C5S5CD5 Numbers picked by my good friend Zahra @fnafilms . For those who don’tknow Natalie Merchant was the singer in 10,000 Maniacs a band who despite their name produced in beautiful music and possibly the best of all the MTV Unplugged performances captured as Merchants swansong with the band as she left to left soon after to pursue a solo career.
The House Carpenter’s Daughter is sub-titled a collection of traditional & contemporary folk music. This was Merchant’s fourth solo studio and her most challenging work for both artist and listener! (Since this release she has spent 7 years researching children poetry painstakingly document the story and setting her favourites poems to music) but back to the random release.
I saw that this challenge for the listener from a very personal point of view, I struggle with folk music in its purest form, by that I don’t mean Mumford & Sons or Laura Marling who are making folk music fashionable, I mean Pete Seger, and the likes of Ewan McColl great great songwriters but truthfully not to my tastes. This album covers both spectrum's that I talk about and this is why I struggle with this album. It has been a long time since I have listened to it and I must admit I have enjoyed it more than I thought I would, as I counted the CDs on the row I was praying that the numbers would stop before or after this CD as I thought I would be in for a rough ride.
There is a awful lot of banjo’s on this album an as much I like a bit of banjo it just keeps coming back at you! Saying that House Carpenter skips along beautifully,and Down On Penny’s Farm is a absolute gem of a track perfect for square dance!
Don’t get me wrong as far as I am concerned Natalie Merchant can do very little wrong, her body of work stands up for itselfbutI would have to say this is my least favourite album start with Ophelia or Tigerlily or her best of simply called Retrospective 1990-2005 if you really want explore her music.
Oh yeah and if you get a chance to see Natalie live go she is one of most engaging live performers I have ever seen.
C8S7CD7 Marvin Gaye was a troubled soul, or so most of the books and articles I have read have told me and they all can’t be wrong.
He always had a (e)strange(d) relationship with his Father (who ending up shooting and killing him) and I think this would impact on many of the decisions and relationships throughout Gaye’s life. I think Marvin Gaye hated being told what to do, whether that be from his record label, (musical output) authorities (we’ll get on to that) or Government (he fled the US when demands for tax mounted up) His most coveted album What’s Going On was seen as a commercial disaster prior to release by Motown his record label and particularly Berry Gordy the label owner who saw success as single sales and had always been right in the past. They were horrified he was writing about politics something that hadn’t been done in Soul music prior to this watershed release. What is seen as normal now was seen as commercial suicide in the 70’s. The fact that What’s Going On was a huge success gave Gaye the ability to do what he wanted and that’s leads me to Here, My Dear.
The background to this album is that Marvin Gaye was getting divorced from the sister of Motowns owner Berry Gordy as he had fallen in love with another woman. He was ordered by the courts to pay a substantial amount of money to his ex-wife and in order to do this wrote this album! His opening words on the album “I guess I’ll have to say this album is dedicated to you, although perhaps I may not be happy.....” says it all! The album’s title Here, My Dear and then song titles:
·I Met A Girl
·When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did You Stop Loving You
·Anger
·Is That Enough
·You Can Leave But It’s Going To Cost You
·Falling In Love Again
Map the end of one relationship and the beginning of another. Lots of artists have written break up albums, Bruce Springsteen Tunnel of Love and Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago are two that spring to mind as classics but this is album is too personal, all the dirty laundry there for everybody to look at and it seems to have been written out of spite and anger rather than of heartbreak and sadness like the other two I mentioned. Gaye turns himself from cheating Husband into the victim and this seems to have been a theme throughout his life.
There are touches of Gaye’s genius here A Funky Space Reincarnation and Sparrow smack of what is great about Marvin Gaye but the rest feels like Marvin getting too personal with the lyrics whilst going through the motions with the music.
Playing this album has only made me want to play What’s Going On or Let’s Get It On classic Gaye classic soul and seminal albums that everybody should hear. I’ll never throw this album out but I can’t say I’ll play it again soon (or ever)
C2S3CD7 Think we need to get one think very clear here, Big Elf are a bit mad, their real names are, Damon Fox, Duffy Snowhill, Ace Mark, and Steve Frothingham (Froth) which is strange enough in the case of Ace Mark but for the album they are called Professor Diablo, Sir Oliver Leftee, Commodore Kreivi IV and Sergeant Major 710 respectively and I guess this sets the tone for the album, it’s a bit mad!
