What Are You Listening To?

[Dennie]

Abbey Road -- Remastered CD

The Beatles

1969/2009 EMI Records

Amazon.com essential recording

The Beatles' last days as a band were as productive as any major pop phenomenon that was about to split. After recording the ragged-but-right Let It Be, the group held on for this ambitious effort, an album that was to become their best-selling. Though all four contribute to the first side's writing, John Lennon's hard-rocking, "Come Together" and "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" make the strongest impression. A series of song fragments edited together in suite form dominates side two; its portentous, touching, official close ("Golden Slumbers"/"Carry That Weight"/"The End") is nicely undercut, in typical Beatles fashion, by Paul McCartney's cheeky "Her Majesty," which follows. --Rickey Wright

1. Come Together
2. Something
3. Maxwell's Silver Hammer
4. Oh! Darling
5. Octopus's Garden
6. I Want You (She's So Heavy)
7. Here Comes The Sun
8. Because
9. You Never Give Me Your Money
10. Sun King
11. Mean Mr. Mustard
12. Polythene Pam
13. She Came In Through The Bathroom Window
14. Golden Slumbers
15. Carry That Weight
16. The End
17. Her Majesty
18. Abbey Road Documentary

 

[heeman]

Luck Of The Draw -- CD

Bonnie Raitt

1991 Capitol Records

Amazon.com

As its title makes clear, the 1991 sequel to Bonnie Raitt's platinum breakthrough on Nick Of Time takes nothing for granted. Raitt had achieved sobriety, renewed commercial focus, and then the payday that the prior album yielded, but Luck Of The Draw mirrors an even fiercer determination to make music as if her life depended on it. Again teamed with producer Don Was, Raitt surpasses herself with her best album to date: her wonderfully lush, blues-rimmed voice and sinuous slide guitar wrap themselves around a dozen potent songs culled from a typically shrewd mix of writers including Paul Brady, John Hiatt, Bonnie Hayes, Shirley Eikhard, and Billy Vera, and Raitt herself turns in her most generous batch of originals yet. Sympathetic guests include Brady and Delbert McClinton on harmony vocals, Richard Thompson on guitar, and Heartbreaker Benmont Tench on organ, in a program including the sassy "Something to Talk About," the sultry "Slow Ride," a soaring "Not the Only One," and the heartbreaking "I Can't Make You Love Me." This isn't luck, it's artistry. --Sam Sutherland

1. Something To Talk About
2. Good Man Good Woman
3. I Can't Make You Love Me
4. Tangled And Dark
5. Come To Me
6. No Business
7. One Part Be My Lover
8. Not The Only One
9. Papa Come Quick (Jody And Chico)
10. Slow Ride
11. Luck Of The Draw
12. All At Once

Hum..............something is going on..............we wore this one out also!! :banana-dance: :banana-dance: :banana-dance:

 

[No-L]

Heeman got me hooked.

 

[No-L]

 

[Dennie]

That's The Way Of The World -- CD

Earth, Wind & Fire

1975/1990 Columbia Records

The Right Way,
January 29, 2001
By Thomas Magnum
This review is from: That's the Way of the World (Audio CD)

That's The Way Of The World was the soundtrack to film that featured a young Harvey Keitel as a record producer and Earth, Wind & Fire as a band with big potential. The band is dropped in favor of what record company executives feel was more commercial group and they gone on to major success. The film mirrored EWF themselves as the album propelled them to the top of the charts. After several years of moderate success despite making excellent records, this soundtrack album showed all the band's talents and mixing of jazz, soul, funk and positive themes. "Shining Star" opens the album with a pumping beat that set it up to the number one position of the charts. The title track starts off with a slow, smooth beat and then erupts into a harmony-fueled explosion. "All about Love" has some jazzy elements while "Africano" explores some world rhythms. "Yearnin', Learnin'" is an underrated song in their catalog and "Reasons" is a powerful ballad. That's The Way Of The World tanked at the box office and was quickly forgotten, but the album hit number on the charts and made EWF superstars.

