The Not-Pop Jukebox

When I posted the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy version of California Uber Alles I didn't realize that Michael Franti was involved with the band. Perhaps I should have. I still think it's a cool name. But I'm posting tonight about another Michael Franti effort, this one called Spearhead. They first came to my attention with Hole in the Bucket, a story song about a sort of existential experience with a homeless man and a spool of thread. It's so well done that it made me late for work one morning. I didn't want to miss the end of the story, the decision he made. And they payoff for listening was a surprise plot twist. That's a lot of freight for a song, and one that Franti and Spearhead carry well. It's maybe a little mellow for a Friday night but, hey, you can always listen to it in the morning. The groove and message are well worth your time.

I've been grooving today to a bunch of Ernest Ranglin songs. You know, the famous Jamaican guitarist, the one who helped invent ska, who recorded on the soundtrack for Dr. No, and who--rumor has it--taught Bob Marley a thing or two. Yeah, that Ernest Ranglin. Now, I don't know much more about him than that (and that he played with The Skatilites and Jimmy Cliff from time to time) but I do know that he's not dedicated to a single style. He's recorded jazz albums as well as ska and reggae and a lot of his work is as much noodling as it is melodic. I think of it as guitar scat, embroidering on a song rather than just playing it.

At any rate, a lot of Ernest Ranglin's work is quite relaxing and makes excellent background music for when you're concentrating on something else. He recorded a lot of instrumental songs which means that I can write and groove at the same time without singing along and accidentally typing words from the lyrics into my piece...not that I would do that or anything.

For today I wanted to share something that does have a few words, Ranglin's Up on the Downstroke from his 1998 album "In Search of the Lost Riddim". The song offers a little more verve than the usual fare without losing the mood. If you like this one, have a listen to Hipsters or Papa's Bag Juice (which, for some reason, makes me think of Snoopy), both of which you'll find on Grooveshark in a giant, slow-groove, jazzy reggae-ska pile of Ernest Ranglin music. Let me know what you think!

Normally I focus on a single song but today I've got a whole album for you all and you can listen to it right here. Spekulation is what I call jazz hop: a fusion group that brings you a wild mix of a beat poetry-style jazz combo overlaid with a hip hop, sing-song, rap thing that I've really enjoyed. Jason Parker and Matt Watson, two of the musicians I follow on Google+ happen to be in the band. Imagine if social media weren't around how much new music we'd all miss! I wanted you all to hear what some creative musicians can do in a little club without autotune, seventeen tracks for the engineer to loop, and with a fair chunk of talent. They've got a bunch of stuff on BandCamp.com, including a free download of the Depression Era EP, so if you like what you hear go and pick up some more. I have no disclaimer on this one: I know these guys only as much as you know anyone on social media and I'm not any sort of affiliate for BandCamp. I just want you all to have nice things.

I'd intended to post the new version of What'd I Say from Wynton Maralis and Willie Nelson (with Norah Jones) off their great tribute to Ray Charles, "Here We Go Again". The album was released in March, 2011 after yet another tour de force from Marsalis and Nelson at the Lincoln Center. But it's not on Grooveshark and I couldn't find a video of the performance. Instead, I'll leave the link above where you can sample it and post Ray Charles himself. But you know I can't leave well enough alone. I've added a version of What'd I Say from Jimi Hendrix, a version from Etta James, and a surprisingly-subdued cover of the song from Jerry Lee Lewis. I don't know about you, but when the song tells me to "shake that thing", I shake it. If you have another great cover of What'd I Say, I'd love to hear it. Drop me a note below!

For the life of me I will never understand the appeal of most bluegrass vocalists. The only times I understand it is when I find things like the bluegrass covers of Gin and Juice that have been slaying me all week. I'd intended, after posting Tanqueray a few days ago, to post this list of covers but my short attention span intervened. So to occupy your long weekend, I offer you all a tall, cool list of Gin and Juice, complete with bluegrass fiddles and twang so nasal it'll stop up your sinuses. I've included a mellower version from Richard Cheese and a punk cover from NoFX. Sadly, a huge pile of the covers listed on Grooveshark are simply the aforementioned bluegrass cover from The Gourds labeled as something else. There are a couple of other hip hop versions included, however, and an exceedingly creepy one from Jaymz Bee & the Deep Lounge Coalition. Have a listen to all nine versions of Gin and Juice and let me know: do the bluegrass covers from The Gourds and Bandjoe make them sound gangsta or do NoFX and The Stu Tails sound like they could make it in the hood?

