What Are You Listening To?

[Dennie]

I just learned that Mr. Moody died two days ago. RIP...

Wow! Thanks for the info. He will be missed!

RIP!


Dennie

 

[Dennie]

25 Favorite Cowboy Songs

The Sons of the Pioneers

Judging from the wear on the cover around both the disc diameter and the label, this one's been played a few times! :music-listening:

And the Marvin Gay disc sounds mahvelous! :handgestures-thumbup: :handgestures-thumbup: :handgestures-thumbup:

Yeah, it has some ware to it and understandably so. It is a treasure trove of great "old" C&W songs.

A very enjoyable listen!

"Mahvelous"! :eusa-clap: LOL I thought you might say MARVelous!


Dennie

 

[PaulyT]

I generally despise Christmas music and only let anyone in my house play it on Christmas day. And only for a little while. BUt I did sorta compromise today while putting up the tree:

 

[Dennie]

Pauly, what can I say, you're a giver!! :eusa-clap:

Last Train From Overbrook

James Moody

1959 Argo Records

"Moody kicked his drinking problem in 1958, after he checked himself into Overbrook Hospital in Cedar Grove, N.J. Upon being released, he recorded a landmark 1959 album, "Last Train From Overbrook.""

Johnny Pate, Born in Chicago in 1923, Pate's illustrious career has spanned seven decades. Although renowned as a composer/arranger and conductor, one must not forget he was also an accomplished bassist. One of the great jazz records to come out of this period is James Moody's "Last Train from Overbrook" (1958). Johnny played bass and tuba and also arranged the album.

What's new?
There she goes
Don't worry 'bout me
The moody one
Yvonne
Last train from Overbrook
All the things you are
Tico-Tico
Brother Yusef
Why don't you?

 

[Dennie]

Magic Man

Herb Alpert

1981 A&M Records

Magic Man continues in the plesant vibe that Beyond introduced. There are a few standout tracks here, including the lightly funky title track, a mechanized "Besame Mucho", a remake of "You Smile--The Song Begins" and "Manhattan Melody". There's also the expected vocal contribution, "I Get It From You". Again, the musicians are another studio who's who, including members of the rock group Toto, pop music songsmith David Foster, and old friend Julius Wechter in his usual vibes and marimba seat.

Track listing:

1. Magic Man (Herb Alpert, Michael Stokes, Melvin Ragin)

2. Manhattan Melody (Herb Alpert, Michael Stokes, Michel Colombier)

3. I Get It From You (Richard Page, Steven George, John Lang)

4. Secret Garden (Herb Alpert)

5. Besame Mucho (Consuelo Velazquez)

6. This One's For Me (Richard Kerr)

7. Fantasy Island (Herb Alpert)

8. You Smile--The Song Begins (Herb Alpert)

 

[Botch]

Picked this up used at Amazon, and I just realized it's signed by the band. :banana-dance: :happy-smileygiantred:

 

[Dennie]

Miles of Aisles -- 2 LP Set

Joni Mitchell and The L.A. Express

1974 Asylum Records

1974 Asylum Records Miles of Aisles is a 1974 double live album by Joni Mitchell backed by the L.A. Express, recorded on the Court and Spark tour. It reached #2 on the charts and became one of her biggest-selling records.

Four years after "Big Yellow Taxi" stalled at #67 on the charts in its original studio version, the live version heard on Miles of Aisles was released as a single and reached #24 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, becoming Mitchell's fourth top 40 hit and continuing her commercial hot streak at the time.

1. "You Turn Me on I'm a Radio" – 4:09
2. "Big Yellow Taxi" – 3:09
3. "Rainy Night House" – 4:04
4. "Woodstock" – 4:29
5. "Cactus Tree" – 5:01
6. "Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire" – 5:23
7. "Woman of Heart and Mind" – 3:40
8. "A Case of You" – 4:42
9. "Blue" – 2:49
10. "The Circle Game" – 6:29
11. "People's Parties" – 2:42
12. "All I Want" – 3:21
13. "Real Good for Free" – 4:27
14. "Both Sides Now" – 4:14
15. "Carey" – 3:30
16. "The Last Time I Saw Richard" – 3:35
17. "Jericho" – 3:26
18. "Love or Money" – 4:50

(The running times are as listed on the CD, which left out a lot of the onstage banter. The Double-LP has a length of 78 min.)

