Bloggerhythms

Too few people are aware of the late, great Jimmy Lafave , one of Austin's finest and most revered musicians. His untimely passing from a rare and aggressive form of cancer at age 61 in May 2017 was sad indeed. While the Oklahoma native was never a household name the respect he earned within the Austin music scene was never ending. Critic Dave Marsh aired a deserved tribute to him on Sirius XM shortly before his passing and three days before Lafave died friends staged a sold out concert in his honor at the Paramount Theater in Austin. Fortunately, their honoree was able to attend. Lafave wrote most of his own material but unlike most singer-songwriters he also recorded a lot of cover versions, many superior to the originals. More than half of the songs on his eighteenth and final album, Peace Town , a twenty song, double CD set he released last year, are covers. A perfect example of Lafave's penchant for remaking a song is Pete Townshend's "Let My Love Open The...

Jimmy Lafave onstage in Phoenixville, PA Have you ever been to a house concert? For the uninitiated they are simply concerts hosted by a homeowner on their private property for their family and friends and sometimes the general public. On Saturday night I attended my first such affair. This rain or shine event was held in the backyard of a typical suburban development home outside Phoenixville, PA on a very pleasant evening. The performance was open to the public and was advertised on the website of Jimmy Lafave, the superb, Austin based, singer-songwriter who was the entertainment for the evening. The $20 per head price included a potluck picnic before the show began. About sixty-five paying guests heard Lafave and his band play for almost two and a half hours. Lafave played acoustic guitar. He was supported by a new four piece band: a drummer, an electric bass player, an excellent, twenty-four year old, electric lead guitarist, Anthony Da Costa , and an even better ha...

Jimmy Lafave is constantly referred to as one of the very best unknown singer-songwriters in the music business. With a stellar twenty year career based out of Austin, TX you would think that an artist with his talent would be more well known. Sadly, he still languishes in near obscurity outside of Texas and his native state of Oklahoma. It took Lafave five years to follow up his 2007 CD, Cimarron Manifesto , an outstanding set of thoughtful songs that prove his reputation is well deserved. It's an album with all killer and no filler so you need to own the entire album, not just individual tracks. In one of the more lengthy articles in the All Music Guide you'll find some of the most glowing praise I've ever read in a music review. The trouble with making an album as outstanding as Cimarron is that it's almost impossible to follow it up and such is the case with Lafave's tenth album, Depending on the Distance . Lafave's ego is not so large that...

Last week Bloggerhythms posted the first part of the top 10 CDs of the decade and counted down numbers 10 through 6. In case you missed it here is part 1 . Today we continue with the final 5. 5. The Corrs - Home (2006) Nothing I'm writing here about The Corrs is new. I've said before the band would have done far better artistically if they had stuck to their roots and played what is obviously their first love, Celtic folk music, but then they probably wouldn't be millionaires. Here, as a tribute to Jean Corr, their late mother, they celebrate both her memory and their heritage. The siblings took the songbook of Jean's band and added their trademark sound to the twelve tracks (most of them in an acoustic setting) to record Home , the best work in their catalog. 4. The Cat Empire - Two Shoes (2005) There isn't another band in the world as unusual as The Cat Empire. Bloggerhythms always gives points for uniqueness, especially if it's well done, and Two Shoe...

A truly great musical artist transcends both generational and class boundaries. Neither is easy to do yet the songs of the late Woody Guthrie have crossed both of those borders. Partial proof lies with the song many people believe to be Guthrie's most famous, "This Land Is Your Land." The song is still loved by Americans everywhere and it was even sung recently at President Obama's multi-generational inaugural events. Secondly, while Guthrie's songs have always been identified with the downtrodden and the working classes they have always resonated with Brahmin classes the world over. Guthrie's music and influence are the impetus for the national tour currently rolling its way across America. The tour, Ribbon Of Highway Endless Skyway: The Woody Guthrie Tribute Show , recently traveled to Pennsylvania, specifically to Bucks County's Sellersville Theater on April 2, 2009, for a fantastic evening of music led by his fellow Oklahoma native, singer-songw...

Last week I wrote that in my younger days I hated it when other artists recorded cover versions of Beatles' songs . Ironically, the opposite holds true with Bob Dylan. I learned to appreciate his music mostly through other artists covering his work. While I've always liked Dylan I could never be counted among his most ardent fans and that is because of one very obvious reason: his voice. Regardless of how easy it is to write the man off as a vocalist there is no denying this giant's talent as a songwriter. His tremendous contributions to both rock and folk music are undeniable. The following list of Dylan covers is not as diverse as the one I compiled for The Beatles and that is because artists like The Byrds, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Austin's Jimmy Lafave (who Dave Marsh said is the best ever interpreter of Dylan songs) all have a special instinctive talent for performing his catalog. Those four appear here multiple times. One song, "All Along...

I learned a long, long, time ago that there is no correlation between how much talent musicians have when compared to the amount of radio airplay they receive and the amount of concert tickets and CDs they sell. Such is the case with veteran rocker and singer-songwriter Jimmy Lafave who, unfortunately, is not very well known beyond his Austin, TX base of operations. I heard great things about Lafave after arriving in Austin so I decided to take in his performance at one of the city's premier music venues, Threadgill's of South Austin, on Saturday, October 27, 2007. Despite his relative anonymity this gentleman of song is highly regarded in the music world. He has even opened for one of his fans, Lucinda Williams. Lafave's music is a combination of folk, country, blues, and rock. He and his band can easily spread their musical wings over any of those genres. His band at Threadgill's included John Inmon on electric guitar and Radoslav Lorkovic on keyboards. T...

Austin is both the capital of The Lone Star State and home to the Longhorns of the University of Texas. It's also a very cosmopolitan town proud of its reputation as a home for popular music of all genres. The official website of The South By Southwest Music and Media Conference states that "Central Austin boasts more original music nightclubs in a concentrated area than any other city in the world." The moderately sized city of over 600,000 people has two hundred venues featuring live music. Austin has more music venues per capita than New York, Los Angeles, Memphis, and Nashville. Both Janis Joplin and Stevie Ray Vaughan (for whom they erected a memorial) cut their musical teeth in this central Texas city's music clubs. The city promotes itself with the copyrighted slogan "The Live Music Capital Of The World." There are many reasons why Austin can be truly considered one of American music's true showcases. Here are a few. Every March the f...