Louis Prima's Just a Gigolo is yet another of those songs that snuck into my head at some point when I was a kid and never left. Specifically, the "I ain't got nobody" part of the song, which seems to be labeled as a separate song for this video but which I've only ever heard as a part of Just a Gigolo. And so, for this lovely Friday evening, I offer one of the goofiest great voices of yesteryear with his wife-at-the-time Keely Smith.

I'd intended to post something else but a train of thought led me astray. REM has been all over the place of late with their announcement that they are retiring. And, really, let them, people. Would that the Stones and some of the hair bands still touring would take their cue. But that's not why I'm posting Shiny Happy People. About the time I stopped listening to REM because I didn't relate to them any more I stopped watching Saturday Night Live because it wasn't funny any more. But the summer of 1991 I was still consuming both. And so it was that they came together to slap me in the face with Micheal Stipe (who, I'd forgotten, still had hair then) in a suit made up of FedEx envelopes, the Tyvek ones. Sadly, I was unable to find a video in which that was as vividly clear as it is in my memory. To this day that's the first thing I think of when I hear REM. I read an interview once in which Mr. Stipe said it had been stolen, which sounds just about right. But the reason it's on my mind today is not Shiny Happy People, the darling Ms. Kate from the B-52s, nor REM itself. I just realized that Tyvek house wrap in enormous rolls. Yet there's been no fashion rush to purchase the waterproof, incredibly durable paper/fabric. [shrugs] Maybe now that he's retired Michael Stipe explore his flare for dramatic but practical design. At any rate, here's the performance that lodged itself so firmly in my head. I wish I could find a clearer one where you can read the labels. It really was masterfully...okay, imaginatively done. For the record, Orange Crush is still my favorite REM song.

Dear Music World: Why have you hidden this amazing opportunity for quality chair dancing from me for twenty years? All of that time I could have spent grooving, all of those time I could have recommended Tanqueray to everyone I meet and I missed it?! I'm so sad. Johnnie Johnson has been playing mean piano blues for a very long time, but somehow his 1991 album "Johnnie B Bad" went right past me. In case you find yourself in need of a great song, or you happen to have stepped around the corner for a drink of Tanqueray, I'm happy to recommend this one to you. It's almost good enough to get me to try Gin and Juice...almost. That may or may not be a hint about tomorrow's post. In the meantime, get down with a little Tanqueray.

I wrote a little article about Wang Dang Doodle today in honor of the fact that, well, I love this song. And of course that meant that I had to gather together every cover of the song on which I could get my sticky little digital finger. That means that you, my darlings, get to enjoy them, too. So have a listen to the Howlin' Wolf original, KoKo Taylor's wonderful cover of it, and covers of Wang Dang Doodle from The Pointer Sisters, the Grateful Dead, Eric Clapton (I believe the first version below is with Howlin' Wolf but it's not labeled as such) and Booker T and the MGs. Naturally, you'll find more than that. Ted Nugent recorded a version of it, and Eric Clapton did another cover with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. Dr. John is here, as is a wonderful version from Sam Moore with Keb' Mo' and Angie Stone, and one from ZZ Hill. Anyone familiar with this blues standard knows PJ Harvey covered it plenty so you'll find a version from her, too, though I'm not a big fan of her voice. There are a few more miscellaneous covers, as well. All in all, it's a pleasant way to spend a Sunday morning, dancing in my chair and exclaiming, "No way!" as I uncover another cover. Let me know if your favorite is here or if I've missed it.

I first heard Grits Ain't Groceries when I was working on my article about the Homemade Jamz Blues Band. I knew it wasn't original to them so I started looking. Apparently the song originated with Little Milton in the 1960s but it's been covered quite a few times.

Today I've got seven versions for you, naturally including the Little Milton original and the Homemade Jamz Blues Band cover. Of note, both hail from Mississippi. The song caught my interest for the intriguing lyrics. In essence, it's a version of the "pigs fly" sort of promise. The singer swears "If I don't love you, baby, grits ain't groceries, eggs ain't poultry, and Mona Lisa was a man."

