My Favorite Music I Discovered This Year

I listened to too much pink noise this year, and not enough new music! But what I did hear, I've been pretty crazy about.

Who did you listen to this past year, when you couldn't go to sleep? How about when you wanted to get down in your own kitchen? Do you make your own music?

What tune do you find yourself belting out when the occasion demanded it? Did any lyrics reduce you to a slobbering wreck?

Tell me everything.... and here's my little list:

Stairway to Heaven  (4:44)

Rodrigo y Gabriella

Rodrigo and Gabriella

Video

They came to Santa Cruz, from Mexico City via Dublin, to blow our little town's minds, and get some custom-made love from my friend, and master guitar-maker, Rick Turner.  Imagine the Ramones taking up Flamenco in the Zona Rosa.

Little Wing (3:16)

A Flying Leap

James Hill

Listen

James came to play at our monthly Ukulele Club hootenanny, and it was LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT. Not only did he captivate every striving amateur in the room, he also told us about how he's arranged for ukuleles to get into every school kid's hands in Canada. Back in the 70s, when I lived in Edmonton, it was recorders!

Sleepwalk (4:30)

Back in Chicago

Freddie Roulette

Video

Freddie improvised with a group of steel guitar masters in a "showdown" a few months ago at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center, and it was near pandemonium. He's like Roy Rogers meets Jimi Hendrix on a rainy night in Chicago. There's not nearly enough recorded music from him, but this will give you a little taste.

 

Peter & the Wolf, Beatbox Flute (2:11)

Winter in June

Greg Pattillo and Project

Video

Love City  (4:38)

Live Cut from the 1969 Woodstock fest, that isn't on any album I know of!

Sly & the Family Stone

Video

I love everything on the Woodstock albums, but I found this cut on YouTube, exclusively. After seeing the "Family" (without Sly) this summer at the Boardwalk, I was on a "Stone Dance High" for weeks afterwards. I am honored to say I touched the hem of Rose Stone's garment, felt Cynthia Robinson's trumpet-spit fly on my brow beneath the bandstand.

 

Your Long Journey (3:55)

Raising Sand

Robert Plant and Allison Krauss

Listen

Here's my theory: Robert Plant fell in love with Allison Krauss because he heard her voice in "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" and realized he couldn't go to his grave without touching her time machine magic. With Allison, he found his lost Everly Brother. He finally got to duet with Elvis, he was able to lie in Kitty Wells' arms. He got to HARMONIZE.

This album received so much hype, but for once, it was worth it. Percy may've got all the publicity for his little Led reunion, but this album is clearly where his heart lies.

Your Long Journey (2:39)

The Doc Watson Family, featuring Rosa Lee Watson 

Doc Watson

Listen

I want you to hear Doc and his sister's version of the song that Robert and Allison covered. This music was recorded before Doc blew up in New York and on the west coast. Yes, even before he  settled on showcasing his guitar work, back when everyone in the "band" wore every hat. The whole album is incredible.

Single Girl, Married Girl (3:19)

Dirt Farmer

Levon Helm, singing with his daughter and co-producer, Amy

Video of a guy listening to this exact album on a long car ride from Montana to NYC

Levon recovered from throat cancer, and recorded this? He's in finer form than ever, and his daughter sings like an angel. Redemptive!

Got Down Last Saturday Night  (2:43)

Lost and Found: The Coleman-Hinton Project

Jim Coleman & Eddie Hinton

Listen

I was intrigued to learn of a documentary that came out this year on the late Eddie Hinton, and I started to learn more about his life as the lead guitarist for the Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section from 1967 to 1971. He was a great musician and it seems almost too hard to believe that he died, so young, before breaking out as a solo artist. This album is UNRELEASED material he recorded-- amazing production-- with his best pal Jim Coleman, who's now a doctor. Jim has it all, for free, up on his web site, and it will just  stagger you.. why weren't you listening to this on the radio every day of the week? Send Jim a note and tell him how much you appreciate it!