 

[Dennie]

Picked this up used at Amazon, and I just realized it's signed by the band. :banana-dance: :happy-smileygiantred:

No, that was my Cousin, she always signs CD's so people think they're getting a "signed" copy. She makes a killing selling signed CD's!!! :shhh:



I'm Joking!!! :text-lol:

Congrats on the Bonus!!! :handgestures-thumbup:


Dennie

 

[Botch]

Performance is excellent (my favorite period of Ferry's career), sound is great; PQ is pretty garish, and in 4:3. Still, a great concert! :handgestures-thumbup:

 

[topper]

***

 

[Dennie]

One of my favorite Herb Alpert Albums.........

Midnight Sun -- CD -- :text-bravo: :text-bravo:

Herb Alpert

1992 A&M Records

Midnight Sun is an album of late-night jazz standards recorded by Herb Alpert. This was Alpert's final release of newly recorded music for A&M Records in 1992. It would also mark the 30th anniversary of A&M Records.

Featured tracks include "Friends" (an original composition featuring a duet with the late Sax legend Stan Getz recorded in 1990), as well as an orchestral arrangement of the hit "A Taste Of Honey". Alpert offers two vocal efforts, "Someone To Watch Over Me", and a new version of "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face". The album closes with "Smile", co-written by Charlie Chaplin, whose legendary lot became the home of the A&M Studios back in 1966.

1. Midnight Sun (Lionel Hampton, Sonny Burke, Johnny Mercer) 6:05
2. All The Things You Are (Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern) 3:53
3. Someone To Watch Over Me (George & Ira Gershwin) 5:16
4. In The Wee Small Hours (Bob Hilliard, David Mann) 5:53
5. Friends (Eddie Del Barrio, Herb Alpert) 4:21
6. A Taste Of Honey (Bobby Scott, Rick Marlow) 6:52
7. Mona Lisa (Jay Livingston, Ray Evans) 5:46
8. I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face (Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe) 5:07
9. Silent Tears And Roses (Eddie Del Barrio) 3:50
10. Smile (Charlie Chaplin, John Terner, Geoffrey Parsons) 4:13

 

[Dennie]

Christmas Caravan -- CD :handgestures-thumbup: :handgestures-thumbup:

Squirrel Nut Zippers

1998 Mammoth Records

Review

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Since they were riding high on the strength of Hot, the Squirrel Nut Zippers convinced Mammoth to release a holiday album, Christmas Caravan, just months after they delivered Perennial Favorites, their follow-up to Hot. It was an unconventional move, but the Zippers were never about convention, and, appropriately, Christmas Caravan isn't a conventional holiday record. Relying heavily on original material, the crew has created the Christmas equivalent of one of their studio releases -- an album that revives swing and hot jazz, tweaking it a little bit with ironic humor yet remaining reverential of the music's heritage. If anything, they take fewer liberties on Christmas Caravan than before -- there aren't as many jokes and the music sounds surprisingly restrained at places. Still, the Zippers know how to have a good time, and that's exactly what Christmas Caravan does, thanks to their enthusiastic performances, strong songwriting and sharp covers ("Winter Weather," "Sleigh Ride").

1 Winter Weather
2 Indian Giver
3 A Johnny Ace Christmas
4 My Evergreen
5 Sleigh Ride
6 I'm Coming Home for Christmas
7 Carolina Christmas
8 Gift of the Magi
9 Hot Christmas
10 Hanging Up My Stockings

 

[Dennie]

Acoustic Christmas -- CD :handgestures-thumbup: :handgestures-thumbup:

Spirited Holiday Instrumentals

1994 Regency Entertainment
Family's Favorite Christmas Music, December 15, 2007
By
Carol B. Alberti (Chesterton, Indiana USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)


This review is from: Acoustic Christmas: Spirited Holiday Instrumentals (Audio CD)

This CD has become the favorite Christmas music of my family of five, including two twenty-somethings and one teenager. Acoustic Christmas pairs traditional songs with a little swing; happy holiday listening.

Tracks:

Deck the Halls

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

Angels We Have Heard on High

Up on the Housetop

Away in a Manger

Here We Are a-Caroling

O Christmas Tree

Bring a Torch Jeannette Isabella

Over the River and Through the Woods.

 

[Dennie]

Have Yourself A Tractors Christmas -- CD :handgestures-thumbup: :handgestures-thumbup:

The Tractors

1995 Arista Records

Great fun! Best original Xmas album we've heard in awhile, October 23, 2003
By
Scott MacGillivray (Massachusetts, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Have Yourself a Tractors Christmas (Audio CD)

My wife and I hadn't heard of The Tractors when we came across this album, but some of the song titles looked promising so we took a chance. I'm pleased to report that the band came through with flying colors.

