The Sunday Six

Happy Sunday and welcome to another excursion into the beautiful world of music. For most folks in the U.S., daylight savings began last night, so just in case, don’t forget to adjust your clocks. Should you feel a bit tired since you lost one hour of sleep, music is a great remedy. All aboard the time machine and let’s go back, Jack, do it again!

Wayne Shorter/Footprints

Today, our journey begins in October 1967 to commemorate the great Wayne Shorter who sadly passed away on March 2 at the age of 89. Frankly, had it not been for fellow blogger Music Enthusiast and his related tribute, I guess I would have missed it! Unlike Jeff Beck or Lynyrd Skynyrd co-founder Gary Rossington, who we lost on March 5, it seems Shorter’s death didn’t get comparable media attention. While Wayne Shorter wasn’t a guitarist, the jazz saxophonist and composer was a true rock star in my book. In addition to being a sideman playing with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and Miles Davis’ Second Great Quintet, Shorter started his recording career as a bandleader in 1959 with Introducing Wayne Shorter – the first of more than 20 additional albums he released in that role. In 1970, Shorter became a co-founder of Weather Report, co-leading the jazz fusion band with Austrian keyboarder Joe Zawinul until their breakup in 1986. After leaving Weather Report, Shorter continued to record and perform until his retirement in 2018 after a nearly 70-year career! Let’s celebrate this great musician with one of his best-known compositions that has become a jazz standard: Footprints, which first appeared on Shorter’s 10th solo album Adam’s Apple released in October 1967. He was backed by Herbie Hancock (piano), Reggie Workman (bass) and Joe Chambers (drums).

Dirty Honey/California Dreamin’

I realize smooth saxophone jazz may not be the best remedy to wake up if you’re really tired. Let’s travel to the current century and kick up the speed a few notches with music by one of the most exciting contemporary rock bands I know: Dirty Honey. Founded in 2017, this Los Angeles-based group reminds me of bands like Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin and The Black Crowes. Dirty Honey are Marc Labelle (vocals), John Notto (guitar), Justin Smolian (bass) and Corey Coverstone (drums). To date, they have released a self-titled EP (2019) and debut album (2021), as well as a bunch of singles. Here’s California Dreamin’, the kickass opener of their full-length debut, which came out in April 2021. Or are we actually listening to a moniker of The Black Crowes when they were at their peak? Damn, feel free to play along with air or real guitar!

Sting/All This Time

Okay, time for a little breather with Sting and All This Time. This beautiful tune, off the ex-Police frontman’s third full-length solo album The Soul Cages, takes us to January 1991. The Soul Cages is a concept album revolving around the 1987 death of Sting’s father, which led the English artist to develop writer’s block. The scary episode lasted several years, explaining the relatively long 4-year gap to its predecessor …Nothing Like the Sun. Soul Cages also was Sting’s first solo album to feature guitarist Dominic Miller who would become a longtime collaborator appearing on most of Sting’s albums thereafter, including his most recent The Bridge from November 2021. Like all except two tracks on The Soul Cages, All This Time was solely written by Sting.

Danny & The Juniors/At The Hop

Let’s put on our classic rock & roll dancin’ shoes and pay a visit to the year 1957. That’s when American doo-wop and rock & roll vocal group Danny & The Juniors scored their biggest hit single At The Hop. The group from Philadelphia was formed in 1955 and originally included Danny Rapp, Dave White, Frank Maffei and Joe Terranova. At The Hop was co-written by Artie Singer, John Medora and White. The seductive honky tonk piano-driven tune became the group’s only no. 1 single in the U.S., topping both the mainstream pop and R&B charts. Danny & The Juniors may have had only one hit but they certainly made it count. White and Terranova passed away in March 2019 and April 2019 and the ages of 79 and 78, respectively. Let’s join in the dance sensations that are sweepin’ the nation at the hop – ’50s rock & roll doesn’t get much better!

Tracy Chapman/Talkin’ Bout a Revolution

We’re four tunes into our current journey and haven’t featured the ’80s yet. My proposition this week is Tracy Chapman and one of her best-known songs from her eponymous debut album that came out in 1988. I still remember when the folk singer-songwriter seemingly out of nowhere burst on the scene in April that year with Fast Car, the album’s first single, and became an overnight sensation. Talkin’ Bout a Revolution, the record’s opener, was the second single released in July 1988. While it didn’t match the chart success of Fast Car, the tune was just as ubiquitous on the radio back in Germany. I dug Chapman’s music so much that I bought a songbook of the album for acoustic guitar. Given her relatively deep vocals, I was able to reasonably sing her tunes. While Chapman has not been active for many years, she has not officially retired from music. I believe her most recent “public appearance” was the night before the November 2020 U.S. Presidential elections on Late Night with Seth Myers with a clip of her performing Talkin’ ‘about a Revolution, asking Americans to vote. Man, this tune still gives me chills – so good!

