Celebrate Your Freedom

We are taking a few days off to celebrate our country’s birthday and if you are an astute reader, you will know this is simply last year’s July 4 post with a few different songs tossed in.

Wherever you are, take a few moments to appreciate your freedom – and remember there are still places in the world where armed thugs can kick down your door and drag you away just for reading this blog.  Celebrate freedom this weekend, and let it ring around the world.

You are welcome to enjoy the enclosed music at your summer party.  See ya!

MP3: “Star Spangled Banner/Purple Haze” (live at Woodstock) by Jimi Hendrix

MP3: “American Idiot” (live) by Green Day

MP3: “Freedom Blues” by Little Richard

MP3: “Do You Remember the Americans” (alternate track) by Manassas

MP3: “Promised Land” by Chuck Berry

MP3: “Fourth of July” by Dave Alvin

MP3: “Let’s Turn This Thing Around” by Peter Case

MP3: “Freedom” by Richie Havens (2009 version)

MP3: “Simple Song Of Freedom” by Tim Hardin (live at Woodstock)

MP3: “Every Hand In The Land” by Arlo Guthrie (live at Woodstock)

MP3: “That Ain’t My America” by Lynyrd Skynyrd

MP3: “Rednecks” by Randy Newman

MP3: “I Shall Be Free” by Bob Dylan

MP3: “Listen To Me” by Bill Miller

MP3: “Back In The U.S.A.” (live)  by Edgar Winter’s White Trash w/Rick Derringer

MP3: “Fourth of July” by Soundgarden

MP3: “American Tune” by Paul Simon

MP3: “America, Fuck Yeah”  by Team America, South Park or whatever

MP3: “Living In America” by James Brown

MP3: “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream” by Johnny Cash

Yow! The Best Rock and Roll Screams

Roger Daltrey of The Who

Our greatest rockers are people who apparently never used their “indoor voice.” Why should they? They were future rockers! Anyhow, the other day I was thinking that the one ingredient basic to any good rock and roll song – besides a guitar solo, of course – is a blood-curdling scream.

It could be an expression of rage and defiance, like Roger Daltrey’s classic scream at the end of “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” or it can be a cathartic release of pain and frustration, like John Lennon in “Well Well Well.” Screams can be ominous and threatening, like Axl Rose in “Welcome To The Jungle” or it can be just plain weird and inexplicable, like Jim Morrison in “When The Music’s Over.”

Screams can be old and trailblazing: Bo Diddley and Little Richard loved to scream, although Richard’s were more like a shriek and Bo’s were more like a holler. They can be punk (The Stooges), they can be metal (Iron Maiden), they can be funny (Tenacious D) or they can be very soulful (Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett). As Eddie Murphy once said about James Brown’s famous scream, “He wrote that.”

So let’s celebrate the weekend with a dozen cool rockin’ screams. Turn it up!

MP3: “Welcome To The Jungle” (live) by Guns N’ Roses

MP3: “Shout Bamalama” by Eddie Hinton

MP3: “Run Diddley Daddy” by Bo Diddley

MP3: “Get Up Offa That Thing” by James Brown

MP3: “TV Eye” by The Stooges

MP3: “Piece Of My Heart (live) by Big Brother and the Holding Company

MP3: “Tutti Frutti” by Little Richard

MP3: “I Can’t Turn You Loose” by Edgar Winter’s White Trash

MP3: “Hold On To Your Hiney” by Wilson Pickett

MP3: “Well Well Well” by John Lennon

MP3: “When The Music’s Over” (live) by The Doors

MP3: “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who

YouTube: Greatest Rock Screams (thanks to GuyFaux2007)

More Rockin’ Christmas!

Yeah, that's Nancy Reagan. No, this is not Photoshopped.

Editor’s Note: More recycling of past blog posts, gotta conserve this Christmas!

How many shopping days left until Christmas?  Not enough, that’s for sure.  The holiday season isn’t about shopping anyway, it’s about hanging around with people you like and, in the case of most of our families, a few people you don’t like.  It’s about giving but it isn’t about begging.  And it’s not about the TV commentators who are so afraid white Jesus isn’t represented enough in Christmas celebrations.

Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa – they’re what you want to make it.  Celebrate ’em like you want, be nice and leave everyone else alone.  Enough speeches, now let’s rock.

