and One Half rocks, as does Where Did You Go.  Good stuff.

Hopefully, I’ll get my hands on the new old record.  If so, I’ll do a review.

I don’t have many rules, but one of them is that whenever Robert Bobby does a new record, I’ll review it.  I can’t overstate how much I like some of his work.  Most particularly Genuine Queen of Milwaukee.

10 or so years later, this is still one of my favorite songs.  The line “you ought to see her Adam’s apple, man dance” [Robert tells me I had that last word wrong] is one of the best ever put to music.

Enough about that.  Just one day after Genuine Queen was among the first songs I added to my Turntable.fm listening room (look for a full review of Turntable.fm tomorrow), I got a review copy of Robert’s brand new record, with The Robert Bobby Trio.   A Brief History of Time is available now at CD Baby.  You can buy a CD or download MP3s immediately.  And you should, because this is a really good record.

A Brief History of Time is not as country-ish as my favorite Robert Bobby songs, but it is full of good Americana and acoustic blues music.  It has been described as “a perfect blend of singer-songwriter, folk, Americana & blues!  Like John Prine only cheaper!”  That’s not a bad description.  A Brief History of Time, the title track, sounds like good Prine in his prime.

This record was recorded live in the studio, which gives it a more immediate sound, with some of the energy of a live performance.  It’s all about the picking and playing.  Bill Nork’s dobro and mandolin tracks are uniformly excellent.  Robert’s guitar work is stellar and Robert’s wife, who plays a mean bass, demonstrates that Robert is not the only musician in the family.

Wild About My Loving would have fit right into a Townes Van Zandt & Guy Clark set list.  Great guitar and mandolin.  The Peace Song doesn’t tread any new ground lyrically, but again the guitar work is stellar.  Ain’t No Way, a remake from an earlier record, is a fantastically wistful number.

Rocking My Baby Back Home picks up the tempo a little, with an acoustic rockabilly vibe.  My favorite song on the record is Hearts Like Atoms Split, probably because it sounds the most like the older Robert Bobby songs I have listened to for years.  When Strangers Start to Cry also has the country sound that I like so much.

I was prepared not to like One Meatball, based on the title, but it got me with a Stray Cats vibe, a good story and, I know I sound like a broken iPod, some excellent guitar work.

At the end of the day, I don’t like this record as much as I like some of Robert’s older stuff, such as Genuine Queen, Lucinda Williams (great tribute song to a great artist whose older work I also prefer) and The Best of All Possible Worlds, but that’s sort of like being critical of the Rolling Stones because every record isn’t Exile on Main Street.

Go buy this record.  It’s highly recommended.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My all-time favorite guitarist is Clarence White, of The Kentucky Colonels, Nashville West and The Byrds.  Here’s a great version of Old Blue.

Robyn Ludwick blew me away a few weeks ago, when I saw some of her concert footage  on Youtube.  To say that I dig her is a massive understatement.

Today I received a pre-release copy of her forthcoming record, Out of These Blues, which will make the world a better place on April 19, 2011.

The short answer is that this is the first must-buy record I’ve heard this year.  My biggest gripe about most records in these digital days is the uneven quality of the songs.  You generally get a couple of great ones, some decent ones and some filler.  That’s not a problem on this record – there’s not an average song on it.  They run from excellent to very, very good.

Listen to Hollywood, and you’ll see what I mean.

“She left me for Hollywood.  Oh, don’t you know it feels so good.  In Hollywood.”  Awesome.

The title track has a timeless vibe, that would’ve been at home in the glory days of MP3.Com, when I discovered many of the alt. country bands I still listen to, or during the Gram Parsons-nurtured infancy of country rock.  The best music, of any genre, has rural roots, but a harder, darker edge- like someone who came to country music via Macon, Georgia as opposed to Nashville.  This record sounds like that.

New Orleans is a great song, with some excellent country noir lyrics.  Cajun country, Springsteen’s Rosalita, Austin style.

Steady has a bluesy organ vibe that just boils with an early Lucinda-like passion.  I’d love to hear Robyn cover Lucinda’s Side of the Road.  Actually, she can sing whatever she wants.  As long as I get a copy.

Fight Song may be the best alt. country torch song ever recorded.  I Am may be the second best one.   Can’t Go Back channels Guitar Town era Steve Earle. A fiddle led, danceable number that needs to be heard at Gruene Hall, after a day on the river.

Let’s recap.  We have alt. country, rock, blues and country torch.  I love the way this record so easily and effectively moves from country to blues to rock.  The arrangements are excellent.

This one will clearly be a contender for my 2011 record of the year.  Count the days, friends.  April 19 will be here before you know it.  Wake up early that morning and buy this record.

In the meantime, Robyn has two records you can buy at Amazon right now.  For So Long and Too Much Desire.  I bought them both, and they are also great records.

I’m gonna have to do a two-fer tonight.

I’ve discovered more great music via the must-read music blog, A Truer Sound (RSS feed), than just about any other place on Earth.

Tonight, this.

Wow.  That’s about as good as music gets.

More info and tour dates at Robyn’s website and Facebook page.

It’s sad and amazing how much really great music has faded out of print and into oblivion, as compared to all the crap that passes for new music these days.  Crap that will never fade into oblivion because it is born in digital format.

Need an example?

Johnny Thunder replaced Ben E. King as the lead singer for the Drifters, before he began his solo career.  This hard to find gem, a Tommy James cover,  is from a single (B-Side-Verbal Expressions of T.V.).

I can’t find any of Johnny’s early solo records anywhere (other than occasionally on eBay).  If you find them for sale at anything close to a reasonable price, let me know.

Some of Johnny’s later music can be purchased via his website, linked above.

Johnny Thunder – I’m Alive.

This is one awesome performance of a rocking song.

There’s an interesting interview with Johnny here.

Artist Notice: I am a musician and songwriter.  I do these posts to draw attention to great music in the hopes that our readers will buy these records and allow these artists to continue making great music.  If you don’t want us to feature your music, let us know and we’ll take the song file down immediately.  On the other hand, if you are an artist who does the sort of music we feature, let us know.  We’re always looking for new artists to feature.