Lynyrd Skynyrd/Free Bird

Once again, it’s time to wrap up another music time travel. And what could possibly be a better final stop than Free Bird, the epic Lynyrd Skynyrd track that closed out their debut album (Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd), released in August 1973. Co-written by the southern rock icon co-founders Allen Collins (guitar) and frontman Ronnie Van Zant (lead vocals), the 9-minute-plus gem features the late Gary Rossington on rhythm and slide guitars. Rossington also was among the band’s co-founding members. He cheated death twice. In 1976, he was in a car accident, hitting an oak tree while under the influence of alcohol and other drugs. Luckily, nobody else got hurt in that accident. Rossington also survived the horrific plane crash on October 1977, which took the lives of Ronnie Van Zant, Skynyrd guitarist Steve Gaines, backing vocalist and Steve’s sister Cassie Gaines, as well as three others. Rossington played with the band’s current touring version until his death and was their only remaining original member.

Here’s a Spotify playlist of all the above goodies. As always, I hope there’s something you dig!

Sources: Wikipedia; YouTube; Spotify

The Sunday Six

It’s hard to believe another Sunday is upon us – I feel I just wrote the previous installment of The Sunday Six! For first-time visitors, the idea of this recurring feature is to celebrate different genres of music from different decades, six tunes at a time. Without further ado, let’s jump right in!

Julian Lage/Boo’s Blues

I’d like to start where I left off yesterday’s Best of What’s New: Julian Lage, an American jazz guitarist and composer who released his solo debut album in March 2009. I first came across Lage’s music on Friday in connection with his new album Squint and immediately fell in love with his guitar tone! Borrowing from yesterday’s post, according to his Apple Music profile, Lage has been widely acclaimed as one of the most prodigious guitarists of his generation. The New York-based musician boasts a long resume as a desired sideman with artists as diverse as Gary Burton, Taylor Eigsti, John Zorn, Nels Cline, Chris Eldridge, Eric Harland, and Fred Hersch, to name just a few. Equally important is his reputation as a soloist and bandleader. He is equally versed in jazz, classical, pop, and show tunes, and has spent more than a decade searching through the myriad strains of American musical history via an impeccable technique and a gift for freely associating between styles, tempos, keys, and textures that adds to his limitless improvisational spirit. Here’s another track from Lage’s new album, which also features bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King: Boo’s Blues. Beautiful music for a Sunday morning!

The Jimi Hendrix Experience/One Rainy Wish

I trust Jimi Hendrix doesn’t need an introduction. One Rainy Wish is a tune from the second album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Axis: Bold as Love, which first appeared in the UK in December 1967, followed by release in the US the following month. The song wasn’t on my radar until my streaming music provider served it up as a listening suggestion the other day. Also known as Golden Rose, One Rainy Wish was written by Hendrix and recorded in October 1967 at Olympic Sound Studios in London, together with Noel Redding (bass) and Mitch Mitchell (drums). Based on the lyrics, the song was inspired by a dream Hendrix had. Quoting the Hendrix biography Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy, Wikipedia notes the song is “creak[ing] with radical harmonies and rhythmic concepts, not least the fact that the verse is in 3/4 time while the chorus is in 4/4.” Songfacts adds Hendrix used an octavia, an effects pedal that reproduces the input signal from a guitar eight notes higher in pitch, mixing it with the original note and adding distortion. The octavia had been designed for Hendrix by Roger Mayer, a then-21-year-old electric engineer wunderkind. One Rainy Day Wish also became the B-side to the U.S. single Up From the Skies, which was released in February 1968, the only single from the album.

Bob Dylan/Series of Dreams

This next selection of the Bob Dylan tune Series of Dreams is a bit out of left field. Initially, I had planned to feature Angelina, a song I had come across recently and immediately thought would make a great pick for The Sunday Six. Dylan first released Angelina in March 1991 on his 3-CD box set The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991. However, I couldn’t find a YouTube clip, something that rarely happens. This bummer prompted me to check whether other songs from this box set are available on YouTube and led to Series of Dreams. Dylan first recorded the tune in March 1989 for his 26th studio album Oh Mercy that was released in September of the same year. But Series of Dreams was ultimately omitted from the album. The version that ended up on the box set is a remix of the original with overdubs added in January 1991. Dylan also included an alternate take of the song on The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989-2006. While finding Series of Dreams was entirely circumstantial, I’m quite happy with it, so farewell, Angelina! 🙂

