Born and bred (and still residin') in Como, Mississippi, 58-year old bluesman R.L. Boyce grew up singing gospel in the church choir and playing the drums in fife-and-drum bands (Otha Turner is his uncle). He then eventually took up the guitar. Now has finally just released his first full-length album, on vinyl only via the down home music fiends at Sutro Park. One side was recorded in a studio - the other on R.L. Boyce's porch! He plays here with Sutro Park veteran Luther Dickinson (guitar), Lightin' Malcolm (guitar), Calvin Jackson (drums), Calvin's son Cedric Burnside (drums), and others. R.L. does a few of his own compositions, plus two by that other R.L., R.L. Burnside, and one traditional number as well. In all cases, the good times roll. Boyce's style is loose and improvisational, with lots of unedited laughter and impromptu banter in-between takes, though these rambling songs would be long anyway - album opener "R.L.'s Boogie" is over 9 minutes long, fans of Endless Boogie take note! Definitely our kind of blues, expressive and unconcerned with propriety. Despite its deep roots in tradition, this ain't museum-piece blues, it's the living thing.
180 gram vinyl pressing. The jacket includes detailed sleeve notes (with footnotes!), and bears the motto "World Boogie is Coming".
A beautiful selection of solo folk blues instrumentals from longtime member of the North Mississippi All Stars and the latest lead guitarist for the Black Crowes. Luther Dickinson is also the son of legendary Memphis producer Jim Dickinson, and deep in the grit and twang of the Southern blues, we find a momentously stripped down affair that is both raw and transcendent. Hambone's Meditations is a conjuring of ghosts that preceded the Fahey school searching instead for the origins buried in the oral traditions of rural folk blues.
The Grammy-nominated recording is close and intimate, you can hear the squeaks of guitar and the rub of the slide as it trips and sways through exploratory and contemplative instrumental excursions. On the Sutro Park label, home of beautiful vinyl reissues by Jesse Mae Hemphill, Sandy Bull, Fred McDowell and Peter Walker, among others. A new classic!
Our pal Dave put this KILLER record out and we think he describes it the best:
"In the winter of 1967, a psychedelic-garage-punk band from Woodland Hills, California, arrived in Europe for what would be their first and last tour of the continent. On the strength of their hit single 'I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night,' the band was welcomed with open arms by European rock fans as well as British rock royalty - they smoked out with Hendrix, partied with Brian Jones and Keith Moon, and hung out in the studio with the Beatles - but were also subjected to harassment and ridicule over the fact that their homeland was at war in Vietnam. Yep, good times, good times... Twenty days and six countries later it was all over. Luckily, on the last stop of the tour someone pushed the record button and this artifact is the result.
"Stockholm '67 finds the Electric Prunes at the height of the powers. Some ninnies have griped that the 'Prunes were nothing more than a psychedelic one-hit wonder, and a studio project at best. This performance burns the criticism to the ground. Over-amplified and fuzzed to the max, the 'Prunes here are explosive, noisy and wild. This recording proves that the Electric Prunes deserve to be ranked alongside the very best bands of their era."
Arguably one of the wildest of all the later-day female blues performers, Jessie Mae Hemphill (aka, "The She-Wolf"!) didn't achieve wide fame until later in life. Feeling Good wasn't her first record, but it was her first American release, coming out in 1990, three years before suffering a stroke that would sideline her career. In it she takes the primal North Mississippi hill country blues traditions of her family (her grandfather was the fiddler Sid Hemphill), in a raucous set of electric blues minimalism honing each song to wild repeating riffs and bare-bone percussion. Her voice all primitive holler and beguiling moan. Perhaps best known for her guitar playing (she started playing at age seven), she was an accomplished drummer as well playing snare and bass drums in various fife and drum units. And it's that rhythmic instinct that binds her musical style together. This set is jumping!
This blues album had us sold on it already just by being by a guy named Peg Leg! That he's 'Legendary' is practically superfluous. Not to mention that this record comes to us via the always excellent blues/country/folk reissue vinyl label Sutro Park.
So yeah, it's good, an album originally released in 1964 when Joshua "Peg Leg" Howell was about 75 years old. Peg Leg had begun his recording career back in the 1920s, when Columbia Records discovered him busking on the sidewalks of Atlanta Georgia. But he hadn't recorded anything since the '30s and in fact was presumed dead until being rediscovered again in the '60s. As documented on this lp, Peg Leg is an old bluesman returning to the songs of his youth, now wizened and wistful, as you might imagine a septuagenarian singing songs like "Jelly Roll Blues" and "Let Me Play With Your Yo-Yo" might be. Other tracks here include "Blood Red River", "Worried Blues", and "Skin Game Blues" to give you an idea of the vibe.
