Best of What’s New

It’s Saturday and I’d like to welcome you to the latest installment of my weekly new music revue. All featured tracks are on albums that were released yesterday (March 31).

The Hold Steady/Sixers

Kicking things off are New York indie rock band The Hold Steady, who I first featured in a January Best of What’s New post. Formed in 2003, their current lineup includes co-founders Craig Finn (lead vocals, guitar), Tad Kubler (lead guitar, backing vocals) and Galen Polivka (bass), along with Steve Selvidge (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Franz Nicolay (piano, keyboards, accordion, harmonica, backing vocals) and Bobby Drake (drums, percussion). Wikipedia notes The Hold Steady are known for their “lyrically dense storytelling”, “classic rock influences” and “narrative-based songs [that] frequently address themes, such as drug addiction, religion and redemption, and often feature recurring characters within the city of Minneapolis.” Since their 2004 debut Almost Killed Me, they have released eight additional studio albums, including their latest, The Price of Progress. Off that album is Sixers, penned by Finn – great tune that reminds me a bit of Son Volt.

A Certain Ratio/Holy Smoke

A Certain Ratio, aka ACR, are a post-punk group founded in 1977 in Flixton, England. The band who took their name from the lyrics of Brian Eno tune The True Wheel started out as a duo of Simon Topping (vocals, trumpet) and Peter Terrell (guitar, electronics). They were subsequently joined by Jez Kerr (bass, vocals) and Martin Moscrop (trumpet, guitar). Donald Johnson (drums), and Martha Tilson (vocals) eventually completed the line-up. After releasing eight albums over a 12-year period that began with their 1980 debut The Graveyard and the Ballroom, A Certain Ratio started to reduce their output. Since 2018, the group has picked up the pace with a string of tours and two albums including 2020’s ACR Loco and their new one, 1982. Their website characterizes Kerr, Moscrop and Johnson as the group’s core line-up, who on the latest album were joined by Tony Quigley (saxophone, keyboards), Ellen Beth Abdi (vocals) and multi-instrumentalist Matthew Steele. Here’s Holy Smoke, a cool funky tune co-written by Johnson, Kerr and Moscrop.

The New Pornographers/Pontius Pilate’s Home Movies

Next up are Canadian indie supergroup The New Pornographers. From their AllMusic bio: With their 2000 debut album, Mass Romantic, the New Pornographers established themselves as 21st century torchbearers of smart, sophisticated power pop. Hailing from Vancouver, the band’s deep roster of individual singer/songwriters and crafty instrumentalists gave them a unique, multi-voiced advantage and posed them as more of a collective or supergroup, albeit one with a surprisingly streamlined sonic identity. Spearheaded by Carl Newman, along with mainstays Neko Case, Dan Bejar, John Collins, and Todd Fancey, the New Pornographers were consistent critical favorites throughout the decade with standout releases like 2005’s Twin Cinema and 2007’s Challengers. Even as membership began to fluctuate over the coming years, they reached a new commercial peak with 2014’s Brill Bruisers. The band ended their second decade with 2019’s In the Morse Code of Brake Lights. From their ninth and latest album Continue as a Guest, here’s Pontius Pilate’s Home Movies, written by Newman.

Eddie Chacon/Sundown

This brings me to my final pick for this week, Eddie Chacon, who first became prominent in 1992 as part of Charles & Eddie, a soul music duo he had formed two years earlier with Charles Pettigrew. Their song Would I Lie to You?, off their debut album Duophonic, became a massive international hit following its release as their debut single in August 1992. Two years after their 1995 sophomore album Chocolate Milk Charles & Eddie split, and Chacon worked as a photographer and creative director. Pettigrew continued his music career but was diagnosed with cancer in the late ’90s and passed away in April 2001 at the age of 37. After an extended absence from music, Chacon performed and recorded in the late 2000s and early 2010s together with his wife Sissy Sainte-Marie in a duo called The Polyamorous Affair. In July 2020, he released his solo debut, Pleasure, Joy and Happiness. Now he’s back with his second solo album Sundown. Here’s the title track, which has a nice retro ’70s soul vibe reminiscent of Marvin Gaye – pretty neat!

