This is the another installment in my series of favorite records.

After Eric Clapton toured with and later became a member of Delaney & Bonnie, he and some other former members of that band began touring as a new band and gathered in August of 1970, with Duane Allman sitting in, to make a record. The result was Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. Many believe this is Clapton’s finest work, and I agree.

Everyone knows the title track, and it’s a great one. But to know this record only for that song is a mistake, because it contains several other masterpieces, including a blistering version of Have You Ever Loved a Woman and the wonderful Clapton penned Bell Bottom Blues.

Duane Allman’s unparalleled slide guitar sounds as great on this record as any Allman Brothers record.

The under-appreciated force on this record, however, is keyboardist Bobby Whitlock. He co-wrote five of the best songs on the record (including Anyday, the second best song on the record, behind Layla) and wrote one of the best assorted love songs, Thorn Tree in the Garden.

This record is an obvious must-have for any music collection.

Here’s a little bonus full of awesome.

Technorati Tags:
top 50 albums, record reviews

A friend of mine asked me the other day to name my favorite country song.

At the time I counldn’t really come up with just one. But after thinking about it a while, I know now.

Phil Lee is a guy from the Bull City who has spent time in the Big Apple and behind the wheel of a big rig. He drove a truck for Neil Young at one time and was in The Flying Burrito Brothers for a while.

He has also released two of the best alternative country records I have ever heard, one of which contains the best country song I have ever heard. I’m the Why She’s Gone has everything a song can have: great melody; great arrangement; vocals that sound more classic Billy Joe Shaver than Billy Joe Shaver does; a great title; a great story; and if you listen carefully to the lyrics, an interesting twist.

Next time someone asks me, I’ll know.

If you like music, go buy this record.

Technorati Tags:
alternative country, record review

This is the another installment in my series of favorite records.

I remember the first time I heard a Del Fuegos song. It was Backseat Nothing off of their first record. I went out that same day and bought the cassette tape. That record, called The Longest Day, could easily be on this list. But since the first one is virtually impossible to find, I’m going to pick their equally excellent second record.

Boston, Mass., their second record, is unfortunately also out of print, but you can find a CD for sale now and then on eBay.

From the first verse of Don’t Run Wild, you can tell this is a more produced record than their first, with a little sharper edge to it. My favorite songs on the record are the very wistful I Still Want You and the rootsy Coupe DeVille, but every song on this record is excellent and still sounds fresh after 20 years.

The primary songwriter and singer, Dan Zanes, still makes music. He has released some of the best family records I’ve ever heard. I highly recommend them for both kids and adults.

The Del Fuegos didn’t become the major rock stars I thought they would after their first two records, but they made some fine music. If you can find either of their first two records in a format you can play, buy it. You won’t be sorry.

Technorati Tags:
top 50 albums, record reviews

This is the another installment in my series of favorite records.

While my music tastes are anchored in the country, classic and blues rock of the late 60’s and 70’s, the mid-eighties was a wonderful time for rock and roll. During the 80’s alternative rock bands like The Replacements, REM, Elvis Costello, Talk Talk and others created an entire new genre and catalog of music that was different than anything we had heard before. I recall hearing some of the best music on WRVU during my graduate school years of 1982-85.

No band of that era grabbed me more than The Cure. They made several records that are candidates for this list, but I’m going to pick their 1989 record Disintegration.

This record epitomizes the dark, brooding and occasionally ever-so-hopeful music that I discovered and enjoyed so much during the 80’s. Pictures of You is a wonderful song by any standard. Love Song is another classic from this record. Last Dance is another brooding, enchanting number, with a great guitar track behind Robert Smith’s unique and compelling voice.

Lullaby is a great song too. But the song that put this record on this list is Fascination Street. It’s about as haunting as a song can be.

Every one of the other songs on this record is somewhere between very, very good and excellent. The Cure made sad records, happy records (sort of), alternative records and almost pop records during the 80’s. This record is a great combination of all of that and more.

Technorati Tags:
top 50 albums, record reviews

This is the tenth part in my series of favorite records.

