More if room allows 3

Deserted Island Music

my Amazon reviews, mostly about books, movies and music

A few more if room allows (3rd of 3)

Van Morrison - Still writing and performing today (I'm enjoying his 2008 CD, KEEP IT SIMPLE, as I write this) and better than most.

I used to think he rocketed early and then, if not flamed out, saw his best work behind him. For example, ASTRAL WEEKS (1968), MOONDANCE (1970), TUPELO HONEY (1971), and SAINT DOMINIC'S PREVIEW 1972).

Four timeless albums in five years, some songs which still bring goose bumps.

But there've been many fine albums since then, and so far his strength seems undiminished. Four decades later: WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE (2003), MAGIC TIME (2005), NO PLAN B (2012).

He's even given us a terrific album of country classics, PAY THE DEVIL (2006).

He plays guitar, harmonica and a pretty good saxophone. His voice is jazz-influenced, bending notes, scatting, going wherever he thinks it needs to. His version of "Makin' Whoopee" (on the 2017 VERSATILE album), for example, rivals the great Ray Charles one.

But avoid his 2015 DUETS. In his long career, he must have made some clunkers, but none could be as bad as this.

David Olney – Used to be in the Deserted Island top ten, based on two amazing albums, THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY and HIGH, WIDE AND LONESOME. One song after another with exceptional lyrics, hummable tunes, fine musicians.

Unfortunately, too many of his other albums disappointed. Maybe my expectations were too high. Good albums for anyone else, but not for him.

Songwriting is a skill in music I particularly admire, and Olney at his best is so good at it. He writes as carefully as a poet but without the obscure references. (And without absolute nonsense as, for example, in too much of later Bob Dylan.)

Most enjoyable for me is how he writes songs from unexpected eyes: from a caterpillar, a burro, a French prostitute in 1917, a huckster in first-century Israel. And two unforgettable songs on one album, one sung by the lover of a wife not his own, the other from the husband of the wife.

His songs regularly give me a new way of seeing things I never did before.

Here are four more on my shelf, not as good as the above two, but well worth a listen: THE WHEEL; BORDER CROSSING; ONE TOUGH TOWN; and MIGRATION.

Gerry Rafferty - Who can forget "Baker Street" from his album CITY TO CITY. Those of us who bought the album knew it wasn't the only good song. The album was chock full of them, not a single clunker to be heard.

Rafferty's work with Stealers Wheel also produced some good songs.

His personal problems kept him from reaching his potential, but he left us plenty to thank him for.

Leon Redbone – Gosh, but I like his music. He sings early 20th century ragtime, jazz and blues in their original spirit.

Hearing him is as if taking a trip back in time. You’ll surely enjoy UP A LAZY RIVER, WHISTLING IN THE WIND or SUGAR, but DOUBLE TIME is the album to get before any others. It's perfect.

Otis Redding - The greatest soul singer of all time.

To think he died at only 26….

His 3-CD boxed set, THE OTIS REDDING STORY, should be about all we'll need.

Reggae - Simply fun. Only a musicologist could explain it.

My recommendations:

Toots & the Maytalls ... 54-46 Was My Number: Anthology 1964-2000

Desmond Dekker ... The Best of Desmond Dekker: Rockin' Steady

Jimmy Cliff ... Ultimate Collection

Rhythm & Blues – Some years ago, in a car driving through a small Georgia town late at night on our way to Fort Stewart, we passed a street sign, "Willie Dixon Drive." “Hey,” I said to the black soldier next to me, “Look at that. I wonder if he came from here.”

“Who’s Willie Dixon?” he said.

Those three words summarize all that’s gone wrong with black music in America the past 40 years.

R&B, so much to recommend, a complete website could be - and certainly is - devoted to just this genre. I'm not going to even try to do anything but get us started.

A good place would be Lightnin' Hopkins, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, Otis Spann and Muddy Waters -- the patriarchs. These names might register with us only from the ‘60s, when many British rock groups found inspiration in them. If so, seek out the originals. They're not anachronisms, they did more than set the stage. Their music remains terrific to this day.

I also recommend looking for the four 1980s music samplers from Alligator Records they called GENUINE HOUSEROCKIN’ MUSIC (ALCD 101 through 104). We’ll find terrific examples of more modern R&B from greats like Koko Taylor, Lonnie Mack, Albert Collins, Robert Cray, Son Seals, Roy Buchanan, Hound Dog Taylor, Professor Longhair, Buddy Guy, as well as unknowns who, you'll agree, sure shouldn’t be.

Rodrigo y Gabriela - It’s October 2014, I’m channel surfing, trying to avoid being told police should not defend themselves from 300-pound thieves who attack them, and here are two young attractive musicians brightening my day with the magic of their guitars.

Yes, once again, I’m ten years behind the times. Why haven’t I heard of Rodrigo y Gabriela before? (I hope I can't ask, "Why haven't you?")

