Another Rabbit Song

I used to be a fairly frequent purchaser of Mojo and Uncut as anyone who has read my Saturday Lucky Dip series can testify.
However there are only so may 30 page spreads one can take on Michael Stipe's inner angst or the legacy of John Lennon.
So now I only ever purchase if I'm going away for a few days and looking for something to read and some new music to listen to.
To this end I recently bought the August Uncut and sure enough there is a 30 page article about Eric Clapton farting in the 70's.
There is however also a terrific CD of new music with lots of artists I am not familiar with to check out.
Peter Matthew Bauer,William Clark Green, Papercuts, Sam Doores and Polly & the Billet Doux seem to be the pick of the bunch.
Then there is an achingly beautiful song called Rabbit by actress, singer songwriter and upright bass player Amy LaVere. It puts me in mind of Jenny Lewis..
It is from her new album Runaway's Diary on Archer records.
I am somewhat reticent about posting such a new tune but I figure if it is being promoted via Uncut it may be ok to promote it via other forums.


Amy LaVere -Rabbit

They'e Selling Postcards of the Hanging

A few posts ago I got into a debate with George, Scott and Walter about posting what we thought were the top 10 albums of all time.
George has already done so and was encouraging us to do the same.We mostly felt that this was a moveable feast with five or six obvious ones with the rest changing over time and depending on one's mood on a particular day.
One album which would definitely feature in my list would be Highway 61 Revisited,  Bob Dylan's 6th studio album from 1965.
This song needs no words from me.
It is absolutely majestic and a shining example of the work of the greatest poet and songwriter on the planet

Bob Dylan - Desolation Row

Some Good Hooks

Ellis Hooks first came to my attention when his 2002 debut album on Zane records Undeniable featured on the Paul Jones Rhythm and Blues show on BBC Radio 2.
Accordingly it has always been filed in the Blues section but a recent play suggests that it would be equally at home in the Soul section.He puts me in mind of the likes of Little Milton and Eddie Hinton in this respect.
Born in Alabama in 1974 to a Cherokee mother and an African American Baptist sharecropper he was the 13th of 16th children
He hitched across the States and Europe prior to ending up busking in New York in his mid 20s
He recorded 7 albums between 2002 and 2007 with names like Dann Penn, Steve Cropper and Wayne Jackson involved
Oh and Ernie just to reiterate it is Ellis Hooks we are featuring today and not the mighty Elkie Brooks!

Ellis Hooks - Something 4 Everyone

Ellis Hooks - Your Love is Too Strong

If I Had a Boat

Much to my surprise the former Mr Julia Roberts, Lyle Lovett, he of the gravity defying hair above, has not previously featured on CCM before. So time to put that right.
He appeared in the mid 80's along with the likes of Steve Earle and Dwight Yoakam and got me and countless others interested in country music also  leading us to seek out their influences as you do and discovering the likes of Buck Owens, Townes Van Zandt and Lefty Frizzell to name but three.
These two songs are taken from his second album 1988's Pontiac
Thereafter he had a brief flirtation with jazz before returning back from the dark side to come up with a number of other great country records.
As well as a singer he has acted in a number of TV series and films including  Robert Altman's The Player in 1992 where he met said Ms Roberts and they were married briefly from 1993-1995 an eternity by Hollywood standards.

Lyle Lovett -If I Had a Boat

Lyle Lovett -L.A. County

Southern Soul Sunday 44

It is Southern Soul Sunday dynasty week with father and daughter Stax stalwards Rufus and Carla Thomas featuring.
Rufus first shot to fame as an artist on Sun with Bear Cat an answer song to Big Mama Thornton's Hound Dog.
 After being released by Sun he became a prominent DJ in Memphis and was one of the first artists and mainstays of the newly formed Stax label being mostly famous for his Walking the Dog.
Another claim to fame but one I suspect he didn't boast about was that he is the only father ever to have debuted in the Hot 100 top ten after his daughter Carla who had a top 10 two years previously with Gee Whiz(Look at his Eyes)
After his death in 2001 at the ripe old age of 84 a street was named in his honour just off Memphis' famous Beale Street.
Carla Thomas is the Queen of Memphis Soul .She wrote Gee Whiz (Look at his Eyes) when she was 15 charting in 1961 when she was a 19 year old University student. This was the first of a myriad of hits including B-A-B-Y and of course Knock on Wood and Tramp with Otis Redding.
After all that build up here are a couple of their lesser known numbers

Rufus Thomas - Last Clean Shirt

Carla Thomas - Little Boy

Saturday Lucky Dip

After last week's celebrations we are back to the now traditional Saturday Lucky Dip.
This week it is the turn of Good Morning Vietnam 3
Part of a cheap and cheerful 3 CD box set and also available singly
For a while I had the first two and it was only somewhat later that I acquired the third in a charity shop somewhere.
Absolutely nothing to do with the film of the same name but an excuse to churn out some standards from the late 60s and early 70s.
The first two contain the type of stuff you would expect - the likes of Jefferson Airplane, Mama's and Papa's, Barry MacGuire, Donovan, Steppenwolf etc,etc.
The third is a little bit more eclectic or barrel scraping depending on your view.
Canned Heat, The Band and Eric Burdon are hardly surprises. There is even some soul in the shape of The Temptations and Ike and Tina.
Then it gets a bit silly - Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple.
Finally it loses it altogether - ELO and Leo Sayer -FFS!
As I say, eclectic!

The Stories - Brother Louie

The Shirelles - Soldier Boy

Road Trip Songs - Nevada to Newe

Dave Manning is an interesting guy.
He spends half his time touring the American west in his VW Van and the other half in a one room cabin with his Scottish wife in the countryside of Aberdeenshire.
The newly released  album Road Trip Songs was recorded in two places. The piano and the voice were recorded at the House of Newe in the Scottish Highlands.The harmonica and clarinet were recorded in Kaiser Wash Canyon in Arizona.

He writes long songs and lots of them. His voice is "often compared to Tom Waits and his style of piano playing varies widely from soulful ballads to blues, country to boogie woogie"
If you buy the album and don't like it he will apparently give you your money back.
He is realistic enough to know that in this day and age  his songs may be downloaded and all he asks is that you leave something in the digital tip jar on his website were some free downloads are also available

Somewhere Tonight is about wide open spaces,long distances, and a late night bar in a tiny room
Dave Manning - Somewhere Tonight