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Song: "Talk to Me of Mendocino"
Album: Kate & Anna McGarrigle
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Very few songs evoke a place quite like the McGarrigle sisters’ “Talk to Me of Mendocino.” There the pair are, content to be sitting and freezing in upstate New York state, looking at all the beaituful tall trees and wondering if they’re going to have to remain alone or will be beckoned to the West Coast. Of course, there’s the case of a severe broken heart and a bad case of the blues supplying the drama behind this possible move west, but for now they can’t quite figure out the next step. But if it’s off from home and on to Southbend, Indiana, no doubt to ogle a few automotive companies, not to mention Monty Python’s Spamalot, so be it. And then it’s over the Rocky Mountains before sliding right down to the high cliffs of Northern California. Kate and Anna McGarrigle’s voices are living beauty, like they’re caught perfectly between pieces of parchment paper without a chance of losing the gorgeous tone coming from another world. There is something about sisters who sing together that’s thicker than blood, and as this pair came to the front in the mid-70s, they seemed to stop time. It didn’t take but a few years for the changing musical landscape of new wave to break over such fragile arrangements, but for a brief moment it really did feel like the McGarrigles had lifted up the world and maybe even planted a rainbow off the coast from the towering redwood tress. Mendocino has been magical ever since. 1 Comments
There weren’t many artists like Delaney Bramlett. He crossed the color line when he was born, and was able to create his own style of music out of sheer force. The singer came roaring out of Mississippi in the early ‘60s hell-bent on taking More | 0 Comments
Bon Iver, “Flume”
The best opening line of the year: “I am my mother’s only one, it’s
enough.” With those eight words Bon Iver (aka Justin Vernon) sat in a
hunting cabin in northwestern Wisconsin two years ago and carved his
name in stone.
There are over thirty different songs with the title “Sonic Boom,” but for sheer velocity and instrumental impact, none are more impressive than Guitar Shorty’s. The electric blues guitarist has been performing everywhere from gutbucket bars to concert halls all around the world since his teenage years...
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It’s not surprising one of the best songs of 2008 is a reissue from 23 years ago, because “Swingin Party” has all the aching elegance of timelessness. Paul Westerberg’s voice sounds like he is one millimeter away from a complete nervous More | 0 Comments
This Christmas classic takes longing to a whole new level, beyond hurt and off into the land of abject humiliation. What can be worse than being alone during the holidays, waiting for someone to come back who obviously isn’t?
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"The Godfather of Soul" was nothing if not a balladeer. While the funk would bring down the house at his show-stopping live performances, it was the ballads that made the ladies swoon.
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They came rolling out of the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, two brothers and a righteous rhythm section of boyhood friends.
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In so many ways, Song Cycle was one of the opening salvos of the artist-friendly Warner Bros. Records.
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The pedal steel guitar doesn’t get a lot of room in rock & roll. Sneaky Pete Kleinow in the Flying Burrito Brothers caught plenty of attention, but then that band was always more country than rock.
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It’s the sound of being three months late on the electric bill, high blood pressure prescriptions too expensive to refill, bad brakes you have to fake fixing by turning up the radio so you don’t hear them squeal...
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Some people call him the greatest country singer who ever lived. His earliest years were spent in the shadow of Hank Williams, and for some that might have been a place too dark to ever get out of.
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In a year when wonderful women singers created albums of endless fascination, Beth Rowley belongs in that number. She may not have gathered the attention of Duffy or Adele (maybe she needs to drop her last name), but Rowley should have.
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For many years pianists ruled the roost in music. It was the first instrument to totally capture popular taste, and also used the most in writing songs.
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This might be the most irresistible music ever made. It starts with the percussion, a wildly syncopated mix of drums, cowbells and anything else that’s handy to beat on: beer bottles, hubcaps and, hell, someone else’s head.
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One of the real surprises of pop music in the late ‘60s was when Tommy James and the Shondells released “Crystal Blue Persuasion.”
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Rockin’ Sidney Simien never wrote a bad song in his life. Some may have been better than others, but from the man who created the “My Toot Toot” craze in the mid-‘80s, it seemed gems poured from his pen like it barely took any effort at all.
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There's no place like home. There's no place like home. Truer words have never been spoken and Jenny Lewis' song "Barking at the Moon" from the new animated Disney movie Bolt is about just that.
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There isn’t anything small about the talent of Little Junior Parker. In fact, he quickly dropped the size qualifier in his name right after this rhythm & blues monster was released.
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After the crash of his early folk-psych group the Charlatans, Dan Hicks set up shop with the Hot Licks, keeping the fine Haight-Ashbury period garb but honing in on the swinging side of string band music and harmony singing.
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The band starts with a lazy lilt right out of their own “Green Onions.” Maybe not as instantly hip, but with enough catch in it to fry your tomatoes. Al Jackson, Jr.’s hi-hat snaps with plenty crunch to give the song kick.
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