Joni Mitchell/This Flight Tonight

The first time I heard This Flight Tonight was the cover by Scottish rock band Nazareth, which must have been in the late ’70s on the radio back in Germany. I had no idea then that this tune was penned by Joni Mitchell. Another prominent example is Woodstock, which I first heard by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young on the Déjà Vu album and simply assumed it was their song. I was very young back then! Anyway, Mitchell recorded This Flight Tonight for her widely renowned fourth studio album Blue, which was released in June 1971. The song tells of her regrets as she leaves her lover on a flight and wishes to return. The entire album, which Mitchell made after her breakup with Graham Nash and during her relationship with James Taylor, revolves around different aspects of relationships. While I always liked Mitchell’s songs, it took me a while to get used to her voice, which I felt was very high, especially on her earlier songs.

Tracy Chapman/Fast Car

I still remember when Tracy Chapman’s eponymous debut album came out in April 1988. Two songs from it, Talkin’ ’bout a Revolution and Fast Car, were very popular on the radio back in Germany. The combination of Chapman’s powerful voice, great lyrics and the relative simplicity of her songs blew me away, and I got the CD immediately. To this day, I believe it’s incredible. Chapman has since released seven additional studio albums. Her most recent, Our Bright Future, dates back to November 2008. There is also a Greatest Hits compilation that came out in November 2015. While Chapman has not been active for many years, she has not officially retired from music. In fact, last November, the night before the U.S. Presidential election, she made a rare TV appearance on Late Night with Seth Myers with a clip of her performing Talkin’ ‘about a Revolution and asking Americans to vote. Here’s a short related clip from Rolling Stone. While all of Chapman’s albums charted in the U.S. and numerous other countries, her debut remains her most successful. It topped the charts in the U.S., Canada, Australia and various European countries, including the UK and Germany. Here’s Fast Car. I absolutely love this song and hope eventually we will hear more from Tracy Chapman. She’s only 57 years old!

Green Day/Boulevard of Broken Dreams

This Sunday Six installment has been heavy on singer-songwriters, so I’d like to wrap it up with some rock from the present century: Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day. Yes, that track from the band’s seventh studio album American Idiot from September 2004 certainly hasn’t suffered from under-exposure. And while I generally don’t follow Green Day, it’s one catchy tune I still dig. The song’s lyrics were written by lead vocalist Billie Joe Armstrong, with the music being credited to the entire band. Perhaps, not surprisingly Boulevard of Broken Dreams became Green Day’s biggest mainstream hit in America, climbing to no. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and raking up U.S. sales of over 2 million copies as of 2010. By 2009, the tune had sold more than 5 million copies worldwide, making it the ninth-highest selling single of the 2000-2009 decade. Green Day are rocking on to this day. Since American Idiot, they have released six additional studio albums, most recently in February 2020. According to their website, Green Day are also scheduled to kick off an eight-week, 22-date U.S. tour in Dallas on July 24.

Sources: Wikipedia; Songfacts; Green Day website; YouTube

Best of What’s New

This week’s Best of What’s New installment brings another nice mix of great new music. From country to blues to soul to singer-songwriter style, it’s all there. Or how about a Boston-based band with a very unique sound they describe as Americana funk? Or a neo soul collaboration’s beautiful cover of a well-known Tracy Chapman tune? I hope I’ve sufficiently whetted your appetite to read on!

Ray Wylie Hubbard/Bad Trick (featuring Ringo Starr, Don Was, Joe Walsh & Chris Robinson)

While Ray Wylie Hubbard has been active for more than 50 years, I don’t believe I had heard of him before, but I simply couldn’t skip a tune featuring Ringo Starr and Joe Walsh among the guests! Hubbard’s online bio states he is the secret handshake amongst those who know, which to me suggests he may not exactly be a household name. Hubbard was born in Soper, OK on November 13, 1946. Beginning in 1965, during semester breaks from his studies at the University of North Texas, he spent the summers in Red River, N.M., where he started playing music in a folk trio called Three Faces West. During that time period, he wrote a tune with the lovely title Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother, which was first recorded by country artist Jerry Jeff Walker in 1973. It helped Hubbard sign with Warner Bros. Records and release his debut Ray Wylie Hubbard and the Cowboy Twinkies in 1976. Seventeen additional country, folk and blues-oriented albums have since appeared. This includes Co-Starring, which came out on July 10 and features the above tune, which was co-written by Hubbard and his wife Judy. Hubbard told Apple Music he had met Ringo about five or six years ago. When Ringo learned about Hubbard’s new album, not only did he offer to play drums on Bad Trick but also ask his brother-in-law Joe Walsh and Don Was to join on guitar and bass, respectively. The fourth guest is Black Crowes co-founder and lead vocalist Chris Robinson. Check out the fun video!