Some of these tracks suggest a comedy/novelty treatment a la Dr. Demento, but don't be fooled... the sound is really rockin' country-and-western, complete with honky-tonk piano and hard-driving drums. Plenty of good stuff here, and almost all of it original, a real achievement among the usual Christmas reissues and revivals. The blue ribbon goes to "Santa Claus Is Comin' (in a Boogie Woogie Choo Choo Train)," an infectious tune that we think you'll play again and again. The close runner-up is The Tractors' remake of Buck Owens's "Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy," a newer take on "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus." Grab this one for these two cuts alone.

1. Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town
2. Jingle My Bells
3. The Shelter
4. Rockin' This Christmas
5. Santa Looked A Lot Like Daddy
6. Christmas Is Comin'
7. Santa Claus Is Comin' (In A Boogie Woogie Choo Choo Train)
8. Baby Wanna Be By You
9. Swingin' Home For Christmas
10. White Christmas
11. The Santa Claus Boogie
12. Silent Night, Christmas Blue

 

[Dennie]

Crescent City Christmas Card -- CD :text-bravo: :text-bravo:

Wynton Marsalis

2002 Columbia Records

Amazon.com essential recording

Christmas jazz albums come and go with each end-of-year holiday season. And while they may make for good soundtracks to that holiday spirit, rarely do they stand up as much more than that, and certainly not as anything approaching a serious listen. While the material here may be rendered in the familiar Christmas spirit of good cheer (check out Wynton Marsalis on the back cover with mismatched green and red socks decking out his white suit), and the songs are in the familiar Christian tradition of the holiday, the arrangements are fresh and are delivered with memorable turns on "Silent Night" by opera diva Kathleen Battle, and on "Sleigh Ride" by Jon Hendricks. The playing is spirited and the material is dealt with in a manner suggesting great care in both delivery and arrangement. --Willard Jenkins

Track listing

1. Carol of the Bells, The
2. Silent Night - (featuring Kathleen Battle)
3. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
4. Little Drummer Boy, The
5. We Three Kings
6. Oh Tannenbaum
7. Sleigh Ride - (featuring Jon Hendricks)
8. Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
9. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
10. Winter Wonderland
11. Jingle Bells
12. O Come All Ye Faithful
13. Twas the Night Before Christmas

 

[Dennie]

Hymns of the 49th Parallel -- CD :text-bravo: :text-bravo:

K.D. Lang

2004 Nonesuch Records

Amazon.com

Was it homesickness that compelled longtime Los Angeles resident k.d. lang to fashion her one-woman campaign for north-of-the-border nationalism, or just plain good sense? All Canadian content has long been a mainstay of the Canadian Broadcasting System, but few have selected their material with such a fine hand and a high aesthetic. The expatriate singer has taken great pains to create a sophisticated homage to her Canadian roots, elegantly reinterpreting 11 songs penned by some of her more illustrious countrymen (and women) such as Jane Siberry, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, and Leonard Cohen. The idiosyncratic chanteuse turns Cohen's "Bird on a Wire" into an aching monochromatic lament, exploring new tributaries of pain that didn't exist in the original, while recasting Neil Young's "Helpless" into a haunting anthem of memory and comfort, all the while sounding anything but helpless. A gorgeous love letter to her brethren, complete with an intelligent and understated orchestration. --Jaan Uhelszki

1. "After the Gold Rush" (Neil Young) – 4:00
2. "Simple" (Lang, David Piltch) – 3:02
3. "Helpless" (Neil Young) – 4:15
4. "A Case of You" (Joni Mitchell) – 5:12
5. "The Valley" (Jane Siberry) – 5:31
6. "Hallelujah" (Leonard Cohen) – 5:01
7. "One Day I Walk" (Bruce Cockburn) – 3:24
8. "Fallen" (Ron Sexsmith) – 2:56
9. "Jericho" (Mitchell) – 3:45
10. "Bird on the Wire" (Leonard Cohen) – 4:28
11. "Love is Everything" (Jane Siberry) – 5:43

 

[Botch]

 

[Dennie]

Endlessly -- CD -- :think: First Spin :think:

Duffy

2010 Mercury/Polydor UK

The young Welsh song belter who calls herself Duffy is certainly bored with being compared to her damaged stylistic older sister, Amy Winehouse, and her spitting-image spiritual mom, Dusty Springfield. So here’s a new one: Johnny Mathis. Like romantic pop’s velvet balladeer, Duffy has a vocal tone like meringue, delicious to some and cloying to others. And like Mathis, she’s an individualist hiding within a musical subgenre that favors convention.

