Has Monday ever sounded better?
Snooks Eaglin (with George Porter, Jr., bass; Kenneth Blevins, drums)
Live, New York (Lone Star Roadhouse), early ’90s
“I Just Cried Oh”
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“Baby Please”
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“Lipstick Traces”
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“You Don’t Have To Go”
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“Young Girl”
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“Red Beans” (with Jon Cleary, piano)
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Great guitar players don’t play notes—they play sounds.
three takes
“Now That We Found Love” (AKA “Now That We’ve Found Love”)
(K. Gamble & L. Huff)
take 1
Heavy D (AKA Dwight Arrington Myers), May 24, 1967-November 8, 2011
Heavy D & the Boyz, 1991
*****
take 2
O’Jays, 1973
*****
take 3
Third World, live
Who needs a stage when you’ve got the subway?
“Diamonds And Pearls,” Washington, D.C.
*****
“Thin Line Between Love And Hate,” New York
*****
“Stand By Me,” Chicago
two takes
Need a Monday morning boost? You’ve come to the right place.
“Let the Good Times Roll”
Koko Taylor (1928-2009), live
Years ago, when I was at Alligator Records, I worked with her—what a sweetheart.
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Louis Jordan And His Tympany Five, c. 1946
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
art beat
Yesterday at Chicago’s Goodman Theater:
MARK ROTHKO: Wait. Stand closer. You’ve got to get close. Let it pulsate. Let it work on you. Closer. . . . There. Let it spread out. Let it wrap its arms around you; let it embrace you, filling even your peripheral vision so nothing else exists or has ever existed or will ever exist. Let the picture do its work—But work with it. Meet it halfway for God’s sake. Lean forward, lean into it. Engage with it!
—John Logan, Red (2009)
Stick around long enough and images that conjure your own past, going out to clubs on Chicago’s south and west sides, start to turn up as history.
Ricky Allen, “No Better Time Than Now” (One-Way 1974)
Light: On The South Side (Numero 2009)
Yeah, that’s Junior Wells at 1:08.
serendipity
Want to feel no better than you do right now?
If so, don’t bother with this stuff.
Last night, while I was listening to the radio,* these tracks came on back to back to back to back, brightening my mood considerably.
Valorie Keys, “Listen Here” (Double Shot 1966)
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Arthur Alexander, “You Better Move On” (Dot 1961; London [UK] 1962))
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Bessie Banks, “Go Now” (Blue Cat 1964; Soul City re-release 1966)
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Dee Dee Warwick, “You’re No Good” (Jubilee 1963)
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*WFMU-FM (Betsy Nichols, subbing for Mr. Fine Wine)
Mahogani Music Promotional Video, Detroit (2010)
Vodpod videos no longer available.Yeah, the interplay between these two is awfully cliche.
But there’s a lot to like here: the sounds,* the colors, the composition, the sense of place.
I dig the camera-shy dog, too.
*Joe Simon, “Theme from Cleopatra Jones” (1973)
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lagniappe
art beat
Yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago (after an oral argument in the nearby federal court of appeals, in a drug case involving 20 kilos of cocaine—from the sordid to the sublime):
Vasily (AKA Wassily) Kandinsky
Painting with Green Center, 1913
*****
Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons), 1913
Never heard of this guy?
You’re not alone.
But for serious mental illness, he would have been a big star.
James Carr, singer, June 13, 1942-January 7, 2001
Live, “You Got My Mind Messed Up”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Live, “Pouring Water on a Drowning Man”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“The Dark End of the Street” (D. Penn & C. Moman), Goldwax, 1967
Vodpod videos no longer available.What may be my favorite moment in this track is one that’s easy to miss; a throwaway, it comes at 1:37—the muted, fleeting “huhh.” The whole welter of emotions Carr brings to this performance—anxious, defiant, rueful, resigned—can be heard in this single syllable.
music clip of the day 