WHISKEYTOWN
STRANGERS ALMANAC
1997-OUTPOST
Produced By JIM SCOTT
1. Inn Town
2. Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight
3. Yesterday's News
4. 16 Days
5. Everything I Do
6. Houses On The Hill
7. Turn Around
8. Dancing With The Woman At The Bar
9. Waiting To Derail
10. Avenues
11. Losering
12. Somebody Remembers The Rose
13. Not Home Anymore
Whether Ryan Adams call himself by his name or Whiskeytown, the results are about the same. He couldn't keep a lineup together for the short lived Whiskeytown, but with the 2nd album, Strangers Almanac, he hit paydirt. Covered in great harmonies and equally great songs, this is one of alt country's greatest records. "Inn Town" opens the door, and there's no closing it after "Excuse Me". This never wavers, and gets even better with "Dancing With The Woman At The Bar" and the hypnotizing "Losering".
Whiskeytown was done after this album, although Pneumonia was released after the breakup. Adams has gone on to great solo success. Strangers Almanac remains an essential record.
Link _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
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And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
SHANDY LAWSON
HELLBOUND
2001-SHANDY LAWSON
No Production Credit
1. Die Before You Sin
2. When i'm Gone
3. Barricade
4. Purple Lillies
5. Hellbound
6. Elias The Blaster
7. My Bearded Lady
8. Man Meets Dog
9. In The Middle
10. A Hundred Tides
11. The Threads Of Jack Dupree
12. IHOP
13. Factory
14. Love 7 Gin
15. Slick As Sin
Back in 2001, I was nominated for a JP Folks award for one of my songs, so I went to a big awards show at the Kodak Theater in LA. One of the more memorable musicians I met there was Shandy Lawson, a singer songwriter from the East coast. He gave me a copy of his new album Hellbound, a collection of cool stories and songs about sin and death. Shandy plays almost everything here, and his acoustic approach makes everything sound more down to earth. Most of these songs are excellent, and I used to think I'd see Shandy in the spotlight someday singing "Slick As Sin"...but it never happened. We lost touch over the years, but I still give this a listen once in a while.
You can still find Shandy on the internet (he's also an author). Google him and he's bound to come up. An interesting talent, he is.
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AEROSMITH
GREATEST HITS
1980-COLUMBIA
VARIOUS PRODUCERS
1. Dream On
2. Same Old Song And Dance
3. Sweet Emotion
4. Walk This Way
5. Last Child
6. Back In The Saddle
7. Draw The Line
8. Kings And Queens
9. Come Together
10. Remember (Walking in The Sand)
Aerosmith is one of rock & roll's greatest stories...how could this band have not only lived through the 1980's, but how could every one of them still be alive today? Greatest Hits is a short but telling document: it tells the story of their rise and fall without boring you with the 2nd coming. From their first 4 albums, Aerosmith was on the rise as the great rock & roll hope of America. Toys In The Attic was great, then Rocks was even better, pointing to even better things to come. And then came the over excessive drug use and Draw The Line. And it was all over.
One thing that this does get right is this: in the decade after Rocks, Aerosmith recorded exactly 4 songs worth hearing, and they're all here. 2 tracks from Draw The Line, a weird cover song from Night In The Ruts, and an ace cover of The Beatle's "Come Together", which is otherwise available only on the worst album ever made, the soundtrack for the worst film ever made, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Believe it or not, from 1977 through 1987, this is all of the Aerosmith you will ever need.
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Santana has survived for over 40 years with more than 80 different members. But the true genius of the band can be traced back to its first 3 albums. This is their debut record, released just after the band made their stunning debut at Woodstock. Their first 2 hits are here: "Jingo" and "Evil Ways"., and the band shows incredible instrumental prowess. The vocals sound almost secondary: the true voice in this band is the guitar of Carlos Santana. Although it does drag in a couple of spots, where it does not drag is riveting: this is one tight, roaring machine of a band. And the fact that over their next two records they just got better makes it an even more amazing record.
After 3 albums, important members of this band left to commit huge sins against rock and roll by way of Journey, and Santana became a vehicle for more rock fusion leanings. But this is still a great album. And for good measure, the three bonus tracks were recorded at Woodstock, including the track that really made them famous: the blistering, 11 minute "Soul Sacrifice".
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AC/DC
BACK IN BLACK
1980-ATCO
Produced By ROBERT JOHN "MUTT" LANGE
1. Hells Bells
2. Shoot To Thrill
3. What Do You Do For Money Honey
4. Given The Dog A Bone
5. Let Me Put My Love Into You
6. Back In Black
7. You Shook Me All Night Long
8. Have A Drink On Me
9. Shake A Leg
10. Rock And Roll Ain't Noise Pollution
AC/DC kept getting better in the late 70's, but when lead singer Bon Scott passed away following the Highway To Hell album, it was thought that the band was over. They came out with a new lead singer in Brian Johnson and a vengeance with Back In Black, the band's best collection of songs and their statement that they were far from done. AC/DC has a simple formula: a hot riff, a great rock beat, lyrics about (usually) sex that a 14 year old boy can appreciate, and painfully high vocals. They got all of it perfect here: not a bad song among the bunch, and not a second of wasted space.
"Hells Bells", "You Shook Me All Night Long", and the title track put AC/DC on ther map to stay, and songs like "Shoot To Thrill" and "Shake A Leg" make it all stand up. They've never matched this record...they don't have to. There's enough of Back In Black on every subsequent album to keep them in a revered place. Back In Black is simply a great rock and roll album...as good as it gets!