Wake Up Alone (3:42)

Back to Black

Amy Winehouse

Video

When I first wrote about Amy a year ago, we didn't know her sorrow. All we knew was that voice— and those songs she wrote that sounded like the weight of Holliday's ghost, searching for the pipes to burst out of. And they did. Now, I feel like a witness to an execution; I suspect my own culpability. I'll always be able to listen to these songs, while she won't to be able to wake up one day, her heart one junkie gesture away from stopping. Why does her music soothe so many of our wounds, but it doesn't touch her pain?  This is a tough one.

Not Fade Away (7:32)

Truth is Stranger than Fishin'

Trout Fishing in America

Listen

You listen to KPIG, and you're just going to end up hearing the best music around.

Beethoven: String Quartet No. 14 in C sharp minor (8:00)

Beethoven: String Quartets

Takacs Quartet

Video

I met the Takacs Quartet during their time in Boulder, CO, where they were my father and stepmother's favorite musicians— and sometime boarders!

Comments

[bifemmefatale]

I love Rodrigo y Gabriela, Levon Helm and Amy Winehouse too. Also check out Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, who served as Winehouse's backup band on several tracks. They're fab.

[C.S. Lewiston]

The first country/folk concert I ever saw was Doc and Merle Watson, at the local university. I saw him last year at a theater in a neighboring town. He has a bit of the Sinatra Syndrome (i.e. age is catching up with him) but he can still crank it out. Catch him while you still can.

My latest purchases were some old punk/hardcore albums from a friend who has had them in his closet for years and wanted to de-clutter. For mere pennies on the dollar, I got, among other things:

Peligro - D.H. Peligro (Alternative Tentacles)
All Of Eater - Eater (Cargo Records)
Unboxed Set - Angry Samoans (Triple X)
Suicidal Tendencies - Suicidal Tendencies (Frontier) ("Just one Pepsi!")

I also scored a used copy of the Nuggets boxed set, Rhino's 4-CD expansion of the historic 2-LP compilation by Lenny Kaye. Although they did include some overplayed stuff like "Wooly Bully" by Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs, there is no better primer on 1960's garage rock. Nice, fat booklet too.

As for getting to sleep, there's nothing like roughly 10 hours worth of the mid-70's sci-fi radio program "Mindwebs", in MP3 form. AM-radio sound quality, but what the heck, it's free. (Caveat: The mastering job on some of the programs really isn't the greatest).

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/11/12/mindwebs-free-old-sc.html

As for Sly Stone and crew, they're right up there with James Brown and P-Funk!

[Darius X. Ejlali]

Recently viewed a documentary on Leonard Cohen, the version of "Traitor" by Martha Wainwright knocks me over everytime I listen to it, and then there is Antony covering "If It Be Your Will" which is simply spellbinding. There are many other great versions of Cohen's material on the documentary but these two tunes have made a huge impression on me. You can find both on youtube, Martha Wainwright has two entries for "Traitor" chose the one that just shows Martha at the mic, it is the better version and please give Antony a listen to, it's quite moving.

[David in New Zealand]

HOLLIE SMITH!
There was a wonderful small film a couple of years ago called No. 2, which starred the American actress Ruby Dee as the matriarch of a Pacific Island family in south Auckland. At the end was a song, Bathe in the River, by the Mount Roskill Preservation Choir (a group loosely formed for the song). BUT it was THE VOICE that captured everyone's attention. It was deep and rich and textured ... and belonged to a young woman not even out of her teen's! She has now released her first album (Long Player), and has just signed with one of the Blue Note labels (because, she said, they cared about the music).

[Scout Sweeney]

Thank you for the Trout Fishing in America link. I was sad to leave the Pig when I left Boulder Creek. Driving home every day, knowing that the minute I hit HWY 35 on 9, I could tune in to some good music.

I just love Trout Fishing in America, too. Makes me miss Jerry a little bit less, all these years later.

Love you, Susie.

[Sophie]

KPIG! Man, I heard them years ago, on a driving trip through California, and I still remember all the good stuff I heard for the few hours I picked them up. Thanks for the link and all the new objects of desire!

