sounds of Scotland
Brìghde Chaimbeul (bagpipes, with John McSherr [Uilleann Pipes], Francis McIlduff [Uilleann Pipes], Jamie Murphy [Uilleann Pipes]), “Sguabag/The Sweeper” (Trad.), 2025
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Illinois
sounds of Ireland
“The Bucks of Oranmore,” “Come West Along the Road,” live, Dublin (The Ferryman Pub), St. Patrick’s Day, 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
The narrative got punctured.
***
. . . picking up crumbs like there was no tomorrow, which
there isn’t.—John Ashbery (1927-), “Tall Order” (excerpts), Breezeway (2015)
looking back
Today, celebrating our 300th post, we revisit a few favorites.
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3/12/10
Both Chicago blues artists. Both guitar players. Both influenced by other kinds of music.
Musical personalities? They could hardly be more different.
Buddy Guy, “Let Me Love You Baby,” live
*****
Fenton Robinson, “Somebody Loan Me A Dime,” live, 1977
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Back in the 1970s, when I was at Alligator Records, I had the pleasure of working with Fenton, co-producing his album I Hear Some Blues Downstairs (a Grammy nominee). He didn’t fit the stereotype of a bluesman. Gentle, soft-spoken, serious, introspective: he was all these things. He died in 1997.
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3/3/10
What other pop star has made such stunning contributions as a guest artist?
Sinead O’Connor
With Willie Nelson, “Don’t Give Up”
*****
With the Chieftains, “The Foggy Dew”
*****
With Shane MacGowan, “Haunted”
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5/28/2010
two takes
“La-La Means I Love You”
The Delfonics, live, 2008 (originally recorded 1968)
*****
Bill Frisell, live, New York (Rochester), 2007
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Music . . . carr[ies] us smoothly across the tumult of experience, like water over rocks.
—Vijay Iyer, liner notes, Historicity (2009)
What other pop star has made such stunning contributions as a guest artist?
Sinead O’Connor
With Willie Nelson, “Don’t Give Up”
*****
With the Chieftains, “The Foggy Dew”
*****
With Shane MacGowan, “Haunted”
music clip of the day 