Sunday Night Gospel Part 2

It was a very good day. My wife took me to the Record show in Raleigh and then we went to the movies. I was only able to spend an hour at the Record Show due to time constraints and only picked up 7 45's but they were choice. And since it is Sunday again, I have a couple more nice soulful spiritual songs for you. A few days ago I wrote about picking up some 45's outside Charlotte this past week. Well here is a 45 I picked up in Charlotte a year ago when I took my wife there. I believe it is on the Crescent City Sound Studios out of Greensboro NC from 1970. I picked it up because I have always loved Tommy James and Shondells and I think you will like this version of their song. And as a bonus, I have included a link to a nice interview with Tommy and he talks about his Christianity and about the song.


www.songfacts.com/blog/interviews/tommy_james

The New Dimensions - Peace

The New Dimensions - Crystal Blue Persuasion

In Cold Blood

Here is an interesting 45 I picked up awhile back. A quick google search found little information to go by other than April was the daughter of Diplomacy Records President Bill Silva and that the Brymers were the backing band on Under My Thumb. So what we have is a cover version of the Rolling Stones song Under My Thumb (with cool youtube video) and a song titled In Cold Blood. If this even made it to Radio Stations it probably went in the no way jose heap.  But I like it

April Silva - In Cold Blood




April Silva & The Brymers - Under My Thumb (Youtube)

Groovin a los Rascals

Ok boys and girls, I think we are back on the groove train thanks to B Cook and his blog Diggin it!!! at http://westexdigs.blogspot.com/.

So I had to take my wife to Charlotte, NC (about 240 miles away) on Monday. It was a long cold rainy trip with the highlight being a handful of cool 45's I picked up in a junk shop. Stay tuned for those goodies in the near future. Anyway, I had this post all planned out to upload when I returned home but once home found out the songs were not playing for anyone but me. I think we have that licked finally! 

The Rascals are one of the artists that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame actually got right. Their brand of blued eyed soul was unrivaled. Over the past year I have been a fanatic fan picking up everything I can find: all of their albums, the rare US Italian/Spanish version "Groovin"; and all of their US stock Picture Sleeves (thanks goes to my friend Craig for finding me the "Groovin" Picture Sleeve which had eluded me").

I built up the blue eyed soul tag but here we are with a taste of their more psychedelic side. I plan to feature them again but for now enjoy the eastern laced "Sattva", 2nd to the last song on the album "Once Upon A Dream".

The Rascals - Sattva

Technical Difficulties

Well I am having technical difficulties with the mp3 player. It plays fine for me but not for everyone. I am open to suggestions on any an MP3 player for a blog.

Sunday Night Gospel Reverend Cleophus Robinson

It's Sunday night Gospel and I have a treat for you today. It's one of my favorite 45's of all time by the great Reverend Cleophus Robinson.

A few years ago, my parents sent me a big box of 45's they had purchased in an auction. I went through them and organized them as I usually do: keepers, not keepers and ones to listen to further to make a determination on. As I was doing that, I came across this Promo 45 on the Peacock label. At the time, I did not know anything about the Peacock label so I put it in the pile that I was going to listen to. When I did listen to it, I was mesmerized. Could he sing.

I did a google search and was disappointed that there was no wikipedia entries. What I did find was that his career spanned some five decades and that he recorded 75 albums--five going gold--and had more than 30 singles. He was a pastor of the Greater Bethlehem Baptist Church in St. Louis for 41 years and also had a syndicated gospel show for 28 years. He died in 1998 at the age of 66. I have but a handful of 45's and albums by him. I've included both sides of the 45 as well as a video of another song from youtube.

Reverend Cleophus Robinson -

Fraturday Soul N Garage

I was feeling all week that Friday night was going to be Soul night. Unfortunately, this past week was one of the toughest work weeks I have had in a long time and last night I was dead dog exhausted and went to bed early. But after the best night of sleep I have had in a while, I feel ready to get the funk on and make this a Fraturday post.

One thing I hope to convey over time is the diverse musical taste I have. The span of my collection is literally from the 1940's to albums released this week. Indie, Punk, Alternative, Dinosaur rock, Jazz, Country, and Soul to name a few genres that litter my collection. And regarding Soul, I am a late comer to those sweet sounds, having only being exposed to the typical (and I'm going to generalize here) Motown fare that radio gives us. It was not until I started running into obscure 45's that I discovered amazing soul music. Now don't get me wrong, the standard top 40 Motown has its place and I can sing along to the Temptations like everyone else. But it did not grab me as much like other styles of music did. But as I expanded my 45 collection, I discovered soul music that now has become just as essential to me as indie bands are. And some of this stuff is increasingly difficult to find.

At this time, I'm going to give a plug to my friend Jason and his most excellent web site http://www.carolinasoul.org . Jason and I have gone on a few record searching jaunts and I hope that we have the opportunity to do more. I highly recommend that you download his recent 3 hour radio show (it's broken up into 2 MP3 downloads). Amazing stuff!

