Get It On #1 - Songs which reference books.

I thought a good idea, one which I should have done before, would be to mirror suggestions I make to BBC Scotland Get In On show. If you don't know thw format is a theme every night Mon-Thursday. I have been contributing for years and this should give a good flavor of the kind of things I like I suppose.

First up is "songs which reference books". The obvious is the Bible but I am up with two of my all time favourite artists, Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie.



I am not sure if there is an official video for this track, I happen not to like the version with Tom Morello as I find his guitar really intrusive and the song is taken from a moody reflective piece to a bit of not very good stadium rock. In my opinion of course.

Bowie is, well 80's Bowie in this one but I love it:





Bonus track!

Josh Ritter Silo Sessions - Covers Night and Lady Gaga!

I managed to catch the Josh Ritter silo session last night which was excellent, really intimate and he always has a lovely with him, his joy of music shines out. Donations were for a US Foodbank which is fantastic.

Amongst his cover versions was a Lady Gaga song called You and I which was outstanding, I find her a bit of an enigma, amongst all the weird (to me) dressing up there is a fantastic singer and sensitive songwriter in there.

Anyway....hopefully there will be a couple of clips put up which I can share and in the meantime here are a couple of Josh tracks, and Lady gaga!

Songs for the Lockdown #1 - Trouble Came Looking For Me, Ricky Ross

None of these tracks will be specifically about the current covid / lockdown situation. I am not making a particular political point. But people are hurting, livelihoods are ruined, physically and mental health affected and families bereaved in the most awful circumstances.

I would like to post some songs from my favourite artists which resonate with me at this time.

I will start with Ricky Ross and the title track from his outstanding album Trouble Come Looking. I will not make much comment on these, perhaps a lyric or two:



Keep a watch out for things you never can see......

Blue Rose Code Water of Leith

Ross Wilson, aka Blue Rose Code, has new material coming out soon with the single Starlit being played along with some chat tonight on Another Country with Ricky Ross.

To my absolute shame I went to a great gig in Biggar with a couple of good friends, and although I had seen him a couple of times before it was a special night as Ross was living and recording in Biggarat the time. Anyway I dutifully bought the Water of Leith  lp and couldn't wait to play it, but it got caught up in some general madness at the time and by co-incidence I dug it out at the weekend and it is even better than I recalled, highly recommended.

I think he is fairly unique with a blend of folk, country, celtic and rock. Reminds me of some of Van's best material - but different.

I hope you like these tracks, the whole album is just so....evocative.

Josh Ritter - Silo Session Tonight Cover Versions

Josh Ritter has been doing some great lockdown sets, inventively entitled Silo Sessions. His ltest album is excellent as always and produced by Jason Isbell.

Tonight at midnight UK time he is performing cover versions and it promised to be a great listen. All his donations go to charity.

Hopefully this link should get you there:

https://www.facebook.com/joshrittermusic/videos/512162679738604/

UK Lock down - Courtney Marie Andrews, Bruce Springsteen

Well we are quite a number of weeks into the UK lockdown and I suspect that normality is far away if indeed it ever returns.

I have been wanting to update this for a while now but couldn't find the log in details - safely trapped in my office!

I think most people will be sorely missing live music, I will avoid the debate about more important things etc. which I fully accept but this is primarily a music blog. Anyway lots of artists have been quite inventive online bringing acoustic sets for various fund raising and / or just for fun, I plan to post some here and links if I can manage to see advance ones coming up. I would encourage you to donate if you can where appropriate.

Courtney Marie Andrews has been my go to in some respects and Bruce always tends to pitch in to things. So here are a couple to hopefully get me kick started!



Here is Courtney Marie Andrews giving tribute to John Prine with one of my all time favourite songs. I will post about John in a near future post:

James Gandolfini - Tony Soprano

Sad to recall that it is 6 years since the great James Gandolfini sadly passed away.

I thought I would post a couple of the amazing tracks used in the Sopranos, a great series with brilliantly chosen music:

 

 

Western Stars Springsteen

I am quite amazed at the mixed reviews this album has been getting.