As a confirmed alternative country music fan, I have to look around a bit to find good new music. While I grew up listening to country music, the stuff that passes for mainstream country today does nothing for me. So I read No Depression Magazine, listen to some off the beaten path internet radio stations and XM-12 on XM Radio. It takes work, but it is worth it when I discover a new band. A few years ago I came across a band called The Coming Grass and their self-titled debut record. It remains one of my favorite alternative country records.

The Boston Herald has described the band this way: The result is a sound that recalls the Uncle Tupelo/Wilco/Son Volt axis, the Bay State’s Blood Oranges and alt-country inspirations the Rolling Stones, but that has a grace, unity and intelligence all its own. You heard it here first: The Coming Grass are coming on.

This record begins with the excellent Take Me Over. Every time this song plays Cassidy comments on it. She doesn’t even recognize much of my music, but somehow this song is on her brain. My favorite song on the record is Carry, which has a great guitar intro and a wistful, country sound supported by great backing vocals.

Put Away Your Expectations is a modern Stones-like mid-tempo number. Most of the cuts on the record are wistful, mid-tempo songs with haunting vocals. While the songs are similar in some ways, the forumla works and it sounds really good.

I noticed that they have another CD out- both are available from the band’s web site. I haven’t heard the second one yet, but if their first record is any indication, I expect it is mighty good.

Technorati Tags:
top 50 albums, new music

I’ve got 3 potential new bands to add to my good list.

The other night I was driving home and listening to XM-12– the mostly but only in a real middle of the road kind of a way alternative country, Americana station on XM. I listen to it a lot, mostly because I can’t map out the difference between Lucy, Ethyl and Fred (Lucy seems to be the best, but only on some days- it’s very confusing to me). Anyway, they had this live show thing on and the band was Cigar Store Indians. They were recorded, as far as I could tell, playing live in XM’s studio in front of little or nobody. Anyhow, they were really good. And then they played a “love song” the singer wrote to his kids that really blew me away. Two things: (1) having written songs for both of my kids, I dig songs about kids, and (2) this song (his, not mine) is a damn fine song. The first time I heard the line “You’re gonna try to live your life kind of like a script, like you’re in a movie, like your watching it,” I literally teared up. So I bought the record from CD Baby (sorry, baby, but only because Amazon didn’t have it- I dig the Prime). I sampled some of the other songs and they sound really good. I’m a little worried about the rockabilly references, but the sound was more alternative country than rockabilly and that’s what I’m hoping for.

I also heard a really good song by a band called Bucktown Kickback on XM-12 the other day. So I bought their CD too. More on both after they arrive in a week or so (more than the 2 days it takes to get stuff from Amazon thanks to the Prime). I really dig the Prime.

CD Baby, here’s what you do. Get some shipping thing like the Prime going, and then allow me to download MP3s of the records I buy. That and the pay by Paypal option would lead me back to CD Baby. Also, get better servers- your site is slow, slow, slow. But you’re supporting the starving artists and I’m one of those, so you’re still good with me.

Finally, I got exactly the kind of email an artist should send if he or she wants me to listen to their stuff.

I got an email from one of the guys in Chuckanut Drive. First of all, the email had a link to a page where I could hear full versions of all of the songs on their new record. Second, he described the band as “a mix of Exile Era Stones/Gram Parsons with the Byrds and a touch of Stax Soul thrown in for good measure.” So either he’s been reading my blog and has condensed my musical taste into 22 words, or this is my kind of band. I listened to a few of the songs, and they are very, very good! My favorite so far is Pittsburgh (I put it on my server to keep the location provided to me private and so I wouldn’t be stealing bandwidth). This is a mighty good song that will be in the Rancho Radio rotation next time we update. It might even get on the upcoming City Names edition of our RanchoCast. I’m looking forward to hearing all the songs over the next few days.

As a songwriter, musician, sometimes entertainment lawyer and Grammy voter who has an internet radio station and does a podcast, I get a lot of music sent to me. Most of it is of less than Uncle Tupelo quality (to put it delicately) and some of it is too hard to access. Within about 3 seconds of reading this email, I was listening to some mighty fine music.

Anyhow, check out Chuckanut Drive. I’m going to.

Technorati Tags:
music reviews, alternative country, cd baby

This is the ninth part in my series of favorite records.

