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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 23, 2024 9:39:54 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 2014
#9 – Adam Carroll – Let It Choose You
Adam Carroll is another one of those artists that I'd never have found without the various streaming services. He doesn't get radio airplay. He doesn't make a splash. He just regularly puts out high quality albums with well-written songs that are usually little vignettes in to normal lives. His sound has a definite east Texas feel, incorporating just a little bit of Louisiana Cajun thrown in.
This is a solid album. It doesn't have any real stand-out tracks of the likes of "Rice Birds" or "Errol's Song" but it's strong from start to finish.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 24, 2024 13:24:06 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 2014
#8 – Robert Cray – In My Soul
I've maintained for a while that Robert Cray is more of a soul/R&B artist than a pure blues artist. This album emphasizes that, as it is very much the most pure soul album he had done up to that time. This is made even more clear with a nice funky cover of Otis Redding's "Nobody's Fault But Mine." Honestly, this album would have fit right in with what was being released by Stax or Chess in the 1960s...and that's a perfectly good thing. If "Hip Tight Onions" isn't a tribute to Booker T. & the MG's it certainly should be.
I spent a long time not appreciating Cray because he wasn't what I thought he should be. What he is, is a solid blues based R&B artist. And this is just an excellent album that showcases that.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 25, 2024 15:53:11 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 2014
#7 – Drive-By Truckers – English Oceans
Another album by the Truckers...another super solid effort. This one is the first one where the songwriting was almost evenly divided between Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley. And I'm more than okay with that, as I like the differing styles and, frankly, tend to prefer Cooley's writing to Hood's...though not by a huge amount.
It's not one of their best albums. But it's very good and certainly better than most of what you'll hear on a given day.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 29, 2024 10:22:59 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 2014
#6 – Corb Lund - Counterfeit Blues
Upon further review maybe this should be lower. Or maybe not. This is kind of a weird album. Lund and his band did all these songs live with no overdubs at Sun Studios. All are re-recordings of songs from 2002's Five Dollar Bill and 2006's Hair in My Eyes Like a Highland Steer, which both sold well in Canada and maybe not so much anywhere else. I like Lund enough that I really enjoy the variation on the songs and they are a solid live band that I'm unlikely to see in Idaho. So..yeah.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 31, 2024 14:27:31 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 2014
#5 – JP Harris & The Tough Choices - Home is Where the Hurt is
JP Harris is another one of those guys I've found via streaming services, because there's no way you'd ever find him in the barren wasteland of radio. Because this is straight up old school country music. This isn't Americana. It's not even neo-honky-tonk of the kind we've been seeing lately from the likes of Joshua Hedley and The Country Side of Harmonica Sam. All the songs are written and arranged by Harris and he co-produced the album. The themes, by and large, are heartbreak, longing and hankering for love. If you want some real country music give this one a listen.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Jun 2, 2024 6:27:11 GMT -5
Another bit of music I discovered thanks to the YouTube algorithm, Freddie McCoy's Spider Man from 1966: As with the Lafayette Afro-Rock Band, whom I had mentioned upthread, I knew about McCoy before, but I'd never listened to this album (or really, any of his entire albums). Also surprised that he was able to use an official marketing image of Spider-man for the album cover. (The title track, by the way, is a pretty cracking little number.) |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 2, 2024 11:44:42 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 2014
#4 – Jason Eady - Daylight & Dark
Another day, another artist I'd almost certainly have never come across without various streaming options. Eady is a singer/songwriter who walks an interesting line between Americana and traditional country music. This was a very solid follow-up to A.M. Country Music, the album that first got him a modicum of attention. This one walks a tad closer to trad country than his earlier work did. Heavily rooted in honky-tonk, outlaw, gospel and other roots influences, Eady hits all the pains and joys of life. This is good stuff.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 3, 2024 9:50:26 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 2014
#3 – Robert Ellis – The Lights from the Chemical Plant
I missed this one when it came out and didn't really discover Robert Ellis until 2019s "Texas Piano Man." But...damn...I should have been all over this album in 2014. This is not a fun album, but it's an excellent album showing a singer/songwriter with a ton to say. There's a lingering, haunting feel of the lost side of life in this album, silhouettes of loneliness, despair and longing. Which isn't to say it's all doom and gloom. "TV Song" reads as a novelty song that hearkens to the best of Tom T. Hall and Roger Miller...with just a hint more dejection. "Chemical Plant" is an amazing study in the despair of growing older together in a place that never quite changes. This is just an excellent album and in a lot of years a spot at #3 would be far too low.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 4, 2024 13:14:40 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 2014
#2 – Otis Gibbs – Souvenirs of a Misspent Youth
Otis Gibbs just oozes Americana. He works in folk music with heavy country undertones. Think Townes Van Zandt or Chris Knight. He also had an excellent podcast where he got a lot of cool people to just tell stories about stuff, like Ray Wylie Hubbard talking about meeting Joe Walsh or producer Jim Rooney talking about driving through Paradise, Kentucky with John Prine in a 1949 Ford. Just fun stuff.
