Great news arrived in the post yesterday: a nice, new vinyl copy of the best live ska album of all time by the best ska band of all time (The Skatalites - Stretching Out - 1987, 2 LPs). Stretching Out was originally put out as a cassette-only release by Roir Records in 1987, but last year they finally released the set on vinyl for the first time.
The music on the two LPs comes from a recording of a warm-up show that The Skatalites did on June 27, 1983 in preparation for their reunion performance in July at the Reggae Sunsplash festival in northern Jamaica, and from a recording of a show later in the month on July 17, 1983. Both shows took place at The Blue Monk Jazz Gallery in Kingston, Jamaica. The performances that summer constituted the first full Skatalite shows in 18 years--almost two decades after their short-lived, but legendary tenure in 1963-65.
I was fortunate enough to see a Skatalites reunion show at the "old" 9:30 Club in D.C. in the spring of 1994. It was a helluva show and a great night of music. By 1994, however, there were missing members from the original 1960s lineup. Not so on this double album--this is the original lineup playing and improvising together for some of the initial times after an 18-year hiatus. The Skatalites kick out the jams, mofo. Listen for yourself below (and buy the vinyl if you can):
I highly recommend spending $5.00 at Amazon.com to download over 2 hours of remastered Fela Kuti music. This new career overview collection, "The Best of the Black President" is the first release from Knitting Factory Records in their Fela reissues series. According to stories like this one, all 45 titles in the Fela catalogue are going to be re-released on both vinyl and CD over the course of the next couple of years!
I am also looking forward to reading Patti's new (published December, 2009) memoir "Just Kids" about hangin' out with her pal Robert Mapplethorpe, but that is going to have to wait until summer...
Slave was one of the top late-period funk bands from one of the the capitals of funk music: Dayton, Ohio! While not as funk famous as fellow funk Daytonites The Ohio Players or nearby funk neighbor Bootsy Collins (from Cincinnati), Slave put out two great albums (their first two) in 1977. I picked up their second album The Hardness of the World on NM- vinyl last month, and it grooves like a mofo, mofo. Feel the funk, ya'll:
Slave also had a #1 hit on the R&B chart for one week in late July of 1977 with "Slide" from their first self-titled album released earlier in the year:
Want to know more about the extraordinary 1970s Dayton funk scene and its underpinnings & implications?
Check out this paper. And this paper.
Country Music Hall of Fame member Carl Smith, known as "Mr. Country", died today at the age of 82. He was married to June Carter Cash at one time and had 30 "Top 10" hit songs in the 1950s. Good obituaries on him here and here.
Though it came out a few years back, I only recently got around to reading Crystal Zevon's compelling biography of the late Warren Zevon. It was the last music-related book I read in 2009. Zevon died in 2003, at the age of 56, after being diagnosed the year prior with end-stage mesothelioma lung cancer. This multi-viewpoint biography (with quotes and interview material from over 85 different people, and many excerpts from Warren's diary) does a fantastic job of taking us vicariously into his wild and strange life over the years, and it's sad conclusion. While he led a chaotic and out-of-control life in many ways, he left behind an extraordinary catalogue of albums, full of bitingly sarcastic, dark, and beautiful songs. He was an excitable boy, to say the least.
In addition to reading the biography, I would highly recommend that one listen to Zevon's albums (good discography from allmusic.com here and you can stream all of his albums for free one time here at lala.com), and listen to some representative live performances from his career as you are reading the book (not necessarily concurrently, but during the general time period). As to the live shows, I would suggest the following (all available for free at the LMA and authorized by Warren's son Jordan):
I first got the news this morning from our friend over at the Joy of Speed blog that Jay Reatard died on Wednesday. Various news outlets now have stories up (for example the NYThere and Paste here) about the untimely passing of the 29 year-old Memphis punk-and-beyond musician. He has put out an extraordinary number of albums (20+) in his too-brief recording life (starting when he was 15).
Dengue Fever kickin' out the Cambodian/Californian/Psychedelic/Surf future-of-music-under-globalization jams, mofo!
Bonus vid:
Make sure to pick up their 2008 release "Venus on Earth" if you don't have it. It received an Honorable Mention designation on my recent Best of the 2000s list (and came awfully close to placing in the top 25).
This is the best music-related news of the week for me. I hadn't realized until a few days back that Alejandro Escovedo shows are on the Live Music Archive. So nice, so nice! Praise be to the various tubes of the internets! I wish there were more 1990's and early 2000's shows available, but hey, it is nice to have the 82 shows that are archived thus far for our listening pleasure. Unfortunately, none of the fifteen or so shows of Al's that I have seen are posted as of yet.
Man oh man, it has been too long since my last Escovedo show. I miss seeing him on a semi-regular basis at the Dingo Bar (long since shuttered) in Albuquerque and at the 7th St. Entry and 400 Bar in Minneapolis. I have also caught Al shows in Austin (SXSW, Waterloo Records, and Liberty Lunch), Houston (Mucky Duck), Atlanta (Variety Playhouse), San Antonio (Historic Sunset Station), and Santa Fe (The Paramount), as well as at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Don't pass up the chance to see him if he comes to your town: here are his current tour dates.
