Hey music lovers. While I may not be there for you as often as I want to be, I try to come through when I can. And I aim to bring you the coolest stuff out there musically and culturally speaking.
The latest: The Razorface Tumblr Blog. Razorface (aka Nate Hertweck) is a local Los Angeles musician (by way of one of my favorite states New Mexico) who is also a talented writer/blogger adding his voice to the scene. He plays his own creations as well as some really cool and unique covers that fans of rootnotemusic will love. Similar to this blog, he will include videos of the originals with his own commentary on each song. I love it. Again, lots rootnotemusic-friendly music including Bob Dylan, Ani DiFranco, Memphis Slim, Tom Waits, Patsy Cline, The Band, to some darker, harder stuff – like a band I just found out about Monster Magnet.
Here he is doing “Ramona” by Bob Dylan:
Razorface is a member of the band Ocelot Robot, whom I featured last year. They are still doing their thing in LA, and in fact, these creative guys are holding their first annual film festival for video directors. How cool is that? A band creating a space for other artists. They realize that it’s not just about being a lone ship out there, but creating community through a network of like-minded people. If you want to get involved in what they are doing go here:
/http://ocelotrobotfilmfestival.com
And just for the heck of it, here is another Bob Dylan song for ya:
Dharohar Project, Laura Marling, and Mumford & Sons
Because it is so cool to hear cross-cultural combinations, I must post this song with English indie-folk musicians collaborating with traditional Rajasthani musicians. I wrote about Rajasthani music over a year ago. It’s about time to revisit!
Here is “Devil’s Spoke – Sneh Ko Marg”:
Again, here is a video of traditional Rajasthani music in Rajasthan:
“There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.” ~Duke Ellington
While normally I post about roots-oriented music, that is, anything with that stripped down sound in which you can clearly hear the tradition and culture from where it came, that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate electronic music. I used to love to dance to house music back in the mid-90s! I just had to share my friend Heather Pollack’s electronic/trance group Lo-Fi Sugar and their new song/video “The Night Divine”. She has such a pretty voice and the melody has stuck with me since I first heard it. This has been my song of choice in my shower as of late! It got me thinking about all the other pretty female vocals and songs with just a sweet, sweet melody. From the motherland of melody, Brazil, I just love the songs below by Silvia Torres and Astrud Gilberto. I also include a few from the folk/country realm by Mindy Smith and Dolly Parton (“Jolene” is one of the prettiest songs ever.) These offerings are of course just a drop in the ocean of melodic songs with pretty female vocals. Please post your favorites in the comments – I’d love to learn about what you’re listening to on repeat.
“The Night Divine” by Lo-Fi Sugar with vocals by the beautiful Los Angeles-based singer, Heather Pollack:
This next song was on played on repeat for many months in the rootnote CD player. I don’t know much information about this singer, Silvia Torres, other than she is from Brazil and the song, “Take Saravà,” was very popular in Brazil when it was first released, according to a friend who lived there for many years. I believe it came out in the late 90s.
A bossa nova song written by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, “Água de Beber”(“Water to Drink”) is now a jazz standard. Here it sung famously by Astrud Gilberto on her 1965 album, The Astrud Gilberto Album:
A pastor’s daughter, Mindy Smith became popular around 2004 with this haunting song, “Come To Jesus.”
Dolly Parton;s 1973 “Jolene” from the album of the same name, probably one of her most famous songs:
My good friend DJ Moonbaby was spinning some gems tonight and she inspired me to write a blog post and share some of the musical wealth with you. Some beats, rhymes and life to help push us through as we walk along this sometimes bumpy and unexpected road…Speaking of journeymen, I have to acknowledge the passing of Argentine folk singer and peace activist Facundo Cabral, who was murdered in Guatemala today in an ambush style attack – truly horrific. As a 9 year old child, he once walked 1800 miles to look for work to support his mother and six siblings after his father abandoned them. He literally grew up dirt poor, illiterate, and went to on to teach himself to read, to learn, and his consciousness was raised and he went on to become one of the most beloved folk singers in Latin America. In the year 2011, a killing like this reminds us that oppression and fear still are alive and well and we must continue to rise up together as a human family and do what we can to bring peace and justice to the world. At the end of the post you can see his signature song from a performance, which I believe is from the 1970s.
