Album Reviews

This record reminds me of the first Talking Heads album, '77 The music kicks in a stilted sort of way; the front man is more weird than powerful, but draws skillfully on the music for his punch, so that his oddball catchphrases (many of them about everyday things like cities, buildings, and doing a good job, lending a certain Richard Scarry earnestness) are driven into your head. He doesn't exactly chant, but it feels like he does. The album is actually more “good” than it is “fun to listen to”-I keep having to make myself put it on. But I'm often glad I did. But I don't listen for all that long.

Today, Houston, Texas seems like one of the last places on earth a bluesman would want to call home (send those emails!), but Sam “Lightnin' “ Hopkins called it home, once he left his small town birthplace, nearby Centerville (population under 1000). His first Houston foray, sometime in the late 1930's, where he accompanied his cousin, the blues singer Alger Alexander, was a bust, so after working on a railroad and singing in the streets he returned home to Centerville.

The veteran Irish singer Mary Black is probably better known among American audiophiles than among the general music-loving populace because her recordings are exquisite sounding, audiophiles tend to dig chick singers, and for some reason Black has never received major radio airplay.

In the circles of soul music fans, Isaac Hayes’ seminal June 1969 LP Hot Buttered Soul is well-known as a landmark recording, an album that helped break down conventions of what a hit soul recording could be. This four-song album originally went gold on the Enterprise label, but Craft Recordings just may have taken Hot Buttered Soul to new aural heights with their recently released AAA Small Batch 180g 1LP edition. Read Mark Smotroff’s review to see if the Small Batch version of this seminal soul LP belongs in your collection, STAT. . .

The mid-sixties may not have been Monk’s most creative period but it was arguably his strongest and most focused both in the studio and onstage. If any jazz musician was poised to withstand the rock era it was Monk the performer and Monk the composer.