The Sunday Six

It’s Sunday again and hope everybody is doing well. I think I’ve put together another fairly eclectic collection of songs. Like in previous installments of The Sunday Six, I’d like to start things nice and easy, before hitting the accelerator and going a little bit more rough toward the end. I also spontaneously decided to throw in a bonus.

Sting/Fields of Gold

Let’s kick it off with one of my favorite tunes by Sting, Fields of Gold, a perfect song for a Sunday. It appeared on his fourth solo album Ten Summoner’s Tales from March 1993. I’d consider that album to be the Mount Rushmore of his solo catalog. Like most tracks on Ten Summoner’s Tales, Sting wrote Fields of Gold all by himself. The song also appeared separately as a single in May of the same year. Unlike the album, which peaked at no. 2 in the UK and the U.S. and topped the charts in Austria, Fields of Gold only made it to no. 16, no. 23 and no. 85, respectively, on these countries’ single charts.

Lou Reed/Caroline Says II

Why a tune by an artist I admittedly do not know as well as I probably should? Coz I came across it the other day and I like it. Now you know what oftentimes ends up driving my picks for The Sunday Six – hence the subtitle Celebrating music with six random songs at a time. Penned by Lou Reed, Caroline Says II was included on his third solo album Berlin released in July 1973. The lyrics that appear to be about physical spouse abuse are rather grim:…Caroline says/as she gets up from the floor/You can hit me all you want to/but I don’t love you anymore… The album also includes a track titled Caroline Says I. Both of these tunes came out as a single in 1973 as well. BTW, Reed had some notable guests on Berlin, who apart from producer Bob Ezrin (piano, mellotron) included Jack Bruce (bass), prolific drummer Aynsley Dunbar and Steve Winwood (Hammond, harmonium). To the mainstream audience, Reed, who passed away from liver disease in October 2013 at the age of 71, is probably best known for Walk on the Wild Side, his biggest single chart success.

The Jayhawks/This Forgotten Town

I love this tune by American alternative country and country rock band The Jayhawks. In fact, I previously featured it last August in a Best of What’s New installment. The Jayhawks were formed in Minneapolis in 1985. After seven records, they went on hiatus in 2014 and reemerged in 2019. Their current line-up consists of original co-founders Gary Louris (electric guitar, vocals) and  Marc Perlman (bass), together with Tim O’Reagan (drums, vocals), Karen Grotberg (keyboards, backing vocals) and John Jackson (acoustic guitar, violin, mandolin). This Forgotten Town, co-written by Louris, Perlman and O’Reagan, is from their most recent album XOXO from July 2020. I still stand behind what I said in August 2020. I dig the warm sound, and there’s some great harmony singing as well. And now that I’ve listened to the tune again, it does remind me a bit of The Band.

Lenny Kravitz/Fields of Joy

Lenny Kravitz entered my radar screen in France in late 1991 when his sophomore album Mama Said, which had come out in April that year, happened to play in the background in a restaurant I was visiting. I immediately liked what I heard. So did my brother-in-law, who asked the waiter about the music. After my return to Germany, I got the CD. I’ve since continued to listen to Kravitz who has faced all kinds of criticism. Some of the clever commentary, especially early in his career, included “not sounding Black enough” (no idea what exactly that’s even supposed to mean!) and being too close to some of his ’60s influences, such as Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles – jeez, how horrible to have been inspired by two of the greatest music acts of all time! Anyhoo, Fields of Joy, co-written by Michael Kamen and Hal Fredricks with musical arrangement by Doug Neslund and Kravitz, is the opener of Mama Said. It also became one of the album’s seven singles.

Alice Cooper/Rock & Roll

“Mr. Shock Rock” is always good for some kickass music. Rock & Roll is the opener of Alice Cooper’s upcoming studio album Detroit Stories scheduled for February 26 – based on Wikipedia, it’s his 21st, not counting the seven records released with the band that had been named after him between 1969 and 1973. Written by Lou Reed (there he is again!), the tune was first recorded by The Velvet Underground for their fourth studio album Loaded from November 1970. I think Cooper does a nice job giving the tune more of a rock vibe. I also like how he’s dialing up the soulful backing vocals. In addition to Rock & Roll, two (original) tunes from Detroit Stories are already out. Looks like we can look forward to a fun album.

The Byrds/Eight Miles High

Okay, admittedly, a pattern seems to emerge for The Sunday Six. After doing five tunes from other decades, it suddenly occurs to me I just cannot leave out the ’60s, one of my favorite decades in music. Not sure whether this pattern is going to continue, but I just noticed it myself. The Byrds and probably also this tune need no introduction. Co-written by Gene Clark, Roger McGuinn and David Crosby, Eight Miles High is from their third studio album Fifth Dimension  released in July 1966. It remains one of my all-time favorite ’60s tunes. I think it’s pretty cool how the band combined their jingle-jangle pop rock a la Mr. Tambourine Man with psychedelic influences – simply a great song!

And just as I was about to wrap up this post, I came across this instrumental live version of Eight Miles High. Did I mention I dig this tune? 🙂 Apparently, this footage was captured at New York’s Fillmore East in September 1970 – kinda feels like The Byrds embracing the jam style of The Grateful Dead. Okay, do we really need an almost 10-minute instrumental of Eight Miles High? I’m leaving it up to you to decide. I think it’s pretty cool, showing the band’s impressive instrumental chops.