If you mixed up Pink Floyd, T-Rex, Black Sabbath and Queen with a dash of pantomime then you might get close to how Big Elf sound and if that sounds strange well it is, but strange in a good way. I like bands like Black Mountain and The Mars Volta, who play unstructured (to my ear) rock music that disappears in different avenues of rhythm and seem to weld 3 different songs into one but make it a really exciting and fresh. I think this is why I bought this Big Elf album that and a good review in a magazine.
There is a lot of Queen in this record String Quartets, an Orchestra (The Gallows Orchestra obviously) but I have to make it clear this music is original (as original as any music can be these days). I have listened to this album a lot this week and have enjoyed it more and more as the week went on, I think when I first bought it I thought it was a little too heavy for my tastes but I haverealised that’s not the case, and the album has a lot tolike on it.
Superstar is a pure pop song that sounds like T-Rex, Blackball is epic and changes direction about 3 times throughout its 7 minutes of madness. The album closes with Counting Sheep an 11 minute masterpiece that has Pink Floyd written all over it.
Linda Perry is involved doing backing vocals on a couple of tracks, and if you don’t know who she is, she is one of the top songwritersfor hire in the music industry and was originally the main force behind the 90 band 4 Non Blonde's who had a huge hit with What’s Going On.
I definitely need to be in the mood for this album however if you like any of the bands referenced in this review then I’m sure you will find something to like on here.
C7S7CD7 It took me a long time to get into Neil Young I decided a long time ago I hated his voice, he was a bit like Bob Dylan for me I appreciated him as a songwriter and a key figure in modern music over the last 40 years but struggled to listen to him. I own some great cover versions of Neil Young tracks, Paul Weller covering Ohio and Natalie Merchant singing After The Gold Rush are as good as the originals (don’t kill me Neil Young fans) and Warren Hayes guesting with The Dave Matthews Band Live at Central Park playing Cortez The Killer is the moment my obsession with DMB started. So backed with my understanding that Neil Young wrote good songs I eventually relented and bought Harvest for £3 in a local supermarket after all nearly every music magazine says Harvest is outstanding and album and for the price of a pint of beer I thought I would take a chance.
So 31 albums, a few DVD’s and an Autobiography later I guess you could say I’m a Neil young convert, I don’t have all his releases but I have a fair representation of his catalogue of work, from solo acoustic, to grudgy full band (Crazy Horse) Neil Young is always trying to push himself, changing musical direction, (he was once sued by his record label for giving them an album that didn’t sound like Neil Young!) or lyrics, Living With War (very political) and Fork In The Road (All about a car)
This album is a perfectly good album from Neil Young but I always expect more from him and that’s the issue. Recorded with his backing band Crazy Horse (who released music in their own right) it’s good in parts Pardon My Heart is a beautiful song that could sit easily on Harvest and Cortez The Killer is a Neil young at his epic best (but the live version on Weld is better see video below) and the closing Through My Sails is trade mark Neil Young, great harmonies and sensitive arrangement, but the rest is generic Neil Young and is ok but washes over you without making an impact. I don’t hate this album but think I would be better putting the 3 tracks I love on a play list rather than play the whole album again. Neil Young has dozens of better albums than this one, but I’m also saying that a lot of artists won’t record anything as good as this album such is his standards. Does that make sense?
If you want to get into Neil Young get his Greatest Hits or better still get Harvest or After The Gold Rush you will fall in love with him and then 31 albums later.......
C9S2CD4 OK so my random review selector (numbers in envelopes) picks my first compilation CD, and what a compilation. In the past I have bought compilation for two reasons, 1. to get an introduction to a genre and pick the best artists to research more. 2. When a compilation is such high quality it stands up in its own right. This is both and let me tell you why.
Firstly if ever see any release on the Soul Jazz Label I would say it's a safe bet that you will get a great compilation, of music covering, soul, funk. jazz, and gospel and most likely it will be worth investing in.Their CDs are beautifully put together, with extensive liner notes, all beautifully packaged.
So on to the music, covering New Orleans funk from 1960-75 when I bought this it covered a few artists I knew and loved, The Meters, Aaron and Cyril Neville, Dr John, and Allen Toussaint, but across this CD are 24 tracks of joy, that without compilations like this I wold never be exposed to.
As part of this review process I said I committed to listen to each CD twice prior to reviewing it, but truthfully this one hasn't been far from the car stereo all week and I have a multitude of reasons to play it again and again.
