Week 4

So, this long snow weekend cooled down my progress on the blog in addition to having little to no time to breath. I hoped to finally finish the B's over the weekend, but playing in the snow and taking care of a sick child were top priority. There was just enough recovery to squeeze in some sledding down my old neighborhood streets. It's always great to make new memories that bleed into old memories. I am late in posting and have digressed enough, so on to this week's set we go (1/25-1/31):

Pearl Jam - Backspacer
Dave Matthews Band - Before These Crowded Streets
Pearl Jam - Binaural
Champion Jack Dupree - Blues From The Gutter
B.B. King - Blues Summit
John Mayall - Bluesbreaker With Eric Clapton
Widespread Panic - Bombs And Butterflies
Ry Cooder - Boomer's Story
Toby Keith - Boomtown
Boston - Boston
Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger
Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
Joni Mitchell - Both Sides Now
George Jones - Bradley Barn Sessions
The Wallflowers - Breach
Staind - Break The Cycle
Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway
The Rolling Stones - Bridges To Babylon
The Wallflowers - Bringing Down The Horse
Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home
Cry Of Love - Brother
The Allman Brothers - Brothers And Sisters


This week felt like Bob Dylan week. I made it through more from his catalog in addition to two of The Wallflowers (Bob’s son Jakob Dylan) albums Breach and Bringing Down The Horse. The Bob Dylan album Bringing It All Back Home has my favorite tune of his - Maggie's Farm. The album is a fine example of Dylan's lyrical story-telling with, classics like Mr. Tambourine Man and It's Alright Ma, which is what makes him perhaps the greatest song-writer ever. Jimi Hendrix was a HUGE fan and as we all know covered All Along The Watchtower (not from this album) to make it his own. And Jakob has put out some pretty solid music as well. The Wallflowers charted with hits like One Headlight and 6th Avenue Heartache. Jakob has a solo disc out (Seeing Things and a new one due out on 4.6.10) which has made it onto the "wish list".

Cry Of Love was Audley Freed's band started in Raleigh back in the early 90's. Audley has gone on to play with The Black Crowes (including the Jimmy Page shows and with Chris Robinson on some of his solo work), gigs with Joe Perry, and sadly enough he toured with The Dixie Chicks. Even great guitarist sometimes have to do plug-and-play to pay the bills on their sports cars, huge houses, and whatever other vices they have. His greatest work still remains the album Brother. (which was recorded in Raleigh with the same producer (John Custer) Jive Mother Mary recorded their debut All Fall Down). Kelly Holland the original lead singer plays in the area with cover band Crush doing R&B standards. Drummer Jason Patterson has played with Corrosion Of Conformity. This album charted nationally and had a couple of hit singles (Peace Pipe and Bad Thing). Great album and great band - too bad they split ways!!

Bruce Springsteen's breakout album Born To Run was truly a joy to listen to. I have come to appreciate and enjoy The Boss as my musical tastes have grown. It's amazing how complex and yet so simple this album is to listen to. Bruce used Phil Spector to produce this album and Phil used his famous "wall of sound" technique. I also listened to another album which used an interesting recording technique, Binaural by Pearl Jam. I won't bother trying to recount what I learned about the binaural process, rather you can check it out if you're so inclined. Pretty much all of the music I have listened to has been through a fair set of full-ear headphones. The listening experience is so much nicer and with these two albums it was even more enjoyable. I haven't gotten into Bruce or Pearl Jam heavily, but with this weeks set I am excited to hear more from both artists.

The highlights of this week for me were listening to Champion Jack Dupree and Ry Cooder. Champion Jack Dupree's Blues From The Gutter is exactly that. An album about real life struggles without any frilly lyrics  Notably, Jack got his moniker as a boxer, which he did at the encouragement of Joe Louis. Dupree also spent his early years at New Orleans' Colored Waifs' Home for Boys where Loius Armstrong spent many of his years. Ry Cooder's Bommer's Story is an equally inspiring album of folk-country-blues inspired music. Ry Cooder is more well known for doing studio work (mainly slide-guitar) with legends like Little Feat and the Rolling Stones.

After listening to John Mayall this week I checked out what he was up to these days, only to learn that he will be rolling through Carrborro's Arts Center on 2/17/10. I won't get into everything about him now, but the guy has played with EVERYONE. To name a few John McVie (Fleetwood Mac bassist), Eric Clapton, Paul Butterfield, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor (of Rolling Stones guitarist). Barring another snow storm or financial ruin I plan to attend. And three shows the following week at the Cat's Cradle including North Mississippi Allstars.