Bloggerhythms

If you know "The Dark End Of The Street" at all there's a very good chance you've heard one of the many cover verions of James Carr's original, 1967 single. Subsequent renditions of the song have been released by artists as diverse as The Flying Burrito Brothers, Elvis Costello, Aretha Franklin, Peter Green, The Commitments, and Bruce Springsteen. I've recently been made aware of at least twenty-five interpretations of it by a friend who says it's his all-time favorite breakup song. "Dark End" was composed by two legends, Dan Penn and Chips Moman , who wrote the entire song in just about a half hour. Penn said their goal was to write "the best cheatin’ song. Ever!"   and in the opinion of many, they succeeded. The record was never a mainstream hit. It climbed to #10 on the Billboard R&B chart, but it only made it to #77 on the Hot 100 which means most top 40 radio stations never add...

On New Earth Farmers'  website  composer, singer, guitarist and keyboard player Paul Knowles tells us that he and composer, vocalist, and guitarist Nicole Storto never stick to one style when writing music. He says that " the song drives the treatment and genre of each track ." Their lyrics are the primary concern in an era when they  "often take a backseat to style, fashion, materialism, and hipness ." Because their emphasis is on composition you need to spend some time with The Farmers' new album,  The Sky From The Underground ,   to fully absorb their work. Trust me, it'll be worth your while. Knowles and Storto display their love of topical songwriting with "War Inside Our Hearts," a track he said is inspired by the greatest of all punk bands, The Clash. "You say your way is better than another. That’s how our minds are torn apart." "Frequency" tackles the devastatingly sad subjec...

The Very Best Of Cream is the most inclusive, single disc compilation the psychedelic, blues-rock trio, Cream, has ever released. Earlier greatest hits collections were issued on LPs and contained only ten or twelve tracks, but this CD has twenty and would easily fill two 33 1/3 RPM records. When the renowned supergroup was at their best few rock bands of any era could top them. Eric Clapton (guitar), Jack Bruce (bass), and drummer Ginger Baker were all virtuosos, and Bruce's excellent singing was a large heap of icing on the cake. Cream played together for less than two years, but within that short span they released four LPs containing new studio material that included in-concert tracks on their last two albums, Wheels Of Fire and Goodbye . Some of their stuff was overblown such as Baker's live, almost sixteen minute drum solo on "Toad," and there were goofy, seemingly nonsensical songs l...

The ondioline is an electronic instrument invented in France by Georges Jenny in 1939, and it's considered to be a predecessor to modern day synthesizers as early models ran on analog circuits and vacuum tubes. Later, in the 1960s, transistors replaced the tubes. Ondiolines possess a three octave keyboard that uses a knob to expand it's range up to eight octaves. It can manufacture its own sounds or simulate other instruments. Jenny made most ondiolines himself and he refused to mass produce his invention, so it appears that no more were made after his passing in 1975. Until now, I've knowingly only listened to the ondioline twice in my entire life. A recent repurchase of the classic, 1968  Super Session  album by Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper and Stephen Stills stirred my curiosity, so I researched the instrument. Previously, I knew nothing about this mostly forgotten keyboard other than Kooper played it on that album's "His Holy Modal Majesty" ...

Last Night In Hamburg   -   a bootleg, German CD released in 1999 - appears to be the exact same performance as Live At The Star Club In Hamburg, Germany, 1962 , a double LP initially released in 1977. This 1999, 65-minute disc comes in a digipak from a company named RockCartoon with liner notes and some very cool artwork. This last ever Beatles show in Hamburg before they became worldwide phenomenons was recorded on a homemade, reel-to-reel tape recorder by English producer Adrian Barber who also produced The Allman Brothers Band's eponymous debut. He also worked with Aretha Franklin, Velvet Underground, Buffalo Springfield, The Rascals and Bee Gees. Barber was there, on New Year's Eve, December 31, 1962 - the night this concert was recorded - to help management improve the club's sound system. The poor quality of Barber's recording makes it a very substandard listening experience. The disc is only for the most diehard Beatle fans like me and for c...