Side one
No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. "Shining Star" Philip Bailey, Larry Dunn, Maurice White 2:50
2. "That's the Way of the World" Charles Stepney, Maurice White, Verdine White 5:45
3. "Happy Feelin'" Verdine White, Philip Bailey, Larry Dunn, Maurice White, Al McKay 3:35
4. "All About Love" Larry Dunn, Maurice White 6:35
Side two
No. Title Writer(s) Length
5. "Yearnin' Learnin'" Philip Bailey, Charles Stepney, Maurice White 3:39
6. "Reasons" Philip Bailey, Charles Stepney, Maurice White 4:59
7. "Africano" Larry Dunn, Maurice White 5:09
8. "See the Light" Louise Anglin, Philip Bailey, Larry Dunn 6:18

 

[No-L]

 

[Dennie]

The Fillmore Concerts -- 2 CD Box Set

The Allman Brothers Band

1971/1992 Polygram Records

For those who want MORE Fillmore, May 22, 2002
By Muddy Moe (Plano, TX United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Fillmore Concerts (Audio CD)
Let me try to address some stuff not emphasized in other reviews:

1) Yeah, it lives up to the hype. Unless you don't like jam songs or blues at all, you should love it. 90% of blues rock bores me silly and I still love this. It's exceptional music and is rightfully placed in Amazon's "Essential" camp.

2) Do you need the Fillmore Concerts over the shorter/cheaper Fillmore East? Maybe. It's chief advantage is it's longer. Also, the mix is more balanced, which bothers some because the guitars are less prominent. I prefer it. The rhythm section, especially Berry Oakley, is too often overlooked in reviews of this album and they are just as important as the guitar players to the music. More casual fans may prefer the shorter/cheaper "Fillmore East" album, which contains the choicest cuts.

3) Two tracks, "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" and "You Don't Love Me" are pieced together digitally from multiple takes. The result is very pleasing music indeed, but some may be bothered by this digital manipulation of a so called "live" song. It's still "live," in a certain sense, but manipulated to include the producer's best picks from both takes. I should point out MOST (literally) live albums contain some studio manipulation. The original Fillmore East contained whole tracks; not digitally pieced together. I'll let you decide if this bothers you or not. I cannot hear any splicing. They did a good job blending the takes but I would have preferred whole takes.

4) If you don't have any Allman Brother's Band (ABB) albums, start with this or Fillmore East (the shorter/cheaper version). If you don't like this, you won't like ABB at all. But, don't worry . . . you will like it.

The Fillmore Concerts

Disc 1
1. Statesboro Blues (McTell) - 4:15
2. Trouble No More (Waters) - 3:46
3. Don't Keep Me Wonderin' (Allman) - 3:20
4. In Memory of Elizabeth Reed (Betts) - 12:59
5. One Way Out (James / Schorn / Williamson) - 4:55
6. Done Somebody Wrong (James / Levy / Lewis) - 4:11
7. Stormy Monday (Walker) - 10:19
8. You Don't Love Me (Cobbs) - 19:24

Disc 2
1. Hot 'Lanta (Allman / Allman / Betts / Johanson / Oakley / Trucks) - 5:11
2. Whipping Post (Allman) - 22:37
3. Mountain Jam (Duane Allman / Gregg Allman /
Betts / Donovan / Johanson / Oakley / Trucks) - 33:47
4. Drunken Hearted Boy (Bishop) - 7:33

 

[heeman]

1. Bastille Day
2. I Think I'm Going Bald
3. Lakeside Park
4. The Necromancer: I. Into The Darkness/II. Under The Shadows/III. Return Of Prince
5. The Fountain Of Lamneth: I. In The Valley/II. Didacts And Narpets/III. No One At The Bridge/...

