This release includes 16 rare and previously unissued Otis Spann tracks recorded between 1964 and 1969.
Reb - Discogs - Link👇
Monday, December 16, 2024
Saturday, December 14, 2024
New Monthly Mix: CosmasMix #180
Here's a link to my latest monthly mix of new and newly re-released indie tracks that have caught my ear.
You can browse through and see what new tracks and bands tickle your fancy.
This month's mix has new tracks by: Attic Ocean, Beach Vacation, Crayon Cats, Airiel, Deary, Dreamcoaster, Ducks Ltd., Still Corners, CAPITOL, Fog, Eades, bdrmm, The KVB, New Order, The Wedding Present, The Popguns, The Primitives, Gang of Four, Primal Scream, The Charlatans, The Stone Roses, Ride, Teenage Fanclub, Hot Chip, Dean & Britta & Sonic Boom, Tracey Thorn, Talking Heads, Cake, Cursive, R.E.M., Doves, The Wolfgang Press, TV On the Radio, Throwing Muses, Cloud Nothings, Radiohead, The Fall, The Chefs, The Go! Team, lcd soundystem, A Certain Ratio, Orbital, Dead Or Alive, Bronski Beat, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Tears For Fears, Pet Shop Boys, Ivy, Chaoticpoprecs, Maisonette, Mumrunner, Oeil, Shower Curtain, Tess Parks, Our Girl, Feeling Figures, FACS, Amyl and the Sniffers, Squid, Silverbacks, fantasy of a broken heart, Fazerdaze, Naked Roommate, Humdrum, and The Cure
If you like what you hear, you can email Reb for a download link of the mix, as well.
VA - Chris Coco – The Dub Club (Peace & Love & Dub) (A Collection Of Jamaican Reggae And Dub) 2005 192
leeds - I would love an upgrade to 320, if any kind soul has a copy, would they be so kind to drop a link in the comments, thanks.
Friday, December 13, 2024
Van Morrison - 1997 - The Healing Game (Deluxe) (2019)
Van Morrison - 1997 - The Healing Game (Deluxe) (2019) @ 320
Oh what a Van-fest! In this 3 Cd digipack CD box there is a treasure-trove of goodies.
It is the kind of thing that I would be up to with my Playlist series. On the back of the original The Healing Game, which has not been remastered, we get the B-sides of singles from the time. Then we have CD 2 which is a collage of songs from The Healing Game project and various other projects from the era.
So, if unlike me you haven’t already, you don’t need to hoke out - CD singles, Sult, Good Rocking Tonight and The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers, John Lee Hooker’s Don’t Look Back and Lonnie Donegan’s Muleskinner Blues - because the Van tracks from them are here.
On CD two there are three collaborations that bring some fantastic tunes. I’ve been particularly loving the rocking rhythm and blues of his five songs with Carl Perkins. Four of these have been previously unreleased and one of those My Angel is a co-write. This second disc has ten previously unissued songs including a Morrison original Didn’t He Ramble and A Kiss To Build A Dream On made famous by Louis Armstrong in 1951.
There is more! The third disc is an absolutely pumping live show from Montreux in July 1997. Just a few months after the release of The Healing Game the set list has seven songs from the record. This is the Morrison’s few years with Brian Kennedy bringing backing vocals. Kennedy’s singing added grace notes indeed. That high end voice gets close to angelic and when he and Morrison play off each other like a call and response, it is climactic and electric.
So, as I say, a treasure trove! In the end though, what the three discs did for me was highlight the strength of The Healing Game in Morrison’s phenomenal body of work. There are six varied versions of the title track here, three versions of Fire In The Belly and Sometimes We Cry. What these versions did was throw different hues across them and the entire album. It rose up my favourite Morrison records list for sure.
Then… and maybe contrived but… these songs were recorded between the Northern Ireland ceasefires and the Good Friday Agreement. So when I hear: -
Don't look back
To the days of yester-year
You cannot live on in the past
Don't look back
An' I've known so many people
They're still tryin' to live on in the past
Don't look back
(Don’t Look Back - John Lee Hooker)
and
Here I am again
Back on the corner again
Back where I belong
Where I've always been
Everything the same
It don't ever change
I'm back on the corner again
In the healing game
(The Healing Game)
Morrison used yet another acoustic version of The Healing Game on a fundraising album Across The Bridge Of Hope for the victims of the 1998 Omagh bomb. Morrison always said it was a song from America, doo-wop singing on street corners. Healing is a spiritual thing here and Van was intrigued by it - The Healing Has Begun and Did Ye Get Healed just two other songs on the theme! It’s hard as you listen to some of these versions to not see those corners as the streets of East Belfast where, whatever his geographical place, Van Morrison always seems close to.
