Lee 'Scratch' Perry - 70 today.

Thanks to Bottled for pointing this out to me, today.

The ol' Upsetter, Lee Perry is celebrating his 70th birthday.

Check out a whole bunch of his songs covered by 'an eclectic range of artists' at Upsetter.net and let me know your favourites.

To End All Hangovers

Well the St Patrick's Day Party is over. The bottles are in the bin, friends have been roused, fed, taken to the pub, and roused and fed again. Some of the hardier souls still have a hangover.

This one is for them. If you get your speakers angled just right, plaster will start to fall off the walls.

Homesick Boy MP3 - George Thorogood and the Destroyers

This was a critical record for me. 1977 was a critical time all round. There were paradigms to sort out. Were you a Punk or a Teddy Boy? Hell's teeth, you can be BOTH!

As far as I knew this hadn't even been on an LP, never mind a CD, but the Enabler put me right and now there's a new addition to my shopping list. See the comments!

Paddy Is NOT At Work Today

St Patricks Day Special: Murphy's Bricks MP3 to put you in the mood for a bit of fun. Wear something green.

















Ger Wolfe is a native of Cork. That ought to be enough to make you listen, but there's more. Somehow he manages to make some of the most subime and timeless music I've ever heard. Music from another age, rural music, and just the thing to make you notice the day for the first time. No matter how your day is going. This music helps you smile at people. It makes room in your heart.

Here are a couple of tracks from his 2002 album Ragged Ground. The exciting news is he will have a new album out on the 24th of March. Titled The Velvet Earth.

AND you can see him almost anywhere in Ireland over the next couple of months. Well worth the airfare.

The Curra Road MP3
The Holy Ploughland MP3

Blind Willie McTell

Blind Willie McTell is another one of my heroes. For anyone who was interested he would record songs under new and ever more colorful names until 1937, when he stopped recording for eleven years, playing for tips wherever he went. He was married to Kate McTell for twenty five years, somehow knowing she would outlive him (well just listen to her on the wonderfully outspoken "God Don't Like It (and I don't either)") I think some of his best work are those duets with Kate.

God Don't Like It MP3


The next song is one of those bragging bar-room "I'm in town for the night and i want to know if anyone will sleep with me" songs, with some great lyrics.

I went down to the shed
with my suitcase in my hand
a crowd of women run crying
say Mr Mac won't you be my man

There is a beautiful mix of jaunty almost ragtime guitar, and McTell's melancholy vocals. He really swings. Halfway through this track it just lifts and carries you with it. Swingin' Yeah!

Lord, Send Me An Angel MP3

Buy it at Townsend Records UK

Prince Buster at Diddy Wah

Well the Post of the Week goes to diddy wah with Mohair Slim presiding. Four tracks of the most excellent Prince Buster, none of which I have heard before, this is like Christmas in the Kingdom. When you wander through the wilderness hope for days like this. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And tell them how much you appreciate it!

Jack Scott

I first heard about Jack Scott via a cover of his "The Way I Walk" by Robert Gordon and Link Wray. The menace in the record must have been wonderful for those guys to dig into. But who was the writer? Scott. He had a bunch of hits in the late fifties and early sixties, but his records were harder to get than a 56 chevrolet for a teenager in england in the late seventies. I kept watching though. Then I found Leroy on the London label. HaOoom! you know from the outset that it's gonna groove, then the bass/drum jump in and it really takes off.

Buy yourself a Great album from RollerCoaster Records

This album also contains the Carlton version of Go Wild Little Sadie. I thought i was going to post the 1960 version which was released on Carlton's subsiduary label, Guaranteed in 1960. A closer look at the sleeve notes for the excellent but out of print double cd Baby She's Gone on Castle (CMEDD 669) says that the Guaranteed single is a re-release of the Carlton track and has the Carlton version there, but compare them for yourself at the RCS Discography

EDIT I was pleasantly surprised on hearing the Capitol tracks at RCS. They come across sounding more relaxed and sort of Ricky Nelson/Johnny Burnette influenced, rather than the BigBallad C&W sound that Top Rank seemed to want to put out.