Back to the music at hand. From the Moonbaby playlist here is Tribe Called Quest with the song “Electric Relaxation” from the album Midnight Marauders from the year 1993. Sheer perfection:
That jogged my memory of this 1995 classic from the LA group, Pharcyde, “Runnin”, featuring sample from Brazilian samba:
Another Moonbaby tune. Talib Kweli featuring Norah Jones with the gorgeous “Soon The New Day”:
This song ties it all together for me, “History” by Mos Def featuring Talib Kweli:
If we don’t understand the past and where we came from we are doomed to repeat….Here is Facundo Cabral with a hauntingly profound performance of “Yo No Soy De Aqui Ni Soy De Alla.” May he continue his journey with our ancestors and find peace on the other side…The video begins with him improvising poetic musings about life and then the song starts about 4 minutes in:
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
~Martin Luther King Jr.
When I first started this blog, I did for the pure joy of sharing my passion for music, culture, and history. In the past year, I’ve felt joy leave and posting has become more burdensome as I’ve felt pressure to commercialize it in some way. As the blog steamed along, I got more and more solicitations from publicists wanting me to post on their bands. I’ve never taken them up on it but it felt like a bombardment and distracted me from my original purpose. While I don’t begrudge them doing their job, I want to keep it simple, as pure love expressed. So I’m kicking off my own independence weekend by reminiscing about my time in New York City in the 90s, listening to copious amounts of hip-hop, salsa, and reggae. For hip-hop and history lovers like myself, there is a great site that traces song genealogy, called www.whosampled.com. But I have my own version right here for ya!
From the Rakim’s 1997 The 18th Letter double album, here is a great track called “New York (Ya Out There)” produced by the illustrious DJ Premier:
While there are other samples throughout, I call your attention to the first vocal sample by James Brown. Here’s the original song called “Down and Out in New York City” from the 1973 film Black Caesar, to which James Brown did the soundtrack:
Love this. It was from the year I was born. Why do I love funk, rock, and folk from 70s so much? I imagine that it was this perfect combo of gritty rawness and really pretty melodies.
Scott Bomar, the musical mind behind the award-winning soundtrack of Hustle & Flow AND the producer of the band, The City Champs, has a really cool project going on in the style of Booker T & The MGs, called The Bo-Keys.
I love this short 12 minute documentary about the background of these guys – some serious history between them all! They’ve played with major soul and blues greats including Isaac Hayes, Bobby “Blue” Bland and others. I heard they’ll be playing the Ponderosa Stomp in New Orleans in September. Should be a good time!
Wow, hello there! Sheesh – been awhile! I’ve been a hiatus for the past few months, but hopefully I’m back for good. I’ve been recuperating from a surgery so spending a lot of time plugged into what is going on in the world (prayers to Japan and the Mid-East/North Africa most definitely) and also pop culture (American Idol – Casey Abrams please!). Couldn’t do much else than just sort of watch the world from a distance, but finally I’ve felt my energy levels return and I thought I’d get back to doing some blogging about music.
Let me get right to some great roots music from East Africa – Ethiopia to be exact. Mulatu Astatke is an Ethiopian jazz musician who studied all over the world including Berklee School of Music in Boston. He merged his love of jazz, especially Latin jazz, with his own cultural traditional sounds creating a distinct genre of music called “Ethio-jazz”. He released an album last year, “Mulatu Steps Ahead” his first solo project in decades with some top jazz musicians helping him out. Most of his music is instrumental, making it a favorite of 70s vinyl funk/jazz collectors and artists like Nas, Damian Marley, Cut Chemist and Knaan, who have sampled many of his songs in their own music. Here is a smattering of songs I found scouring youtube for your listening pleasure and to get a taste of his flavor.
Thanks for reading and I’m so grateful for each and every person who visits this blog. I’m shocked that after months not posting, my older posts continue to get a steady stream of music loving visitors every day! I hope to find my groove again in 2011. Peace, love and soul to you all!
To the hard-core music and culture lovers that read this blog – I apologize for the blog going dark for the last 3 months of 2010. I hope to find my groove again in 2011 and keep bringing the best in traditional and roots-based music and culture. But in the meantime, wordpress sent me my stats for 2010 and I thought it was pretty interesting to see which posts keep getting viewers after all this time. On a side note, I wrote about Esperanza Spalding back in September of 2009 and she has since gone on to garner a GRAMMY nomination for the upcoming 2011 Awards show for Best New Artist. That proves that this blog only featured THE BEST! I am wishing YOU ALL the best for the new year. May you be blessed with adventure, positive surprises, inspiration, tons of good music that grooves you, and in the words of Pete Rock and CL Smooth, lots of lovin’.
