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Two of my music-sharing friends have passed this one around today so why not make it a trifecta! Thanks to all of you fans of this blog, and thanks for spreading the word. "Sublime," which was started simply to share cool music with my friends, has now passed the 21,000 mark in page views. Here's to another harmonic year of song!
Hope you enjoyed this year's 12 Days of Christmas Songs! At the outset I said you might hear another version of "Christmas Time Is Here," and here it is: by blue-eyed neo-soul singer Mayer Hawthorne. Cheers! (circular illustration by Gabriel Garza)
If you ever get a chance to see "The Hard Nut" (pictured), Mark Morris' wacky version of "The Nutcracker," make sure you take advantage. These "Nutcracker" songs aren't from that production, but they're in the same non-traditional vein. First is Duke Ellington's woozy, boozy "Sugar Rum Cherry," followed by a remix of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra's "Nutcracker Suite."
Download 08 The Nutcracker Suite (Baz Kuts Breaks Mix)
This cheery collection includes Witherspoon's "I Hate to See Christmas Come Around." Somehow I think the bluesman would've felt differently if Lady Santa had come down his chimney. So to speak.
We lost Abbey Lincoln this year--she died in August about a week after turning 80. She was a great jazz singer, songwriter, actress and activist. Along with husband Max Roach, she was a prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement. Her artistic legacy was sealed in 2003 when she received the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award. Here's her version of a modern-day holiday classic co-written by Donny Hathaway.
A mordant holiday moment from this 1996 album:
I guess it's the season the time of the year / When people they're happy and full of good cheer / Well they'll wish you and kiss you and wish you again / And they'll tell you it's peace and good will to all men / But hey what could they mean by that / Perhaps I'm the fool they take me for / Not anything more
Kanye West is kind of annoying, eh? LA Times pop music critic Ann Powers put it succinctly in her year-in-review piece, including West's "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" on her "Best of 2010" list, but also saying the worst experience of the year was: "Everything that gets in the way of just listening to [the album]--the hype, the stupid scandals, and most of all West himself."
But the Kan' can deliver some great jams, and now he's even released a holiday tune. It was The Year of the K, y'all. Just accept it and move on.
Today marks the halfway point of the 12 Days of Christmas Songs Countdown, so let's make it a double-play Sunday. Here's "(There'll Be) Peace in the Valley (For Me)" by Johnny Cash and "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" by his daughter Rosanne.
Here's some history I didn't learn until recently: Johnny met Rosanne's mother, Vivian Liberto, in San Antonio when he was sent there for Air Force basic training. Vivian was born there--her paternal grandparents were Italian immigrants. (Her family started the successful Liberto's Food Company, which is credited with creating concession stand nachos!) Johnny and Vivian were married at St. Anne's Church in San Antonio, but they soon moved to Memphis where Rosanne was born.
Download 19 (There'll Be) Peace In The Valley (For Me)
Download 03 It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
You know I'm ol' Santa myself darlin' / I'm gonna bring yo' presents / and do the little things that you may want me to
Leave it to the late, great Texas bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins to add a lascivious note to a holiday song. This one goes out to my Texas blues brothers, Billy Bob Minutaglio and Johnny B. Toons.
Some of you, er, "mature" music lovers will remember The Cowsills--the '60s family band that reportedly inspired The Partridge Family. They had a few big hits ("The Rain, the Park and Other Things" remains a guilty pleasure of mine), which featured the siblings' fabulous harmonies.
Susan Cowsill was the youngest and, after the family band dissolved, years later she recorded three albums with the alt-country supergroup The Continental Drifters, and then sang backup for several artists. FInally, in 2005, she released her first solo album, which included this gem.