Whilst this is no Darkness or Tunnel of Love I think it is a superb record with a lot to commend it. I think some of the hype was certainly over the top but I must say there is some brilliant material on it. The stand out is without doubt "Drive Fast (The Stuntman)". The similarity between this song and the outstanding Wrestler are fairly obvious but it is superb.

The production is a bit shiny for my taste but once you get beyond that a lot of the songs are truly beguiling.

Give it a few listens and I hope you wont be disappointed.

 

 

And in case you forgot about The Wrestler!

 

 



Emmylou Harris moved to tears by First Aid Kit at Polar Music Prize

Which reminds me.....great song and absolutely emotional.

Brandi Carlile ft. Emmylou Harris - Angel (Cover) Gorge Ampitheatre

Regular readers (if there are any) will know that I love Emmylou. Not to everyone's taste I do appreciate but I think this is pretty amazing. Original by Sarah McLachlan as I am sure you will know.

Luke Combs - Even Though I'm Leaving (Audio)

I don't need to say much - more great material from Luke

Jave Everett - Glasgow

I am sure many of you have heard this outstanding track:

 

Its a great song and a great video. Looking forward to seeing him on Wednesday.

Rocketman and more

I went to see Rocketman and thought it was superb, even if you are not an Elton fan. I am not a film buff as such (I am more just entertain me rather than think about direction, production etc.) but even I could not miss the amazing direction by Dexter Fletcher. The way the movie moves up the years is just brilliant. Anyway something was bugging me through the film and it was this Kiki Dee song, produced by Elton which way precedes their duet. I have also taken the opportunity to throw in some videos of what I think are his best work:

 

 

 

 

No apologies just great performances!

Sam Morrow - Quick Fix (Official Video)

Pleased to see that Sam Morrow is coming back to the UK fairly soon - I think he is really good and expect him to make quite an impact. His recent material has been excellent and bridges that Country / Rock divide really well. Fairly rootsy sound  I think but let me know what you think.

Here are the dates:

31st May / 1st June –  Red Rooster7th June –  Music in The Hall/ Bewdley
9th June – Gullivers/ Manchester
11th June – Kitchen Garden Café/ Birmingham
13th June – The Bedford/ London/ Maverick Festival Launch
15th June – Cluny 2/ Newcastle
18th June – The Slaughtered Lamb/ London
19th June – Prince Albert/ Brighton
20th June – Little Country Smokehouse/ Kettering
21st/22nd June – Black Deer Festival
23rd June – Broadcast/ Glasgow
24th June – Louisiana/ Bristol (Riverfest)

I will be trying to get along to broadcast on 23rd June.

 

 

Forgotten Album Friday #27 James Dean Bradfield - The Great Western

As no doubt you will know James Dean Bradfield is the lead vocalist and lead guitarist for the Manic Street Preachers. Interestingly he contributes little if any of the lyrics despite delivering with an incredible passion that would make you think they were personal. I happen to think he is an outstanding talent and this is one of two solo releases (the other I don't know except it is a soundtrack).

Anyway continuing with the Western Theme to tie in with the forthcoming release of Springsteen's album I thought it was a good time to revisit this lp. It is an excellent record in which JDB not only writes the majority of the material but plays all the instruments, albeit augmented here and there.

The album is very melodic and a bit more "poppy" in sound than the manic street preachers, there is not a bad track on it and it will appeal not only to Manics fans.

ps I have taken the opportunity to sneak in the Shirley Bassey and Kylie Tracks as I will have nowhere else to put them!

Track listing:

1. That’s No Way To Tell A Lie
2. An English Gentleman
3. Bad Boys and Painkillers
4. On Saturday Morning We Will Rule the World
5. Run Romeo Run
6. Still a Long Way to Go
7. Émigré
8. To See a Friend in Tears
9. Say Hello to the Pope
10. The Wrong Beginning
11. Which Way to Kyffin