Gabriela takes rhythm guitar to another universe. She plays like no one else on this planet. Rodrigo is a perfect counterpoint, a superb lead guitarist matching her intensity with outrageously skilled and inventive picking. Together they’re extraordinary.

And best, I think, not in the studio but when busking or at a concert. As good as their CDs are, look for them in person or on video.

I’ve now heard five of their albums and only AREA 52 is not a keeper, with a latin band that didn’t ring my bell.

If I had to choose a favorite album, it might be MUNDIAL, the album with a lizard eye on the cover. Try that one first.

But 11:11 is also great. So is 9 DEAD ALIVE. So is LIVE IN JAPAN. No throw-away songs in any of them, every song raising the heartbeat and putting a smile on our face.

Quarteto Gelato – Classical lite by four talented young musicians. Didn’t care as much for their third album, but the first two were wonderful, and always make me cheerful after a listen.

Ravi Shankar – A world-famous musician, needing no introduction.

One of his works, though apparently little known, is worth looking for: CONCERTO FOR SITAR & ORCHESTRA. (Now that's a concept.) Look for the EMI-Angel recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, under Andre Previn. The CD includes another wonderful piece with Jean-Pierre Rampal on flute.

The man would be an immortal treasure if only for giving us Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar, his beautiful and talented daughters.

11 December 2012: the world of music loses a giant.

Siegel-Schwall Band - Another of my “discoveries”, in 2008, only 42 years after their first album.

R&B with not much blues, sometimes with good humor.

Corky Siegel and Jim Schwall were (are) fine musicians, not much older than me, who’d surely have been favorites of mine back then in my impressionable youth if only I'd had a website like this to tell me about them. (Yes, and an internet, too.)

To hear what they sounded like in the '60s, try WHERE WE WALKED. To hear them in a 2005 reunion, and sounding better than before, try FLASH FORWARD.

Jimmy Smith – When I was a teenager my best friend introduced me to this album by Jimmy Smith, found in his father's LP collection. Over fifty years later (can it really be that long?), this album is still among the most exciting in my own collection.

Look for Verve’s Compact Jazz, 831 374-2. Combining the Hammond organ and fine big bands, trust me, you’ve never heard anything like it.

(In December 2011 we can buy this CD for one penny on Amazon. Something is very wrong in the universe.)

Bruce Springsteen - There are CDs out called something like BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN’S GREATEST HITS or ESSENTIAL BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN.

Save your money. Bruce Springsteen’s greatest hits are on just one album, and it’s called BORN IN THE USA.

Because it was a best seller, you probably have it already, and I won’t waste our time describing how good it is. If you’re older and haven’t heard it yet, be warned you may not get past the album’s first song, a bitter screamer. (Though on the "Live in NY City" concert, he sings it solo, with a great slide guitar.)

After that first track, though, it’s one perfect song after another, bookended with the album’s last, opposing the first, a softer voice, again speaking for a generation.

To my ears Springsteen was a very good, hardworking musician, commander of the stage, but just out of reach of greatness. On this album, though, he nailed it. He captured the spirit of America's youth. Or at least mine. Many of the songs have terrific lyrics, and some of them raise us up and out of our chair to dancing.

To me, this is the quintessential, the greatest rock album ever.

(May 2018, I finally listen to his NEBRASKA. Wow. Much of BORN sounds like NEBRASKA but with his full band.)

Richard Stoltzman – Master of the classical clarinet, his INNERVOICES and OPEN SKY always sooth and delight me. The former has Judy Collins singing Joni Mitchell’s classic "For Free," worth the price of a thousand CDs all by itself.

Liz Story – Writes and plays wonderful piano compositions. If not for George Winston, who does it better, she’d be higher on my list. Still, always a pleasure.

L. Subramaniam – About 20 years ago I found BLOSSOM at Oahu's Pearl City drive-in flea market. The jacket told nothing about the kind of music, the musicians, not even who or what L. Subramaniam was. On the stereo at home I heard a jazz violinist from India who skillfully, tastefully brought together East and West into uncommonly exciting music.

A few years later, I took a chance (gasp, at full price) on his GLOBAL FUSION. A strange thing happened. After the first listen I almost tossed out the CD. Complete disappointment. A few months later, looking for something to put on, the CD is in my hand and I try it again. What’s happened? Now it’s endlessly fascinating, the same CD I couldn’t listen to before. Not just a musician, Subramaniam is also a magician.

Look for MANI & CO, too. An enjoyable album of modern jazz, its last cut is amazing: "Motherland" will be unlike anything you’ve ever heard.

Talking Heads - Another group I discovered decades after the whole world did, and almost too late, in my sixth decade of life.

I’d seen David Byrne and his group once on TV, thought he was endearingly odd in his oversize jacket and nervous demeanor, but not enough there for me to investigate further. A pity, because this was one great group.

