Brothers, Sisters .... 18

 

We're nearly there! Only two more to go after this week's artists. It is Country all the way today.

We will start with the sisters. The Lonesome Sisters are an American acoustic duo consisting of Sarah Hawker an Appalachian singer who plays guitar. clawhammer banjo and harmonica and Debra Clifford on guitar and fiddle. On these tracks they are joined by banjo and fiddle player Riley Baugus.

The Boston Globe describes them as delivering crystalline harmonies and mournful tunes

Long suffering readers of this blog will probably be familiar with the Americana band the Pernice Brothers who were formed by Joe Pernice in 1998 following the breakup of his former band The Scud Mountain Boys. Since them they have delivered 8 albums 4 of which are on the shelves. If I was to recommend just one I  would go for their 1998 debut The World Won't End one of my 50 Americana Albums You Should Hear Before You Die

They are a band I have seen a couple of times as well as seeing Joe playing solo and therefore they will get my vote this week.

Next week features the only band (to my knowledge) who I have music by and who have had a member or parliament within their number.

The Lonesome Sisters - Go Home

The Lonesome Sisters - Rain and Snow

Pernice Brothers - Working Girls (Sunlight Shines)

Pernice Brothers - The Weakest Shade of Blue

Keep on Truckin' 3

 

As has been mentioned before the majority of truck songs are from the Country genre.

There have been a few suggestions for non- country songs in the comments section .JC has suggested a few including Dumper Truck Racing by Scottish Indie darlings Ballboy. Given that they have a song called I Lost You, But I Found Country Music I suspect that they may well be closet Country fans.

I'm not sure that the same could be said about Big Black one of Khayem's suggestions with the song The Sound of Independent Trucking. It may not be Country but it is a splendid racket.

When it comes to Truckstops I'm afraid it is Country all the way. Here are Country Rock band Little Feat with Truck Stop Girl.

More Truck Songs next week but I think I'm all out of Truck Stops

Ballboy - Dumper Truck Racing

Big Black - The Power of Independent Trucking

Little Feat - Truck Stop Girl

I've been having some problems with Khayem's files so I have taken the liberty of sourcing another version of the Big Black song

Heroes to Zeros

 

2024 Charity Shop Purchases #10  - The Beta Band - Heroes To Zeros

My first Charity Shop purchase from Stirling. I have bought records from there before but in the Europa record shop rather than the plethora of charity shops outside the Thistle Centre.

From 2004 on the Regal label Heroes to Zeros is the third and final album from the Beta Band. It joins their 1999 debut The Beta Band and the CD of The Three EPs on the shelves. Hot Shots II remains the missing link.

What can you say? It's the Beta Band and is what you would expect from them. Critically received with a Metacritic rating of 74/100 and an inclusion in the 2005 version of the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Any of the 12 songs would be worthy of inclusion today but here are the two singles from the album.

A good find.

The Beta Band - Assessment

The Beta Band - Out-Side

Shazam Sunday 10

 

I pretty quickly recognised the first tune as being by Blur. From the brief snippet it took a quick Shazam to confirm that it was in fact Coffee and TV from their 6th album 1999's 13. Clearly one that I should listen to more often. Indeed, I could probably say that for every Blur album.

It was the second single from the album peaking at number 11 in the singles chart. It was written by guitarist Graham Coxon who sang lead vocals rather than Damian Albarn. I'm afraid I have no details of where I Shazamed this from.

I know where I got Silk by Wolf Alice from. It is from a scene from the Scottish soap opera River City where the gangster Lenny Murdoch shoots sleazy lawyer Alistair Campbell Bannerman. I appreciate that this will mean nothing to 99.9% of the audience. This song has been seen  6.6 million  times on You Tube. I only looked at it when preparing this post.

That's the Shazam files exhausted for now. I shall return with a further batch in due course.

Blur -Coffee and TV

Wolf Alice - Silk

Saturday Shuffle 41

 

Count yourselves very fortunate today, The first song that popped up on the shuffle for today was Mississippi Queen by Mountain. Quite what it was doing on the MP3 I have no idea. Part of a compilation perhaps? Anyway the good news was that I couldn't find it on the hard drive and I was not inclined to try and track it down.

Therefore the first song today is from our cover star the late great Bettye Swann. She was active in the field from 1964 to 1980 before becoming a Jehovah's Witness. Sadly she died last January aged 79. Tell it Like it Is was probably her most famous song.

I have the next band filed as The Chesaterslicks. That actually should read The Cheater Slicks who are a three man garage pop band founded in Boston in 1987. This song is one of two by them from the compilation. 21st Century Rockabilly: Volume Two.

Finally the act who benefitted from Mountain's exclusion are L'il Cap'n Travis an Austin band who I discovers on one of my trips to SXSW at the beginning of the century

Bettye Swan - Tell it Like It Is

The Cheater Slicks -You're Untrue

L'il Cap'n Travis - I Don't Wanna Go Out Tonite

Must I Paint You a Picture?

 

2024 Charity Shop Purchases #9 - Billy Bragg -Must I Paint You a Picture? - The Essential Billy Bragg

With the exception of the 10 track limited edition 3rd bonus CD I must have about 90% of the 40 tracks on the first two CDs. So why buy it?

There are a number of reasons:

• Why not?
• 50 songs by Billy Bragg for a penny less than 3 quid
• I have most of the early stuff on vinyl so it is good to have them on CD as well
• It is also good to have all the songs conveniently in the one place
• You can never have enough Billy Bragg.
• And most importantly to annoy my pal Pete who recently forked out about 15 quid for something very similar.

The Bard of Barking is like marmite you either like him or you don't. I do .Ok so maybe he doesn't have the greatest voice in the world but he makes up for it with his songs and his passion.

I think it is only fair to give you one song from each of the three discs and which I don't think have featured here before.

Billy Bragg -Must I Paint You a Picture?

Billy Bragg - Upfield

Billy Bragg - A13, Trunk Road to the Sea

Songs by Bands I Don’t Like 3 - A Guest Series

 

George writes:

(That’s the interior of the Caird Hall in Dundee)

Another first for these pages. Actually, two firsts, but for different reasons. The first first, a band even more despised by Mr CC than last week’s, and a group much disliked by me. And that’s despite queueing for 4 hours in 1980 to pay £4 for a ticket to see them at the Caird Hall. For what turned out to be quite a tedious concert. But much loved by some of my schoolfriends, some of whom have formed a Genesis tribute band. I first heard this group  nearly 50 years ago, the older brother was a fan and bought the 1973 Live album, and Stuart and I listened to it. He was a fan then, but I was not persuaded,  and it certainly did not fit in musically with the glam singles or Annie’s Song I was buying at that time.  But I can listen to this tune quite easily, there’s none of the tedious Gabriel-era vibe of that Live album about it, just a simple pop song, one that I probably heard in the venue you see above::

Genesis - Turn it On

And the second first is an appreciation of a song by one of Mr CC’s favourite artistes. Not Townes, he’s an artist whose music I don’t dislike, just don’t like enough to buy an album. He has tried to convince with me Townes, but to no avail. And he really has tried with Mr Springsteen, with Nebraska, for example, but the one song that I genuinely liked on first hearing, and that was  on or about it’s release is this:

Bruce Springsteen - The River

It’s got a bit of a Neil Young-ish introduction and feel to it. I remember being so impressed that I have on occasion been tempted to buy the album. But the shelves remain bare of any of Mr Springtseen’s output.

CC writes:

You will get no argument from me about Genesis.

The Boss on the other hand - you are just being contrary!