Tag: blues

A selective, pre-Thanksgiving playlist in narrative form

A few days ago my Daily Discovery playlist on Tidal offered up a track by Robben Ford, “Talk To Your Daughter” from 1987. It was pretty good, good enough to click through and see what else he’s done. Holy crap. The guy’s been around for 45 years and he’s still playing it hard? How the heck have I gone all those years and never heard of this guy?

After listening to that entire album, I listened to his newest recording available on Tidal, Live At Montreux 1993 released in 2024. Okay, now I’m really intrigued. He’s playing blues sometimes, jazz other times, and he’s echoing Jeff Beck, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, John McLaughlin, Al DiMeola, and a bit of Eric Clapton? His vocals sound like JW-Jones (another great guitarist)?

I’ve since listened to Night In The City (Live) partially; Schizophonic (again, partially); and Lost in Paris Blues Band a perfectly excellent recording with six other musicians I don’t know. In the discography I see he’s played with Bill Evans for an album released in 2019. If that’s the jazz pianist, I’m intrigued. He’s played with Charlie Musselwhite and Jimmy Witherspoon before turning 25. His first solo album in 1976, Schizophonic, resulted in the Yellowjackets, a well-known American jazz-fusion band. He’s release 30 albums, either as a solo act or with a partner or two. He’s played as a session musician in so many sessions it’s difficult to count. Let’s just throw a few names in: Miles Davis; Jing Chi; Little Feat; Tommy Emmanuel; Barry Manilow; Michael McDonald; Bob Dylan; Joni Mitchell; and gosh, we better stop or I’ll just be pasting in the Wikipedia article. Let’s just add this: five Grammy nominations and named one of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of the 20th century” by Musician magazine.

Additionally, we watched Elvis Costello and T-Bone Burnett appear on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert which prompted a bit of listening of tracks from my favorite (and only) Burnett album, The Criminal Under My Own Hat.

In other listening news:

  • Delbert McClinton’s Nothing Personal continues to enthrall with its combination of country, blues, and soul. Highly recommended if you like the raw side of music.
  • I’ve been reading Rocks Off: 50 Tracks That Tell the Story of the Rolling Stones by Bill Janovitz which tells the musical history of the Stones through what he considers to be salient songs. It’s a joy to listening to the tracks while reading his in-depth analysis thereof. I’m up to “Under My Thumb”.
  • And finally, all this good semi-modern blues, i.e., “it came out since 1990,” drove me to Kenny Wayne Shepherd. Today’s final albums: Dirt On My Diamonds, Volumes 1 and 2 (two separate albums) and Live In Chicago still one of my favorite live albums. If you don’t get either a chill or a jolt from “Dance For Me Girl” then you’re either not a rock/blues lover, or you’re not alive.

Record review: Hackney Diamonds

This has nothing to do with the Rolling Stones except it’s stone–so there’s that.

I’m listening to Hackney Diamonds the new release by The Rolling Stones as fed to me by Tidal’s FLAC version. It’s stunning considering the age of the performers. I get a little bit of Black and Blue out of some of it, but several of the tracks just rock, straight ahead, ma’am, thanks. I hear a nice big fat and fuzzy bass on “Bite My Head Off” and whaddaya know? It’s Sir Paul McCartney on that one! I like that Keith Richards gets to sing “Tell Me Straight.” Lady Gaga joins them on “Sweet Sounds Of Heaven”…and Mick Jagger sounds just as good at bending a blues note as he ever did. (Reminds me a bit of JJ Grey & Mofro.) Look at the credits for this one! Stevie Wonder on piano? Ronnie Wood on guitar and backing vocals? Keith is playing bass? Oh HALE YEAH! And what a great tribute to their roots at the end of the album: “Rolling Stone Blues” by Muddy Waters, most of it performed with just an acoustic guitar and a harmonica.

When the album was announced, I read that this is the first studio album of original material since A Bigger Bang. “Surely that can’t be right,” I thought. “I listened to a new album in the last ten years or so.” Ah, but that was a bunch of blues covers, not original stuff (Blue & Lonesome, 2016). Shee-it. I was stuck in yet another unsatisfying job in 2005, the year that one came out. I had no inkling I was headed to North Carolina, that two more tension-producing jobs awaited, or that I would score a professional jackpot by entering the consulting world. Eighteen years is a long time, even for old people…like me and the Rolling Stones. (Maybe I should write a memoir called that–except I came to the Stones late.)

Whatever. It’s Rolling Stones Retrospective this afternoon. Streaming Aftermath which starts with these: “Paint It, Black”, “Stupid Girl” [the B-side to Paint It, Black if I recall correctly], “Lady Jane”, and “Under My Thumb”. There are signature movements in the music industry–Big Band, Rock N Roll, Hip Hop–and I’m glad to have grown up with one. Cheers, folks.