On “Endlessly,” her follow-up to her worldwide hit debut “Rockferry,” Duffy tries several different ways to celebrate her unique talents without abandoning the vintage settings that won her such acclaim. She parted with her retro-soul guru, the 40-year-old post-punk Bernard Butler, to collaborate with the 66-year-old veteran producer Albert Hammond, who had most of his hits (huge ones, like the Hollies’ “The Air That I Breathe”) in the 1970s.

True to that era’s freewheeling attitude, Hammond gives Duffy room to experiment, and the results are, not surprisingly, mixed. The lead single, “Well Well Well,” is a reggae-tinged rocker with the Roots laying down the groove; it could easily fit on Neneh Cherry’s 1989 classic “Raw Like Sushi.” Other tracks invoke Kylie Minogue — the Aussie goddess might be tempted to cover the dance-pop show tune “Lovestruck.” Duffy also returns to "Rockferry’s" Northern soul on the epic tearjerker “Too Hurt Tto Dance,” which joins the honor roll of songs about how listening to music can make things worse.

Despite these high points, though, “Endlessly” has some problems. Duffy has said she wrote the songs in a mere three weeks, and it shows. There’s nothing wrong with a well-deployed cliché, but on some songs here Duffy either just doesn’t do much with the language (her lover’s taking her breath away, neat!) or bungles it (“You hit me like lightning through the eyes”? Ouch!). And though it must have been fun to rewrite Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach,” it hardly fulfilled a burning cultural need.

These pitfalls, along with some of the more artistically successful risks Duffy and Hammond take, mean that “Endlessly” will likely not achieve the massive success of “Rockferry.” That’s OK — to summon a cliché Duffy could use as the basis for a winning song, it’s a growing process. She did her obvious predecessors proud on “Rockferry”; now she’s working toward doing the same for herself.

— Ann Powers
1. "My Boy" 3:27
2. "Too Hurt to Dance" 3:15
3. "Keeping My Baby" 2:49
4. "Well, Well, Well" 2:45
5. "Don't Forsake Me" 4:01
6. "Endlessly" 2:59
7. "Breath Away" 4:12
8. "Lovestruck" 2:52
9. "Girl" 2:26
10. "Hard for the Heart" 4:57

Bonus Picture....

 

[Botch]

The young Welsh song belter who calls herself Duffy is certainly bored with being compared to her damaged stylistic older sister, Amy Winehouse, and her spitting-image spiritual mom, Dusty Springfield.

Wow, that's a couple things I didn't know!

 

[Dennie]

A Winters Solstice IV -- CD

Windham Hill Artists

1993 Windham Hill Records

Amazon.com

In 1993, Windham Hill Records released its fourth album of seasonal music recorded by the label's artists and unavailable in any other collection. Only a few of the tracks on A Winter's Solstice IV lend credence to the label's unfair stereotype as the home for new age background music. Many of the musicians come from such respected jazz bands as Oregon and the Freddie Hubbard Quartet, and from such respected folk bands as the David Grisman Quartet. Several tackle such classical pieces as Bach's "Sheep May Safely Graze" (the Modern Mandolin Quartet), Purcell's "Trumpet Tune" (solo guitarist Alex de Grassi) and Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" (the Turtle Island String Quartet). From Liz Story's "Carol of the Bells" to Nightnoise's "Wexford Carol," this is rigorous instrumental music for the most part, no matter how quiet and pretty it may seem at first listen. --Geoffrey Himes

1. Carol of the Bells - Liz Story/Andy Narell/Paul McCandless/Barbara Higbie/Turtle Island String Quartet/Philip Aaberg/Michael Manring
2. Silent Night - Steve Erquiaga
3. Crystal Palace - Oystein Sevåg
4. Winter Bourne - Paul McCandless
5. Dona Nobis Pacem - Michael Manring
6. Wexford Carol - Nightnoise
7. Just Before Dawn - Will Ackerman/William Ackerman
8. We Three Kings - Barbara Higbie
9. Angels We Have Heard on High - Darol Anger/Mike Marshall
10. Sheep May Safely Graze - The Modern Mandolin Quartet
11. Trumpet Tune - Alex de Grassi
12. Three Candles - Richard Schönerz/Scott/Schönerz & Scott
13. Rain, The - Turtle Island String Quartet (from "The Four Seasons")
14. Christmas Hymn - Billy Childs
15. Asleep the Snow Came Flying - Tim Story