Off Message

On Monday's featured Rough Trade Country 1 album The Gourds do a cover of Snoop Dogg's Gin and Juice.
Bitches here and hoes there it is so misogynist that it almost sounds like a Donald Trump speech.
Thankfully on this occasion no guns feature.
Makes you long for the old days with the Grand Masters Flash and Melle Mel before the blatant sexism and the obsession with gangstas.

Don't don't do it.

Grand Master Flash & the Furious Five - The Message

Grand master Melle Mel & the Furious Five - White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)

Belated Four Candles

For some inexplicable reason I failed to notice and commemorate that Charity Chic Music turned four on 25th November.
Better late than never I suppose
So much music and words has flowed under the bridge in that period with many comments (mostly positive!) and many new friendships formed .

To belatedly celebrate this auspicious occasion (and because I am four days late)  four songs involving the number four.Hell, I've even managed to track down some Four Tops.

Gang of Four - To Hell With Poverty

The Four Brothers -Makorokoto

The Clash - Four Horsemen

Four Tops - Reach Out, I'll Be There

And for those of you outside the UK who have no idea as to the four candles reference

Rough Trade Goes Country

For those of you who like your Country to be a wee bit more left field than men with hats and Taylor Swift look no further than  the Rough Trade Shops Country 1 compilation from 2003.

It is from this record that I took The Dream Syndicate's Dylan cover  which I featured on Saturday
An excellent selection of artists and songs
You would expect me to like it given that I have albums by more than half of the artists featured on the shelves
As Howe Gelb states in the sleevenotes - a lot of them were done in that peculiar time in the 80's when it was still possible to fall between the cracks and not be pigeon holed

Today I give you some dark gothic country from Tarnation, a band that I never saw twice and featuring the unique and wonderful voice of Paula Frazer together with Violent Femmes a band that not many would describe as Country but who make a splendid racket.

Tarnation - Lonely Lights

Violent Femmes - Country Death Song

Sssome Sssunday Sssoul

You will all be familiar with the Northern Soul classic The Snake by Al Wilson. It has graced these pages before.
Most folk, myself included, only really know him from this song so I thought I would explore a bit further.
His given name was Allen LaMar Wilson which to me is far more impressive that merely Al. It would have also fitted neatly into my Friday Three Name series
He died in 2008 at the age of 68 having released 6 albums between 1968 and 1979 with two compilations in the 2000's.
The Snake was first released in 1968 to limited acclaim and featured on his debut album Searching for the Dolphins. it was subsequently re-released in 1975 reaching number 41 in the UK singles chart.
Surprisingly to me many of his songs appear to be ballads.
Here are a couple of the more up tempo numbers from that first album.

Al Wilson - Do What You Gotta Do

Al Wilson - Who Could Be Lovin' You (Other than Me)

Sod it , I know I've posted it before but it's so good that you are getting it again.

Al Wilson - The Snake

Dylan Covered - Blind Willie McTell

Last week's offering Gates of Eden produced an interesting gender split with all the gents who voted going for Bob and the ladies voting for Julie Felix.
More gents voted (hardly surprising really given the demographics of the readership) so the series is now tied again at Bob 3 Cover Artists 3.
This week for me the cover version totally blows Bob away.
I have previously featured The Dream Syndicate's version of Blind Willie McTell when writing a post on the great Bluesman.
At the time I mentioned that I did not have the Dylan version and Marie of Vintage Spins fame very kindly obliged.
It is pretty good but not a patch on the version by Steve Wynn and his chums.
Others may choose to disagree.

Bob Dylan - Blind Willie McTell

The Dream Syndicate - Blind Willie McTell

Friday Three Names - John Lee Hooker

A few ground rules which I should really have got out of the way at the beginning of this series.
The artist requires to have three separate real, actual and bona fide  names so:

• No Little, Big , Blind, Reverend or Sister  which rules out many but not all Blues  and Gospel stars.Don't worry though I have plans for another series whereby some of them will be included
• No initials - so no O.V Wright, k.d lang , K.T Tunstall or indeed Mark E Smith
• No nicknames - so no Bobby "Blue" Bland or Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and thankfully no Badly Drawn Boy

As previously stated this may well result in a number of country artists featuring.

But not exclusively and today the Blues sneak in courtesy of John Lee Hooker - a man who needs no introduction or indeed preamble so you are not getting one.

We'll let the music do the talking

John Lee Hooker - Boom Boom

John Lee Hooker - Devil's Jump

Some More Dodgy Arithmetic

Some more dodgy arithmetic for you today.
Not the 31 songs as it looks at first glance but a selection of music from Nick Hornby's selection of essays 31 songs.
31 songs is a blogger's delight. Essays on 31 songs that are important to Hornsby for a variety of reasons.
It gives us an excuse to mutter "how in God's name did he include that? " and indeed "what kind of idiot would omit .... "
Back to the arithmetic - the CD includes 13 of the songs included in the book.
Sadly neither Bob Dylan or Aimee Mann feature but thankfully neither do Santana and Nelly Furtado

I've previously featured the Teenage Fanclub and Paul Westeberg tracks. This time round it's Mark Mulcahy and Ian Dury.
Let's face it at the moment  we all need some Reasons to be Cheerful

Mark Mulcahy - Hey Self Defeator

Ian Dury & the Blockheads - Reasons to be Cheerful Part 3