Bloggerhythms

There's a store near me - appropriately named The Archive - that sells used books, comics, magazines, old trading cards, old post cards, records, CDs, DVDs, video games, toys, pop culture memorabilia and more. Are you looking for old Mad Magazines? They have them. Old Atari game cartridges? It's a possiblity. The place looks, feels and smells just like the musty warehouse it is, and I love it. None of The Archive's music is ever sold at collector's prices. Anyone can go in and pay a buck a piece for CDs and even their more in-demand vinyl is nicely priced. I visit there on occasion just to see what I can find. That's where I discovered the genre bending, classic album by Ray Charles, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music ,   originally released by ABC-Paramount Records on a 12-inch LP way back in 1962 and on CD by Rhino Records in 1988 with three bonus tracks. First, a little background for those of you who are unaware of the original ...

Here's an old post from ten years ago. It's been significantly revised and republished today as a new Almost Hits entry along with its original comments. The Supremes roared out of Detroit in 1963 with the classic Motown sound that young people all over America craved. It began their reign as the most successful female group of all time, a crown they held for decades. Unfortunately, The Spice Girls (ugh!) eventually sold more records and stole their throne. Signed by Berry Gordy in 1961, the trio made seven earlier attempts to have a hit, but until "When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes" reached number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 near the end of 1963 - just a few weeks ahead of the British Invasion - they had little success. After that, Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard and Diana Ross were off to the races. Over the next few years, they placed twelve #1 singles on the Hot 100. "Lovelight" had the vibrant accessi...

Regular visitors to Bloggerhythms should be very aware by now that I've always considered most rap/hip-hop distasteful. Only a couple of exceptions come to mind: " My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style " (1991) by Canada's Dream Warriors and much of Gil Scott-Heron 's work that - to me - sounds like rap in an embryonic state. Just because I'm featuring Beastie Boys today doesn't mean my tastes have changed. But, when an artist - any artist - creates work that I believe is worthwhile I like to spread the word. The critically acclaimed trio released two instrumental albums during their career, and neither one is a rap record although you can hear elements of the genre in both of them. The older one,  The In Sound From Way Out!  (1996), is a compilation of previously released tracks. It contains five instrumentals from the Brooklyn outfit's  Check Your Head  LP, six from  Ill Communication  and two b-sides. You'll hear Stax and...

I was hoping to come up with a unique post to honor Sly Stone, but so much has already been written about him that now I'm simply hoping that my words aren't going to be redundant. I'm late to the fair because I wanted my two tributes to Brian Wilson to go online quickly. Even if uniqueness is no longer a possibility I want this post to be - at the very least - worthy of such a talented musician. To this day, there has never been any greatest hits album that I've played more than the one Epic Records issued for Sly & The Family Stone in 1970, and I've been spinning records and CDs for a long, long, long time now. It's almost been a permanent fixture on my ipod. We were all taught in English class that a superlative should never be used with the word "unique" because it means "one-of-a-kind" and something can't be more "one-of-a-kind" than anything else. However, if I ever wanted to add a modifier like ...

I'm sure it's a good bet to say that Rob Bowman's Soulsville U.S.A. is the most comprehensive book ever written about the legendary Stax Record company of Memphis, TN. Many people consider him the ultimate authority on this long defunct label that closed in 1975 due to bankruptcy. Bowman is a Canadian born music writer who completed a PHD in ethnomusicology at the University of Memphis in 1993. In addition to this detailed history of Stax he won a grammy for his lengthy liner notes written for a box set of Stax-Volt singles in 1996. The book tells the tale of how Jim Stewart, a white, country music fan started a record company that in the 1960s became second only to Motown as a label offering rhythm and blues almost exclusively. The company's name came from combining the first two letters of its founder's last name with the first two letters of his sister's last name. She was Estelle Axton, who eventually became a major Sta...

Because CDs possess a greater amount of space for music than other physical formats the people marketing them - be it the artist, the record company, or both - too often load their releases with unnecessary filler. I guess their thinking is, "Hey, we've got a lot of extra space available so there's no longer a need to keep the lesser tracks in a vault somewhere for possible use later. Let's just put it all out there." Because of this, CDs often play too long. Mostly, I don't need to hear an artist's unfinished demos or alternate takes they don't like but hope that we do. Most of the time there's a reason they landed on the cutting room floor. On the other hand, Portrait of a Legend 1951 - 1964 is an astounding thirty song compilation spanning Sam Cooke's entire career. The CD is over seventy-nine minutes long - meaning almost every available byte is used - and because all of the songs are worthy and wonderfull...