Last but not least, following is a Spotify playlist of the above and a few additional tracks by the featured artists.

Sources: Wikipedia; A Certain Ratio website; AllMusic; YouTube; Spotify

The Sunday Six

Is it really Sunday again? Yep, the calendar doesn’t lie. I hope everybody is spending a peaceful morning, afternoon, evening – wherever you are when reading this. The six picks in this installment of The Sunday Six include jazz fusion, classic style rock, psychedelic garage rock, folk, pop rock and pop, touching the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and the present. Hope you’ll find something you like.

Passport/Homunculus

Let’s start today’s music time travel to the year 1975 with music by German jazz fusion band Passport. I’d like to thank Bruce from Vinyl Connection for the inspiration. He included the group’s sophomore release Second Passport in a recent installment of his ongoing countdown of 1972 albums. Passport were formed by German saxophonist Klaus Doldinger in 1971. Doldinger who is also a known film music composer has had an amazing 70-year career and at age 85 doesn’t think of retirement. Passport, aka Klaus Doldinger’s Passport, are still active as well. Their most recent studio album of original music, Motherhood, appeared in 2020. Homunculus, composed by Doldinger, is a track from Cross Collateral, the second of two albums Passport released in 1975. In addition to Doldinger (saxophones, Moog synthesizer, electric piano, Mellotron), their line-up at the time included Wolfgang Schmid (bass, guitar), Kristian Schultze (keyboards) and Curt Cress (drums).

Fortune Child/Tie the Line

Let’s jump to the present and Tie the Line, the new single by Fortune Child, a cool-sounding classic rock style band founded last year in Jacksonville, Fla. From their website: …it is no secret that these lovers of good ol’ fashioned Rock were inspired by the likes of Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Alice in Chains, The Black Crowes and so many more. The four-piece band plans to take the Rock N’ Roll scene by storm, and to remind the people of what truly matters: the music itself. The band (Christian Powers/ vocals, Buddy Crump/ lead guitar, Melanie Jo/ drums, and Jon Ward/bass) has quickly garnered significant support from the Southeast US Rock N’ Roll scene opening for national touring acts such as Blacktop Mojo…It’s loud, it’s dirty, and it’s down-right badass…For 2022, the band has partnered with legendary rock producer Kevin Elson of Journey, Mr. Big, Europe, and Lynyrd Skynyrd to produce their full length debut album “Close to the Sun,” due out in early March. “Old-fashioned” kickass rock sounds like a great proposition to me in an era where rock often is called “dead.” Released on February 18, Tie the Line is the third single appearing ahead of Fortune Child’s above noted upcoming record.

Count Five/Psychotic Reaction

After some kickass rock from the present, how about jumping back 50-plus years for a dose of ’60s rock? Count Five were an American garage rock band formed in San Jose, Calif. in 1964. Initially known as The Squires, the group’s original formation included John Byrne (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), John “Mouse” Michalski (lead guitar), Kenn Ellner (backing and lead vocals, tambourine, harmonica), Roy Chaney (bass) and Craig “Butch” Atkinson (drums). The Count Five who during live performances were wearing Count Dracula-style capes only made one album, Psychotic Reaction, which appeared in October 1966. The title track, written by Byrne and subsequently refined by the band (hence credited to all members), was released as a single ahead of the record in June 1966. Climbing to no. 5 in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100 and no. 3 in Canada, the tune became the band’s only hit. It was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Wikipedia notes the song was among the first successful psychedelic rock tunes, containing the characteristics that would come to define acid rock: the use of feedback and distortion replacing early rock music’s more melodic electric guitars. Neither the album nor any other songs by The Count Five came anywhere near to replicating the success of Psychotic Reaction, and the band broke up in 1969.