If you don’t yet have Talking Heads in your library, try POPULAR FAVORITES 1976-1972: SAND IN THE VASELINE, a double-CD set of their hits.

You could also get their DVD called STOP MAKING SENSE, one of the best concert movies ever.

The Tashians – Any of their albums are fine examples of bluegrass lite. Sometimes great lyrics, always fine harmonies, none of their three CDs gathers any dust in our house.

Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers. The blues don't get any more basic than this. An old man playing a distorted guitar, a pal on his guitar, another pal on a small drum set. That's the whole band. But wow, do they rock me. Here, try this.

Simply Grand

Irma Thomas. Never fails to make me think, gosh, what a voice.

George Thorogood – What a perfect name. He sure is thoroughly good.

Live

He loves the blues and plays them well enough, though am sure purists will say he’s too commercial. He tries to act tough (Born to Be Bad), but we quickly see through it and relax in the fun.

Some of his albums are indeed lousy-bad. Instead, try his LIVE (1986) or BAD TO THE BONE (1982), my favorites, or the great DIRTY DOZEN (2009), that I've just discovered today only three years late.

Hiromi Uehara - Best jazz pianist alive today, at least as I can tell from https://youtu.be/w-02CXhGXCQ.

It was a friend alerting me to this performance ... when she's 40 years old and has already made ten albums. Why don't we recognize her name but Beyonce, Bieber, Gaga and Madonna are world famous.

Her website is as attractive as she is.

Loudon Wainwright III – Maybe it's an acquired taste, as he's never become popular, but how I admire his songs. We could hear one for the first time and immediately say "that's a Wainwright song." Intelligent, wry, using vignettes to make a point, they're often wise or funny, sometimes both in the same song.

Another example of talent who deserves greater success.

I have five of his albums (and have just enjoyed a library copy of a sixth, HAVEN'T GOT THE BLUES), but think his two live albums, CAREER MOVES and SO DAMN HAPPY, would be a good intro for those not yet a fan.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS - Yes, sometimes her voice drones.

But sometimes, and often enough, it rings with such truth that it scares me. (I'm thinking, though, that women will like her even more.)

Best place to start may be her 2014 2-CD collection of great songs and a recorded concert.

Also issued in 2014 is another 2-CD set DOWN WHERE THE SPIRIT MEETS THE BONE. She's finally lost her voice, but her band is terrific and keeps her going.

But don't watch her live, or maybe the April 7, 2019 show in San Antonio was only a bad night. Being one of almost a thousand fans didn't let me feel a connection, certainly not helped by a small band (just drummer, base, guitar) and her famously slurred vocals.

Jesse Winchester - Unappreciated writer of many fine songs. My favorite might be "My Songbird," which has been covered by many but never as well as the original.

If we're going to get only one CD by him, make it THE BEST OF... on Rhino Records. Except that this CD somehow doesn't have "Songbird." Or some other good songs.

So also get NOTHING BUT A BREEZE, which does have "Songbird" and includes backup by Emmylou Harris, Ricky Skaggs, and James Burton. Wow!

April 11, 2014, Jesse Winchester dies of cancer at age 69. R.I.P.

Neil Young - He burst into our consciousness back in the '60s with Buffalo Springfield, then went to the top with CSN&Y. Thankfully he's still going strong today in 2016.

No need to describe his music, it's been in our heads the past fifty years. (Damn, yet another reminder: can it be that long? Can I be that old?)

Listening again to his 2-CD 1977 collection of hits, DECADE, the thought occurs that Young invented Americana, the genre that's popular now.

He's written so many great songs. "Ohio." "Heart of Gold." "Cinnamon Girl." "Gold Rush." "Helpless." We could go on and on.

Zamfir – Plays the panpipes. Panpipes? Is that the bunch of reeds of different lengths that shepherds amused themselves with in the fields? Like blowing into different size bottles? That’s it.

You’d think such a simple instrument could not play anything but the simplest tunes. In the hands of a master, though, it makes elemental, expressive music.

We may want to skip his “easy listening” albums (hey, he's got to make a living), but do try those of his native Romanian/gypsy music, like GEORGHE ZAMFIR, PANFLUTE, VOL 2.

My favorite Zamfir album is CLASSICS BY CANDLELIGHT, for years unavailable on CD. Fortunately, my cassette lasted long enough until the CD came out.

Zydeco – I love the sound of the accordion anyway, and with Zydeco, this instrument is front and center.

I’m no Zydeco expert, not up on the lesser known artists, so can only recommend the few I know and like.

Start with Clifton Chenier, of course. If you don’t like him, go no further, Zydeco is not for you, sadly.

Then look for anything by Beau Jocque, my favorite, who died just a few years ago, much too young, much too soon.

Well, this has been fun. I've enjoyed giving praise and recognition to some under-appreciated talent. Hope you were introduced to new artists who will bring you the enjoyment they’ve brought me. And maybe get taken to your Deserted Island as well.

-- Steve Kohn

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