From the kind (and brilliant folks) at WordPress.com:
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
Crunchy numbers
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 10,000 times in 2010. That’s about 24 full 747s.
In 2010, there were 25 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 37 posts. There were 89 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 20mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.
Well call me corny, but I get weepy for a beautiful love story. And inspired. One of my favorite girls Steph is getting married in 10 days to her dream man and to celebrate we had a karaoke night out. I felt creative and inspired so I baked lemon cupcakes for the occasion and sang my favorite love song dedicated to them, “If I Were A Carpenter” originally by Bobby Darin but of course famously covered by June and Johnny Cash. Jim and Steph also sang a Carter duet, “Jackson”. A fun night was had by all and everyone in the bar was feeling the love! Here’s to you Steph and Jim – and to all those couples out there who found their partner in crime (metaphorically speaking that is). Blessings for a long life filled with love, peace, and strength through all the inevitable twists and turns that this amazing life brings.
Here they are with “Jackson”:
Bobby Darin penned “If I were a Carpenter” (my favorite):
Beautiful version sung by the gorgeous Alison Krauss and Dwight Yoakum:
This is really cute – “Where Did We Go Right” from a performance on Austin City Limits:
Bob Dylan “The Wedding Song”:
I just discovered this song by Vermont folk singer Anais Mitchell and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. “Wedding Song” – hauntingly beautiful:
A traditional Sephardic wedding song sung by Francoise Atlan during the Festival of Sacred world music in Morocco, “Scalerica D’oro” or “Stairway of Gold” in the Ladino (a mixture of Spanish and Hebrew or Judaeo-Spanish) language:
Since September is traditionally back-to-school month, I thought I’d do a short history lesson on some of the most influential roots piano players. Whether barrelhouse, boogie woogie, boogaloo, or rumba, hard pounding rhythmic piano playing has found its home in the brothels and the concert halls, with styles traveling that swath of land and sea from the Caribbean up through the blues highway to Chicago.
Let’s start our journey at the barrellhouse, defined as both a 1) disreputable old-time saloon or bawdyhouse and 2) an early style of jazz characterized by boisterous piano playing, free group improvisation, and an accented two-beat rhythm.
Champion Jack Dupree was the epitome of New Orleans boogie woogie and barrelhouse blues piano. His birthdate disputed, but the year was between 1908 and 1910. He lived a long life, passing in 1992.
James Edward “Jimmy” Yancey was born in Chicago in 1898 and was a famous pianist by 1915 influencing the boogie woogie style of Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammon, who were the predecessors of many blues pianists. Despite his musical prowess, he kept his job as a groundskeeper for the Chicago White Sox his entire life.
We all know that New Orleans has birthed some of the greatest jazz and blues piano players including Professor Longhair, Allen Toussaint, Fats Domino, Dr. John, Harry Connick, Jr. and Henry Butler. Less well known outside of the Crescent City is one who left all those guys in awe, James Booker, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest geniuses of New Orleans piano. Often people unfamiliar with his playing will mistake his sound as two simultaneous piano players:
Up to Chicago by way of Mississippi, Otis Spann was a blues piano player most notably with Muddy Waters, but an artist in his own right. Here he is with “Jangleboogie:”
Born in Havana, Cuba in 1913 and considered “one of the greatest pianists in the history of Cuban music, Pedro “Peruchin” Justiz made his name in Havana’s descarga (jam session) craze of the ’50s; along with Ruben Gonzalez, Lili Martinez, and Bebo Valdes, he was instrumental in shifting the piano into a much more rhythmic role in Afro-Cuban music (source)”. Here is “Peruchin”:
Puerto Rican pianist Noro Morales, born in 1912, was an innovator of combining rhythm and melody, rising to the top of the mambo and rumba word. He played with some of the mambo and salsa greats including Tito Rodríguez, José Luis Moneró, Chano Pozo, Willie Rosario and Tito Puente.
I couldn’t leave out Nuyorican Charlie Palmieri. Less well known than his brother Eddie Palmieri, Charlie gave us really solid boogaloo from the 60s to the 70s. He played with Mongo Santamaria among others. If you have the chance to pick up his album, Either You Have It Or You Don’t, do it!
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention country great Floyd Cramer, who did his own rolling country style piano playing, supporting everyone from Patsy Cline, Chet Atkins to Elvis Presley. Here he is with Chet Atkins:
