Bloggerhythms

There is an unusual history behind Michelle Shocked's very hard to find CD Kind Hearted Woman . I accidently stumbled across it last week in the $2.99 section of the finest used CD store I've ever had the pleasure of shopping in, the Princeton Record Exchange . Someday I'll have to post an article about this great place to buy music and try not to make it sound like a commercial. Kind Hearted Woman was the first CD Shocked recorded after the demise of her contract with Mercury Records. It was originally issued as a limited edition in 1994 and was only available for purchase at her live performances. It was officially released in October 1996 and even then the album did not get wide release. The original CD featured Shocked as the only musician. After playing it on the road for two years she went back in the studio and rerecorded it with Fiachna O'Braonain and Peter O'Toole, two members of the Irish band Hothouse Flowers. Producer Bones Howe was at the controls. Ki...

Shut Up & Sing is the feature length documentary about The Dixie Chicks that was released to theaters in the fall of 2006 and on DVD in January 2007. The cover on the box of the DVD has the following pronouncement: "Freedom of speech is fine, as long as you don't do it in public." So for those of you who are squeamish of free speech when the perpetrators are liberals here is your warning: Do not open this DVD. If you do, and you don't like what you find inside, don't blame me. In many ways Shut Up & Sing is like so many other documentaries on the lives of working musicians. The film alternates between shots of live in concert performances, clips of the band recording in the studio, in business meetings, backstage before and after their concerts, and at home with their families. Not a single performance of a complete song is to be found anywhere, and to me that has always been a major flaw with most documentaries on musicians, but this film is not ...

Candidates for my top five CDs of 2007 are arriving early this year and West , the latest CD from Lucinda Williams, is most assuredly going to be among them. Williams has always been one of my favorite singer-songwriters and, while she may never again make another record as great as the almost perfect Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, this is her best set of music since her 1998 landmark CD. There isn't much rock 'n roll on West so if you're expecting the full-bodied sound of the electric band featured on Car Wheels you may be dissappointed. Most of the music is mellow singer-songwriter fare that is less produced and rehearsed than her perfectionist nature normally permits. This forces her always literate songwriting to take on even more importance than ususal. In many instances on West , the lyrics are the song. As always Williams sings about what is on her mind, be it loneliness, a lost lover she misses and looks upon with fondness, and on "C'mon" she r...

Just like a lot of people will do this year I'm revisiting The Beatles' classic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as it approaches it's fortieth anniversary on June 1, 2007. Most will probably just gush over the album but I'm hoping to view this masterwork from a unique perspective. Sgt. Pepper has often been considered both the greatest and the most important album of the rock era. Many polls over the decades have consistently placed it at the top of their lists. However a few more recent polls have seen the album lose some of its hold on music fans. As an example, the listeners of adult alternative radio station WXPN in Philadelphia conducted a poll in October 2005 and voted it the number two album of all time behind Abbey Road . Other albums that placed in the top ten by the Fab Four were Rubber Soul , Revolver , and The Beatles , (a.k.a. The White Album) . The luster of Sgt. Pepper has worn off for me over the years and all of the albums mentioned abo...