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ADAM ANT
FRIEND OR FOE
1982-EPIC
Produced By ADAM ANT & MARCO PIRRONI
1. Friend Or Foe
2. Something Girls
3. Place In The Country
4. Desperate But Not Serious
5. Here Comes The Grump
6. Hello, I Love You
7. Goody Two Shoes
8. Crackpot History And The Right To Lie
9. Made Of Money
10. Cajun Twisters
11. Try This For Sighs
12. Man Called Marco
So, where were you in '82, when Adam split from the Ants? It's okay...nobody else remembers, either. Ant's first solo album sounds alot like an Ants record: lots of horns and chanting and the biggest guitars that New Wave ever knew. And yes, Adam was still dressed like a pirate, and was near the top of the list of the strangest front men in a genre filled with very strange front men. Bottom line, Adam Ant, with or without the Ants, was, at least up to this point, never boring, and always catchy as hell.
Friend Or Foe boasts several hits, including the title track, "Desperate But Not Serious", "Goody Two Shoes", and a strange remake of The Doors' "Hello, I Love You". At its best, Antmusic was fast, busy, and kind of headshakingly ridiculous...but it was also tight and loaded with hooks. And, hey...wasn't it fun to be a pirate? Although, had Ant chosen the Ninja instead, who knows how big he could have been?
Ant's output faded after Friend Or Foe, and he slip[ped into oblivion and strange behaviors. But this is a pretty good shot of how strange the music was in 1982, and it still stands up just as well as it ever did.
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GENESIS
WE CAN'T DANCE
1991-ATLANTIC
Produced By GENESIS & NICK DAVIS
1. No Son Of Mine
2. Jesus He Knows Me
3. Driving The Last Spike
4. I Can't Dance
5. Never A Time
6. Dreaming While You Sleep
7. Tell Me Why
8. Living Forever
9. Hold On My Heart
10. Way Of The World
11. Since I Lost You
12. Fading Lights
The problem with Genesis is this: no matter how much you want to dislike them, the fact is that they never really made a BAD album (unless you count the late 90's effort without Phil Collins)...they made a lot of simply pretty good records. We Can't Dance is the last hurrah for Genesis, the last before the departure of Collins, and the last gasp of commercial success they had in them. And it's pretty good. Nothing great, not spectacular, but just another pretty good album.
The results would be about the same for just about every album in the Collins era. They simply were...pretty good. Nothing more, nothing less.
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Of dying history
COUNT BASIE
THE ESSENCE OF COUNT BASIE
1991-COLUMBIA LEGACY
Produced By MICHAEL BROOKS
1. One O'Clock Jump
2. Harvard Blues
3. Dickie's Dream
4. Lester Leaps In
5. I Left My Baby
6. Taxi War Dance
7. Red Bank Boogie
8. Nobody Knows
9. Miss Thing
10. Tickle Toe
11. Don't Worry 'Bout Me
12. Moten Swing
This is part of the long out of print I LIke Jazz series that featured single disc retrospectives of greats such as Billie Holiday, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. If you can find it (ebay), it's a great way to introduce yourself to the music of Basie. The 12 tracks are all relatively short, all are true classics, and all are perfectly chosen. You won't go wrong with this ciollection, and although it's short for someone of Basie's stature and catalog, it's still a great way to start.
All of these tracks were recorded during his classic period from 1939 to 1944. Some have vocals, some do not, but all are all time great tracks. If you find this, hang on to it. It's all great stuff. And that goes for the rest of the series as well.
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Of dying history
AEROSMITH
TOYS IN THE ATTIC
1975-COLUMBIA
Produced By JACK DOUGLAS
1. Toys In The Attic
2. Uncle Salty
3. Adam's Apple
4. Walk This Way
5. Big Ten Inch Record
6. Sweet Emotion
7. No More No More
8. Round And Round
9. You See Me Crying
For a brief, shining moment in the mid 1970's, Aerosmith was the greatest of all American hard rock bands. Toys In The Attic was their third album, and with this and their next release, Rocks, it looked like they could do no wrong. Toys boasts "Walk This Way" and "Sweet Emotion", the songs that truly put Aerosmith on the map, but also "Uncle Salty", "Adam's Apple", "Round And Round", and the title track rocked like nobody else American at the time. This was a tuneful, hard rocking, and very hungry band. Toys is a 70's classic.
They got even better on Rocks, but by 1977, the Aerosmith ride was derailed by drugs. They made a comeback that still resonates today in the late 80's, but they were never this band again...Aerosmith was once a heavy wrecking machine. Toys is a great and almost perfect album from a band that could have had a long, uninterrupted great career. Oh...and it's also a hip hop classic. "Walk This Way" will never die...twice.
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Of dying history
LUKA BLOOM
RIVERSIDE
1990-REPRISE
Produced By JEFFREY WOOD
1. Delirious
2. Dreams In America
3. Over The Moon
4. Gone To Pablo
5. The Man Is Alive
6. An Irishman In Chinatown
7. Rescue Mission
8. The One
9. Hudson Lady
10. This Is For Life
11. You Couldn't Have Come At A Better Time
12. The Hill Of Allen
Barry Moore is an Irish singer who moved to Washington, DC in the late 80's, changed his name to Luka (after the Suzanne Vega song) Bloom (after a carachter in Ulysses), and started tearing up the clubs on the east coast. Riverside is his debut, and it's a good one. Bloom shows a hard strumming Irishman who can bring a room to his feet with "Delirious", "An Irishman In Chinatown" and "You Couldn't Have Come At A Better Time", then a stunning balladeer with "Gone To Pablo", "Dreams In America", and the beautiful "This Is For Life". As good a debut as you'll find in 1990.
Unfortunately, nobody caught on. His second album was just as good, and no one was buying...an Irish folkie living in America wasn't what was selling in the 90's. But Bloom is still around, and if you can find this or any of his other work, it's well worth hearing. Bloom is a should have been.
Link _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
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