Bloggerhythms

Many blues purists site a lack of authenticity as a reason to dismiss an artist's work but I refuse to participate in such snobbery. If performed well a hybrid arrangement adds unique freshness to an old piece of music. The fact that the great blues singer, composer, and guitarist Chester Burnett (a.k.a Howlin' Wolf ) flew to London in 1970 to record with a few of the hottest British Invasion all-stars of the day - most of them heavily influenced by the blues - shouldn't make the music any less compelling. The participants on The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions include Eric Clapton on lead guitar, Steve Winwood on piano and organ, and three men with Rolling Stones connections: bassist Bill Wyman, drummer Charlie Watts, and pre-worldwide fame Stones' pianist,  Ian Stewart .  Hubert Sumlin - Wolf's devoted longtime sideman - provided rhythm guitar throughout these sessions. Even Ringo Starr proved he could play the blues on one track, "I A

If you know "The Dark End Of The Street" at all there's a very good chance you've heard one of the many cover verions of James Carr's original, 1967 single. Subsequent renditions of the song have been released by artists as diverse as The Flying Burrito Brothers, Elvis Costello, Aretha Franklin, Peter Green, The Commitments, and Bruce Springsteen. I've recently been made aware of at least twenty-five interpretations of it by a friend who says it's his all-time favorite breakup song. "Dark End" was composed by two legends, Dan Penn and Chips Moman , who wrote the entire song in just about a half hour. Penn said their goal was to write "the best cheatin’ song. Ever!"   and in the opinion of many, they succeeded. The record was never a mainstream hit. It climbed to #10 on the Billboard R&B chart, but it only made it to #77 on the Hot 100 which means most top 40 radio stations never add

On New Earth Farmers'  website  composer, singer, guitarist and keyboard player Paul Knowles tells us that he and composer, vocalist, and guitarist Nicole Storto never stick to one style when writing music. He says that " the song drives the treatment and genre of each track ." Their lyrics are the primary concern in an era when they  "often take a backseat to style, fashion, materialism, and hipness ." Because their emphasis is on composition you need to spend some time with The Farmers' new album,  The Sky From The Underground ,   to fully absorb their work. Trust me, it'll be worth your while. Knowles and Storto display their love of topical songwriting with "War Inside Our Hearts," a track he said is inspired by the greatest of all punk bands, The Clash. "You say your way is better than another. That’s how our minds are torn apart." "Frequency" tackles the devastatingly sad subjec

The Very Best Of Cream is the most inclusive, single disc compilation the psychedelic, blues-rock trio, Cream, has ever released. Earlier greatest hits collections were issued on LPs and contained only ten or twelve tracks, but this CD has twenty and would easily fill two 33 1/3 RPM records. When the renowned supergroup was at their best few rock bands of any era could top them. Eric Clapton (guitar), Jack Bruce (bass), and drummer Ginger Baker were all virtuosos, and Bruce's excellent singing was a large heap of icing on the cake. Cream played together for less than two years, but within that short span they released four LPs containing new studio material that included in-concert tracks on their last two albums, Wheels Of Fire and Goodbye . Some of their stuff was overblown such as Baker's live, almost sixteen minute drum solo on "Toad," and there were goofy, seemingly nonsensical songs l

The ondioline is an electronic instrument invented in France by Georges Jenny in 1939, and it's considered to be a predecessor to modern day synthesizers as early models ran on analog circuits and vacuum tubes. Later, in the 1960s, transistors replaced the tubes. Ondiolines possess a three octave keyboard that uses a knob to expand it's range up to eight octaves. It can maufacture its own sounds or simulate other instruments. Jenny made most ondiolines himself and he refused to mass produce his invention, so it appears that no more were made after his passing in 1975. Until now, I've knowingly only listened to the ondioline twice in my entire life. A recent repurchase of the classic, 1968  Super Session  album by Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper and Stephen Stills stirred my curiosity, so I researched the instrument. Previously, I knew nothing about this mostly forgotten keyboard other than Kooper played it on that album's "His Holy Modal Majesty" a

Last Night In Hamburg   -   a bootleg, German CD released in 1999 - appears to be the exact same performance as Live At The Star Club In Hamburg, Germany, 1962 , a double LP initially released in 1977. This 1999, 65-minute disc comes in a digipak from a company named RockCartoon with liner notes and some very cool artwork. This last ever Beatles show in Hamburg before they became worldwide phenomenons was recorded on a homemade, reel-to-reel tape recorder by English producer Adrian Barber who also produced The Allman Brothers Band's eponymous debut. He also worked with Aretha Franklin, Velvet Underground, Buffalo Springfield, The Rascals and Bee Gees. Barber was there, on New Year's Eve, December 31, 1962 - the night this concert was recorded - to help management improve the club's sound system. The poor quality of Barber's recording makes it a very substandard listening experience. The disc is only for the most diehard Beatle fans like me and for c

The Roamers play a good kind of country music, the kind that is unmistakably country but is heavily dosed with rock 'n roll. Trade out the lap and pedal steel guitars for something heavier, and remove the twang from bassist, lead singer and songwriter Matt Rice's voice and you'll have completely crossed over into that louder and more youthful genre. It shows you how closely related the two popular and seemingly disparate styles of music really are. Rice describes The Roamers as a collective rather than a band. "The reason I named it The Roamers is because the members/players kinda roam in and out of the band depending on what day, week or month it is. There are a lot of us involved, and it's rare that we can all get together at the same time. On this concise, eponymous, eleven song, debut Rice is the bassist, Brian Whelan plays guitars and all keyboards, Luke Adams is the drummer and percussionist, and Matt Pynn contribut

The Honeydrippers, Volume One sounds nothing like Led Zeppelin, but Robert Plant said he loved working on this five-song EP more than any other music he ever recorded. The Honeydrippers were organized after the demise of Zeppelin to fulfill Plant's desire to work in a band with a heavy rhythm and blues foundation, so he became involved with an already existing R&B covers band. Then he brought in some famous friends to help out, including Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. Paul Shaffer from David Letterman's band added piano. Nile Rodgers of Chic played guitar and served as co-producer. Volume One reached #5 on the American Billboard 200 albums chart. A cover of "Sea Of Love" from the EP went to #3 on the Hot 100, but the highlight of the sessions was a #25 hit, "Rockin' At Midnight," a remake of "Good Rocking Tonight," an old song originally released by composer Roy Brown in 1947. Some music historians considered this to b