Jamie Lidell - Multiply (song)

I just heard this song on CKUA the other morning. I was sure it was from the 60s/70s with some famous black soul/R&B singer like Otis Redding, James Brown, or Marvin Gaye. Very soulful. But the voice didn't quite seem to match. Well it turns out that Jamie Lidell is actually white, alive and can sing like a black man.

http://music.aol.com/artists/the-interface/jamie-lidell

I downloaded his Multiply album and was fairly disappointed by the other songs though. It's really cool how he's combining soul and electronica, but other songs really don't groove the same way Multiply does. Possibly because they're trying to be new? The title track is just plain good soul and doesn't try to be anything else.

Paul Simon - Outrageous

I was going to blog about John Mayer's new album but then I relized I hadn't talked about this song/album yet. The name of Paul Simon's new disc is "Surpise." And "Outrageous" is one of the wonderful tracks. This song is such a breath of fresh air. And it comes from someone who's been around for a long time - surprising.

This song is funky! The lyrics are great too... the first time I heard the following section of the song it made my cry.

Who's gonna love you when your looks are gone?
Who's gonna love you when your looks are gone?

God will,
like he waters the flowers on your window sill.

Take me,
I'm just an ordinary player in the key of C.
And my will,
Has been broken by my pride and my vanity.

Gotta love it.

The other songs on this album are great too. My other favourite is "Father and Daughter."

Caedmon's Call - 2 songs from 40 Acres

I hate it when I find a disc that has one or two songs I really like and the rest appear uninteresting. That's the case with this disc...

The two songs I really like are "Faith My Eyes" and "Table For Two." It took me a while to get used to the guy's voice but now I'm enjoying the songs a lot. Again - kind of folk/country - I think I should blame the Norah Jones disc "Feels like Home" for my recent bend in this direction.

The lack of rhymes in the verses of both songs kind of caught my attention. Maybe it's intentional and maybe it's just bad writing ;) I can't tell.

Both songs sound great - guitars, piano, cello, accordion (!), organ, drums played with brushes... wonderful! What I love about "Faith my Eyes" is the chorus. The way the drums come in and that little bit of banjo into this train rhythm (or that's what I call it cuz it sounds like a train... think Johnny Cash... "steady as a train, sharp as a razor"). The lyrics of the chorus are also beautiful:

So keep'em coming these lines on the road
And keep me responsible be it a light or heavy load
And keep me guessing with these blessings in disguise
And I'll walk with grace my feet and faith my eyes

Hmm... inspiring, ain't it?

Kate Rusby - The Girl That Couldn't Fly

I've just started listening to this album... It's amazingly calming in a time where I'm everything but calm...

She does old english style singer/songwriter folk with a enough of a modern enough touch to make it interesting for 20-somethings like me. I've appreciated the british/english/scottish folk but it always annoyed me a little after a while. Kate Rusby must be doing something different to not annoy me - I'm not sure what exactly it is at this point. It might be that the language is still understandable rather than using old obscurce that I need to look up in a dictionary.

Plus: Her accent is sooo cute :)

Favourite songs right now: The Lark, You Belong To Me, Moon Shadow, and Little Jack Frost

Ray LaMontagne - Trouble

It appears that I'm stuck on the folk thing. Maybe it all comes from listening CKUA, maybe from living in Alberta, maybe it's just part of growing up. Final destination country music? Well, we'll see about that...

I heard this guy on CKUA a while back (I think the song was Trouble). Then just a few days ago I heard a different song and it caught my ears. Now I just started listening to the songs he's got up at

http://www.raylamontagne.com/listen.php

and I'm quite intrigued. I really like his voice - to me it's got the rawness of a male folk singer mixed with the power of a female soul/blues singer (think Etta James /Aretha Franklin / Nina Simone). Who would have thought that combination works... At some points his voice sounds quite female - not in a skinny white girl but more of a big black woman way. I like it.

The sample songs (Trouble, Shelter, and Jolene) are very soulful... I haven't paid much attention to the lyrics yet - quite simple soul-type lyrics as far as I can tell - but... never underestimate the power of simplicity.

Just read on the web site that he's touring with David Gray. Very cool. I'll be keeping an eye on this guy.

John Mayer Trio - Vultures

A new post has been long overdue... but when I started this blog I decided I only was going to post when I was really excited about some music. And it happens that sometimes I just don't get excited about anything for a few months... I think that's ok, right?

Well, I'm really excited about this song and the album it's on. I hadn't even realized that John Mayer had started up a trio. This guy doesn't fail to surprise me. He seems to be going into a strong blues direction and he's doing it amazingly well (for a white guy ;) ). I had noticed some collaboration pieces with guitarists I listen to (John Scofield, Buddy Guy). Now, looking at the allmusic page about the Try album, he seems to have also done stuff with other great artists such as Clapton, Herbie Hancock and B.B.King. You don't get to play with these guys if you're a hack...

I think I listened to Vultures close to 10 times the other day. I just love it when a song grabs me that way :) I'm still fascinated by the guitar sound, the lyrics, the beat, the guitar solos... the word that always comes to my head is "tight." I've used it here before. Everything just seems to fit together so perfectly it's amazing.

I'm glad the allmusic review of the album is so positive. I was worried that I was just going thought a phase where anything could have impressed me. But it seems that at least one other person agrees with me :)

Good song, good album - check it out if any of the below apply to you:
- you like blues
- you like john mayer's albums
- you like the dave matthew's band's live recordings

Jack Johnson - On and On

I thought I was getting tired of Jack Johnson after listening to "Brushfire Fairytales" many times and noticing that his new album "In Between Dreams" didn't excite me much because it appeared to be just more of the same. Then my friend Jonathan gave me the On and On disc for Christmas and... it's sooo gooood...

I'm not sure if this disc is simply more original than "In Between Dreams" or whether I was just not in the right mood when I checked out the latter. But I just love playing these songs and jamming along on my electric guitar. Even though the chords and structure of the songs are really straightforward, there is something genuinely creative in these songs. I couldn't say exactly what it is. For one, I love the percussion on almost all the tracks. It's probably a main reason why I like Jack Johnson's stuff in general - I've always enjoyed good interesting rythms.

My current favourites off the disc are Taylor, Gone, Cookie Jar, and Rodeo Clowns. Examples of songs where I think the percussion is at it's best are Rodeo Clowns and The Horizon has been Defeated... sooo grooovy...

n e who - I doubt anyone reading this hasn't already listened to Jack Johnson, so recommending to check him out would be a waste of my typing (wait a second... how many words did I just type to say that?) - n e who... ;) I guess to put some true *value* into this post, I recommend completely disregarding the 3/5 star rating on allmusic.com. In my opinion this is a 4.5/5 star disc!