So to the music, Dr John Mama Roux, Aaron Neville Hercules ( covered by Paul Weller on this Studio 150 album) are songs you might know but it's the other artists that make this album so interesting, names like, Gentleman June Gardner, Eddie Bo, and the like of Mardi Gras Indian Band that make you what to immerse yourself in everything New Orleans. Eddie Bo's Check Your Bucket (which refers to whether your woman is cheating on you!) is just brilliant as he tells his friends to "check your bucket" and that you should have a lead lined bucket like his! this CD makes you want to dance and continue to dance into the early hours of the morning,
It seems wrong to single out tracks on this CD as it is complete, and deserves to be played from start to finish and looking back I wish I had picked this as one of my #masterpieces (see previous blog) on Twitter, but hey there is always next time.
There was a follow up to this called Friday Saturday Night Fish Fry which is just as good as this compilation so go look them up. If you like soul or funk music or you are good a appreciator of great music go and get this.
C4R11CD14 Before I start I must confess I LOVE THE MUSIC OF DAVE MATTHEWS with or without the band. At my last count I have 37 Dave Matthews CD’s 26 of which are live recording, a number of which are box sets, half a dozen live DVD’s you get the picture don’t you..........
I’m a lightweight in comparison to most DMB fans just look at the websites Ants Marching and Dancing Nancies to understand the dedication of his fans.
Whenever I go to see Dave Matthews play it never ceases to amaze me the number of fans from North America that are travelling round Europe to see all the shows and do this on a regular basis.
The one time I saw Dave Matthews play without his band was in Newcastle City Hall, which holds about 1500 people I would go as 75% of the audience were American, amazing but slightly weird!
So to the music, the band experience you get with DMB is usually three hours of extended jams of songs that could last 5 minutes or could last 20 minutes depending on the mood of the band, off the wall covers, as well a set list that will change every night, and could change half way through the set, guests that come and play and an all round good time if you like that sort of thing! As much as I adore this band I am yet to find anybody else I know who likes the band, much as I try to convert, I think they are like Marmite, you either love them or hate them and everybody I know hates them!
So onto the solo recording, (with Tim Reynolds) Dave Matthews loves playing music and tours/plays gigs all the time. (They are supposed to be having a year off this year, but have just announced four 2 day festivals to be held across America in the summer with The Dave Matthews Band headlining each night) So he often plays gigs with his good friend Tim Reynolds (now part of the band I think) for fans, for fun, and for charity. I have 3 live records of Dave and Tim concerts and have been lucky enough to see them play once. This recording is the newest of the three I have. The release of this album was significant in that it was the first live recording of material from their last studio album Big Whiskey and the Groo Grux King.
When Dave plays solo you get a much closer rendition of the songs as they are not stretched to include jams, the songs are stripped down two guitars and one voice, and on this recording this works beautifully for most of the recordings.
The tracks cover all over Dave’s body of work covering most of the DMB studio albums his solo album and also tracks that as yet haven’t been recorded. Dave has no beef with people recording concerts and sharing them online, in fact in the early days used to allow fans to plug into the mixing desk to get a better quality! I read an article where he said that this allowed him to build his fan base prior to having a record deal and therefore gave him a stronger bargaining tool when negotiating with the record company.
This recording showcases a lot of the newer material and listening to it, I have to say that some of it doesn’t work as well as when played with a full band. I would never have said that of previously recording but songs like Funny the Way It Is and Shake Me Like a Monkey are stronger when the band plays them.
Having said that there is much to love on this recording, Alligator Pie, wrote for his Daughter Stella which has the great line of “Daddy when You Gonna Put Me In A Song” after his other daughter Grace was name checked in Grace is Gone. Tim chips in with a couple of instrumental pieces which so case his undeniable talent however add very little to the album. It also included the beautiful Christmas Song, my favourite Christmas song ever. (Christmas play lists don't have Band Aid and Slade in my household!)
I always find that Dave’s enjoyment of playing live comes across on all of his recording and although this is my least favourite of the three solo recordings I have, it is still great.
If you haven’t heard Dave Matthews before I would check out the latest studio album Big Whiskey and The Groo Grux Klan or his greatest hits The Best of What’s Around which has a studio and Live disc so you can get a feel about what they do.
The video is from the Las Vegas concert and is Christmas Song and is brilliant (but then I would, coming from a guy who has a Dave Matthews Band bottle opener!)