Gordon Lightfoot/Beautiful

More recently, a few of my fellow bloggers like Jim from Music Enthusiast and Lisa from Tao Talk have covered Gordon Lightfoot, which inspired my next pick. I best know the Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist because of gems like If You Could Read My Mind, Sundown and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which were all chart-toppers in Canada during the first half of the ’70s. Now 83 years old, Lightfoot who has been called Canada’s greatest songwriter remains active. His impressive catalog to date includes 20 studio albums, a similar amount of compilations and three live records, among others. In May 2020, I included a song from Lightfoot’s most recent album Solo in a Best of What’s New installment. Beautiful, written by Lightfoot, is from his eighth studio record Don Quixote that came out in February 1972. The nice love song was also released as a single in May of the same year. It reached no. 13 and no. 58 on the Canadian and U.S. mainstream charts, respectively. The tune topped Canada’s adult alternative chart and climbed to no. 30 on the corresponding U.S. chart.

Eddie Money/Take Me Home Tonight

For this next pick, I’d like to go to the ’80s and American pop rock singer-songwriter Eddie Money. When Take Me Home Tonight popped up on the radio in Germany in 1986, I immediately loved the tune and decided to get the album, on which it appeared, Can’t Hold Back. Other than this record, Money’s sixth studio release from August 1986, and a few additional songs I don’t know his music. But I surely enjoy what I’ve heard. Take Me Home Tonight is credited to Mick Leeson and Peter Vale, along with Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry and Phil Spector who wrote The Ronettes’ Be My Baby, which was interpolated in the chorus of Money’s song. Apparently, this was the only charting track for him in Germany. Money clearly was much more successful in the U.S. and Canada where he had 12 and 9 top 40 hits, respectively during his 40-plus-year recording career. Sadly, Money died of complications from esophageal cancer at the age of 70 in September 2019.

Annie Lennox/Why

And once again we’ve reached the end of yet another musical mini-excursion. Today, the final stop takes us to the ’90s and a beautiful tune by Annie Lennox: Why off her solo debut album Diva from April 1992. Lennox recorded it after Eurythmics, her duo with Dave Stewart, had gone on hiatus, in 1990 and the subsequent birth of her first daughter Lola Lennox, who also became a music artist. To date, Lennox has released five additional solo records. In the late ’90s, Eurythmics came back together for another album, Peace, released in October 1999, and had occasional reunions thereafter. Diva became a huge chart and commercial success, topping the charts in the UK and reaching 4x Platinum certification there. In the U.S., it climbed to no. 23 on the Billboard 200 and reached 2X Platinum status. In March 1992, Why was released separately as the album’s lead single. The song also did well in the charts, reaching no. 5 in the UK and Ireland, no. 17 in Australia and no. 34 in the U.S.

And here is a Spotify playlist with the above tunes, as usual:

Sources: Wikipedia; Fortune Child website; YouTube; Spotify

On This Day in Rock & Roll History: June 29

After more than three months, I thought the time was right to do another installment of my irregular music history feature. In case you’re new to these posts, the idea is to capture things that happened on a specific date in rock & roll’s past. It’s an arbitrary but fun way to look at music, since you never know what you are going to dig up. I mostly focus on the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. These posts are not meant to be comprehensive; in fact, they are highly selective and reflect my music taste. With that being said, let’s take a look at June 29.

1962: Motown singing group The Contours released their third single Do You Love Me. Written by the Detroit soul label’s president Berry Gordy Jr., the tune initially was intended for The Temptations. But after Gordy wasn’t able to locate them and had run into The Contours in the hallway, he spontaneously handed the song to them, confident it would become a hit. It turned out to be a good decision. While The Temptations went on and scored multiple mainstream top 40 hits, Do You Love Me became the only such chart success for The Contours, topping Billboard’s Hot R&B Sides and climbing to no. 3 on the Hot 100 mainstream chart.

1964: The Beatles played their first of two nights at Festival Hall in Brisbane, Australia, as part of their only world tour, which also included Denmark, The Netherlands, Hong Kong and New Zealand. They performed two sold out shows on both nights, which were each seen by 5,500 people. But evidently not everybody loved The Beatles, even before John Lennon’s controversial remark about the band being more popular than Jesus. After their arrival to Brisbane from New Zealand, they were pelted with food and bits of wood by some in the crowd while riding in an open-top truck. At the concerts, eggs were thrown at the stage, though The Beatles played on, and the perpetrators were quickly ejected from the music hall. Here’s another fun fact. John, Paul, George and Ringo stood at a hotel called Lennons Hotel. The day after their second night in Brisbane, The Beatles embarked on their long trip back to England. Don’t take it from me. It’s all documented in The Beatles Bible, the ultimate source of truth about the Fab Four! 🙂

Beatles fans in Brisbane – no egg throwers here!