We are still needing that Healing on his Belfast streets in 2019! (Soul Surmise)
Editors
In This Light And On This Evening [Limited Edition]
(2009)
Active for 2 months 320
Enjoy them!!
Thursday, December 12, 2024
The Four C's – Straight Down The Middle (1967) @320
Post Gene Vincent band featuring Cliff Gallup (guitarist).
Other members of the group (according to the back of the LP) were "Carolina" Charlie Wiggs (vocals), "Fantastic" Felton Clark (bass), & Art "RC" Newbern (drums).
Reb - Discogs - Link👇
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band - 1965 - Jug Band Music
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Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band - 1965 - Jug Band Music @320
This artifact of the '60s folk revival (and the band's second album for Vanguard) is no less entertaining for its historical significance. In fact, it's aged better than most folk and rock albums of the era. Kazoos are funny that way. So are songs by the band's inspirational elders: Memphis Jug Band, Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers, and Blind Boy Fuller. The song by the band's contemporary, Spider John Koerner of the folk-blues trio Koerner, Ray & Glover, is pretty humorous, too. Whatever hipster coffeehouse audiences thought of Geoff Muldaur singing Chuck Berry, here's betting they eventually wrote it off as just another joke. (AllMusic)
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
1998 - The Jimmy Rogers All-Stars - Blues Blues Blues
1998 - The Jimmy Rogers All-Stars - Blues Blues Blues @320
Jimmy Rogers was very much a musician's musician -- the kind of guitarist that earned accolades from contemporaries and successors alike -- yet one who never wins a wide, mainstream audience. Blues Blues Blues was designed as the album that would find Rogers a larger audience, and as such, it has all the bells and whistles of a big-deal blues album. It has the classics ("Trouble No More," "Bright Lights, Big City," "Sweet Home Chicago," "Don't Start Me to Talkin'"), remakes of Rogers standards ("Ludella," "That's All Right"), cult covers (Muddy Waters' "Blow Wind Blow," which kicks off the album on just the right note) and an astounding number of guest appearances, including cameos from (get ready): Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, Lowell Fulson, Johnnie Johnson, Eric Clapton, Taj Mahal, Ted Harvey, Carey Bell, Stephen Stills, and Jeff Healey. That's a lot of star power -- too much, as a matter of fact -- since they occasionally overwhelm Rogers himself. And it has to be said that Rogers' playing simply isn't as dynamic or overpowering as it once was. Nevertheless, when it's judged alongside other contemporary electric blues albums, Blues Blues Blues holds up very well. Like its peers, such as John Lee Hooker's Point Blank recordings, the record is slick and well-crafted -- it may be blues-lite, but it's highly enjoyable. And it's likely that it would have broken Rogers' career wide open, if he had lived to see its release. Knowing that makes Blues Blues Blues a little bittersweet. Yes, it's enjoyable, but it would have been great to hear Rogers really tear it up on his final record. (All Music)
Monday, December 09, 2024
James Carr - 2001 - The Complete Goldwax Singles
James Carr - 2001 - The Complete Goldwax Singles@320
All 28 songs from Carr's 1964-1970 Goldwax singles are here, which is enough to make it a fair bid for a good best-of compilation, although it doesn't have everything he recorded. About half of the songs on this British import are not on the most well-known American CD compilation of Carr's work, The Essential James Carr, and those tracks are consistent with the level of his other Goldwax recordings, although they don't include anything on the level of "The Dark End of the Street" or "Pouring Water on a Drowning Man." This disc is particularly valuable for filling in some of his earliest 1964-1966 sides, which have a very slightly poppier and more up-tempo bent than his most esteemed songs. "That's What I Want to Know"'s groove is pretty Motown-ish, for instance, while "I Can't Make It" and "Only Fools Run Away" have Marvelettes-like chirping in the background. The 1970 funk update of "Row, Row Your Boat" isn't much to cheer about, though. There are plenty who will argue the point, but this doesn't quite live up to Carr's billing as the greatest '60s deep soul singer; Otis Redding (who Carr resembles in some respects) was better, and others had better and more imaginative material. It's good, certainly, and recommended to fans of artists like Redding who are looking for similar stuff that doesn't get played on the radio anymore. (AllMusic)
Sunday, December 08, 2024
James Carr - 1967 - You Got My Mind Messed Up (2002)
1967 - You Got My Mind Messed Up (2002) @ 320
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