General Comments for all Naweedna cds



Download 247.48 Kb.
Page1/6
Date16.08.2017
Size247.48 Kb.
#33173
  1   2   3   4   5   6
General Comments for all Naweedna CDs


  • Will Moyle’s Jazz Alive, a locally produced master collection of classic jazz. The Will Moyle stuff is the best collection of jazz I’ve ever heard. I taped it in the 80s from WXXI broadcasts.




  • FFUSA: Folk Festival USA, a nationally distributed collection of excerpts recorded live at various folk festivals around the country – varying from traditional country to purely ethnic, to socio-political (one lesbian festival, in fact). FFUSA is eclectic, and the live recordings often catch a lot of crowd noise as well as bad microphone placement. Originally taped from WXXI in the 80s.




  • GTWG: The Glory That Was Grease, another locally produced broadcast that featured the formative years of Rock and Roll from the 50s and 60s – my youth. The “Grease” may have been “Greece”, the Rochester suburb where the program originated. The GTWG is marginal but good for reminding my generation of their teenage years – if that can be considered a good thing. Originally taped from WXXI in the 80s.




  • BBGR: Big Band Go Round, yet another local program featuring … Big Band, but also including most anything recorded from 20s to the 50s. The BBGR is so broad that it is unlikely to be duplicated anywhere. However, you have to have a fondness for the crackle of scratchy old 78’s and an appetite for schmaltz to fully appreciate it. Originally taped in the 80s.




  • PHC & PHC-D: Prairie Home Companion – the middle years. I didn’t get started with PHC until the 80s, so I missed the early period, and I stopped taping when Garrison retired – for the first time. Remember the unfortunate guy who took over the time slot from Garrison? Me, neither. AS IF anyone could do that – a classic no-win situation. When Garrison un-retired (like Michael Jordan), the second version of the show was based in NYC, and I didn’t care for it that much, so I didn’t tape it. A few years later I discovered that he had gone back to the old format and was broadcasting from St Paul MN again. I’ve been digitizing those programs in real time ever since, and they are designated as PHC-D. The PHC stuff contains the essence of American music – in my not-so-humble opinion. The only nationally broadcast show that ever came close to matching PHC for quality and variety was the TV show, Northern Exposure – go figure. I have two Northern CDs; if there are more, I would like to know about them ASAP.




  • The dates represent the release date of the album or CD source. These dates are as accurate as I can obtain. The dates for some tracks from compilations reflect the release date of the compilation.

As usual, my comments are in blue. The other information comes from www.allmusic.com. Additions and corrections are welcome … encouraged, in fact.


In Memoriam … 2007:

  • Anita O’Day

  • James “Pookie” Hudson (of The Spaniels)

  • James Brown (actually died 12/06, but too late for Naweedna 2006)

  • Jay “Hootie” McShann

  • Joe Zawinul

  • Robert Lockwood Jr

  • Ruth Brown

  • Tommy Makem


The Playlist and Notes for Naweedna 2007
01 Corn Bread And Butter Beans – Carolina Chocolate Drops
PHC (2007)

I liked this from the get-go. It wasn’t much of a stretch to make it the lead track. As the bio shows, these are young, talented musicians doing traditional stuff. I like it a lot … might actually buy some ;-)
Traditional music fans are abuzz about the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a group of young African-American string band musicians that have come to together to play the fiddle and banjo music of Carolina's Piedmont. Rhiannon Giddens (banjo), who grew up in the Piedmont area, is an Oberlin Conservatory of music grad who fell in love with old-time music. Justin Robinson (fiddle), from a musical family — his mother is an opera singer and cellist, his sister a classical pianist, and his grandfather a harmonica player — played classical violin when he was a kid, but traditional music recently won him over. Born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, Dom Flemons (harmonica, jug, guitar) has immersed himself in the sounds of yesterday — blues, country and string band traditions — and he branches out into early jazz, rock and original material, too. Sule Greg Wilson (percussion) studied drumming back in his Washington, D.C., school days. He is well versed in folkways from Bolivia to Belfast, Cape Town to the Crescent City, and he has performed with musicians from Nigerian percussionist Babatunde Olatunji to banjoist Tony Trischka to Malian Jali Cheikh Hamala Diabate. Together, these four are taking the string band scene by storm. The Carolina Chocolate Drops' CD, Dona Got a Ramblin' Mind (Music Maker), was released last year.
02 Alaskan Nights – David Schwartz
Northern Exposure (1992)

Yep, another Northern Exposure track. I believe Schwarz was the musical genius behind this eclectic collection. As I tell everyone, if you can only have two CDs, Northern and More Northern are the two to have. Rest assured there will be more from this two CD set.
Northern Exposure

Album Title Northern Exposure

Date of Release 1992 (release)

AMG Rating 4 *

Time 42:31
1. Theme from Northern Exposure by David Schwartz - 3:04

2. Jolie Louise by Daniel Lanois - 2:39

3. Hip Hug-Her by Booker T. & the MG's - 2:24

4. At Last by Etta James - 2:59

5. Everybody Be Yoself by Chic Street Man - 3:06

6. Alaskan Nights by David Schwartz - 2:40

7. Don Quichotte by Magazine Sixty - 5:08

8. When I Grow Too Old to Dream by Cole, Nat King Trio - 3:30

9. Emabhaceni by Miriam Makeba - 2:39

10. Gimme Three Steps by Lynyrd Skynyrd - 4:27

11. Báilèro from Chants d' Auvergne by Frederica VonStade / Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - 6:25

12. Medley: A Funeral in My Brain/Woody the... by David Schwartz - 3:30


More Music From Northern Exposure
1. Ojibway Square Dance (Love Song) – Georgia Wettlin-Larsen

2. Theme From Northern Exposure – David Schwartz

3. Stir It Up – Johnny Nash

4. Mambo Baby – Ruth Brown

5. Someone Loves You – Simon Bonney

6. The Ladder – David Schwartz

7. If You Take Me Back – Big Joe & His Washboard Band

8. Un Mariage Casse (A Broken Marriage) – Basin Brothers

9. There I Go Again -- Vinx

10. Lay My Love – Brian Eno & John Cale

11. Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams (And Dream Your Troubles Away) – Les Paul & Mary Ford

12. Mooseburger Stomp – David Schwartz

13. I May Want a Man – Joanne Shenandoah
03 Everything Reminds Me Of My Dog – Jane Siberry
Bound By The Beauty (1989)

Got this from Spollen. Don’t you just hate these sing-song things that stick in your head? Yeah, like I hate beer. I didn’t care for it much on first listening, but second and third listening made it a clear winner. While we were auditioning tracks, it became obvious this just had to be included. Hope you like it. Hey, she’s Canadian, eh?
There is a glitch in the track, but it is also on the original I have so … can’t do anything about it. Sorry.
Mahoney looked up the actual lyrics, so here they are for those of you who might wonder what she is actually saying.
everything reminds me of my dog

the guy in the store reminds me of my dog

telephones remind me of my dog...yoohoo

taxicabs remind me too


if you remind me of my dog

we'll probably git along little doggie

git along git along little doggie git a...
smiling at strangers reminds me of my dog

(better let them know you're friendly)

the way people dress reminds me too

pissing on their favourite tree

sad things remind me of my dog

cockroaches and other insects

remind me too, don't eat them

the blank expression of the little boy

with thick glasses who picks

himself up from the sidewalk

and stands there blinking in the sun

ho oh!
if you remind me of my dog

we'll probably git along little doggie

git along git along little doggie git a...


like the man on the subway

sitting across from me

and every time I looked at him he smiled

and by the time

I got to the end of the subway line

I 'd given him at least ...oh...25 cookies


guys in bars remind me of my dog

the way it takes you so long

to choose the perfect table
if you remind me of my dog

we'll probably git along little doggie

git along git along little doggie git a...
me and my ferocious dog

we're walking down the street

and everyone we meet says

"ach yer a goot doogie !...

"ach yer a goot doogie!..."

"ach yer a goot doogie!..."


except when we go for a walk

to get the Sunday paper

I stand there and read the headlines

he reads the wind

sometimes he hits a funny smell and laughs

I hate it when he does that- I feel so dumb

what? what? I say
everything reminds me of my dog

beautiful things

sunsets remind me of my dog

Gina go to your window

Einstein reminds me of me dog

I want to pat his fluffy head

this whole world reminds me of my dog

my dog reminds me of this whole world

do I remind you of a dog? (thump thump)

I do? (faster thump thump)

skyscrapers remind me of my dog

sitting in the tall grass waiting for a rabbit

guys in red cameros too

it's getting to be a habit

artists remind me of my dog

staking out their originality on the nearest tree

old folks remind me of my dog

my dog reminds old people of their dogs

(Barfy, Ruffo, Beanhead)

Gina says I remind her of the dog

the that way I just did that

golfers teeing off remind me of my dog

the way he sits by me and shifts on his front paws
what is it you want? look at it...

do you want to go for a walk? do you want a cookie?

do you want me to dial the number for you?
The idiosyncratic Canadian art-pop chanteuse Jane Siberry was born in Toronto, Ontario on October 12, 1955; after taking up the piano as a child, she began absorbing the classical and operatic inspirations which later distinguished her professional work. While earning a degree in microbiology, Siberry began performing at the local coffeehouse where she also worked as a waitress; ultimately, she used her tip money to fund her 1981 self-titled debut LP, a spartan offering spotlighting her ethereal vocal navigations through the eccentric rhythm changes and dramatic mood shifts which ornamented her abstract, atmospheric sound.
Three years later, Siberry resurfaced with No Borders Here, a more assured, cinematic collection highlighted by "Mimi on the Beach," an underground Canadian hit. The critical and commercial success of 1985's evocative The Speckless Sky brought her to the attention of Warner/Reprise for 1988's The Walking, a bold major label bow comprised of dense, epic-length soundscapes and subtle, intricate melodies. Despite considerable media acclaim, the album failed to dent the charts, and consequently Siberry's next record, 1989's Bound By the Beauty, reflected more commercial concerns, focusing on more direct production and succinct songwriting.
Siberry's next release was a 1992 career overview titled Summer in the Yukon; while comprised primarily of older material, one new cut — a drastic remix of Bound By the Beauty's "The Life Is the Red Wagon" — proved revelatory, its painless transformation into a club-ready dance track revealing the true elasticity of the singer's music. As a result, 1993's When I Was a Boy, produced in part by Brian Eno and Michael Brook, emerged as her most eclectic and ambitious work yet, while 1995's Maria found the singer recording with a jazz quintet. After growing disenchanted with the compromises of remaining on a major label, in May 1996 Siberry formed her own record company, dubbed Sheeba; Teenager, her first self-released effort, followed a month later. The live triology - Christmas: Music for the Christmas Season, Trees :Music for Films and Forests, Lips: Music for Saying It - captured three nights at the Bottom Line in New York and finally saw the light of day in 1999. The melodically beautiful Hush appeared the next year, showcasing a brilliant collection of traditional American and Celtic compositions. City (2001) marked rare material and collaborations with the likes of Joe Jackson, Nigel Kennedy, Ghostland and others.
Bound By the Beauty

Rating 3 *

Release Date Aug 1989

Recording Date 1989

Time 42:39

Rock
Siberry has by now mastered an ability to make her unorthodox song forms (changing time signatures, surprising alterations of melody) work for her, and she's struck a balance between revealing too much and too little in her lyrics, so that such songs as "The Life Is the Red Wagon" really do reveal all the levels she's given it. And "Everything Reminds Me of My Dog" is one of the funniest and best songs of the year.

1 Bound by the Beauty Siberry 4:41

2 Something About Trains Siberry 3:44

3 Hockey Siberry 3:58

4 Everything Reminds Me of My Dog Siberry 4:17

5 The Valley Siberry 6:04

6 The Life Is the Red Wagon Siberry 4:12

7 Half Angel Half Eagle Siberry 3:55

8 La Jalouse Siberry 3:59

9 Miss Punta Blanca Siberry 1:38

10 Are We Dancing Now? (Map III) Siberry 6:11



04 I Got You – James Brown
CD of JB (1985)

Where do you start with James Brown? I’ve never been that big of a fan, but his collected works are impressive. I auditioned several tracks and thought this one – although well known – was pretty representative: the beginning scream, the driving beat, the message … things you expect from JB. This track is from Steve Phillips.
"Soul Brother Number One," "the Godfather of Soul," "the Hardest Working Man in Show Business," "Mr. Dynamite" — those are mighty titles, but no one can question that James Brown has earned them more than any other performer. Other singers were more popular, others were equally skilled, but few other African-American musicians have been so influential on the course of popular music. And no other musician, pop or otherwise, put on a more exciting, exhilarating stage show; Brown's performances were marvels of athletic stamina and split-second timing.
Through the gospel-impassioned fury of his vocals and the complex polyrhythms of his beats, Brown was a crucial midwife in not just one, but two revolutions in American black music. He was one of the figures most responsible for turning R&B into soul; he was, most would agree, the figure most responsible for turning soul music into the funk of the late '60s and early '70s. Since the mid-'70s, he's done little more than tread water artistically; his financial and drug problems eventually got him a controversial prison sentence. Yet in a sense his music is now more influential than ever, as his voice and rhythms were sampled on innumerable rap and hip-hop recordings, and critics have belatedly hailed his innovations as among the most important in all of rock or soul.
Brown's rags-to-riches-to-rags story has heroic and tragic dimensions of mythic resonance. Born into poverty in the South, he ran afoul of the law by the late '40s on an armed robbery conviction. With the help of singer Bobby Byrd's family, Brown gained parole, and started a gospel group with Byrd, changing their focus to R&B as the rock revolution gained steam. The Flames, as the Georgian group were known in the mid-'50s, were signed by Federal/King, and had a huge R&B hit right off the bat with the wrenching, churchy ballad "Please, Please, Please." By now the Flames had become James Brown & the Famous Flames, the charisma, energy, and talent of Brown making him the natural star attraction.
All of Brown's singles over the next two years flopped, as he sought to establish his own style, recording material that was obviously derivative of heroes like Roy Brown, Hank Ballard, Little Richard, and Ray Charles. In retrospect, it can be seen that Brown was in the same position as dozens of other R&B one-shots; talented singers in need of better songs, or not fully on the road to a truly original sound. What made Brown succeed where hundreds of others failed was his superhuman determination, working the chitlin circuit to death, sharpening his band, and keeping an eye on new trends. He was on the verge of being dropped from King in late 1958 when his perseverance finally paid off, as "Try Me" became a number-one R&B (and small pop) hit, and several follow-ups established him as a regular visitor to the R&B charts.
Brown's style of R&B got harder as the '60s began, as he added more complex, Latin- and jazz-influenced rhythms on hits like "Good Good Lovin'," "I'll Go Crazy," "Think," and "Night Train," alternating these with torturous ballads that featured some of the most frayed screaming to be heard outside of the church. Black audiences already knew that Brown had the most exciting live act around, but he truly started to become a phenomenon with the release of Live at the Apollo in 1963. Capturing a James Brown concert in all its whirling-dervish energy and calculated spontaneity, it reached number two in the album charts, an unprecedented feat for a hardcore R&B LP.
Live at the Apollo was recorded and released against the wishes of the King label. It was these kinds of artistic standoffs that led Brown to seek better opportunities elsewhere. In 1964, he ignored his King contract to record "Out of Sight" for Smash, igniting a lengthy legal battle that prevented him from issuing vocal recordings for about a year. When he finally resumed recording for King in 1965, he had a new contract that granted him far more artistic control over his releases.
Brown's new era had truly begun, however, with "Out of Sight," which topped the R&B charts and made the pop Top 40. For some time, Brown had been moving toward more elemental lyrics which threw in as many chants and screams as words, and more intricate beats and horn charts that took some of their cues from the ensemble work of jazz outfits. "Out of Sight" wasn't called funk when it came out, but it had most of the essential ingredients. These were amplified and perfected on 1965's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," a monster that finally broke Brown to the white audience, reaching the Top Ten. The even more adventurous follow-up, "I Got You (I Feel Good)," did even better, making number three.
These hits kicked off Brown's period of greatest commercial success and public visibility. From 1965 to the end of the decade, he was rarely off the R&B charts, often on the pop listings, and all over the concert circuit and national television, even meeting with Vice President Hubert Humphrey and other important politicians as a representative of the black community. His music became even bolder and funkier, as melody was dispensed with almost altogether in favor of chunky rhythms and magnetic interplay between his vocals, horns, drums, and scratching electric guitar (heard to best advantage on hits like "Cold Sweat," "I Got the Feelin'," and "There Was a Time"). The lyrics were now not so much words as chanted, stream-of-consciousness slogans, often aligning themselves with black pride as well as good old-fashioned (or new-fashioned) sex. Much of the credit for the sound he devised belonged to (and has now been belatedly attributed) his top-notch supporting musicians, such as saxophonists Maceo Parker, St. Clair Pinckney, and Pee Wee Ellis; guitarist Jimmy Nolen; backup singer and longtime loyal associate Bobby Byrd; and drummer Clyde Stubblefield.
Brown was both a brilliant bandleader and a stern taskmaster, leading his band to walk out on him in late 1969. Amazingly, he turned the crisis to his advantage by recruiting a young Cincinnati outfit called the Pacemakers, featuring guitarist Catfish Collins and bassist Bootsy Collins. Although they only stayed with him for about a year, they were crucial to Brown's evolution into even harder funk, emphasizing the rhythm and the bottom even more. The Collins brothers, for their part, put their apprenticeship to good use, helping define '70s funk as members of the Parliament/Funkadelic axis.
In the early '70s, many of the most important members of Brown's late-'60s band returned to the fold, to be billed as the J.B's (they also made records on their own). Brown continued to score heavily on the R&B charts throughout the first half of the 1970s, the music becoming even more and more elemental and beat-driven. At the same time, he was retreating from the white audience he had cultivated during the mid- to late '60s; records like "Make It Funky," "Hot Pants," "Get on the Good Foot," and "The Payback" were huge soul sellers, but only modest pop ones. Critics charged, with some justification, that the Godfather was starting to repeat and recycle himself too many times. It must be remembered, though, that these songs were made for the singles-radio-jukebox market and not meant to be played one after the other on CD compilations (as they are today).
By the mid-'70s, Brown was beginning to burn out artistically. He seemed shorn of new ideas, was being out-gunned on the charts by disco, and was running into problems with the IRS and his financial empire. There were sporadic hits, and he could always count on enthusiastic live audiences, but by the 1980s, he didn't have a label. With the explosion of rap, however, which frequently sampled vintage JB records, Brown was now hipper than ever. He collaborated with Afrika Bambaataa on the critical smash single "Unity," and re-entered the Top Ten in 1986 with "Living in America." Rock critics, who had always ranked Brown considerably below Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin in the soul canon, began to reevaluate his output, particularly his funk years, sometimes anointing him not just as Soul Brother Number One, but as the most important black musician of the rock era.
In 1988, Brown's personal life came crashing down in a well-publicized incident in which he was accused by his wife of assault and battery. After a year skirting hazy legal and personal troubles, he led the police on an interstate car chase after allegedly threatening people with a handgun. The episode ended in a six-year prison sentence that many felt excessive; he was paroled after serving two years.
It's probably safe to assume that Brown will not make any more important recordings, although he continues to perform and release new material like 1998's I'm Back. Yet his music is probably more popular in the American mainstream today than it has been since the 1970s, and not just among young rappers and samplers. For a long time his cumbersome, byzantine discography was mostly out of print, with pieces available only on skimpy greatest-hits collections. A series of exceptionally well-packaged reissues on PolyGram has changed the situation; the Star Time box set is the best overview, with other superb compilations devoted to specific phases of his lengthy career, from '50s R&B to '70s funk.
The CD of JB

Rating 4.5 Stars

Release Date 1985

Recording Date Feb 4, 1956-Aug 4, 1973

Time 54:50
Polydor Records put a tentative toe into the emerging CD stream in 1985 and enjoyed surprising commercial success with this 56-minute, 18-song James Brown sampler. Rather than taking the standard greatest-hits approach, compiler Cliff White mixed familiar hits with rarities and even unreleased material, a shortened version of the later boxed-set formula. So, along with number one R&B hits like "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," "Super Bad," and "Mother Popcorn," one heard a previously unreleased version of "It's a Man's World," two years older than the better-known one, and "I Got You," an early version of "I Got You (I Feel Good)," culled from the withdrawn Out of Sight LP. The effect, especially for a first-time listener, was to whet the appetite for more, though The CD of JB was more a highlights disc than a thorough anthology.
1 Doing It to Death Brown 5:23

2 Super Bad Brown 2:59

3 Soul Power Brown 3:01

4 Think Pauling 3:13

5 It's a Man's Man's Man's World Brown, Newsome 3:14

6 Try Me Brown 2:29

7 Bewildered Powell, Whitcup 2:23

8 Out of Sight Wright 2:22

9 I Got You Wright 2:26

10 Prisoner of Love Columbo, Gaskill, Robin 2:27

11 I Got the Feelin' Brown 2:40

12 Maybe the Last Time Wright 3:00

13 Licking Stick-Licking Stick Brown, Byrd, Ellis 2:47

14 Mother Popcorn Brown, Ellis 3:11

15 Papa's Got a Brand New Bag Brown 2:06

16 Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine Brown, Byrd, Lenhoff 5:04

17 The Payback Brown, Starks, Wesley 3:21

18 Please, Please, Please Brown, Terry 2:44



Download 247.48 Kb.

Share with your friends:
  1   2   3   4   5   6




The database is protected by copyright ©ininet.org 2024
send message

    Main page