Forgive the recent silence from Sublime HQ. Work and life got in the way (a city election, Gabriel's graduation, etc.). Theresa made this discovery and passed it along: a lovely British singer/songwriter named Laura Mvula. She's hard to categorize: she's a little jazzy and has been compared to Nina Simone. On the up-tempo tunes she's remindful of Amy Winehouse. But she's also classically-trained, which accounts for the nice string arrangements on a lot of the songs. And the backing vocal arrangement on this song has even brought comparisons to the Beach Boys! The album is great, beginning to end. Get it. Now.
June 15, 2013
May 05, 2013
From Mexico's Golden Age
My friend and former Ciudad Magazine colleague Eileen Rosaly is the niece of acclaimed music producer Peter Rosaly. He produced those classic Eydie Gormé albums with the Trio Los Panchos in 1964-65. (Raul Malo once told me he believes it was a legal requirement for each Latino household to own "Amor.") There isn't much writing I can find about how the Gormé/Panchos collaboration came about (she's a daughter of Sephardic Jewish immigrants), nor about how Rosaly, a Puerto Rican, got involved. But here's one clue: Los Panchos is generally considered to be a Mexican group, but one of its original members, Hernándo Avilés, was Puerto Rican. By the time the Gormé albums were produced, he had been replaced by another Boricua, Johnny Albino. Rosaly (above left) also worked with Mexican greats such as Javier Solis (right). Here's a fantastic example of their work together.
April 28, 2013
RIP, George Jones
I first heard "A Good Year for the Roses" as Elvis Costello's cover version, and I have to admit that George Jones—who died last week at the age of 81—was not a country artist I listened to very much. My loss. There's a reason he was called the SInatra of C&W. Here's the original.
Download 01 A Good Year for the Roses
RIP, Richie Havens
I bought Richie Havens' "Alarm Clock" in 1971, only having heard "Here Comes the Sun," his cover of the Beatles song that was a highlight of Woodstock. But it turned out this album was full of gems, including my favorite, "Younger Men Grow Older." Tell me about it.
Richie Havens died last week at the age of 72.
Download 03 Younger Men Grow Older
April 13, 2013
Classic San Antonio Soul
I was listening last Saturday to Joe Nick Patoski's essential Texas Music Hour of Power, his fantastic weekly show on KRTS, the public radio station in Marfa. He played this classic from San Antonio's mid-'60s soul scene, which has been released on a compilation by the Chicago-based Numero Group. This collection from its Eccentric Soul series focuses on San Antonio's Dynamic label, which was owned by Abe Esptein. He put out records by a number of black and Mexican-American bands, some of them mixed, like the Commands (above, second from left, is a guy named Jack Martinez). I swear I hadn't heard this song since it was a big hit in San Antonio in 1966 (covered the same year by the O'Jays), and it brought back memories of summer days listening to the radio with the Flores sisters next door. But mostly it made me think of my brothers, Rudy and Willie, who turned me on to so much great music.
April 07, 2013
April 06, 2013
March 30, 2013
Nowhere Else But San Antonio
Only my hometown could produce a power-pop group like The Krayolas. Their 21st century Tex-Mex sound picks up the tradition that Doug Sahm started and carried through various incarnations. On their new 8-song album, "Canicas" (Marbles)," band leader Hector Saldaña (center) takes the traditional corrido "La Inundación de Piedras Negras" (The Flood of Piedras Negras) and gives it a rock 'n' roll arrangement that's remindful of T-Rex. (Isn't that the bass line from "Bang-a-Gong"?) And here's the best part of the story: the original was written by Tejano accordion legend Santiago Jimenez. As Hector told me:
What is amazing is that he wrote that in his head as he mopped a school on the West Side. He never learned to read or write, yet he could compose those songs. His sons still play them.
And that's one of his sons, Flaco Jimenez, playing on The Krayolas version. Listen for a nice touch at the end: a few bars of the original. The album is currently available for free(!) via Amazon.
March 23, 2013
RIP, Bebo Valdés
Bebo Valdés, patriarch of three generations of great Cuban pianists, died this week at the age of 94. Here's an excerpt from an article written by Ned Sublette, published in downbeat in 2008, chronicling a performance by Bebo and his son Chucho in Barcelona, which Ned has called "the single most electrifying concert" he's ever seen:
For this listener, the high point was the four-hands version of “Sabor a Mí.” When that song was a hit, hundreds of thousands of Cubans were about to leave the island. This won’t last long, they told their families. The Americans won’t permit it. Forever after, in Miami or Union City or Albuquerque or Stockholm, “Sabor a Mí” stayed with them, converted into a standard.
The song’s lyrics express a nostalgia for the present, as if the singer were looking back from the future and wishing he could relive the moment of beauty he was experiencing at that moment. That was how it felt to be there, that night in October 2008 in the ancient city of Barcelona. Playing together, Bebo and Chucho affirmed that, as the lyrics say, “a thousand years might pass by, maybe more,” but the sabor — the flavor, the essence — of Cuba would continue.
“I haven’t left Cuba,” says Bebo, though he hasn’t set foot on the island in 48 years. “I keep on being Cuban.”
Nor did Bebo and Chucho ever stop being father and son.
Here's a live version of "Sabor a Mí," recorded in 2005 at the Village Vanguard with bassist Javier Colina.
February 25, 2013
Under the Covers: "I'll Be Back"
My favorite cover of a Beatles song has always been Stevie Wonder's "We Can Work It Out," with Al Jarreau's "She's Leaving Home" a close second. But then I came across this 2010 version of "I'll Be Back" by the gospel/blues trio The Holmes Brothers. Only two of them, Sherman (left) and Wendell (middle) are brothers. The third longtime member is drummer Popsy Dixon, and that's his lead vocal on this track. Produced by Joan Osborne(!), the arrangement is simple, which keeps the focus on That Voice. Good move.
