Home Music Archive by category "Americana" (Page 11)

Category: Americana

Brandon Santini – Live & Extended!

Brandon Santini

Brandon Santini – Live & Extended!

I love blues harmonica! I guess it stems back to listening to guys like John Mayall, Sonny Terry, Paul Butterfield and Sonny Boy Williamson in the 70s. Over the years, the list of my favorite harp players has grown to include: James cotton, Jason Ricci, Kim Wilson, Mark Hummel, Rick Estrin and others. One player who is quickly moving up the ranks of my favorites is Memphis’ Brandon Santini!! With a sound that has been compared to Mister Cotton and Mister Butterfield, this native of the Piedmont region of North Carolina is staking his claim for inclusion among the best!! In my eyes and ears, he already is included! My first encounter with Brandon was when I picked up his 2013 release This Time Another Year which is a great album, but his latest release, Live & Extended! has topped it! read more

More Treasures from The Princeton Record Exchange!

A Trip to the Princeton Record Exchange Yields Seven New Treasures!

So on Wednesday night, my son Nicholas and I went bargain-hunting at the Princeton Record Exchange, armed with our Christmas Gift Cards. I had a $25.00 gift card from my birthday back in October,plus my $25.00 Christmas gift card. I came home with 13 CDs and my $25.00 Christmas gift card! Six of the thirteen albums were from the Cheap Jazz album shelves and you can read about them here. Of the remaining seven, four are Alt-Country/Folk albums, two blues albums and one New Age album. Here they are: read more

Steve Krase: Buckle Up – for a rockin’ blues ride!!

Buckle UpThe title of the new album from Steve Krase is Buckle Up (featuring Trudy Lynn) and that’s just what you should do before you listen to the album!  Buckle up and get ready for a wild ride!  The worst thing about the ten track album is that it’s only 39 minutes long! The album had me from the opening rocker “Jolene” right on through to the closing track – an instrumental titled  “Now”, and there were not many times during the album that my feet were not in motion! read more

Steve Krase: Buckle Up

 Buckle Up for a rockin’ blues ride from Steve Krase!

The title of the new album from Steve Krase is Buckle Up (featuring Trudy Lynn) and that’s just what you should do before you listen to the album!  Buckle up and get ready for a wild ride!  The worst thing about the ten track album is that it’s only 39 minutes long! The album had me from the opening rocker “Jolene” right on through to the closing track – an instrumental titled  “Now”, and there were not many times during the album that my feet were not in motion! read more

Exploring the Chicago Blues of Lurrie Bell

Lurrie BellLast year 2013 was a great year for Chicago Blues artist Lurrie Bell. Bell, the son of the great blues harpist Carey Bell released one of his most successful solo albums, Blues in My Soul.  Blues in My Soul, released on the Delmark label, was Bell’s return to electric blues after two albums which saw him playing in acoustic and religious styles. Lurrie Bell’s return was positively received by the blues community,  the Blues Foundation nominated him for five 2014 Blues Music Awards, and Lurrie won the 2013 Living Blues Award as the Male Blues Act of the Year! Here are Lurrie Bell’s five Blues Music Award’s nominations. read more

Wayback Record Machine Playlist moves forward to 1968 a year of change for the US and for me!!

A Long Time ComingWhen I started writing this blog, I said it was about the books that I read and the music that I listened to, well, some how I’ve gotten away from that central premise as far as music goes. To remedy that situation,  last night I traveled back to that early music that I can hardly remember, although I do remember going to the Steel Pier with my parents to see Ricky Nelson and Bobby Darin!  Tonight ,the Wayback Machine moved  forward from 1958  to  that  pivotal year of 1968, a year of upheaval for our country and a year of change for me, as I moved away from R&B mostly Motown to the  new emerging underground rock scene. read more

“Pop” Music then and now – 1964 – 2014 – Diversity vs. Sameness???

callison2So I’ve written before that 1964 was a big year for me, at the age of 13 I visited the World’s Fair in New York, when it was still a big thing, saw Johnny Callison of the Phillies hit the game winning home run in the All Star game – live!  I also attended my one and only World Series game, where I saw “Uncle”  Barney, my mother’s first cousin throw a knuckler to Mickey Mantle which he planted in the right field stands to set the all-time record for most homers in World Series play!! So when I started thinking about the changes in music through the years, I figured that was a good place to start!! In 1964, Rock and Roll was about 10 years old and going full-bore. From Rolling Stone….. read more

A Morning Song Playlist for a Lazy Saturday Morning!!

Misty-03-10-11-_0018I was thinking last night about things that I used to really like about listening to the radio, one of them was when the DJ would could a playlist with a central theme. Sometimes it would be a little hard to recognize but it was still fun.

This morning I woke up thinking, let’s make a morning song playlist….. The first song that popped into my head was “Get out of Bed” by Livingston Taylor. I bet that everyone thought about that one didn’t they!! Next came “I Woke Up this Morning” from Ten Years After. Followed by Joni Mitchell‘s “Morning Morgantown”  Then I thought, what about that song “one misty moisty morning” who sang that?? Spotify saved me and I found the Steeleye Span version that I was looking for! While I was searching for Steeleye Span, I came across Cat Steven’s “Morning Has Broken” why did I not think of the song we used as the recessional at our wedding? read more

This Date in Music -Nov 14, 1977 – Derek Gripper is born and the Safari discovers the Music of Mali!!

Originally Posted Nov 15, 12013

Last night the tiredness of the last now three days of work caught up with me and I was unable to complete this post …….

So tonight I was reviewing the list of jazz musician birthdays on November 14th and a name that caught my attention was guitarist Derek Gripper, who was born on today’s date in 1977. I read in his biography at All About Jazz that….

Derek Gripper is a composer and guitarist from the Western Cape of South Africa, merging “the imagery and mystery of the rural areas of the Cape” with the techniques of classical guitar and the string music of Africa (uhadi bow, umrhubhe, kora, guitar). Derek calls this new evolution of music New Cape describing it as a “rethinking of the Cape’s transcultural heritage.” read more

This Date in Music November 13, 1946 – Ray Wylie Hubbard was born!

Ray Wylie 4On this date in 1946 on of my favorite Texas Music artist/Americana Artist Ray Wylie Hubbard was born. Now like Booker T  and :”Green Onions” in my music world Ray Wylie is usually associated with one song….. “Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother”! A song that Jerry Jeff Walker made semi-famous on his album Viva Terlingua! Here’s a little information about Ray from his biography at All Music…

A leading figure of the progressive country movement of the 1970s, singer/songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard remains best known for authoring the perennial anthem “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother.” Born November 13, 1946, in Soper, Oklahoma, Hubbard and his family relocated to Dallas during the mid-’50s; there he learned to play guitar, eventually forming a folk group with fellow aspiring musician Michael Martin Murphey. Befriended by the likes of Jerry Jeff Walker and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Hubbard later formed a trio named Three Faces West, which regularly performed at the Outpost lub in Red River, New Mexico, a musical hotbed also trafficked by artists including Steve lb and Bill & Bonnie Hearne. Upon the breakup of Three Faces West, Hubbard toured the southwestern coffeehouse circuit as a solo act before forming another group, Texas Fever; they too proved short-lived, and he returned to New Mexico to again take up residence at the Outpost. Read More read more