Welcome to the RPM Record Club Seven Day Soundtrack, week ending Friday 11th October; the Northern Lights edition, as last night we had a very beautiful pink aurora display directly overhead in town. Hope your sounds this week are going to similarly scintillate the synapses...over to...
Americana by Ray Davis - "I bought the album a few years back and very good it turned out to be. I gave some of it another spin...here's the title track."
Living Off The Land by Tony Joe White - "This album slipped through my net until this track popped up as a suggestion for me on youtube.
You're No Good by Dee Dee Warwick - "Sister of Dionne. Maybe not the best version, but interesting and would have done better it she hadn't of had to compete with other superb versions."
"Three rather special ‘live’ (one take) recordings this week. I heard Charles Trenet on Radio Three earlier in the week. Jayne and I were sitting in the car in the hospital car park waiting for a friend who was being treated. This came on and we stopped talking to listen. I have heard it lots of times and never taken much notice. I have even walked past his home in Beziers in Languedoc where he is deified with mural portraits (at first glance I thought it a homage to Harpo Marx). Pleasant holiday background music? Audial wallpaper? Perhaps. But now I think that it bears some more attention. I love the tone of this recording. I can’t imagine anybody managing to replicate this sound today. I suppose the answer to that is that they wouldn’t want to, but I find this magical. Perhaps Trenet and the mic were placed a long way in front of the chorus and the orchestra? Trenet was a master with over a thousand compositions to his name. I recognise a few. It's time for me to listen to some more.
The second track is by Michael Hedges. In his day his playing was considered controversial. I don’t hear him mentioned much anymore but while he lived, he constantly evolved his style and playing techniques and in doing so, he did for acoustic guitar what E.V.H. did for the electric guitar. I found it odd that people couldn’t just accept that he was an exceptional musician and listen to the results rather than decry his playing as ‘gimmicky’. Like it or not I never believed that his music could be described as ‘style over substance’. His influence can still be heard at sessions (particularly amongst younger players) where many of his ground breaking practices have become accepted as normal. (Though tricky to master!) As well as having been adopted, they are being adapted and taken further. Now, I hope we can listen to what he was playing. The third piece is just rather nice and has nothing to do with Boy Scouts. If you like that punch in 'João Pernambuco e o Sertão' and just let the album wash over you..."
La Mer by Charles Trenet -
The 2nd Law by Michael Hedges -
Deixa by Baden Powell -
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhZIpgdH718
"As ever thanks and best wishes to you all."
"Here's my choices for this week."
The Show Must Go On by Queen -
Life On Mars by David Bowie -
I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues by Elton John -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=h6KYAVn8ons
"Have a good week everyone."
"Greetings to RPM Folks and thanks for last week's music. In a week that saw Joe Root overtake Alastair Cook and close in on Rahul Dravid and Jacques Kallis I headed to Faro, Portugal from Norwich in search of some sunshine. In the almost derelict brewery building they serve very respectable, affordable red wine and host modern jazz evenings with local musicians. They also play old school Portuguese jazz. records."
Azul É O Mar by Carlos Bica -
BERNARDO SASSETTI TRIO MOTION "HOMECOMING QUEEN" -
João Paulo Esteves da Silva, Peter Epstein e Carlos Bica - "O Exílio" - 3 Arabesco
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Aw8lvsfxaR8&si=F7olVhTgy3hAGcAv
"That's All Folks."
"Hi Everyone, I hope you're all keeping safe and well. Here are three tracks I've listened to in the past seven days..."
The Sky Children by Kaleidoscope -
Victory Egg by Cardiacs -
In A Big Country by Big Country -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=657TZDHZqj4
"Best wishes as always."
"Hi RPMers, hope you have all had a good week. Here’s my 3 for this week."
Traffic by Thom Yorke -
New York Kiss by Spoon -
Heartland by The The -
"Hi folks. My 3 this week are poetry inspired; bit late, as National Poetry Day was Thursday last week, but never mind."
Kindness for Weakness by Dilated Peoples & Talib Kweli -
If We Come as Soft Rain by Sarah Webster Fabio -
Follow The Leader by George The Poet & Maverick Sabre -
https://youtu.be/LYG1Waliqbw?feature=shared
"Take care all + have a fab weekend.
Cheers!"
"I've done things arse-about-face this week by including three Lunasa tunes which really belonged with last week's offering, since that was when we had just got back from seeing them in Galway. Oh well."
"As I've said before, Lunasa are my all-time fave folk band: each member a virtuoso, but it isn't their talent alone which I find so endearing, but the warmth and feeling they exude alongside their phenomenal talent."
"We've seen them many times and had friendly chats with a few of the band members at different times, specifically the three mainstays: Kevin Crawford (whistles), Cillian Vallely (uilleann pipes) and Sean Smyth (fiddle)."
"Sadly there seem to be no videos of their amazing set which closed the Cambridge Folk Festival in 2010, when they brought the house down, coming onstage really late, following Kris Kristofferson. So I've had to find footage from other events."
The Minor Bee by Lunasa - "This is taken from Cropredy in 2013."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCozm35xA2k&ab_channel=UnderTheAppleTreeSessions
Encore, Bath Folk Festival, 2013 by Lunasa - "Please bear with the 11 minutes of this encore. It demonstrates their nuanced, delicate, Celtic melancholy - it's not all whirling dervish madness, though that comes later in this set."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMBTU4s9MOo&ab_channel=bathfolkfestival
Morning Nightcap by Lunasa - "I took this short clip at the end of one their most ebullient tunes, just over a week ago in Ireland: phone camera in one hand, pint of Guinness in the other. The brevity will compensate for the previous lengthier videos."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZOchds8fas&ab_channel=KevinSavage
"Sláinte."
"Here's a trio of tunes that caught my ear this week..."
Velmwend by Ozric Tentacles - "First track on their first self produced, home studio recorded cassette, Erpsongs. Released in 1985 and available direct from the band themselves at the time, Velmwend has all the Ozric musical reference points in place that, gladly, are still in evidence 39 years later. Emerging from the early 80s free festival scene, the Ozrics brought out 6 self produced cassettes between 1985 and 1989, the year of their first official vinyl release Pungent Effulgent on Dovetail Records. The tapes increasingly gained legendary underground status and due to demand were released as the Vitamin Enriched, 6 CD, box set in 1993. This again achieved legendary underground status, presumably because once it had sold out, it was very hard to track down. In 2014, a remastered release of the box set came out followed a year later by the first remastered vinyl release. Three double CDs also emerged around this time. In 2020-21 Ed Wynn oversaw another remaster of the recordings which were accompanied by a 48 page booklet. Hope that's all clear now."
Midnight Lightning by Jimi Hendrix - "One of the best tracks on South Saturn Delta; Jimi affirms his blues roots credentials in this understated performance...just a solo strat and voice. A shivers moment. Superb."
The Bull Ring / The Lady's Bright Knot performed by Leveret - "Putting in this last tune at 23.40 Friday night having literally just got back from the Leveret gig in York...so good, the time just seemed to vanish."
'Til Next Time...