I've become addicted to  Tom Petty's Buried Treasure , found at SiriusXM channel 711. It's a continually running, hour long show where Petty mostly played obscure records from his own collection. At one time the program was a weekly feature on the satellite radio service's Deep Tracks channel. Later, all 250-plus episodes were spun off onto their own station. Petty featured a lot of rock and roll, rhythm & blues and straight ahead blues from the 50s, 60s and 70s, but the rocking DJ with a great sense of humor didn't hesitate to play newer stuff - like The White Stripes and Kings of Leon - if he was so moved. The late star has played a lot of very old music that is new to me. A typical show may feature Sonny Boy Williamson, Elmore James, The McCoys, The Zombies, The Animals, Chuck Berry, Ann Peebles, Canned Heat, Paul Revere and The Raiders, Taj Mahal, Jimi Hendrix, The Rascals, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Shangri-La...

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...

The Honeydrippers, Volume One sounds nothing like Led Zeppelin, but Robert Plant said he loved working on this five-song EP more than any other music he ever recorded. The Honeydrippers were organized after the demise of Zeppelin to fulfill Plant's desire to work in a band with a heavy rhythm and blues foundation, so he became involved with an already existing R&B covers band. Then he brought in some famous friends to help out, including Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. Paul Shaffer from David Letterman's band added piano. Nile Rodgers of Chic played guitar and served as co-producer. Volume One reached #5 on the American Billboard 200 albums chart. A cover of "Sea Of Love" from the EP went to #3 on the Hot 100, but the highlight of the sessions was a #25 hit, "Rockin' At Midnight," a remake of "Good Rocking Tonight," an old song originally released by composer Roy Brown in 1947. Some music historians considered this to b...

The late R&B singer Al Wilson (1939 - 2008) had the same name as a hated car salesman who built his new Pontiac dealership on our town's beloved little league baseball fields despite organized protests from neighbors around the same time the star released a unique single called "The Snake." I wanted to hate the record but I couldn't, and I was one of the people who helped send it to #27 on the Hot 100 in the summer of 1968. The great sixties vocalist, Johnny Rivers, produced the record and released it on his own Soul City label. Wilson - who reminds me of Lou Rawls - is better known for "Show and Tell," his #1 hit from 1973. Overall, he sent four singles into the top forty. The song's storyline is very similar to one of Aesop's ancient fables, The Farmer and The Viper . This fable tells us that even if you're kind to someone who is inherently evil they will eventu...

This is a word-for-word rerun of a post originally published here on September 8, 2007. It's definitely worth running again. I'm going to assume you have never heard of Sterling Harrison. Until a few weeks ago neither had I. Harrison was a rhythm & blues singer working out of Los Angeles who had a long career performing in low rent bars and nightclubs for the last couple of decades. Over the course of fifty years Harrison made only a handful of records. The first was recorded in 1955 -  at age fourteen - before John Lennon met Paul McCartney and before Elvis Presley became a star.  The soul man's few opportunities to put his voice on vinyl for posterity never produced anything worthwhile yet many who saw his live act swore Harrison's showmanship and vocal skills made him the greatest hidden treasure rhythm & blues ever produced. In the 60s, Harrison opened for Sam Cooke, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Jackie Wilson, and Otis Redding. While he was performing i...

I've never seen the 1991 Irish film, The Commitments , but curiosity got the best of me when I discovered the soundtrack on CD for $2 at a local church fair. After only one listen it became clear that I've missed out on some great music that stands on its own even without seeing the movie. There is nothing remotely Celtic about the enthusiastically performed fourteen songs on this disc that make a strong case that this small, music loving, island nation has a powerful affection for American R&B. The movie is about that love affair and how a bunch of young, working class Dubliners try to hit the big time simply by playing the music they love best. The group's most talented lead singer is clearly Andrew Strong whose career took off after the flick became a hit. He has toured with Elton John, The Rolling Stones, Prince, and Lenny Kravitz and released several best-selling albums. Strong possesses a powerful voice, and here he turns in two Wil...

This CD's title couldn't be clearer. Rhino's  The Very Best of Booker T. & The MG's  has all of the hits and a few other gems released by Stax's famous house band that they recorded under their own name. There are many MGs compilations out there in musicland but this single CD with sixteen tracks is the one to get if you don't need a multi-disc collection. It has superlative sound and two non-LP singles - "Booker-Loo" and "Slum Baby," - that don't even appear on Fantasy Records' three disc set. The Very Best of Booker T. & The MG's covers the years 1962 to 1971, and as the back jewel box insert says, only "original singles masters were used on this collection." The CD includes detailed liner notes with a history of the quartet. For each track you'll learn who played what, the release date and chart positions. You really can't ask for more. The big hits included here are...

Let's begin this post with a little history lesson about Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, a duo who are hardly household names even though they've been a consequential part of the American popular music scene since the 1960s. They'll never be deified by the masses like Taylor Swift. Wallace Daniel Pennington is a singer, a renowned composer, and a record producer. He has released only a handful of albums under his own name, and he is heavily associated with FAME Recording Studios  in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Penn has co-written many hits including "Dark End of the Street" for James Carr (#10 R&B, #77 Hot 100) and "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" (first recorded by Aretha Franklin) with Chips Moman and "Cry Like a Baby" (#2 on the Hot 100 for The Box Tops), "Sweet Inspiration" (#18 for The Sweet Inspirations), and "I'm Your Puppet" (#6 for James and Bobby Purify) with Oldham. He also produ...