MP3: “Soulful Christmas” by James Brown

MP3: “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by R.E.M.

MP3: “Teenage Christmas” by Eux Autres

MP3: “Toy Jackpot” by Blackalicious

MP3: “Ain’t No Chimneys In The Projects” by Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings

MP3: “Seasons Greetings Message” by Alice Cooper

MP3: “Jingle Bell Rock” by Neil Diamond

MP3: “Run Rudolph Run” by Creedence Clearwater Revisited

MP3: “Deck The Halls” by Canned Heat

MP3: “Winter Wonderland” by Liz Phair

MP3: “Christmas Lullaby” by Shane MacGowan & the Popes

MP3: “Christmas Island” by the Vatican Cellars

MP3: “Santa Claus Files Unusual Flight Plan” by the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD)

MP3: “Messed Up Xmas” by the Dollyrots

MP3: “Father Christmas” by the Kinks

This is just wrong. Happy Holidays!

Last-Minute Christmas Mixtapes

Only two mixtape-making days until Christmas!  We’re here for all your last-minute music needs!

MP3: “Funky Funky Christmas” by Electric Jungle

MP3: “Let It Snow” by The Diplomats of Solid Sound

MP3: “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by Darlene Love

MP3: “White Christmas” by Otis Redding

MP3: “Joy To The World” by Aretha Franklin

MP3: “Presents For Christmas” by Solomon Burke

MP3: “The Little Drummer Boy” by Stevie Wonder

MP3: “Christmas Comes But Once A Year” by Charles Brown

MP3: “Christmas Time (Beggin’ Santa Claus)” by The Black Ace

MP3: “All I Want For Christmas Is You” by Carla Thomas

MP3: “Christmas In Harlem” (Remix) by Kanye West (featuring Cam’ron, Jim Jones, Vado, Cyhi Da Prynce, Pusha-T, Musiq Soulchild, Teyana Taylor & Big Sean)

MP3: “The Christmas Song” by Redd Foxx (as Fred Sanford)

MP3: “Merry Christmas Mama” by Bill Cosby

MP3: “Poor Mr. Santa” by Andre Williams (Not Safe For Work)

MP3: “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” by Darlene Love & Ronnie Spector

MP3: “I Want To Come Home For Christmas” by Marvin Gaye

MP3: “Frosty The Snowman” by the Ronettes

MP3: “Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto” by James Brown

YouTube: “A Charlie Brown’s Christmas in Hollis”

Your Sister’s (Record) Rack: Otis Redding

My sister told me she has some new friends, but she didn’t go into any detail.  So the other day, I’m in her room rooting around and I found this record … it’s by Otis Redding!  She never listened to THIS kind of music before!

The record is In Person at the Whisky A Go Go, a live album from Otis Redding that came out in 1968 but was recorded two years earlier.  Now remember, Otis Redding didn’t make a huge impact in popular music until 1967, when he appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival.  He had been recording albums and singles for Stax/Volt since 1962, when “These Arms Of Mine” became a minor hit.  Redding wrote a lot of his own material, including the song “Respect,” which was later a hit for Aretha Franklin.  R&B and soul artists who managed to break through to the Top 40 charts were really accomplishing something in those weird times; but as the 1960s wore on more and more black artists were doing it, including the Motown roster and people like Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett.

Lost Classics! James Brown’s Federal Years

The Godfather of Soul got his start on the Federal label, which was owned in the 1950s by King Records.  The first single they released on Federal, “Please, Please, Please” in 1956, was a No. 5 R&B hit and sold a million copies – kind of rare for that day.  But James Brown and Famous Flames released a bunch of records after that that failed to do as well, and although it may seem incomprehensible now, the record label threatened to drop the act.

It took ’em two years, but James and the Flames (his backing vocal group, not his band) unleashed “Try Me” and it shot up to No. 1 in 1958.  It was the top record of the year and made James Brown a star.  When you listen to the stuff Brown cut for Federal between 1956-1959, it’s striking how average most of it is.  But the best stuff is some of the greatest music the decade produced.