[The Promiscuous Reader]

Difficult to say, really, because thanks to my local community radio station I get to hear a lot of things that sound great but that I rarely feel impelled to follow up and track down. But here are a few things that got to me:

A track from "Table Songs of Georgia" by the Tsinandali Choir. I love choral music generally. I'm going to get me a copy of this CD as soon as I can afford it.

Ray LaMontagne, "Till the Sun Turns Black." I heard this guy on E-Town, and his album is even better, with gorgeous arrangments and doom-laden songs that remind me of Leonard Cohen in better days. LaMontagne has a great voice too. (Parenthetically, I hate the preening Wainwright Kids, who can hardly get through a Cohen song without bending down to sniff their own farts. And Anthony gives me nightmares -- he seems like he's about to go into a seizure in his performance in "I'm Your Man." The great Cohen covers are mostly from the 60s and 70s, with Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" the shining exception, though mostly I prefer Cohen's own versions.)

"Celtic Strings and Wings" by the King's Consort with Ben Tavera King on lute. It's kind of cutesy, with sound effects dubbed onto the music, but I like it anyway. Sorta like "Sonic Seasonings" only with acoustic instruments, very soothing and lovely.

"Small Potatoes Alive! at WWBR's Bound For Glory." A live recording of this funny, talented female/male duo. Now I need to get their other CDs, but this is a lot of fun. I also need to get my guitar fixed so I can work up some of their songs.

Anything by Los Zafiros. This Cuban group from the 1960s is amazing, with harmonies they learned from doo-wop, plus any other influences they cared to throw in. They burned out young, alas. There's also a documentary on DVD, "Music from the Edge of Time" I think it's called, with wonderful video footage of the group in their prime. They were beautiful young men, great dancers, brilliant singers. Ayyyyyy...

One night a DJ played "Mr. Blue" by Clear Light, a 60s group produced by Paul Rothschild, who'd previously recorded The Doors. I tried to find my vinyl copy, but it's mysteriously vanished (along with the servants -- they were very attached to each other, at the wrists and ankles), but the album can be found on CD. Most of the songs are eminently forgettable, but "Mr. Blue" -- one of those Big Brother Gonna Get Your Mama songs -- is something else. Very pretentious, appealing to the hippie-wannabe teenager I once was, but still oddly powerful.

Off the radio I found Big Mama, an all-female vocal quartet from South Korea. They are incredible. If you have any access to Korean music, buy anything you can find by them. There's also an amazing album of mostly 70s and 80s covers by Jaurim, whose female lead singer should be heard more. Wait till you hear her version of "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" or Hendrix' "Angel." And Mr. Smooth himself, Sung Si Kyung, the great balladeer, who's done a great cover of Stevie Wonder's "Lately". Best of all, Shiin Gua Chonjang (roughly, Poet and Mayor), a mutant folkie whose CD "The Bridge" includes tributes to Jim Croce and Bob Dylan. These are people -- and there are plenty more -- who've assimilated American / Western pop and made their own music out of it.

[Keith]

My two big finds this year were Mouse on Mars and Amy Winehouse. Winehouse is such a train-wreck right now. It's a terrible waste and it makes me feel bad.

[Steve]

Well, you KNOW my favorite tune of the year was Mustang Sally! *grins*

[M Katherine]

Susie.

I apologize if you just got hit with three of the same comment posts. Typepad keeps giving me the flagged as potential spam notice even though I'm typing in the code acturately.

I changed my email address thinking that might be it. Although I've posted with it before.

I really would like you to see my answer to your music post so please let me know if it never made it.

Sin.,
M Katherine

[The Promiscuous Reader]

by the way, Susie, try this version of "Love City", also from YouTube. The sound is much better, I think...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv8CgsWSmCg

[drsharna]

The two biggies for me this year were Amy Winehouse's Back to Black and Omara Portuondo - the only female in the Buena Vista Social Club gang. Ordinarily female singers tend to get on my "oh my gawd please stop shrieking" nerve, but these two - wow.

[Alex S.]

The love city cut can be found on a special 20th anniversary dvd titled "Woodstock the diaries", with catch-ups with the organisers etc. Get it, you'll be blown away by Richie Havens' unseen perfomance.