The cover alone should have been enough for me to realise that I was making a big mistake.
In my defence it was 49p and I was on holiday and conscious that I needed some new material for the blog. Storyville is Robbie Robertson's second solo album from 1991.I can only describe the music as countrified jazz funk (but not in a good way).Some of the songs start off promisingly but they quickly end up all over the place. Wiki advises that it focusses on the jazz capital that is New Orleans and on that part of the South in particular.
I have his self titled 1987 debut solo album which I have featured here before and it is not bad.
Sadly there is nothing of the caliber of Broken Arrow or, in particular, Somewhere Down the Crazy River, to rescue Storyville.
It's been a bit of a struggle but here is a song for your listening "pleasure". I can't bring mysef to post two.
It's going back.
I'm off to listen to The Band
Today, for number 9 in the series, it’s the home of the world’s largest french fry feed . This is held in the city of Grand Forks, which is in………..North Dakota. North Dakota also saw the world’s largest hamburger made and eaten. It weighed 3591 pounds and was shared by more than 8,000 people, that sounds terribly unhygienic. North Dakota also saw the largest pancake feed (more than 34,000). That was in Fargo. No scenes of the Coen Brothers film Fargo were made in Fargo. And the film was based on events that happened in Minnesota. And the tv show Fargo is made in Canada.
In my long long search for some music I got terribly excited to have found a song with Grand Forks in the title, and it was also very good. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that East Grand Forks is not, as I was hoping, a reference to the east part of the city but is in fact about a city called East Grand Forks. I bought the album anyway.
So here’s a song called North Dakota. The artiste is Sarah Everett who of course is not from the state. An acoustic track, it reminds of the Mountain Goats.
Speaking of Fargo, as I was, it is illegal to go dancing there with a hat on, and it is illegal to wear a hat at a party where other people are dancing. Men Without Hats, the 1980s band, are from Canada and are not thought to be named in honour of those laws. North Dakota is the least-visited state in the USA, which must come as no surprise given it’s anti-hat stance.
I managed to find a song called Fargo. Several, actually, and the vast majority were absolute nonsense. And the rest were worse! Except one, by a band called Young Milly, who hail from New Zealand. And it’s not great.
But thanks to a man who grew up in the wonderfully named Slaughters, Kentucky, here’s a song that mentions the cold and snows of North Dakota. A slightly gothic americana track, it’s well worth a listen:
That’s North Dakota, the state with more cows than people (2:1).
More next week. I wonder which state it will be? CC writes I've seen Chris Knight but do not have any music by him I've music by Lyle Lovett but not this
Charity Chic is back!
Our short trip up North saw me returning with no less than five charity shop purchases more than doubling this years haul to date.
The first acquisition was from Fort William and doubles the amount of Mercury Rev albums on the shelves.
From 2001 All Is Dream is the follow up to 1998's Deserter's Songs.
As I mentioned when I posted the latter is is a CD that I've actually had in my hand on a couple of occasions without ever taking the plunge.This time round I went for it.
The verdict ? Like Deserter's Songs three or four pretty good songs with the rest pretty meh. You could get one truly great album by combining the best from both.
I'm glad I got it though and my curiosity is now sated. I suspect that my Mercury Rev collection is now complete
Our dear friend the Swede has obviously taking pity on me following my recent charity shop lean pickings.
He has very kindly sent me not one, but Two, NoahJohn albums namely 2001's Had a Burning and 2003's Water Hymns both on the Loose label. This has tripled the number of albums by them on the Americana shelves given that I already had 1999's Tadpoles on the Speakeasy label.
This appears to be about the extent of their catalogue although they did record an album called Country Protest Anew with Eugene Chadbourne in 2003.
So far I've only managed to give Had a Burning a listen and it is pretty solid Americana .Looking forward to giving Water Hymns a spin.
As I said to the Swede I am reasonably sure that I've seen them live but I wouldn't like to swear to it.
The Charity shop drought still continues but there was a small dribble last week when I came away with Poetic Champions Compose from 1987 and the 17th studio album from Sir Ivan the Grumpy Irishman .
It was originally intended as an album of jazz instrumentals but thankfully he saw sense and changed his mind. Having said that the instrumentals are alright for Jazz - sort of atmospheric celtic jazz as opposed to the usual noodely nonsense.
It was reasonably well received and was voted the 21st album of 1987 by the Village Voice. Not sure that I would go that far but it is perfectly pleasant though and ideal Sunday morning listening. Or as Wiki states adequate mood music which could maybe be seen as damning with faint praise.
If this was a blog about Scottish Football today we could have featured Harry Hood, Henry Hall and Harry Haddock, But sadly it isn't
Both Rol and Lynchie had pointed out that there was a Henry Hall who was a big band leader who could have featured
Did he have a fantastic sweep over though?
To matters more mundane.
I had originally dug out some tunes from the hard drive, But when Marie and then Ernie mentioned Hawkshaw Hawkins I remembered I had a track by him on a Country compilation called Road of Broken Hearts and it's a cracker.
Rol than pitched in again by somewhat incredulously stating that there was a band called Ha Ha Tonka. There is indeed Rol. Their album the brilliantly named Buckle in the Bible Belt on the Bloodshot label and bought for £2 in Glasgow's Missing Records is on the shelves and so they are featuring today.
Back to Ernie and Marie. Ernie is doing " a Marie" by sending me a song to feature. By Higher Heights he confidently states that it the best Polish folk dub reggae record ever made. Time to put that to the test.
If eclecticism is your thing pop over to his place. You will be in for a treat.
Next week it begins to get really tricky. I have one II lined up and possibly a second.
Over to you folks
The March instalment from Julie London's Calendar Girl album.
That's quite an outfit for Spring cleaning!
Julie may be melancholy but I can't say that I am as we are off for a long weekend up North today.
Balmacara tonight and Ballachulish tomorrow. I suspect that the charity shops of Fort William may well get a visit.
All I can find out about the song is that it was composed by Herman Saunders and Dory Langdon especially for the album.
Given that we started in November we will be half way through the year of tunes in April.