 

[Botch]

That's The Way Of The World -- CD

Earth, Wind & Fire

The title cut from this magnificent disk has one of the best intros ever written/recorded!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsAaLNMtb1A[/youtube]

:music-listening: :music-listening: :music-listening: :music-listening: :music-listening:

 

[Dennie]

Kill To Get Crimson CD

Mark Knopfler

2007 Warner Bros. Records

Amazon.com

Three decades after Dire Straits broke onto the scene with their remarkable debut, Mark Knopfler remains an iconic figure in popular music, his graceful guitar playing equaled only by his genial baritone and a novelist's ability to create distinct characters and themes in his songs. His fifth solo album since he pulled the plug on the band in 1995, Crimson reflects on a torrent of narratives, from the gracefully aging spouse in the flute-powered ballad "The Scaffolder's Wife" to the valiant down-and-outer in the Scottish folk song "Heart Full of Holes." Employing accordions, fiddles, and horns as majestic accompaniment, Knopfler drifts into the Celtic-tinged melodies of his past, explicitly in the whiskey-soaked singalong "Secondary Waltz," the busker's saga "Madame Geneva's," and "The Fish and the Bird," with its vagabond pensiveness. Clocking in at just under an hour, the album--without any page-turning epic--plays instead like an anthology of written works, every personification crisp in definition, every story exquisitely told. --Scott Holter

1. "True Love Will Never Fade" – 4:21
2. "The Scaffolder's Wife" – 3:52
3. "The Fizzy and the Still" – 4:07
4. "Heart Full of Holes" – 6:36
5. "We Can Get Wild" – 4:17
6. "Secondary Waltz" – 3:43
7. "Punish the Monkey" – 4:36
8. "Let It All Go" – 5:17
9. "Behind With the Rent" – 4:46
10. "The Fish and the Bird" – 3:45
11. "Madame Geneva's" – 3:59
12. "In the Sky" – 7:29

 

[Zing]

 

[Dennie]

Further In -- CD

Greg Brown

1996 Red House Records

Greg Brown plays a unique brand of folk, with an acoustic guitar backed by slide and electric guitars, violin and mandolin. His influences run from blues to jazz and rock, and his songwriting is sharp and detailed. On FURTHER IN, he softens his biting irony and cynicism; he hasn't gone stickily sentimental, but he is at his most romantic and optimistic here. While part of Brown's talent is for revealing the magic in ordinary situations, he is also a master at moving between the universal and the deeply personal, as in "Where is Maria": "Our foolish government/Tries to save face/While the whole world struggles/To become one bland place/But where is Maria?"

Track Listing
1. Small Dark Movie
2. Think About You
3. Two Little Feet
4. Hey Baby Hey
5. China
6. Where Is Maria
7. If You Don't Get It at Home
8. You Can Always Come to Me
9. Someday When We're Both Alone
10. Not High
11. Further In
12. If I Ever Do See You Again

 

[Dennie]

Today's work truck music....

Sleep Through The Static -- CD

Jack Johnson

2008 Brushfire Records

Soothing and Mature, July 26, 2010
By Joseph Pellerin (Cedar Rapids, IA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This review is from: Sleep Through The Static (Audio CD)

It seems like every time I listen to something by Jack Johnson my appreciation for his music grows, and this album just deepens that respect. I first heard Johnson on the Curious George soundtrack, and was quite impressed with his ability to convey positive themes with great music that were enjoyable for children, and deep and complex enough for adults. There is a reputation that Jack Johnson has acquired - perhaps justifiably - as being light, poppy music, but as my time listening to him has increased I think I prefer to think about his music as having the smooth maturity that comes with the wisdom of living. His music, quite simply, offers something hopeful - a balm for the day-to-day trials that all of us share.

All tracks composed by Jack Johnson, except where noted.