MP3: “Please, Please, Please”

MP3: “Baby Cries Over The Ocean”

MP3: “I Don’t Know”

MP3: “Love Or A Game”

MP3: “Try Me”

Funky Stuff – James Brown official website

30 Days Out (From Christmas): Soul

                 

Day Seven – When popular soul and R&B artists of the 1960s and 1970s turned their attention to Christmas music, the result was usually delightful.  Much like the artists at Motown, singers like Wilson Pickett, Jackie Wilson, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and others applied their incredible talent to make these holiday tunes quite special.  The Aretha tune enclosed here today is from her very first seasonal album This Christmas, released this year.

MP3: “Jingle Bells” by Wilson Pickett

MP3: “Frosty The Snowman” by Shirley Alston

MP3: “White Christmas” by the Drifters

MP3: “Christmas Time” by Ray Charles

MP3: “This Christmas” by Donny Hathaway

MP3: “May Christmas Bring You Happiness” by Luther Vandross

MP3: “Soulful Christmas” by James Brown

MP3: “Deck The Halls” by Jackie Wilson

MP3: “My Grown Up Christmas List” by Aretha Franklin

MP3: “Xmas Twist” by the Twistin’ Kings

30 Days Out (From Christmas): Rockin’ Stocking

Day Three – OK, confession time: I really hate Christmas songs.  But after you start plowing through them and you hear one that doesn’t pop up on the radio about every five minutes, it gets kinda fun listening to some of them.  I said SOME of them.  So, to keep this 30 days thing from growing too tedious, here’s a holiday stocking of some random tunes that caught my ear today.  Thanks to our L.A. correspondent Randy Fuller for compiling these on a mix CD about two or three years ago.

MP3: “Christmas Lullaby” by Shane MacGowan

MP3: “All I Wanna Do Is Shag This Christmas” by the Bellrays

MP3: “Counting The Days (A Christmas Polka)” by Marah

MP3: “Funky Christmas” by James Brown

MP3: “Jungle Bells” by the Blue Hawaiians

MP3: “We Three Kings” by Rev. Horton Heat

MP3: “Christmas Is For Mugs” by Graham Parker

MP3: “Christmas Blues” by Gatemouth Moore

MP3: “Cool Yule” by Louis Armstrong

MP3: “White Christmas” by Guns N’ Roses (Maybe it’s Guns N’ Roses!)

Review – “Soul” – Seal

Seal has taken the “cover” road many artists seem to take when they run out of original material. On his latest disc, Soul, he’s recorded some classic R & B songs with mixed results.

Seal has one of the great voices in modern soul music and he more than does justice to the Sam Cooke tune “A Change is Gonna Come,” the Curtis Mayfield classic “People Get Ready,” Anne Peebles’ “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” and the beautiful Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes song “If You Don’t Know Me By Now.”

Where he falls flat and sounds uninspired is on tunes like “Stand By Me,” “Knock on Wood,” “Here I Am (Come and Take Me),” a song that was ruined long ago by UB40, “It’s Alright,” which can’t compare to the Huey Lewis cover of the Mayfield tune, and James Brown’s “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” which probably shouldn’t be covered by anyone. I’ve always thought if you want to hear a James Brown song, listen to James Brown because no one will do it better.

Seal has always had interesting arrangements for his songs, but on many of these tunes he doesn’t stray too far away from the original. While this formula will work for some of his fans and some fans of soul music, it doesn’t work for me.

MP3: A Change Is Gonna Come – Seal

Seal Official Website

Seal Official YouTube site

The First Step

Congratulations, America.  Thanks to everyone who voted.  Regardless of who you voted for, you made a difference.  Change has already begun, and many people agree that’s a good thing.  There is still a lot of work to do, still many challenges in the world, and there will certainly be some rough times ahead.  Most of the problems we face are too big to be fixed by only one man or one political party.  So we have to do this together. 

Today, let’s have a little party.  Some songs (OK, one: Blowfly) not safe for work.

MP3: “The Star Spangled Banner” (live) by Marvin Gaye

MP3: “Democracy In The USA” (live) by Leonard Cohen

MP3: “People Get Ready” by the Impressions

MP3: “Funky President (People It’s Bad)” by James Brown

MP3: “The First Black President” by Blowfly 

MP3: “We’re A Winner” (live) by Curtis Mayfield

MP3: “One Nation Under A Groove” by Funkadelic

MP3: “Living In America” by James Brown

MP3: “Let’s Work Together” by Canned Heat

YouTube: Bruce Springsteen’s new “Working On A Dream”