As usual, Gibbs uses this album to tell his own stories. Stories about the next-door-neighbor who lost a son in Vietnam and the fishing boat crewman who won't be ill-used by the captain of the boat. It's just what Gibbs does. And he really needs to do more of it.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 5, 2024 12:50:11 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 2014
#1 – Sturgill Simpson – Metamodern Sounds in Country Music
It takes nads to name our album after one of the most important soul and country albums of all time. But Simpson did just that when he echoed Ray Charles' 1962 "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music." And, he kind of pulled it off. This is absolutely one of the best albums of the last 25 years and showed a path forward for country music...if anyone had the will and the talent to follow that path.
At its core this is traditional country music (which was in damn short supply in 2014). But it's got a modern edge that absolutely makes the name apropos. While Simpson wrote eight of ten tracks on the album, one of the covers is of When in Rome's "The Promise," turning the new wave song almost countrypolitan. The opener, "Turtles All the Way Down" (a song that just blows me away) makes it very clear that Simpson is not going to play by the old Nashville rules when it comes to religion and drugs. It's not just the sound that's metamodern...it's the attitude.
This is just a milestone album.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,220 
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Post by Confessor on Jun 28, 2024 18:01:28 GMT -5
Last couple of nights I've been listening to Neil Young's Harvest album from 1972.  It's obviously one of Young's most well known and best loved albums and I've certainly always liked it, but there are other late '60s/early '70s albums of Young's that I rate higher, such as Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush and On the Beach. However, I must say that I'm really enjoying listening to Harvest again for the first time in quite a while. While I'm listening, I'm reminded of a guy called Paul who was a few years older than me and was a friend of a friend that I met in the early '90s. I first heard this album round his flat in '91 and it was how good sounded, combined with his waxing lyrical about it that convinced me to purchase a copy (it was my first Neil Young album). Paul began a battle against cancer roughly a decade later that he unfortunately succumbed to in the late 2000s. Harvest always makes me think of him...which I am tonight, as I listen. Thanks for recommending this great album to me, Paul. |
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Post by berkley on Jun 28, 2024 20:05:18 GMT -5
Last couple of nights I've been listening to Neil Young's Harvest album from 1972. It's obviously one of Young's most well known and best loved albums and I've certainly always liked it, but there are other late '60s/early '70s albums of Young's that I rate higher, such as Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush and On the Beach. However, I must say that I'm really enjoying listening to Harvest again for the first time in quite a while. While I'm listening, I'm reminded of a guy called Paul who was a few years older than me and was a friend of a friend that I met in the early '90s. I first heard this album round his flat in '91 and it was how good sounded, combined with his waxing lyrical about it that convinced me to purchase a copy (it was my first Neil Young album). Paul began a battle against cancer roughly a decade later that he unfortunately succumbed to in the late 2000s. Harvest always makes me think of him...which I am tonight, as I listen. Thanks for recommending this great album to me, Paul. Nice way to remember your friend.
It's a really good record, maybe a bit inconsistent, for me - I'm not sure I like the heavy string arrangement on a Man Needs a Maid, for example - but the high points are really high. Many of them the obvious classics - Old Man, Hear of Gold, Needle - but I think my favourite song besides Heart of Gold is Out on the Weekend, which also has one of my favourite harmonica intros to any song. |
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Post by tartanphantom on Jun 28, 2024 20:22:13 GMT -5
Last couple of nights I've been listening to Neil Young's Harvest album from 1972. It's obviously one of Young's most well known and best loved albums and I've certainly always liked it, but there are other late '60s/early '70s albums of Young's that I rate higher, such as Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush and On the Beach. However, I must say that I'm really enjoying listening to Harvest again for the first time in quite a while. While I'm listening, I'm reminded of a guy called Paul who was a few years older than me and was a friend of a friend that I met in the early '90s. I first heard this album round his flat in '91 and it was how good sounded, combined with his waxing lyrical about it that convinced me to purchase a copy (it was my first Neil Young album). Paul began a battle against cancer roughly a decade later that he unfortunately succumbed to in the late 2000s. Harvest always makes me think of him...which I am tonight, as I listen. Thanks for recommending this great album to me, Paul. Nice way to remember your friend. It's a really good record, maybe a bit inconsistent, for me - I'm not sure I like the heavy string arrangement on a Man Needs a Maid, for example - but the high points are really high. Many of them the obvious classics - Old Man, Hear of Gold, Needle - but I think my favourite song besides Heart of Gold is Out on the Weekend, which also has one of my favourite harmonica intros to any song. While I enjoy this record for what it is, my Neil Young "favorite spot" is spread across three albums-- Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, On the Beach, and Rust Never Sleeps. The last one holds a special place for me as it came out while I was in High School, and it was the first Young solo album that I bought, at the ripe old age of 16. I wore that sucker out. "Everybody Knows..." is where I go for the hard-rocking side of Neil, and On the Beach, well, to me it's an inspiring album; inspiring in the sense that its overt cynicism is a demonstration that shaking your fist at clouds may not actually accomplish anything, but sometimes that kind of catharsis is what it takes in order to re-ground yourself to reality.
