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The Young Dubliners - With All Due Respect, The Irish Sessions (2007)

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It's St. Patrick's Day and time for this American of Italian heritage to celebrate his love of Celtic-rock. I don't mean U-2. I'm talking about bands that actually sound like they came from the Emerald Isle. While Bono and his friends embraced their roots lyrically and politically, there are many other bands playing today who sound way more Irish than they do. Among them are The Pogues, The Saw Doctors, The Corrs, and the late great Black 47. Irish musicians love to embrace their roots. In 2007,  The Young Dubliners  - a Los Angeles based rock quintet - recorded an entire album of fired up arrangements of thirteen traditional Irish folk songs and cover versions of more modern fare. Among The Young Dubliners excellent choices for  With All Due Respect, The Irish Sessions  are a hard rocking take on The Pogues' "If I Should Fall From Grace With God" plus a second Shane McGowan composed song, "Pair of Brown Eyes." The folk songs include

R. I. P. Eric Carmen (1949 - 2024)

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I'm a little sad today as I write this because Eric Carmen has passed away at age 74. I never followed Carmen's career closely, but I always liked what I heard whether it was with The Raspberries or later as a solo artist. Hardcore rock fans of the 1970s looked at Carmen's music as being too mainstream, and the guys in my dorm made fun of The Raspberries as nothing more than an early Beatles clone who wore matching suits while playing bubblegum pop. But, let me tell you, no bubblegum song I ever heard had a hard rocking intro - and a song title and lyrics - like "Go All The Way." The Raspberries were not The Ohio Express or The 1910 Fruitgum Company. There was nothing highbrow or avant garde about Carmen's music, but he recorded quality mainstream rock interspersed with a few ballads - most notably "All By Myself" - and he was a master at writing hooks and melodies that complemented his huge sounding tenor voice.

Ted Russell Kamp - California Son (2024)

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It's safe to assume that more albums and songs have been written about California than any other state in the union, such is the love many of its residents have for it. As far back as 1924 Al Jolson praised the place of sunshine, great beaches, beautiful mountains and the desert with "California, Here I Come," a song from Bombo , a Broadway musical he starred in and helped compose. Later, in the mid-60s, we had The Mamas and the Papas celebrate their adopted home with "Twelve Thirty" and "California Dreamin'." More recently - in 2021 - the great Mexican-American rockers, Los Lobos, released Native Sons , a full length album covering songs originally recorded by local Los Angeles artists to their ususal positive reviews. There is no need to even discuss  The Beach Boys   - for a long time the Golden State's number one musical celebrants - because so much has been written about them on this blo

It's Real Life: An Alternate History Of The Beatles - A Short Story, Radio Play And Full Length Novel By Paul Levinson (2022 and 2024)

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In a July 2023 blog post I discussed an alternate history of the most famous rock band of all time. It's Real Life: An Alternate History Of The Beatles was written in 2022 as a short story and radio play by Professor Paul Levinson of Fordham University. Since then, the author has expanded it into a full length novel that includes his original story as chapter one. Below my original post you'll find a link to a fascinating  podcast where Levinson discussed his book with NBC's Chuck Todd followed by an  intriguing  email question and answer session that Levinson graciously gave to Bloggerhythms. _______________________________________ In 2005, novelist, playwright and rock musician, Larry Kirwan - best known as the leader of New York City's renowned Celtic-rock band, Black 47  - used his vivid imagination to write  Liverpool Fantasy , a novel about what could have happened to each of the four Beatles if they hadn't hit the big

The Tonight Show Band With Doc Severinsen (1986)

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Doc Severinsen made dozens of albums with various outfits while working for Johnny Carson and leading The Tonight Show Band from 1967 until Carson retired in 1992, but it took the trumpeter until 1986 to take his TV band into the studio to record a very good album, The Tonight Show Band With Doc Severinsen . Severinsen led a large, high energy group of nineteen musicians if you count the boss who was the primary soloist on nine of the thirteen tracks. While Severinsen and his men didn't break any new ground, much of the CD is loaded with extremely well-played, modern arrangements of old 30s and 40s big band standards, including instrumental hits of trombonist Tommy Dorsey ("I'm Getting Sentimental Over You"), clarinetist Artie Shaw ("Begin The Beguine"), and vibraphone player Lionel Hampton ("Flying Home"). The set also includes three Benny Goodman classics, "King Porter Stomp," "Don't Be That Way,&qu

Almost Hits: Spacehog - In The Meantime (1996)

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In 1996, Spacehog, a British one-hit wonder formed in New York City had a #32 hit with "In The Meantime," their very first single. The track was the group's commercial peak and they never came close to the top 40 again. It was also their highest charting single in their native UK. Resident Alien , the debut CD "In The Meantime" was pulled from was just moderately successful too, rising only as high as #49 on the US album chart. Each of Spacehog's two succeeding albums failed to make the top 100 and by 2002 the band was over except for a shortlived reunion in 2013 that produced a final album that earned little recognition. In a 2018 interview  composer and lead singer Royston Langdon discussed the single's opaque lyrics with Songfacts , "It's me trying to reach people. It's using some kind of metaphor of a worldly or inner-worldly search for the end of isolation, and the acceptance of one's

Last Albums: Arthur Alexander - Lonely Just Like Me (1993)

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The R & B world seems to produce all-star level talent who should be legends but instead perform for many years - often decades - in undeserved obscurity. Many never found an audience even among the genre's own fans. Such is the case with hard luck Arthur Alexander who died in 1993 before Lonely Just Like Me could make him a star. Alexander's resume contained a few minor hit records in the early 60s but he is mostly known for one song. Beatles fans will surely recognize him as the composer of "Anna" a song they covered on their very first album, Please Please Me , all the way back in 1963 before America and their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show . Lesser known is "Soldier Of Love" a Beatles cover that only appears on their  Live At The BBC double set. The Rolling Stones released "You Better Move On" as part of  their 1964 eponymous EP and "Sally Sue Brown" was reworked by Bob Dylan for his 1988 album, Down In Th

Billy Joel - Turn The Lights Back On (2024)

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Billy Joel has been a constant presence on the arena rock scene all during the 21st Century highlighted by his monthly, ten year residency at Manhattan's Madison Square Garden that is coming to an end in 2024. On the other hand, hearing new music from the mega-star has become extremely rare. Joel's last full album of pop-rock music was the mediocre River Of Dreams in 1993. After that, he composed a dozen, classical piano pieces for Fantasies & Delusions , a CD featuring solo performances played by Richard Joo that was released in 2001. Since then, the rocker has only delivered two additional songs: "All My Life" in 2007 - a love song to his third wife, Katie Lee - and " Christmas In Fallujah " a tune he wrote but never recorded and gave to a young singer-songwriter, Cass Dillon , to record. After those two efforts Joel released nothing for seventeen years. Happily, the drought has ended with the song he performed recently