Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels

At Mrs CC's insistence I picked up Daisies of the Galaxy by Eels the other week.
There are three Eels records on the shelves. Mrs CC quite likes them I don't really

I freely accept that there is no logical or rational reason for not particularly like them.
There are worse bands on the shelves and some of their songs are pretty good - the second one below for instance
They just annoy me particularly the lead singer Mark Oliver Everett who insists on being known as E.
I saw a documentary about him and he appears to be up his own backside.
Also, I couldn't go Susan's House

I'm sure we all have bands which we don't get. or is it just me?

Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels is a favourite phrase of Mrs CC and one inherited from her late father who was a banker when it was a noble profession unlike the self serving obscenity it is today.

Eels - Wooden Nickels

Eels - Mr E's Beautiful Blues

Some Sunday Soul

I picked up Ruby Turner's 1986 debut album Women Hold Up Half The Sky on Jive Records  in Oxfam in Troon the other week
Pleasant enough stuff primarily covers.
For your listening pleasure today her takes on a couple of classics from The Staples Singers and Alice Cooper.
Born in Jamaica she moved to Birmingham at the age of nine.
Big in Britain and New Zealand she had a number 1 in the US R&B Charts in 1988 with It's Gonna Be Alright.
She now appears regularly with Jools Holland's Big Band
I expect that I gave a similar blurb the last time I posted some of her stuff when I got her Best Of but I'm afraid I know no more.

More Soul next Sunday

Ruby Turner - If You're Ready (Come Go With Me)

Ruby Turner - Only Women Bleed

Celtic Connections 2013

2013 this week - we are fairly rattling through the years.
Celtic Connections is well known for it's Transatlantic Sessions featuring musicians from both side of the Pond.
So that's what we will do today.
Let's start with 50's throwback JD McPherson (a Scottish name if ever I heard one) from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma with the magnificent North Side Gal from his Rounder Records debut album Signs and Signifiers.

Good old fashioned rock'n'roll is followed up with some Bluegrass gospel courtesy of Vancouver band The Be Good Tanyas
I saw some of Frazey Ford's solo stuff this year and I must admit that I was a tad disappointed. The BGTs however never fail to impress.

We return to Caledonia for the traditional offering. Maeve MacKinnon is a Glasgow lass but sings primarily in Gaelic

2014 next Saturday

JD McPherson - North Side Gal

The Be Good Tanyas - In My Time of Dying

Maeve MacKinnon - Fionnghuala

The Blues Collection - Jimmy Reed

On Saturday we featured charismatic Scottish Trade Union leader Jimmy Reid, today it is the turn of charismatic Mississippi bluesman Jimmy Reed.
If I was a fan of Jesus and Mary Chain which I'm not (cue much being taken to task) Jim Reid would perhaps also have featured.

Mathis James Reed was born in Dunleith, Mississippi in 1925 dying in Oakland, California in 1976 at the ripe old age (for a bluesman) of 50.
Like many of his contemporaries he enjoyed a drink or ten. He also had epilepsy wrongly diagnosed as the DT's on account of his lifestyle.
Fortunately his lifestyle did not stop him producing some tremendous music. His electric blues would have a significant influence on the up and coming rock'n'roll movement and he could also verge towards Southern Soul when the mood took him.
These are perhaps his two most famous songs recorded in Chicago in 1957 and
both featuring the great Eddie Taylor on guitar.

Terrific stuff.

Jimmy Reed -Honest I Do

Jimmy Reed - Baby, What You Want Me To Do?

Just Another Diamond Day

In the days before unwashed dreadlocks, dogs on string and folk called Swampy Vashti Bunyan was your original New Age traveller.
She and her boyfriend travelled from London to the Outer Hebrides in a horse drawn caravan to join a commune.
She subsequently met producer Joe Boyd and recorded her travelling songs with members of Fairport Convention and The Incredible String Band as Just Another Diamond Day which was released in 1970.
It sold miserably and she gave up the music business and carried on with her hippy lifestyle.
She subsequently attracted a cult following with the album fetching up to $2000 at auction

She returned to the music industry in 2002 and has released a further two albums as well as participating in a number of collaborations.
It is a bit of an acquired taste and abit of a struggle to sit through all 18 songs on the CD in one sitting, Fortunately the majority of them are very short.
Probably better listened to round a campfire in the woods after consuming illicit substances.

Vashti Bunyan - Diamond Day

Vashti Bunyan - Timothy Grub

I'm expecting mixed reviews!

The Sundays on a Wednesday

The Sundays are yet another band that I  was blissfully unaware of until I made the virtual acquaintance of some of the fine people featured on the right hand sidebar. In this instance I think Scott, Brian and The Robster were the main protagonists.
I'm told that their 1990 debut Reading, Writing and Arithmetic is the one to have and it is on the ever lengthening list.
However, today we are featuring their third and at the moment final album Static & Silence from 1997 as this is the one I stumbled across in a Stranraer charity shop.

The Sundays - Cry

The Sundays - Another Flavour

The Gospel According to Boo and Tony

As I mentioned  in my Percy Sledge post I recently visited a record shop in the small East Lothian town of Dunbar.
Pulling into the main street with a view to exploring the charity shops I was beside myself with excitement to notice that there was also an imaginatively named Record Shop.
I got chatting to the guy behind the counter as I was handing over my cash and he said that they had been open for just over a year and are doing ok. There is apparently also another one Wall of Noise in the neighbouring town of Haddington.
Greatly encouraging stuff and hopefully we will get back to the day when every small town has a record shop again
Alongside Percy in the bargain bin were two singles by 80's band The Bible. I was heading towards the counter when I noticed their 1986 debut album Walking the Ghost Back Home on which they featured and decided to upgrade.
I wasn't too familiar with their work but I have a copy of a Boo Hewerdine album together with stuff he has written for Eddi Reader and Heidi Talbot.In The Bible he is joined by Tony Shepherd on keyboards, drums and percussion
It is of it's time but at four quid I'm putting it down as a find.


The Bible - Graceland

The Bible - Mahalia