Bloggerhythms

The Indie label Hacktone Records described themselves as "Musical revisionaries who rescue albums unjustly languishing in obscurity" because " some r ecords just don't deserve their fate."   The now-defunct label took pride in releasing older music that has either long been forgotten or never got its due the first time around. A prime example is First Landing , the debut album by R&B vocal group The Dynamics. Their first of two LPs was released in 1969 and it appeared on CD for the first time ever in 2007. The Dynamics were a Detroit quartet who did not record for the giant Motown hit factory. Instead, their manager, Ted White, Aretha Franklin's husband, moved the singers to Memphis, and as he did with Franklin he put a bunch of all-star, studio musicians behind them. Visualize The Temptations recording at Atlantic or Stax instead of Motown and you'll understand the sound of this album. The group was smoother than most Memphi...

One of the benefits of running a music blog are the frequent email requests I receive to showcase new music. Bloggerhythms receives more than a half dozen of these requests every week, way more than can possibly be listened to. Most of them are for new acts desperate for any kind of publicity but once in awhile, an established performer sends something ear worthy. Such is the case with the unknown label, Kizmiaz Records on behalf of veteran, 60s retro and roots rocker, Ben Vaughn. Vaughn has carved out a nice career for himself composing original music for That 70s Show and Third Rock From The Sun along with his own long solo recording and performing career. I've been a Vaughn fan for a long time now so any new music he releases is appreciated. Vaughn's new album, The Desert Trailer Sessions , is quite a departure from anything he's produced outside of TV before. The twelve track record features just his vocals accompanied only by his solo acoustic guitar and was ...

What is your favorite movie scene about music? Mine is from Diner (1982). Daniel Stern's character, Shrevie, angrily chews out his wife, Beth, played by Ellen Barkin for misfiling his records when she messes up his painstakingly organized alphabetical and chronological filing system. The scene is used to show how shabbily men like Shrevie treated women in 1959. Even though I don't believe the Diner sequence was intended to be comedic, it's hysterical to me, largely because my wife and I have taken part in some friendly bantering about my CD filing system. I file movie music that is mostly or completely by a single artist, such as Mark Knopfler's Local Hero , under the artist's name instead of "Soundtracks" and this drives her crazy because she can't always find the disc she wants to play. However, it makes perfect sense to me. My second favorite scene is from Nick Hornby's High Fidelity (2000). When the staff of John Cusak's used re...

America the band took as many critical hits in their heyday as America the nation has recently but, unlike the latter, the trio's reputation is on the upswing. Because America were firmly ensconced in the middle-of-the-road, soft-rock, sub-genre of the 70s they were often derided as lightweights but that is not a label that should have been pinned on them. Their first two albums prove the point. On their eponymous debut America made music that was mostly accessible but often out of the mainstream so it still captured the hearts of many rock fans devoted to high decibel, early 70s rock. The trio's followup, Homecoming with "Ventura Highway" and "Don't Cross The River," was almost as good but then they lost much of their edge even while maintaining their hit making momentum. America was often criticized for sounding too much like Crosby, Stills, and Nash on their songs featuring vocal harmonies ("I Need You") and, when Dewey Bunnell sang...