Bloggerhythms

Released almost a year after his passing in 2001,  Brainwashed is among George Harrison's top albums. It was completed by his son, Dhani, along with Jeff Lynne, his good friend and former bandmate in The Traveling Wilburys. Knowing that he was dying, The late Beatle - who would have turned eighty years old today - gave Dhani and Lynne the tapes to an unfinished album along with instructions on how he wanted it completed. Anyone who is more than a little educated about Harrison knows his reputation as a loner and as the serious Beatle is not completely accurate. He wasn't really a recluse, he just never behaved in ways or traveled in circles that would attract the press's attention. He never held public bed-ins for peace on his honeymoon as another member of his first band did. Harrison's serious side and his adherence to Hinduism was often reflected in his songwriting but he also possessed a lightheartedness that showed through in much of ...

Bloggerhythms' readers were first exposed to the quirky but extremely talented Chris Pellnat two years ago when I reviewed his third solo album, Rain . Currently, the sometimes rocking singer-songwriter is back with Go , a similar sounding set that is another true artistic success. Pellnat is a busy man. He's a musician from Hudson, NY who plays electric guitar in a loud band named The Warp/The Weft and he is also one half of Teeniest, a folk influenced duo. Pellnat advertises his solo work as a bit "off-kilter" which is one of the reasons it's so enjoyable. His melodic arrangements are often paired with idiosyncratic  lyrics that deal with many serious and introspective topics, yet his work is never depressing. If you're attracted to unconventional music  Go is an album you must listen to. On his latest ten ...

In 1977 the music world was stunned to learn that the first Beach Boy to record and release a solo album was middle Wilson brother, Dennis. This was a shock because Dennis was always assumed to be the least musically accomplished of the three brothers. In fact, their mother had to force brothers Brian and Carl to accept him into the band at the time of The Beach Boys' formation. As drums were the only remaining open instrument in the new group he secured his place in it by beating the skins. Dennis loved touring for the sex, drugs, and rock n' roll lifestyle. However, he didn't enjoy the slower pace of the recording studio nearly as much. He was absent from many of The Beach Boys studio recordings and was often replaced by session drummers. Another reason he was an unlikely candidate for a solo album is because as James William Guercio - Pacific Ocean Blue's executive producer - said about Dennis in the liner notes, "Someone forgot to tell him he didn't...

Despite my obsession with music during the first classic rock era there are a few supposedly must-hear albums that I never heard in their entirety, and the eponymous LP by Blind Faith was one of them. I've always been familiar with the album's radio favorites - "Can't Find My Way Home," "Well...All Right," and "Sea of Joy," but not the whole record. Just recently, I experienced all of it for the first time and came away disappointed.  The seeds of Blind Faith grew from the wreckage of both Cream and Traffic. Half of the new supergroup came from Eric Clapton's late, great power trio. Ginger Baker was the drummer, Steve Winwood worked behind the microphone and handled keyboards while Ric Grech - a refugee from the band  Family   - joined them on bass. Clapton's axe work on this set was more restrained than it was with Cream. He played tastefully, and Winwood proved he is a keyboard master. All four members blended ...

Today is the 40th anniversary of Karen Carpenter's unfortunate passing.  Last year, Bloggerhythms re-ran one post of a three part series on guilty pleasures in which I wrote that my number one guilty pleasure of all time was Karen Carpenter's golden voice. In it, while acknowledging their god-given talents, I lamented that the brother and sister duo should have used their gifts to make better music than the bubblegum pop they frequently pushed into the upper reaches of the Top Forty. Proving my point is a YouTube video of Karen Carpenter singing standards with the great Ella Fitzgerald in 1980 on one of the siblings’ TV specials.  The video easily suggests that the greatest album never made was The Carpenters Sing and Play the Great American Songbook . (The fact that they never recorded these songs while Rod Stewart did four times makes me want to cry.) The show clearly indicates that by this time Fitzgerald's age had taken its toll on her voice and Carpenter uses the ...