The R & B world seems to produce all-star level talent who should be legends but instead perform for many years - often decades - in undeserved obscurity. Many never found an audience even among the genre's own fans. Such is the case with hard luck Arthur Alexander who died in 1993 before Lonely Just Like Me could make him a star. Alexander's resume contained a few minor hit records in the early 60s but he is mostly known for one song. Beatles fans will surely recognize him as the composer of "Anna" a song they covered on their very first album, Please Please Me , all the way back in 1963 before America and their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show . Lesser known is "Soldier Of Love" a Beatles cover that only appears on their  Live At The BBC double set. The Rolling Stones released "You Better Move On" as part of  their 1964 eponymous EP and "Sally Sue Brown" was reworked by Bob Dylan for his 1988 album, Down In Th...

Along with my life-long obsession with The Beatles and my love of Southern California's Laurel Canyon sound Motown always possessed a big chunk of my heart during their powerhouse years of the 1960s. The Detroit hit factory's biggest act was The Supremes, and in November 1965 Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, and Florence Ballard earned the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for the sixth time with "I Hear A Symphony." On "Symphony" The Funk Brothers and composers Holland-Dozier-Holland took Motown productions to a whole new level. It's a good thing they did because Motown President, Berry Gordy, was angry that the trio's previous single, "Nothing But Heartaches" broke their streak of five consecutive chart toppers. It failed to reach the top ten, peaking only at #11. Gordy then issued this directive, " We will release nothing less than Top Ten product on any artist; and because the Supremes' world-...

When the final Ray Charles album, Genius Loves Company,  was released the duets album by Frank Sinatra immediately came to mind, and because I was disappointed with his effort I wasn't all that excited about Charles's new album. These kind of projects always seemed like gimmicks to me, especially when I learned that on Sinatra's album the guest vocalists were not in the studio with him when they added their voices to a song. It was obvious why the results were stilted and lacked emotion.  Genius Loves Company is very different. Apparently, duetting with Charles live in the studio was quite a privilege so each guest poured their hearts and souls into every note they shared with him. Michael McDonald possesses a voice I have never cared for but he delivered a surprisingly restrained performance on "Hey Girl." Together, B.B. King and his long-time girlfriend, Lucille, helped out on the appropriately bluesy "Sinners Prayer." Charles a...

Barrence Whitfield and The Savages are not for everyone. Whitfield is an R&B screamer who fronted an all white band from Boston that played a wild mix of 50s rock and soul. It helps if you're a fan of singers like Little Richard and Wilson Pickett, but even then you may find Whitfield too much to handle. Originally issued in 1984 as a thirteen song LP that clocked in at under a half hour - then re-released in 2010 with ten additional tracks - this eponymous debut was a sensation in New England's largest city but failed to gain traction anywhere else in America.  Believe it or not, Whitfield was born with the name Barry White, but his music bares no resemblance to the late, R&B star - not even close. Unlike that romatic balladeer, Whitfield's vocals never smolder. He's constantly on fire and sings with wild abandon. Guitarist Peter Greenberg and sax player Steve LaGrega also provided explosive performances. The original group was ...

One-hit-wonder Barrett Strong passed away on January 29, 2023 at age 81, so today we'll honor him and his song "Money (That's What I Want)." "Money" has the distinction of being the first hit Berry Gordy released from his now iconic Motown recording studio in Detroit. It was originally issued on Tamla, Gordy's first label. "Money" reached #23 on the Hot 100 and #2 on the R&B chart. It sold 1,000,000 copies and earned a gold record. The song didn't become a hit nationally until it was leased to another fledgling label, Anna Records , led by Gordy's two sisters. It was their only significant hit before the label was absorbed by their brother's company. Gordy's production sounds earthier and less polished than most of his later Motown songs we've come to know and love, but it's the record that helped the company become one of the dominant forces of pop music in the sixties. It brought in a lot o...

It may not be as worn out as many other Christmas classics heard on the radio every holiday season, but Stevie Wonder's "Someday at Christmas" has still become a much loved standard.  Wonder's first Christmas song is not a party record. Motown released the single in November 1966, probably in response to the tumultuous times America was living through that winter just a few months before the Summer of Love. Racial tensions were at a high point while the war in Vietnam was raging and becoming the biggest issue of division between hawks and doves, young and old. Despite the factional tensions, the record takes a positive tone that all poverty, war and hate will be overcome in the future, even if it doesn't happen in our lifetime. Both subjects are addressed in the opening stanza. " Someday at Christmas, men won't be boys,  Playing with bombs like kids play with toys,  One warm December our hearts will see,  A world where men are free." "Someday at...