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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 20, 2020 10:58:37 GMT -5
Top songs of 2019
#68 - Tom Russell - Grapevine
I love me some Tom Russell. And this may well be my favorite song of his. Russell is likely the only singer-songwriter out there who would build a concept album around Charles Bukowski. And write songs about Sterling Hayden, Jimmy Martin and the movie Touch of Evil.
This one is centers on the Grapvine, a canyon and a stretch of road between Bakersfield and L.A. made most famous by the song "Hot Rod Lincoln." It's a look at the plains state diaspora to California (though there are some historical issues in the song). I'm including the album version because it has some great accordion work by Fats Kaplan.
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Post by beccabear67 on Mar 20, 2020 13:40:46 GMT -5
I love the Scottish Everly Brothers, er I mean The Proclaimers! I only have This Is The Story and Sunshine On Leith... should definitely check out their further adventures sometime soon... unless I haver...
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 20, 2020 17:55:11 GMT -5
I love the Scottish Everly Brothers, er I mean The Proclaimers! I only have This Is The Story and Sunshine On Leith... should definitely check out their further adventures sometime soon... unless I haver... You know, I once found myself sat in a recording studio with John Owen Williams, who produced the Proclaimers' debut album. He told me that they were both such loud singers that he had to set them up about 5 foot away from the microphone when he recorded them, just to make sure the recording didn't distort.
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Post by beccabear67 on Mar 21, 2020 13:16:01 GMT -5
Here's an early '70s British group that was new to me, named Cochise (thanks to someone posting about them on a music forum). Unusually they had a steel guitar player. A number of really gorgeous original songs across three albums, here's one I think might be appreciated here... my current best find...
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 24, 2020 9:18:47 GMT -5
Top songs of 2019
#67 - Whitey Morgan and the 78s - Bourbon and the Blues
This one surprised me a tad. I'm a big fan of Morgan and the 78s. And this comes off their most recent album, 2018s "Hard Times and White Lines." But it's not one of the tracks I'd pulled out and put on a playlist. So it just kind of showed up and I'm not sure why. But that's okay. It's a solid Outlaw cut off an excellent album.
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Post by berkley on Mar 24, 2020 13:09:59 GMT -5
I first heard My Old Friend the Blues as a Proclaimers cover and that's still my favourite version. I don't think I started listening to Steve Earle till maybe 2 or 3 years later. They're both great live acts, among the best I've seen. Yeah, the Proclaimers version is really nice. It's on their second album, Sunshine on Leith, right? I've never owned that album, but I used to take it out of my local library regularly back in the late '80s. Actually, the Proclaimers are really underrated; there's much more to them than just "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)". Yes, definitely under-rated. For some reason they were fairly popular with a certain crowd in Canada (from my experience, Nflders and Cape Bretoners) before they caught on elsewhere in Canada or the US, or such was my impression. Of course they really took off when "500 Miles" was in that Hollywood movie with Johnny Depp. The funny thing is, I remember trying to convince a friend once to give them a listen and receiving a totally negative, almost sneeringly dismissive response. Then, a year or two later after they had had a radio hit out of that film, they were suddenly one of her favourite bands.
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Post by berkley on Mar 24, 2020 13:22:04 GMT -5
Here's an early '70s British group that was new to me, named Cochise (thanks to someone posting about them on a music forum). Unusually they had a steel guitar player. A number of really gorgeous original songs across three albums, here's one I think might be appreciated here... my current best find... Havent heard any Cochise before, as far as I'm aware. I like their sound, based on that one track.
More pop bands should use steel guitar. Here's a favourite of mine that a lot of people here might not have heard as I'm not sure how big a hit it was, if at all, anywhere outside Canada:
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 24, 2020 13:30:46 GMT -5
Yeah, the Proclaimers version is really nice. It's on their second album, Sunshine on Leith, right? I've never owned that album, but I used to take it out of my local library regularly back in the late '80s. Actually, the Proclaimers are really underrated; there's much more to them than just "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)". Yes, definitely under-rated. For some reason they were fairly popular with a certain crowd in Canada (from my experience, Nflders and Cape Bretoners) before they caught on elsewhere in Canada or the US, or such was my impression. Of course they really took off when "500 Miles" was in that Hollywood movie with Johnny Depp. The funny thing is, I remember trying to convince a friend once to give them a listen and receiving a totally negative, almost sneeringly dismissive response. Then, a year or two later after they had had a radio hit out of that film, they were suddenly one of her favourite bands. The Proclaimers had several big hits here in the UK at the time. I was vaugly aware of them on the underground indie folk circuit around 1985 or so, but I didn't hear them until they had their first UK hit with "Letter From America" in 1986. What really struck me at the time was the unapologetically thick Scottish accents they sang with. That kind of colloquial accent was stylistically very "indie", but it was still highly unusual to hear it in a Top 10 song in 1986. Two years later, they had an even bigger hit with "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" in 1988, and the Sunshine on Leith album was on the charts for ages. They also had a third UK hit with a cover of Roger Miller's "King of the Road" in the early '90s. So, they were definitely pretty popular and well know here at the time. They were also absolutely HUGE in Australia, I believe.
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Post by beccabear67 on Mar 24, 2020 17:44:54 GMT -5
They were on Canadian TV of some kind when Letter From America was the big song, and that's how I learned of The Proclaimers, they definitely stood out. I was into Big Country a bit before that where they made the lead guitar sound like bagpipes!
I can't say I remember James LeRoy, at least not from that song. There were some minor Canadian country artists who got radio play for the content laws, and I remember songs I might have a hard time trying to find again if I wanted to hear them again, Peter Chipman was our local area country guy, and Ian Tyson grew up in Victoria so we would hear some of his perhaps more obscure solo recordings on the country radio here. For some reason Roger Whittaker seemed to be classified as country (as well as Gordon Lightfoot) and those records were on the radio a lot, Nana Mouskori too.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 24, 2020 17:47:47 GMT -5
I was into Big Country a bit before that where they made the lead guitar sound like bagpipes! Ha ha! I used to love Big Country's bagpipe guitars!
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 25, 2020 11:11:43 GMT -5
Top songs of 2019
#66 - The Bottle Rockets - Indianapolis
This is a perennial on my lists. Having lived for years with vehicles you couldn't trust to get across town this one just strikes home in so may ways. Plus The Bottle Rockets are just pure fun as a band.
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Post by beccabear67 on Mar 25, 2020 13:00:33 GMT -5
Love that hummingbird sound!
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 25, 2020 17:19:40 GMT -5
Love that hummingbird sound! Can't beat a Gibson Hummingbird if you're playing country stuff.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 26, 2020 10:52:17 GMT -5
Top songs of 2019
#65 - Waylon Jennings - Are You Sure Hank Done it This Way
This is the mantra of the Outlaw Movement in country music. Waylon and Willie and the boys were trying to do something different, not just musically but also with the business of music.
Ultimately I just love this song.
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Post by beccabear67 on Mar 26, 2020 12:15:36 GMT -5
I still like that Waylon song and I must've heard it a few dozen times at least. I downloaded a U.S. tv special with him, Jessie Colter and James Garner on the road playing live in Mr. Lucky's in Arizona, and Red Rocks in Colorado for watching with my Dad and he loved it. There's a really beautiful duet 'in the studio' with Jessie doing Storms Never Last. It's on youtube under Waylon TV Special and it's around an hour. The sound quality is good but the video would seem to be from someone's old VHS tape. There's even a medley of Buddy Holly songs with some of the then current Crickets backing! I saw one of Waylon's leather stage-worn vests in-person once (a guy who helped at one of his shows was given it).
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