"All at Once" – 3:38
"Sleep Through the Static" – 3:43
"Hope" (Jack Johnson, Zach Rogue) – 3:42
"Angel" – 2:02
"Enemy" – 3:48
"If I Had Eyes" – 3:59
"Same Girl" – 2:10
"What You Thought You Need" – 5:27
"Adrift" – 3:56
"Go On " – 4:35
"They Do, They Don't" – 4:10
"While We Wait" – 1:26
"Monsoon" (Jack Johnson, Merlo Podlewski) – 4:17
"Losing Keys" – 4:28

 

[heeman]

Heeman got me hooked.

I love Pat Travers (music)............ :happy-smileygiantred:

 

[heeman]

"Born With a Broken Heart" (Shepherd/Tate) – 5:56
"Déjà Voodoo" (Selby/Shepherd/Sillers) – 6:09
"Aberdeen" (White) – 4:15
"Shame, Shame, Shame" (Nadeau/Shepherd) – 6:05
"One Foot on the Path" (Selby/Shepherd) – 3:49
"Everybody Gets the Blues" (Michael) – 5:58
"While We Cry" (live) (Shepherd) – 6:17
"I'm Leaving You (Commit a Crime)" (Howlin' Wolf) – 4:16
"(Let Me Up) I've Had Enough" (Nadeau/Selby/Shepherd) – 2:43
"Riverside" (Bowe) – 3:46
"What's Goin' Down" (Nadeau/Shepherd) – 5:30
"Ledbetter Heights " (Shepherd) – 6:11

This is Kenny's Debut Album......... :music-rockout: :music-rockout:

 

[Dennie]

A Musical Romance -- Remastered CD

Billie Holiday & Lester Young

2002 Verve Records

Recorded in 1938, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1958.

Romeo and Juliet...Eloise and Abelard...Tracy and Hepburn. These are among history's great romantic relationships, but perhaps the deepest of all romances - in all of American music, at any rate - was the one that was carried on in the recording studio between Billie Holiday (1915-1959) and Lester Young (1910-1959). "Lady Day" and "The President" (they gave one another their nicknames) made a series of "sides," as they were called in those days, that to this day absolutely define love in tune. She was - and is - the greatest of all jazz vocalists. His tenor saxophone style delivered the real Birth of the Cool. Together, they sang and played with an unparalleled sense of intimacy, warmth, and sensuous, behind-the-beat swing, whether the melody was pure gold (like "The Man I Love," "Time On My Hands") or closer to brass ("When You're Smiling," "Back In Your Own Backyard"). Originally produced by the redoubtable John Hammond, and intended first and foremost for jukeboxes, these sixteen seminal performances have been culled from the Grammy-winning 10-CD boxed set Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia, 1933-1944. They also feature vital contributions from, among others, pianist-arranger Teddy Wilson, who served as leader on many of Holiday's record dates, Swing era superstar clarinetist Benny Goodman, ace trumpeter Buck Clayton (Young's cohort from Count Basie's definitive swing band), the sublime Ellingtonian alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, and Roy Eldridge, little giant of the trumpet. But Lady Day and Pres, forever dancing in the dark, make this a musical romance that will never die. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

1. The Man I Love
2. This Year's Kisses
3. Mean to Me
4. Back in Your Own Backyard
5. I'll Never Be the Same
6. Me, Myself and I
7. Time on My Hands
8. Who Wants Love?
9. I Must Have That Man
10. Foolin' Myself
11. When You're Smiling
12. A Sailboat in the Moonlight
13. He's Funny That Way
14. Laughing at Life
15. Without Your Love
16. Fine and Mellow

 

[Dennie]

Classic Tenors -- Remastered CD

Coleman Hawkins - Lester Young

1989 Columbia Special Products

Three Sessions From 1943 Featuring the Hawk and Pres November 27, 2011
By karlojazz
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am in total agreement with the other reviewer that this is an excellent CD, but one need not avoid it thinking that it's too expensive. Very good used CDs can be purchased at a fairly low price through Amazon.com. Fans of both Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young will be pleased with these recordings from December 1943. What makes many of the selections very special is the high quality of the musicians in the groups playing behind the two stars. Some detailed information about the tracks and the personnel might be helpful to potential listeners:

