Monday musical mayhem
- Amos Milburn, “House Party (Tonite).” A bit of old jump blues that means just what its title says.
- Rick James & Ike Turner, “Love Gravy.” Leave it to South Park to put together two musical greats — and poster children for domestic abuse — and manage to make it funky.
- Billy Bragg, “Mr. Love & Justice.” [solo version] I saw Bragg perform at a local musical institution last summer. It was just him and a guitar. No band. He was riveting, smart, and funny. One of the best shows I saw last year. He joked in the middle of a song that he wanted us all to be his Facebook friends . . . except it was no joke. He’s got a Facebook page. Go on. Look for yourself. Then friend him. He won’t bite.
- Sponge, “Molly.” I can’t pretend to know much about this track, besides the fact that it’s a bouncy little ditty about that ’80s teen starlet, Molly Ringwald. I’d heard of Sponge, but never actually heard them till a friend put this track on a mix CD for me. It does make me smile broadly whenever it turns up in my daily shuffling, though.
- Ella Fitzgerald, “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To.” And now for something completely different. Fitzgerald purrs and growls and swings and scats . . . and it’s all damned good.
- Dinah Washington, “Teach Me Tonight.” Speaking of purring . . . and let’s just leave it at that for now. Mmm . . .
- Pirates of the Caribbean, “Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me).” Heh. This only semi-nautical bit of Disney-esque camp appears courtesy of a pirate-themed birthday mix I made for a friend a couple of years back. The same mix that has two different versions of “The Good Ship Venus” on it. Though this thankfully brief bit of piracy is a far cry from either of those gems.
- Arthur Shibley, “Hot Rod Race.” There’s a fine little book called What Was the First Rock ‘n’ Roll Record that appears to now be out of print. Which is a damned shame. The book doesn’t resolve the question: it simply offers fifty candidates for the title. And though I don’t think the authors ever intended it to work out this way, those fifty songs happen to fit perfectly on two CDs. Shibley may not sound like “rock ‘n’ roll” to most people’s ears today (mine included), but it is a musical precursor to a host of later (and greater) rock ‘n’ roll car races, from “Maybellene” to “Dead Man’s Curve.”
- Bruce Springsteen, “My Oklahoma Home.” From the Seeger Sessions CD, which — briefly — made me love Bruce once again. It’s a great retro-roots disc . . . and, even though it’s largely made up of songs that predate rock ‘n’ roll by 10-50 years, it actually rocks and rolls better than anything else Bruce has made in, oh, twenty years or so.
- Johnny “Guitar” Watson, “Hot Little Mama.” Some fine, old-style Texas blues.
1 comment Monday 23 Mar 2009 | Gil | Music
Two (or more) can play at this game. Here’s my random ten from this very moment. Although since there’s currently 1337 tunes to choose from, why it ended up pulling two from the same album is a but surprising.
1. Sheryl Crow, “Sweet Rosalyn”
2. Yo La Tengo, “Cherry Chapstick”
3. King of Hawaii, “Western”
4. Yo La Tengo, “Little Honda”
5. Ranch Romance, “Lovesick Blues”
6. Sleater-Kinney, “The Swimmer”
7. Speedy West & Jimmy Bryant, “Caffeine Patrol”
8. Peter Case, “A Little Wind Could Blow Me Away”
9. Sheryl Crow, “Ordinary Morning”
10. Neville Brothers, “Hey Pocky Way”