First up for your listening pleasure is a recent acquisition of mine on Trump from Donnie, Fonnie & La Vorn titled "It's A Sweet Love". I don't know much about them...obviously early 70's soul and they may be from Memphis. I do know that it is candy to my ears.

Next up is my Saturday offering, a garage raver from the Knickerbockers on Challenge. They were best known for their song "Lies", which was mistaken at the time as being by the "Beatles". They were never able to recreate that success and only had a few other minor chart hits, this not being one of them. From research, it appears they were a casualty of their record company's ineptness. After listening to this recent find, I would agree. How was this not played all over the radio in 1967?

2 fur thursday

Thursday Night Mish Mash is a twofur! I mean why does Tuesday have to be the only day there is a twofur? So tonight, I present a couple of from the Flaming Lips. I've been a Flips fan since 1989 or so. I've seen them in concert several times, met them once and even wrote them a letter which they responded to. Of course that was all before they had hit albums and played lettermen. I've been listening a lot to their new LP "Embryonic" as well as to the MP3 only remake of the Dark Side of The Moon LP with Henry Rollins and White Dwarf. First up is Mr. Ambulance Driver off of "At War With The Mystics"...I've seen several Ambulances today with lights flashing, sirens blaring it so fits for me.

Flaming Lips- Mr. Ambulance Driver



2nd is "Convinced Of The Hex" off "Embryonic"

Flaming Lips- "Convinced Of The Hex"

Ice to Dream Syndicate

We had our first snow storm at the end of January. We probably ended up with about 3 inches but the main issue was the sleet that turned into slush that turned into Ice. Now living in this part of North Carolina you learn real quickly that any mention of snow/ice and people go spastic. It's not really their fault, they are not exposed to it enough. And one nice thing about working at my job is that if the ICE is bad enough, and if it is the first storm of the year, there is a good chance a phone call will be received that work will be closed the next day. The phone call came and so I had February 1st off. I spent the morning busy and in the afternoon I went upstairs to listen to some music. I started going through albums I have purchased over the past month but nothing seemed to strike my mood. I started going through the shelves of my other albums when I came across a group I had not listened to in ages and was perfect for my mood.....the Dream Syndicate.


Paul Simon has a great line in his song Kodachrome...."When I think back of all the crap I learned in High School." I would like to take that line and revise it to "When I think back to the crap music I listened to in High School." I can't stomach much of it anymore, it's just so bloody awful. It was prefabricated and force fed to me...I did not know better. But I found out later that there was music out that was fresh, relevant and alive. The Dream Syndicate started out around the time I was a Jr. or Sr. in High School but I sure did not know about them. They sure were not played on the radio. It wasn't until College Radio opened up my ears to the possibilities.

The Dream Syndicate were a guitar band. It's just that simple. They were one of the more notable bands associated with the Paisley Underground movement in Los Angeles in the early 80s. Listen to "Tell Me When It's Over" off their first full length LP "The Days Of Wine And Roses". The guitar/drum interplay is captivating.

Or listen to "Merrittville" off of the 1984 LP "Medicine Show" Steve Wynn had a way with lyrics and you could get lost in the pain and anguish of his characters.

But mainstream success eluded them and they broke up after their last official studio album "Ghost Stories". I picked it up after they broke up. Steve Wynn has gone on to have a long solo career.

So after building up the guitar band tag, I choose to share their melodic softer side with "Whatever You Please" off of "Ghost Stories". It has one of my favorite lyrics of all time...."Would you like to trade convictions over a cheap bottle of wine. You could tell me yours and I come up with mine". I've heard many versions of this song over the years...one notable version with Steve singing obviously in a small club and you can hear the whispering conversations of patrons and the clanking of bottles of beer....with my eyes closed, I can almost see the haze of cigarette smoke in the air. I was whistling this song this morning at the YMCA after my workout and one of the guys in the men's locker room said "Don't recognize that. What song is that?" When I told him, he said "No wonder, never heard of them". What a shame.....what a shame.

The Dream Syndicate - Whatever You Please

Ok Rod, you'll have to wait a little longer for the CD's!

Well here is my 3rd stab at this. I have played around with this concept of I Am the Noize In Your Head for about 4 years but I'm not "blog" savy so I let it slide. I'm trying it again. I'm not any more savy just grayer.

I'm not sure of which direction this monster will go but let's see shall we. I thought I would write about music I add to my collection. May even dig into my archives for things to write about if nothing new comes in.  Maybe add some pictures if I can figure that out. Will try to post a song each week.  Maybe more....guess that will come with experience.

Ok, let's take a stab at adding some music, shall we. So I was driving to work this morning and NPR was not cutting it for me. I plugged in a cd that I made for my friend Rodney in Denver. It made the drive bearable. I first heard of Amos Lee about 2 years ago and purchased his debut CD for my wife. It's been a staple around our household. I couldn't think of a more perfect song as a beginning for a music blog. Has a Van Morrison vibe to it...hmmmm, Van Morrison, that's a thought!

Peace

Amos Lee- Seen It All Before