December 23, 1943:

Crazy Rhythm
Get Happy
Sweet Lorraine
The Man I Love

Personnel: Coleman Hawkins, tenor sax, Eddie Heywood, piano, Oscar Pettiford, bass, and Shelly Manne, drums

December 8, 1943:

Voodte
Hawkins' Barrel House
How Deep is the Ocean?
Stumpy

Personnel: Coleman Hawkins, tenor sax, Bill Coleman, trumpet, Andy Fitzgerald, clarinet, Ellis Larkins, piano, Al Casey, guitar, Oscar Pettiford, bass, and Shelly Manne, drums

December 21, 1943:

I Got Rhythm
I'm Fer It Too
Linger Awhile
Hello Babe

Personnel: Lester Young, tenor sax, Bill Coleman, trumpet, Dickie Wells, trombone, Ellis Larkins, piano, Freddie Greene, guitar, Al Hall, bass, and Jo Jones, drums

Most of these tunes are rather well-known standards, but several were composed by the players themselves and should be noted. Hawkins' three contributions are Voodte, Stumpy, and Hawkins' Barrel House. Dickie Wells wrote Hello Babe and I'm Fer It Too.

There are many highlights throughout these dozen tracks, but for this reviewer several bear mentioning here: the piano and bass introductions to The Man I Love by Heywood and Pettiford are superb as are the trumpet and trombone solos on I'm Fer It Too by Coleman and Wells. And the rollicking Hawkins' Barrel House features some exciting passages by Fitzgerald on clarinet and by Coleman again on trumpet.

This is an excellent collection of songs played by two masters of the tenor sax and supported by three groups full of first-rate sidemen. Fans of both Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young should add this CD to their collection. Very highly recommended.

1. The Man I Love
2. Sweet Lorraine
3. Get Happy
4. Crazy Rhythm
5. How Deep Is The Ocean?
6. Voodte
7. Hello Babe
8. Linger Awhile
9. I Got Rhythm
10. I'm Fer It Too
11. Hawkins' Barrel House
12. Stumpy

 

[Rope]

Rope

 

[heeman]

1. Dodo
2. So Damn Lucky
3. Gravedigger
4. Some Devil
5. Grey Blue Eyes
6. Trouble
7. Save Me
8. Stay Or Leave
9. An' Another Thing
10. Oh
11. Baby
12. Up And Away
13. Too High
14. Gravedigger (acoustic)

:banana-dance: :banana-rock: :banana-rock: :banana-dance:

 

[Dennie]

Kiss My Axe -- CD

The Al Di Meola Project

1991 Tomato Records

One of the best guitarists on the planet!, January 6, 2007
By John Keating - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)
This review is from: Kiss My Axe (Audio CD)

While I too think Elegant Gypsy is Al's finest moment, his other work has always been a musical pleasure. His Winter Nights is simply superb. Electric Rendezvous short but sweet! Casino is as close to Gypsy as can be. Kiss My Axe is also worth the money and your time to give it a listen. If you like a variety of styles intermingled - here's the happy meal! Blazing guitar, gut wrenching bass on some of the tunes. Light and airy on others.

In following Mr. Dimeola's career, there seems to be a maturity in his work-While Gypsy is a simply a marvel in its blazing guitar work - each piece is technical bliss and speed! The works thereafter have been all about change -evolution if you will. The man still has the chops, but it's tempered and controlled. Youth to experience is the best analogy I can make here. It is obvious that he wants to stretch his music in other styles - not specifically jazz fusion.

I will continue to purchase his work simply because it has never failed to entertain me. Mr. Dimeola is simply one of the best of the best. One other reviewer wrote something to the effect "surely the Master knows more than his admirers!" I think there is a grain of truth in that remark. Each work that this man has done has been a step in his musical journey-I, for one, am glad he's allowed me the opportunity to walk with him along the way.