I don't know about you, but that stuck the song right in my head. It also made me consider whether eggs are, in fact, poultry and whether or not Mona Lisa might have been a man. But while my mind wandered I kept chair dancing through The Commitments, Titus Turner, and John Mayall. It's got everything I love: a little funk, a little soul, some horns, and lyrics that keep you interested. Enjoy, and if you've a version I missed out on please drop a note and tell me!

For those of you unaware, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band has recorded an album with The Del McCoury Band called "American Legacies" which you can download in full from Amazon for a mere five bucks. And why would you? Because you probably don't realize how closely New Orleans Jazz and bluegrass are linked until you listen to the album. In fact, the reason I heard of the "American Legacies" in the first place was the fantastic interviews and liver performances on World Cafe the other day. I've been searching ever since for a great example to include here. This performance of Jambalaya had the best sound and video quality of the group I found plus it's an old Hank Williams tune they talk about in the interview. If you like this one, have a listen to Mullensberg Joys (or Milenberg Joys, depending which genre you ask). If I can find the studio recordings uploaded somewhere to share I'll certainly be posting more.

I was digging through some Jelly Roll Morton in search of a particular tune when I realized just how many jelly roll songs there were out there. For today, let's have a listen to a few. Okay, let's try fourteen. You'll find Louis Armstrong, Taj Mahal, and Frank Zappa tossed in between The Cramps, Nitzinger, and Charles Mingus. I've organized them in groups, the first with a space and the second jellyroll songs without a space. That's about all of the organizing I was up to today. You'd think I'd have thrown in an actual Jelly Roll Morton song, wouldn't you? That would, however, be far too predictable. Enjoy my "little bit of everything" list and I'll be back with something a little more specific tomorrow.

It's the second Tuesday of the month which means I'm in a terrible mood. Thus I'm listening to upbeat songs to try to keep my head from exploding. For today I'd like to share a wonderful celebration by Spottiswoode and His Enemies of being the spoiled Youngest Child. The song includes enough "yeah yeah yeah" and horns to keep it from being a snotty bragging session. I'm not the youngest child so I wouldn't know how accurate this portrayal may be except through anecdotal experience but it seems pretty realistic. Youngest Child comes from the band's 2003 album "Building a Road". You can find several more, along with side projects and information about their comic opera on the official Spottiswoode web site. For a group that's been active for so long I can find remarkably little from them on the usual commercial sources. You can sample a few tracks on their site and even download Beautiful Monday from their latest album for free..

I've got a strange little blues standard for you all today: Give Me Back My Wig, a song that's been around for over half a century and that still gets covered from time to time. After I Dig Your Wig I should have thought to hunt down other wig songs but got sidetracked by a hundred or two other fantastic songs. For today I offer you half a dozen versions of Give My Back My Wig from such luminaries as Stevie Ray Vaghan, George Thorogood and the Destroyers, and Hound Dog Taylor & the Houserockers. I also included Magic Slim, the Walter Trout Power Trio, and Luther Allison to round out the list. If you have a favorite version of the song I've love to hear it. And if you have another wig song to include I'll feed you Internet cookies for a week.

So, I bumped into Branford Marsalis's now-defunct Buckshot LeFonque again yesterday and then Les McCann's Buckshot and LeFonque immediately afterward. For those of you not in the know, the name comes from Cannonball Adderley, who used it when performing with a band on a different label back in the 50s. Despite lengthy searching I could find no story behind his choice of the name but I still think it's a little flash of brilliance.

Regardless, I still want to share a little of each with you. And so I've included, chronologically, Les McCann (post-stroke so he's not on keyboards but it's a great song), Buckshot LeFonque performing James Brown Pts 1 and 2, and Tribute to Brownie from the album for which Cannonball Adderley adopted the nickname in the first place. That last is a tribute to Clifford Brown so I tossed in Gerkin for Perkin which, thankfully, was a tribute to a baseball player so I didn't have to keep going backwards in time.