Yes, I know that I am still in the Bs and that my final list is going to have a lot more than 50 records on it, but what can I say. I keep finding excellent records on my music server.

I remember the first time I saw Bruce Springsteen in 1975. I didn’t know that much about him prior to the concert, but afterwards, I knew I had discovered something special. Almost any of his records could make this list, but I’m goung to pick The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle.

Bruce had a lot of great songs in the bag when he started making records, as evidenced by the fact that this one was released only eight months after his first one, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. (also an excellent record). One The Wild, the Innocent, Bruce did a wild, funky, keyboard driven fusion of folk, jazz and rock- and it worked. There are only 7 songs on this record, but most of them are 7+ minutes long, so there’s a lot of music to enjoy.

I’ve often argued with my music buddy the G-Man about the use of horns in a record. Sometimes they absolutely make a song (like most of the ones on this record and some Van Morrison numbers). Sometimes, they just sound like a throw in to hide mediocre songs- like on some of Bill Morrissey’s later records. G-Man seems to like all horns, but I definitely do not. But from the first note of the first song, The E Street Shuffle, you can tell that funky, funky horns add a whole lot to these songs.

Even the mellow songs, like Wild Billy’s Circus Story have some funky horns, and it really adds to the vibe of this record. Much like his first record, these songs sound like (and probably are) songs Bruce wrote about actual friends of his and stuff they did growing up.

An excellent record that belongs in every record collection.

Technorati Tags:
top 50 albums, new music

This is the eighth part in my series of favorite records.

I remember one night back in the mid-nineties I was channel surfing and came across a guy I didn’t recognize singing an awesome country song. That guy was Bob Woodruff and I promptly went online and bought the perfect country record.

Dreams & Saturday Nights is that record. Like a lot of guys who do alt. country (myself included) Bob comes from a rock and roll background and a place far away from Nashville, having played in rock bands while growing up in New York. This record is about the best mix of country/alt. country (being country with harder rock edge, as opposed to the other way around like most alt. country) I’ve ever heard.

Hard Liquor, Cold Women, Warm Beer is a perfect country song. The title track is a fine restless drinking song that will sound like a soundtrack for anyone who went to college in the South in the 70s or 80s (and maybe even thereafter). That the song references Neil Young, Marvin Gaye and Patsy Cline in the same line tells me that Bob listened to the same broad selection of music that I did growing up.

All of the other songs on this record are absolutely great. The music alternately makes you want to chug a beer, dance or cry. Great writing and fine playing. I wish Bob would do another record. To my knowledge, he only has two albums out- this one and the follw up from 1997.

Technorati Tags:
top 50 albums, new music

This is the seventh part in my series of favorite records.

One of my favorite alt. country bands is Blue Mountain, lead by husband and wife team of Cary Hudson and Laurie Stirratt. I think all of their records are excellent, but my favorite is still the first one I ever heard, Dog Days.

This is one of those all too rare records that has nothing but excellent songs on it. I’d love to list my favorites, but they’re all great songs. Soul Sister was the first song that grabbed my attention, reminding me of more than one girl I knew growing up:

First time that I saw her was the summer I turned 14. She was sitting on the hood of a car, at the drive in show. I saw a tear roll down her face, as she gazed up at the screen. And her black hair in the wind began to blow.

Let’s Go Running is a mid-tempo guitar driven rocker that would be a standout on almost any other record. Here, it’s just another excellent song.

Wink is a wistful acoustic number about a letter and a loss- like many songs, it’s about a woman who’s gone, but like the good ones, it creates a mood and let’s you fill in the blanks with your own memories.

ZZQ is a tribute to a radio station listened to while driving the back roads:

Ten miles north of Jackson stood a tower, with 100,000 watts of power. In the parking lot after school, the skynard nation rolled the knob to 102.

Jimmy Carter is a mostly sincere and slightly tongue in cheek tribute to my favorite President and the first song I play for someone when introducing this record:

In the bicentennial summer of our faded glory land a bright new face appeared upon the scene. Of an honest peanut farmer by the name of Jimmy Carter. His eyes were set on every school boys dream.

There are many other fine songs on this record. Anyone looking to build an alt. country library would do well to start with this record.

Technorati Tags:
top 50 albums, new music