Hurricane Warning!

Some trouble from the tropics headed this way:  Hurricane Irene threatens to rake the Florida coast later this week.  The last time we went through this drill was in 2008, when Hurricane Ike lashed Texas and turned my backyard into a brush heap.

So as another nasty bit of weather rolls up to the beach, it occurs to me that we haven’t posted any hurricane/storms/rain songs yet this season.  Here you go – stay dry and rock on!

MP3: “Change In The Weather” by John Fogerty

MP3: “Blowin’ Like A Bandit” by Asleep at the Wheel

MP3: “Hurricane” by Levon Helm

MP3: “Surfing In A Hurricane” by Jimmy Buffett

MP3: “High Water (For Charley Patton)” (live) by Bob Dylan

MP3: “I Think It’s Going To Rain Today” by Peter Gabriel

MP3: “Lost and Found” by the Kinks

MP3: “In From The Storm” by Jimi Hendrix

MP3: “Like A Hurricane” by Nils Lofgren

MP3: “Here Comes The Rain” by Jan & Dean

MP3: “Riders On The Storm” by the Doors

MP3: “The Rains Came” by Big Sambo

MP3: “Wild Is The Wind” by David Bowie

MP3: “Rock You Like A Hurricane” by the Scorpions

MP3: “Down In The Flood” (live) by the Derek Trucks Band

MP3: “Like A Hurricane” (live) by Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Flooding, Fire, Greed and Vengeance

The Mississippi River is flooding ... wait, is that a shark?!?

It’s been a rough few months, hasn’t it? What with tornadoes rippin’ up half the country, wildfires burning out of control and now the Mississippi River slithering into peoples’ homes and lives, you begin to wonder what kind of plague we’re going to get next.

We’ve all but forgotten about those earthquakes/tsunami in Japan, and the earthquakes in New Zealand, which were just a couple months ago. And don’t forget last year – man. On top of all that we have gasoline prices approaching record levels and those Al Qaeda nutcases promising they will get back to us with some big, fiery sendoff for Osama bin Laden.

It may seem kind of frivolous to spin a few tunes in this time of misery, but it helps to remember: we’re all in this together, and if we’re not going to help each other out, who is? And when all else fails, light a candle.

MP3: “Times A’ Getting Hard” by Pete Seeger

MP3: “Down In The Flood” by the Derek Trucks Band

MP3: “High Water (For Charley Patton)” by Bob Dylan

MP3: “Louisiana 1927” by Randy Newman

MP3: “Fire” by the Jimi Hendrix Experience

MP3: “Tornado Ripe” by Ray Wylie Hubbard

MP3: “High Gas Prices” by Big Bill Morganfield

MP3: “Pay Me My Money Down” by Bruce Springsteen & the Seeger Sessions Band

MP3: “Mr. President (Have Pity On The Working Man)” by Sam Bush

MP3: “Light A Candle” by Neil Young

Hurricane Warning: Shelter from the Storm

More tropical trouble for the Texas-Mexico coastline: last week Hurricane Alex rolled in to Mexico, more than 400 miles south of us, but we still received a deluge here in Houston.  So as another nasty bit of weather rolls up to the beach, it occurs to me that we haven’t posted any hurricane/storms/rain songs yet this season.  Here you go – stay dry and rock on!

MP3: “Change In The Weather” by John Fogerty

MP3: “Surfing In A Hurricane” by Jimmy Buffett

MP3: “High Water (For Charley Patton)” (live) by Bob Dylan

MP3: “I Think It’s Going To Rain Today” by Peter Gabriel

MP3: “In From The Storm” by Jimi Hendrix

MP3: “Texas Tornado” by the Sir Douglas Quintet

MP3: “Like A Hurricane” by Nils Lofgren

MP3: “Galveston” by Jimmy Webb featuring Lucinda Williams

MP3: “Here Comes The Rain” by Jan & Dean

MP3: “Riders On The Storm” by the Doors

MP3: “Texas Flood” by Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble

MP3: “The Rains Came” by Big Sambo

MP3: “Wild Is The Wind” by David Bowie

MP3: “Down In The Flood” (live) by the Derek Trucks Band

Review: “Already Free,” The Derek Trucks Band

Derek Trucks is one of the hottest guitarists in rock.  Gregg Allman’s health woes put the Allman Brothers Band on hiatus last year, so Trucks went into his home studio and came out with Already Free, his sixth studio album.  There is a lot here to appeal to fans of classic rock, blues rock and blue-eyed soul, from the rousing cover of “Sweet Inspiration” to the slide guitar stinger “Get What You Deserve.”  Trucks is a brilliant guitarist, but a non-singer: Mike Mattison lends his sandpaper vocals to most of the songs, Doyle Bramhall II takes over lead on two tracks and Derek’s wife Susan Tedeschi channels Bonnie Raitt on “Back Where I Started.”  There’s a lot of channeling here, in fact:  Mattison delivers a very Springsteen-like vocal on the roadhouse boogie cover of Bob Dylan’s “Down In The Flood” and Trucks himself echoes Dickey Betts with the closing solos on “Maybe This Time.”  The album closes with the mostly acoustic title track, sounding for all the world like it was recorded five decades ago by John Lomax down in the Delta.   Already Free is an excellent way to kick off the new year.

MP3: “Down In The Flood”

The Derek Trucks Band official website   

Review: “Skin Deep,” Buddy Guy

 

 

 

 

 

Buddy Guy is a national treasure – at age 72, he has played the blues for four and a half decades and shows no signs of slowing down.    Buddy has influenced Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix.  He is the living, breathing inheritor of the Chicago urban blues tradition handed down directly from Muddy Waters (with whom Buddy played) and Howlin’ Wolf.  

He has made at least 60 albums and Skin Deep, his latest, shows off Guy’s screaming guitar and vocal prowess as well as any of his other efforts.  Sure, the guest stars pop up as they do all too often these days – Clapton plays and sings on “Every Time I Sing The Blues” and “Too Many Tears” features the husband-wife team of Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks (Allman Brothers Band).  “Who’s Gonna Fill Those Shoes” mourns and name-checks the lost real blues men, and Buddy Guy’s wailing guitar leads suggests that he may very well be the last of the old-school guys.  That may be true and all the more reason to pick up Skin Deep.  It’s good work by a true master.

MP3: “Who’s Gonna Fill Those Shoes”

Buddy Guy official website