1968: A Saucerful of Secrets, the sophomore album by Pink Floyd, appeared in the UK. The U.S. release occurred on July 27. Sadly, it turned out to be the final album with co-founder and key early songwriter Syd Barrett whose mental condition declined to a point where the group felt compelled to recruit David Gilmour to help out. Barrett left Pink Floyd prior to the album’s completion. Unlike the band’s debut The Piper at the Gates of Dawn from August 1967, for which Barrett was the major songwriter, his role on Pink Floyd’s second album was much reduced. He only wrote one of the seven tracks and contributed some guitar work to two others. Here’s the aforementioned sole tune written by Barrett, Jugband Blues. He also sang lead vocals and provided acoustic and electric guitar.

1974: Singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot hit no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with Sundown. He was the second Canadian artist in 1974 to top the U.S. main chart following Terry Jacks with Seasons in the Sun in early March. Written by Lightfoot, Sundown is the title track from his 10th studio album that had been released in January 1974. While he was also successful with other songs, such as If You Could Read My Mind (1970), Carefree Highway (1974), Rainy Day People (1975) and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (1976), Sundown remains Lightfoot’s only no. 1 hit on the Hot 100.

1984: Bruce Springsteen kicked off his Born in the U.S.A Tour at St. Paul Civic Center in St. Paul, Minn. to support his seventh studio album that had come out on June 4. The tour, which ended on October 2, 1985 in Los Angeles and also included Canada, Asia and Europe, would become Springsteen’s longest and most successful tour to date. It was the first since portions of the 1974 Born to Run tours without Steven Van Zandt who had decided to launch a solo career after Born in the U.S.A. had been recorded and was replaced by Nils Lofgren. It was also the first tour to include Patti Scialfa who became Springsteen’s wife in 1991. And then there was the filming of the video for Dancing in the Dark during the opening night, which featured then-unknown actress Courteney Cox who had been planted in the first row, looking adoringly at Springsteen before he pulled her up on stage to dance with him. It would make The Boss an MTV sensation. I wonder how he views of this today. Well, it was the ’80s…

Sources: Wikipedia; Songfacts Music Calendar; The Beatles Bible; YouTube

Best of What’s New

It’s very satisfying to me that since the introduction of this recurring feature two months ago, I’ve discovered newly released music each week that sufficiently intrigues me to write about it. This may sound arrogant, but the reality is most new music simply doesn’t speak to me, especially pretty much anything that’s in the current charts. So it’s been great to see there are exceptions.

This week’s installment includes nice variety, featuring rock, country, folk, Americana and soul. The majority of these artists are new to me, even though most have been around for more than 20 years. There are also two who have been active for 60 years, including one name I had not heard in a long time. Let’s get to it.

Jupiter Coyote/Hungry Ghost

According to AllMusic, Jupiter Coyote is a five-piece band blending bluegrass with traditional rock, which has been around since the early ’90s. Their debut album appears to be Cemeteries and Junkyards from November 1993. In total, AllMusic lists 12 records in the band’s discography, the most recent of which is The Interplanetary Yard Dog from February this year. Hungry Ghost is their latest single, which came out last Friday, May 8. It’s not on the aforementioned album. It was written by co-founding members and guitarist Matthew Mayes. I can hear some Hootie & the Blowfish in the tune, mostly because of the vocals that stylistically remind me a bit of Darius Rucker, though the music has a nice build toward a more edgy rock sound. It’s pretty cool – check it out!

John Frinzi/Used to These Blues

John Frinzi is a country singer-songwriter from Lakeland, Fla. According to his website, he was discovered by Doyle Grisham, the pedal steel guitarist of the Coral Reefer Band, Jimmy Buffett’s touring and recording group. Their working relationship led to Frinzi’s 2003 debut album Into the Dawn. On his second album Shoreline, he co-wrote many songs with Tom Corcoran, a Florida-based mystery novel author who has also been in Buffett’s circle. In 2017, Frinzi recorded Blue Sky View, an EP with songwriter and producer Aaron Scherz. Used to These Blues is Frinzi’s most recent single released on April 27. I like his vocals and the tune’s warm sound and pedal steel fill-ins. Nicely done!