I was contemplating posting a "true confession" post about liking Adele and the wildly-popular Rolling in the Deep when I realized that I didn't have to. It's been mashed six ways to Sunday and all I have to do is admit to adoring one of them. And so I have for you the fastest and most furious of the mixes I've found: Dan Mei's Rolling in the Fire and Flames, in which the ever-so-calm Adele has had her RPMs boosted, big time, by Dragonforce.

Naturally you can download the mash for free, in this case at Mashup Industries Did I mention I have a new article about mashups where you can share your support (or disdain) for the DJs that create them? I didn't? Well, I do.

For some reason, I associate Phish with South Park. All right, I admit it, it’s because of the name Trey (Anastasio for Phish, Parker for South Park), but that’s not my point. Songs like Split Open and Melt do nothing to disrupt that association. Honestly, can’t you just imagine an episode in which the little bubble heads of South Park take acid and perform this song with Chef and a crew of parenthetically-shaped back-up singers? Or it could just be me. I’m okay with that. No go listen to the song while I indulge my little fantasy interlude.

I’ve a bass-playing friend, of the upright sort, who’s a massive jazz buff. Today he heard a phone ring in the office and turned to me. “What’s that great bebop tune that starts with those notes?” My blank look said it all but eventually he got it: Groovin’ High.

Then he told me that this song came about because Dizzy Gillespie was so tired of playing the standard ballad Dream so he wrote Groovin’ High based on the same chord progression. I could hardly take him at his word so off I ran to Grooveshark and found both songs.

Whether my pal’s anecdote holds water or not I had to post Groovin’ High. Dizzy Gillespie does a fantastic job in general but this version with Charlie Parker had me boppin’ all over my desk. Hold tight through all of the noodling in the middle and catch some clean Dizzy at the end, stringing out to an end note that will absolutely pierce you. The notes do, indeed, coincide with the the ring of that phone, by the way.

If you like, you can catch both Sarah Vaghan and Michael Buble performing Dream below and let me know if you think the chords really do follow the same progression, despite the utterly different moods of the songs. In other words, related or not?

I have a special fondness in my heart for those rowdy boys from Ireland, Chewing on Tinfoil. And they've been sweethearts, sharing their music with me. Today I bring you their half of a 7"-split: T-Shirts with Big Writing Aren't Cool, a song name that has very little to do with the song itself but which certainly caught my attention.

Here, Chewing on Tinfoil is right on their game, acerbic and defiant and rockin'. Give them a listen and check out the posts linked above to their first album and EP, respectively. As ever, I think they're developing an enjoyable style and the experience from the ton of touring they've been doing definitely shows. I still say they should play with The Rumble Strips sometime, though.

In a chain of unlikely events, today I was moved to post three very different songs that share a general topic: the LA River. I'd not heard the term, living far north of there in the good part of California, until E introduced me to it in LA River. Yet images of the concrete drainage ditches are so much a part of movies set in LA that I could immediately picture what he meant. I've still never seen the real thing but films set thrilling car chases in them to this day.

But the mournful E was far from the only person to sing about the LA River. Rancid has a delightfully strange little ditty of the same name and the obscure HoneyHoney sang about it in Down by the River. All in all, nothing I've seen or heard has made me want to visit the place but it does seem to inspire particularly interesting songs. Have I missed any good ones that you'd like to share?

Today I really do have a wonder. Do you suppose George Thorogood had Muddy Waters in mind when he recorded Bad to the Bone? If you've not heard Hoochie Coochie Man then you may think I've lost my marbles (thought Mr. Thorogood does a lot of bluesy work). So for tonight I offer you both songs. You tell me: related or not?

Of late I've been picking up some vintage vinyl from the 70s and 80s. Among the records I ended up with one from KGB, one of a dozen or more acts that has used that name over the decades since the Cold War began. This particular KGB was a Spanish punk band that recorded and performed in the 80s. Their history is conflated with so many other acts that I'm having a tough time nailing down dates or subsequent projects.

But that doesn't matter right now. What does it that I've got this little piece of punk history for you, a song that entertains the heck out of me. I'm not too sure to whom Maroto refers in this song and I'm not fluent enough in Spanish to explain they lyrics but some of the words are self-explanatory to speakers of romance languages. And the energy and pure punk-iness of the song are enough to make me come back to it for one more listen.