Includes original liner notes and woodcut album art. 180 gram vinyl.
Killer collection of demos and outtakes from arguably THEE only grunge band that mattered (Nirvana who?), sure we love Tad and Soundgarden and all the rest, but Mudhoney are one of the few bands who always ruled and somehow STILL rule, swaggery and heavy, and punky and bad ass with some of the catchiest songs EVER.
Head On The Curb goes way back, to when original bassist Matt Lukin was still in the band, a bunch of tracks that would mostly go on to make up Piece Of Cake, although a few jams here went on to be B sides, or never went on at all, which is enough to make this worthwhile. Besides the fact, that this is Mudhoney at their fiercest and heaviest, the sound varies, but for the most part, this is super distorted, ultra heavy, raw and urgent, caustic and chaotic, that Mudhoney sound you know and love, just a bit less polished, the guitars muddy and murky, everything fuzzy and blown our, Mark Arm's yowl in fine form, there's an acoustic jam, a super obscure cover, but for the most part this is prime vintage Mudhoney.
Absolutely essential for fans, newbies might want to try Superfuzz Bigmuff first, but then again, what the hell, if these jams, in all their raw unpolished glory, don't convince you of Mudhoney's rulingness, then hell, nothing will.
Pressed on super thick vinyl, and housed in heavy old school black and white jackets.
The completely awesome fictional (or is it?) Sun Ra movie now available in a swank DVD edition courtesy of the fine folks at Plexifilm. If you've seen this already you know it's the best low budget science fiction afro-jazz freak film ever made, and you'll want this new version with bonus stuffs. If you haven't seen it, what are you waiting for? Sun Ra was a genius and also had a sense of humor, this film proves. Made here in the Bay Area by some public television guys and shot on the same sound stage (at the same time!) as the Mitchell Bros. famed porno opus Behind The Green Door (!) this is simply out of this world: the music (lots of live performances), the story, the visuals. Sun Ra wrote all his own lines, by the way. This dvd 'director's cut' restores the film to its original 82 minute length, and includes some truly special features, among them a video interview with the director and producer, and and some silent bonus footage of Ra and the Arkestra cavorting at the Pyramids in Egypt!
And for more Sun Ra dvd action, see the review elsewhere this list for The Cry Of Jazz, a 1959 film featuring Sun Ra and his Arkestra.
Another Sutro Park vinyl release of some authentic down home blues, a set recorded in 1971 at a moonshine shack in rural Tennessee, apparently never before released. Featured artists include Lattie "The Wolf" Murrell and William Floyd Davis, along with their host, the anonymous bootlegger!! And a bunch of other unknown folks, customers who came for the bootlegger's illegal liquor and stayed to add their voices to the night's impromptu festivities, fortunately recorded for posterity by interested 'white folks' (young Swedish blues documentarian Bengt Olsson). Tracks include such blues standards as "Spoonful" and "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl", with a few also specifically alluding to drinkin' and booze. So grab a can, bottle or jug of whatever's yer poison and kick back with this archival time capsule of a damn good time being had on a Saturday night in '71.
Includes entertaining liner notes on the sleeve that also help to bring the scene to life, as does Cameron Forsley's cover drawing, though the music sez it all anyway.
Finally reissued and on vinyl, is one of our all time favorite solo guitar records, Rainy Day Raga by Peter Walker!!! Released on Vanguard in 1966, it sits perfectly between John Fahey's Requia and Sandy Bull's Inventions. Like Bull, Walker was fascinated and influenced by Middle Eastern, raga and modal forms (as well as Spanish and Baltic Romantic motifs) and found the perfect venue to explore the raga's hypnotic trance-like properties in Cambridge, Massachusetts as musical director of Timothy Leary's Celebration festivals. Offering up a mostly original record, save for a beautiful rendition of The Beatles "Norwegian Wood", the lysergic qualities of Walker's performance here are augmented by accompanying musicians Bruce Langhorne (!!) on percussion and Jeremy Steig on flute displaying a gentle pastoralism to the sometimes intense raga workouts. But even the quieter solo parts like "River" and "April In Cambridge" showcase Walker's astute knack for dynamic technique in his performances, and composition. While he only recorded two albums for Vanguard in the sixties, before his recent resurgence, they aptly showcase what a visionary he was to the current generation of solo guitar excursionists, and we are so grateful that this record is available once again to prove it! Highest Recommendation!!!!!