Delbert McClinton/Still Rockin’

Unlike the title suggests, Still Rockin’ actually is a rather mellow ballad and the most recent single by Delbert McClinton, which appeared on March 31. McClinton, which Rolling Stone has called “Godfather of Americana Music”, has been around for more than 60 years. He released his debut album Delbert & Glen together with Glen Clark. While he has since released 29 additional albums, apparently, mainstream chart success has largely eluded him, though since the late 1990s, most of his records reached top positions on Billbord’s U.S. Blues chart. His most recent album Tall, Dark, and Handsome was well received and won the 2020 Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album. Based on the opener I just checked out, this definitely sounds like a record I should check out sooner than later! For now, back to Still Rockin’, which McClinton co-wrote with Bob Britt and Pat McLaughlin.

Gordon Lightfoot/Do You Walk, Do You Talk

Here’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. Admittedly, other than If You Could Read My Mind, Sundown and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which were all released in the ’70s and became hits in the U.S. and Canada, I don’t know Gordon Lightfoot’s music. What I do know is I like all of these tunes, as well as Do You Walk, Do You Talk, which is on the Canadian singer-songwriter’s new album Solo that appeared on March 20. According to a Rolling Stone story, it is his first album of newly released material in more than 15 years. Lightfoot who last November turned 81, discovered the material for the album in his home office. Initially, these tunes were recorded in late 2001 and early 2002. But before anything could be released, Lightfoot had an abdominal aortic aneurysm that nearly killed him. After unearthing the old recordings, he decided to re-record the tracks, using his guitar only.  “I thought my fans would be interested in hearing what songs sound like when first written,” Lightfoot stated. According to this fansite, Lightfoot vigorously toured throughout last year and as recently as February. His tour schedule also shows many dates between March and June, which have all been rescheduled to later in the year to due COVID-19. Lightfoot has been active since 1958 (that’s an incredible 62 years!) and released his eponymous debut album in January 1966. According to Wikipedia, Solo is his 21st. Here’s Do You Walk, Do You Talk. Lightfoot still sounds pretty compelling.

Nadia Reid/Oh Canada

Nadia Reid is a 28-year-old singer-songwriter from Port Chalmers, New Zealand. Somehow her name sounded familiar and I had an idea, so I checked Aphoristic Album Reviews, and surely enough Graham covered her before, among others in this post from last October titled The Ten Next Best Singer-Songwriters Ever. Oh Canada is from Reid’s third album Out of My Province that came out on March 6. She released her debut Listen to Formation, Look for the Signs in March 2015. Not quite sure what it is about this tune, but I like it. Reid’s vocals are definitely part of it. Check out the official video.

The James Hunter Six/I Can Change Your Mind

James Hunter is an English R&B and soul singer-songwriter who has been around for 30 years. According to his website, he’s worked on the railway, busked in the streets of London, provided backup vocals and guitar for Van Morrison, played clubs and theaters all over the world, written scores of original songs, and recorded some of the most original and honest rhythm & soul albums of the last two decades.  By 2006, Hunter was recognized with nominations for a GRAMMY® Award (“Best Traditional Blues Album” for People Gonna Talk (Rounder)) and an American Music Award (“Best New/Emerging Artist”). He and his band then hit the road for a decade of extensive touring and recorded critically-acclaimed studio albums— The Hard Way (Hear Music), Minute by Minute (Fantasy), Hold On! (Daptone), Whatever it Takes (Daptone).  By 2016, MOJO magazine had crowned him “The United Kingdom’s Greatest Soul Singer.” Somehow, I missed all of that, but I’m glad Hunter is now on my radar screen. I Can Change Your Mind sounds like beautiful old-fashioned soul. The vocals are pretty amazing. I can some Sam Cooke and Otis Redding in there. Check it out!

Sources: Wikipedia; Rolling Stone; GordonLightfoot.com fansite; AllMusic; YouTube