Bloggerhythms

Released this past March,  Wall in the Desert is a solo project by jazz bassist Joël Dilley. The San Antonio native played all of the instruments and arranged, recorded, mixed, and produced it himself. It's quite an accomplishment. The approximately thirty minute soundtrack is part of a documentary of the same name about the notorious and extremely controversial wall along America's Southwestern border. I have only seen the trailer, not the entire film, so I can only make an educated guess about its message but the music is good enough to stand on its own. According to an April 2020 press release from Dragon Lady Records , "all proceeds from digital sales and streaming will benefit the Interfaith Welcome Coalition, a faith-based collaborative movement meeting the changing needs of asylum seekers and immigrants at risk." Wall in the Desert  is a different kind of listening experience. If you're looking for hooks, riffs, and memorable melodies you won't find th...

Released in 2008,  Long Road Out of Eden , the Eagles' final album, is a double CD set. One of its better entries is "Busy Being Fabulous," a song that shows Don Henley to be in typical high quality form. Henley has always been a master at writing about relationships and also at writing scathing commentary about the Hollywood social scene even though he was a major part of it for a long time. Here, he combines both subjects in one song. On "Busy Being Fabulous," Henley laments that his lady socializes with her "high-rollin' friends," leaving him home alone with the kids. While she is having a blast now she could be mortgaging her future, and what's important in "the long run" (pun unintended), because she's "too busy being fabulous, too busy to think about us." The famous singing drummer asks her, "Where do you go when the party ends?" Will it be too late to save their relationship when sh...

It is not by design that this is the third article I've written about Blood, Sweat & Tears in less than two months. It just kind of worked out that way. For those of you who think that number is too many, please take note, I don't foresee another one coming anytime soon.  Until now, I've never heavily faulted an artist for genuinely heartfelt experimentation even if the attempt failed. That ends now. Even though it went all the way to number one  Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 was neither the artistic success nor the hit its predecessor was. That eponymous second disc went platinum four times. BS&T 3  had some good moments but based on the song we're about to discuss today it appeared that the popular horn band was trying too hard to be loved by music critics who never really embraced the post-Al Kooper lineup. Was "Symphony for the Devil / Sympathy for the Devil," their brief for...

The music world has had a few unlikely pairings over the years. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss immediately come to mind with their 2007 collaboration, Raising Sand . Years earlier, an even more unlikely duo, Bing Crosby and David Bowie, created a Christmas classic from Crosby's last TV special, their adaptation of a "Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth." Tony Bennett and k. d. lang may seem like another odd couple to you but one listen to A Wonderful World will tell you that they belong together. Ms. lang proved that she can also be a talented torch singer after she broadened her repertoire beyond traditional country music. Bennett and lang first sang together on his  MTV Unplugged session and this 2002 album is a result of that very enjoyable program. Bennett is one of the most talented and revered progenitors of the Great American Songbook. We all know his work and what he does has never changed in over 60 years. On the other hand, the much younger lang has evolve...

Here is a rarity that I never knew existed until now because it was only a European release. In 2010, Blood, Sweat & Tears (BS&T) issued a new live album,  Sail Away, Live in Stockholm 1973 , on compact disc. Happily, a digital version came into my hands recently and it's far from what old fans of the band should expect. This seventy-three minute, single disc set sounds nothing at all like the original, critically acclaimed Al Kooper version of the large band, nor is it at all similar to the popular hitmakers fronted by David Clayton-Thomas on the three albums that immediately followed Kooper's departure. The lead singer on this twelve song concert CD was Jerry Fisher who replaced Clayton-Thomas.  He sang on the next three studio albums that were all recorded from 1972 to 1974. Fisher's singing is nothing like Kooper's. His style was closer to that of his immediate predecessor, but he possessed a smoother delivery that appealed to many of  BS&T'...