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Post by berkley on Jun 28, 2024 22:27:37 GMT -5
Last couple of nights I've been listening to Neil Young's Harvest album from 1972. It's obviously one of Young's most well known and best loved albums and I've certainly always liked it, but there are other late '60s/early '70s albums of Young's that I rate higher, such as Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush and On the Beach. However, I must say that I'm really enjoying listening to Harvest again for the first time in quite a while. While I'm listening, I'm reminded of a guy called Paul who was a few years older than me and was a friend of a friend that I met in the early '90s. I first heard this album round his flat in '91 and it was how good sounded, combined with his waxing lyrical about it that convinced me to purchase a copy (it was my first Neil Young album). Paul began a battle against cancer roughly a decade later that he unfortunately succumbed to in the late 2000s. Harvest always makes me think of him...which I am tonight, as I listen. Thanks for recommending this great album to me, Paul. Nice way to remember your friend. It's a really good record, maybe a bit inconsistent, for me - I'm not sure I like the heavy string arrangement on a Man Needs a Maid, for example - but the high points are really high. Many of them the obvious classics - Old Man, Hear of Gold, Needle - but I think my favourite song besides Heart of Gold is Out on the Weekend, which also has one of my favourite harmonica intros to any song. While I enjoy this record for what it is, my Neil Young "favorite spot" is spread across three albums-- Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, On the Beach, and Rust Never Sleeps. The last one holds a special place for me as it came out while I was in High School, and it was the first Young solo album that I bought, at the ripe old age of 16. I wore that sucker out. "Everybody Knows..." is where I go for the hard-rocking side of Neil, and On the Beach, well, to me it's an inspiring album; inspiring in the sense that its overt cynicism is a demonstration that shaking your fist at clouds may not actually accomplish anything, but sometimes that kind of catharsis is what it takes in order to re-ground yourself to reality.
I don't know his music as well as I should considering that I've always liked his sound a lot and his most acclaimed records came right in my peak era of following music. But the only albums I owned myself were Harvest, After the Gold Rush, Comes a Time, the Shocking Pink, and Trans - which seems sort of an odd, mis-matched selection, now that I list them like that. I think my older brother had Rust Never Sleeps - at any rate I seem to know that album too, somehow or other. I've always meant to go back and get into all the full albums, or at least the most famous ones, including those you mentioned. I'll get to it one of these days!
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Post by Rob Allen on Jul 1, 2024 12:51:47 GMT -5
It's time once again for the Waterfront Blues Festival! As always, you can listen anywhere in the world at www.kboo.fm/listen-now from noon until 11pm Pacific time, July 4-7 2024. There's music all 11 hours, but that's too much typing. Here are the last three acts each evening: July 4: Diggin Dirt - seven-piece band from Humboldt County CA MarchFourth - fifteen-piece band from Portland St. Paul and the Broken Bones - eight-piece band from Birmingham AL July 5: Margo Price - Americana singer/songwriter from Nashville Say She She - modern disco trio from New York Lucinda Williams - 'nuff said July 6: Bobby Rush & North Mississippi Allstars - tribute to Muddy Waters & Howlin' Wolf Candice Ivory & Nic Clark with Charlie Hunter - two singer/songwriters and a guitar virtuoso Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals - 'nuff said July 7: Curtis Salgado - singer, songwriter & harmonica virtuoso from Portland Dustbowl Revival - roots music from LA Greensky Bluegrass - contemporary bluegrass from Kalamazoo MI All the details at waterfrontbluesfest.com/ |
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