For some anecdotes and background about Jack Scott check out the Rockabilly Hall Of Fame and then try and see him performing somewhere - he's still packing a great show by all accounts.

Leroy MP3
Go Wild Little Sadie MP3

Trees Lounge: The 50 States: Hawaii

Trees Lounge: The 50 States: Hawaii is a new discovery for me. Lovely idea, and a great selection of music. OK I haven't heard them all yet, but I like. I like.

Next up is Idaho - which I will watch for with baited breath. There's nothing in my iTunes about Idaho!

Ali Farka Toure 1939-2006

The Independent reports that Ali Farka Toure, beloved ambassador of the Desert Blues of Mali died in his sleep yesterday, having suffered from cancer. He was 66.

iPod Recording - can you?

Over at Incitement2Music the intrepid one has met his match. He can't do it. It needs to be done. We all know that. Apple even say it can be done (well in theory), so all it needs is somone with the soldering skills of a highly skilled solderer. And incentive.

Incitement2Music will provide the incentive:

"If you’re a gun techie, can make me a professional-looking and reliable cable that fits the following specs and can be the first to deliver it to me, I’ll buy you a brand spanking new iPod nano 1Gb (as well as pay US$70 for the completed cable)."


So clear your desk.

Full story here.

Charlie Feathers, with Jody and Jerry, but not Jess ... updated

Damn I forgot to move the files. Here they are for real this time
Spread The Good Word has a couple of tracks by Jess Hooper and mentioned that it isn't Charlie Feathers. I'd been wanting to post something by Charlie Feathers, coz he's such a survivor. When I heard those tracks I thought that it sure isn't Charlie Feathers singing, but maybe the band was backing Jess Hooper. Well I dug out my copy (lucky I could remember the safe combination ;~) of Meteor 5032, recorded six months later and had a listen to the Sacred Sound. Nahh! I thought - different altogether. But now you can Trust Your Own Ears.
Get With It MP3
Tongue Tied Jill MP3

Actually my copy is a boot from the 70s, bought in Camden Town ... still treasured, though.

Carl Perkins 1956 TV appearances.

1956 - Carl Perkins' song Blue Suede Shoes, was number one in the Pop, R'n'B and Country charts all at the same time, the first song to do that, selling more than a million copies on Sun Records. RCA must have wondered whether they'd signed the right boy in young Elvis Presley, whose Heartbreak Hotel was released a week later. They are seen here signing autographs for each other!

50 years ago today Carl would have been planning the drive up to New York for TV appearances. In mid-march their car hit a truck and Carl and his brother, Jay, were injured. WS Holland tells the story, as related by Wanda Feathers (Yes, Charlie's daughter) Apparently in the clip below, Jay (on the right playing rhythm) is wearing a brace on his neck. Everything I've read this morning implies that they didn't make the show, so I guess it was rescheduled. Here is a clip from the Perry Como Show.


You can see more at YouTube.com including Your True Love and Matchbox. Check out the related videos on the right.

Carl's Sun and Columbia Discography

Higher Than Time

I'm On My Way To Heaven (don't you want to go) to see the Waterboys tonight at the Glór theatre, Ennis. But you can get the Spirit hear right now. Check out On My Way To Heaven MP3

And my friend, Shirley, has tweaked my ear to know that the support band Gugenheim Groto are great, too. I love surprises. Check out their MP3 page.

Back in the mists of time, I rememeber hearing the first two Waterboys albums in a feast of Love, Life, and New Music, in the mid 80's (what else was there in the mid 80s?) and being totally captivated by the Full On Steam Ahead attitude of the band. And the Spirit they purveyed. The whole 'Who the fuck knows about Heaven' is essential in their music. Call it Spiritual Punk and I'll salute you. They had the Grace to drop out of the Stadium Rock circuit, hire a house in Galway, and make the most sublime music with 'Fisherman's Blues', and they succeeded at every level. My hats are off to Ye, lads.

For some reason I want you to hear Somebody Might Wave Back MP3 .... Oh yes ... it is a Train Song. London to Ayr, and time to cultivate the Mystical Space between the two.