Sources: Wikipedia; YouTube

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Best of What’s New

Another Friday calls for another installment of Best of What’s New. This week, I’m mostly featuring new music by long established artists like Robert Plant, Alanis Morissette and The Jayhawks. There’s also Americana singer-songwriter Ryan Gustafson, who isn’t a newcomer either, though not exactly a household name yet. Rounding out this post are LadyCouch, an exciting, still relatively young soul-oriented band from Nashville. Let’s get to it.

Robert Plant/Charlie Patton Highway (Turn it Up, Pt. 1)

Charlie Patton Highway (Turn it Up, Pt. 1) is a previously unreleased tune from Robert Plant’s upcoming career-spanning solo anthology Digging Deep: Subterranea, which is scheduled for October 2nd. Credited to drummer Marco Giovino, producer Buddy Miller and Plant, the song came out on July 31. It will also be included on Band of Joy Volume 2, Plant’s 12th solo album and the first since Carry Fire from October 2017, which is “soon to be released,” according to his merchandise website. “I spent time in the hill country of north Mississippi around Como, dropping back to Clarksdale, the incredible center of black music talent over the years,” Plant told Rolling Stone about the track. “I weaved my car through the Delta back roads, listening to the remarkable protestations of Mississippi AM radio. I was looking at my world and my times from this unfamiliar place and found myself exposed to a nightmare world of half-truths.” Looks like Robert Plant fans have lots of music they can look forward to.

Alanis Morissette/Her

Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer and actress Alanis Morissette is best known for 1995 album Jagged Little Pill, which included various hits like Ironic and Hand in My Pocket. Since then, she has released six additional albums, including her most recent one Such Pretty Forks in the Road, her ninth and first in eight years, which appeared on July 31. Like all other tracks on the album, Her was co-written by Morissette and Michael Farrell. “I’ve had so many mentors who were women, who have really represented the maternal,” Morissette explained to Apple Music. “Especially postpartum, there’s this whole thought of like, ‘Who’s going to mother the mother?’…For me, this song is really about reaching out for mom, the reaching out for the maternal, for the empathic, the skin-on-skin tenderness.”

The Jayhawks/This Forgotten Town

The Jayhawks are an American alternative country and country rock band that was initially founded in Minneapolis in 1985. The original line-up included Mark Olson (acoustic guitar, vocals), Gary Louris (electric guitar, vocals), Marc Perlman (bass) and Norm Rogers (drums). Their eponymous debut album appeared the following year. The Jayhawks released six additional records before they went on hiatus in 2004. Five years later, they reunited and have since come out with four additional albums. In addition to original co-founders Louris and Perlman, the band’s other current members are Tim O’Reagan (drums, vocals), Karen Grotberg (keyboards, backing vocals) and John Jackson (acoustic guitar, violin, mandolin). This Forgotten Town, co-written by Louris, Perlman and O’Reagan, is from their new album XOXO released on July 10. I dig the warm sound, and there’s some great harmony singing as well.

The Dead Tongues/Déjá Vu

Déjá Vu is a track from Transmigration Blues, the new album released on June 26 by The Dead Tongues, a project of singer-songwriter, musician and producer Ryan Gustafson, according to his Facebook page. “I gave this album everything I had, over and over again,” Gustafson notes in a June 26 post. “Songwriting is a mirror, a safe space, a place to explore my limits of thought and emotion, a way to communicate when other avenues seem unaccessible or hidden to me, its where I learn to fail, fall apart and persist, its where I go inward ultimately to recycle it outward again, it’s where I’m alive and where i consider silence…To live is to change and this is the time to truly be present and alive.” Given all of Gustafson’s efforts to make the record, I find it remarkable there’s no further information about him on his Facebook page. And this isn’t his first time at the rodeo. Searching Discogs revealed Transmigration Blues is Gustafson’s fourth album appearing under The Dead Tongues alias. The oldest listed entry is the self-released Desert from 2013. I can hear a Neil Young vibe in Déjá Vu but can’t deny the fact I could be biased, given this also happens to be the title of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s iconic studio album from March 1970.

LadyCouch/Heartache

LadyCouch are a Nashville-based band around Keshia Bailey and Allen Thompson. According to their website, the band was born out of Keshia Bailey and Allen Thompson’s love for one another and their love for honest, soulful music.  Although their friendship stretches back years, it wasn’t until the winter of 2017 they decided to share a stage…The pair seem to come from two different worlds, musically, with Keshia hailing from the straight-ahead throwback Soul group Magnolia Sons, and Allen from the psychedelic folk of the Allen Thompson Band. But their similar Appalachian upbringings and their genuine appreciation for Soul, Rock, Funk, Country and Folk allow them to build bridges across genres to create a sound all its own. In addition to Bailey and Thompson, the band’s other core members include guitarists Grayson Downs, Clint Maine and Mike Ford Jr., as well as Jimmy Matt Rowland (keyboards), Ray Dunham (drums) and Gordon Persha (bass). Heartache appears to be their second single that came out on July 17. Boy, do I love their warm and soulful sound!

Sources: Wikipedia; Robert Plant official store website; Rolling Stone; Apple Music; Discogs; YouTube