Bloggerhythms

I've seen The Lone Bellow - Brian Elmquist, Zach Williams and Kanene Donehey Pipkin - in concert twice and they've delivered wholly satisfying performances each time. Their four albums, EP, and a handful of one-off singles are the epitome of the acoustic-rock sub-genre spearheaded over the last decade or so by more popular bands such as Mumford & Sons and The Lumineers. One of those singles is a remake of Buffalo Springfield's 1967 hit "For What It's Worth," released on iTunes and Apple Music in 2018. The Stephen Stills penned song was not exactly a loud burst of hard rock when it was released back in the day, and The Lone Bellow's ultra-mellow take of the classic song is even more laid back than the original. I'm probably not the only music lover who mistakenly believed that "For What It's Worth" is an anti-Viet Nam War song. Instead, Stills wrote what is perhaps his most famous single about an incident in 1966 that was much less alt...

A recent article on a hippie era band from Philadelphia, The Mandrake Memorial, was recently published on  The College Crowd Digs Me ,   a very fine music blog I read regularly. It's my inspiration for this post about  Sopwith Camel , another forgotten group from relatively the same time period . I found Sopwith Camel's eponymous LP decades ago in a bargain bin, and I don't know why I bought it because I didn't know who they were. Perhaps I was intrigued by their name and the album's cover art. Making a purchase that way is usually a mistake, but this time my instincts were rewarded with some pleasant tunes. The quintet was the first San Francisco band signed during the flower power days to have a top 40 hit. "Hello Hello" (1967) climbed to #26 on the Hot 100. The follow-up single, "Postcard from Jamaica" only made it to #88, and that was it for the band. After an unsuccessful attempt at recording a s...

When it was suggested to me that I listen to Oklahoma's Monica Taylor I immediately became interested mostly because the late, great, Jimmy Lafave - a beloved singer-songwriter who was also originally from the Sooner State - was a big fan. Lafave dubbed Taylor the Cimarron Songbird because she lives near the Cimarron River. It's a nickname she apparently relishes because she uses it on the colorful cover of her latest solo album,  Trains, Rivers & Trails . I've written here before that much of today's country music is rock and roll played mostly by people who speak Southern and wear cowboy hats, but Taylor sees to it that on her new album you'll be listening to the real thing. There is electric guitar - of course - but the eleven song set is loaded with banjos, dobros and mandolins. Old time country music fans will love this record because it sounds like the kind of music played in the Shenandoah Mountains of West Virginia or at Dolly Parton's Tennessee mo...

Career: 1952 - 1988 does an excellent job of showcasing all facets and time periods of Chet Baker’s career. This retrospective evenly divides the two talents Baker was known for: one disc is entirely instrumental and is called Trumpeter and the other is simply titled Singer . Each CD is in chronological order and includes both rarities and some gems. There are both vocal and instrumental versions of Baker's signature tune, "My Funny Valentine." The first one - from 1952 - opens the first CD, and the second version closes the vocal set and was recorded less than a month before he died in 1988. Trumpeter shows off Baker's versatility as a prominent member of the cool jazz movement of the 50s and 60s and beyond. While he was less known and respected for his singing the second disc also provides a true overview of Baker’s controversial but still appealing voice. The vocal disc is also a bit sad because, using his singing as a barometer, the listener can tell how far B...

I can't tell you how many times I saw The Hooters live in the 80s. At the time it felt like they were going to be the biggest local act from Philadelphia to ever hit the big time even though I knew Hall & Oates, Todd Rundgren, Bobby Rydell and much of the Gamble and Huff roster - among others - had already acquired substantial national reputations for their efforts. The quintet, led by Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian, combined power pop, ska, and reggae into something unique, and the home town crowd couldn't get enough of them. It's sad that their day in the sun didn't last more than a couple of years despite winning a coveted opening slot at the Philadelphia portion of LiveAid. (Below, you can see their entire twelve minute performance that opens the famous benefit concert with the song we're saluting today.) "And We Danced" is the first single from The Hooters second LP and the first one from Nervous Night , their major label debut on Columbia Records. I...