Black Pumas/Fast Car

Based on sampling a few tunes, Black Puma sound like a really cool, relatively new band. According to Apple Music, it’s a collaboration between producer and multi-instrumentalist Adrian Quesada and singer-songwriter Eric Burton, who fuse cinematic neo-soul, light psychedelia, and a touch of urban grit. No matter how you characterize their music, it simply sounds great. Quesada and Burton joined forces in 2018 and released their eponymous debut album in June 2019. Their latest single Fast Car is a cover of the Tracy Chapman tune that appeared on her eponymous debut record in April 1988. I’ve loved that tune from the very first time I heard it when it came out. Things around Chapman seem to have been quiet for a long time. Perhaps this great remake will help bring her back on the radar screens of folks who dig but have forgotten about her.

Twisted Pine/Don’t Come Over Tonight

Don’t Come Over Tonight is a track from Right Now, the forthcoming sophomore album by Twisted Pine, a Boston-based band with a unique sound that’s hard to describe. Here’s how a short bio from their web site puts it: Praised by NPR for their “upbeat, poppy vibe; energetic, driving rhythms; and virtuosic solos,” Twisted Pine will release their sophomore full-length Right Now on August 14, 2020 (Signature Sounds). Exploring a sound they call Americana funk, Twisted Pine takes traditional music in exhilarating directions. Bassist Chris Sartori writes, “This album is easier to feel than describe. We’re rooted in bluegrass, continually inspired by explorers like Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, and Sierra Hull. Right Now takes this heritage into a new dimension. Our bluegrass is jazzy, our indie folk is poppy, our grooves are funky.” Twisted Pine [Kathleen Parks, fiddle; Dan Bui, mandolin; Chris Sartori, bass; Anh Phung, flute] grooves with fearless improvisation and intricate arrangements. The band has been around since 2013. Their eponymous debut album appeared in July 2017, followed by the EP Dreams in January 2019. Don’t Come Over Tonight was written by Parks. It’s quite unusual, yet pretty cool, in my opinion. These guys are virtuoso musicians and great vocalists. Check it out!

Ruston Kelly/Rubber

Ruston Kelly is a 31-year-old singer-songwriter who was born in Georgetown, S.C. and grew up in Wyoming, Ohio. He got into music at a young age and, according to Wikipedia, had a full album in high school with songs like “Bluebird” and “I’m Leavin’”. After signing a publishing deal with BMG Nashville in 2013, he co-wrote the song Nashville Without You Tim McGraw recorded for his studio album Two Lanes of Freedom, which appeared in February that year. In 2017, Kelly released his debut EP Halloween. His first full-length album Dying Star came out the following year. Released on June 10, Rubber is a track from Kelly’s forthcoming sophomore album Shape & Destroy scheduled for August 28. In October 2017, he married singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves, who as reported by Rolling Stone also performs on the album. Apparently, they since filed for divorce.

Mick Hayes/Autumn Romance

Mick Hayes is another great sounding artist with relatively little publicly available information, even though the blues guitarist and vocalist has a website and a Facebook page – I just don’t get it! At least his website links to various reviews of his most recent album My Claim to Fame, which was recorded at the legendary FAME Studio in Muscle Shoals, Ala., appeared on May 29 and includes the above tune. According to American Blues Scene, Hayes’ love affair with Muscle Shoals began when he was a young man growing up in upstate New York, where he would browse record shops with wall to wall music from Ray Charles to Aretha Franklin to Duane Allman to Wilson Pickett and Solomon Burke.  Rock and Blues Muse notes Hayes and his band have spent the last decade playing up to 200 festival and club gigs a year and have opened for Duke Robillard, Samantha Fish, and Delbert McClinton. AllMusic also lists a 2016 album, Segue, by Mick Hayes Band. The cool thing about My Claim to Fame is that not only did Hayes record it at FAME but, as American Blues Scene pointed out, he also worked with studio musicians who recorded with artists like Ray Charles, Etta James and B.B. King. Oh, and Hayes co-produced the record with John Gifford III, who assisted with engineering Gregg Allman’s final studio album Southern Blood – sounds like the stars truly aligned for Hayes!

Sources: Wikipedia; Ray Wylie Hubbard website; Twisted Pines website; Rolling Stone; American Blues Scene; Rock & Blues Muse; YouTube