Monday, February 06, 2023
#BestSongIHeardToday • Volume 19 - Another Team Tortoise Episode
Monday, January 30, 2023
#NewMusicMonday • January, 2023
Looks like I need to play a little catch up with #NewMusicMonday as it last appeared on Monday Monday Music back in October, 2022.
I've been thinking about David Crosby's passing and his exceptional gift for singing harmony. I finish the playlist with his 2021 cover of Joni Mitchell's, For Free with Sarah Jarosz.
I then started stumbling across fairly new songs with harmony typically featuring a guest singer. Speaking of featured guests, it must be a new rule to have Phoebe Bridgers as a featured artist on your new song. She must be the new Michael McDonald of guest appearances on songs for the 2020's. However, I must say, Brandi Carlile is probably a close contender for the featured singer title too as she's seems to be everywhere.
It's so hard to find rock 'n' roll bands these days that bring something new with my classic jingle-jangle taste. I've been playing new Sloan songs over the past several months and decided to feature the October, 2022 release of their 13th album, Steady here. It's all right there in the title.
Enjoy the playlist my friends. If you're new to Monday Monday Music playlists, they're different than what you'll find in the sameness of the streaming services in their genre playlists like Indie and Folk.
p.s. Nickel Creek fans, they have a new song!
Monday, January 23, 2023
Booker T. & The MG's
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Left to Right - Booker T. Jones, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Steve Cropper, and Al Jackson Jr. |
I had the pleasure to see Booker T. Jones perform just last Saturday with his current band at the Edmonds Center for the Arts in Edmonds, Washington. The show is titled, Booker T: Note by Note - 60 Years of "Green Onions" and STAX Hits.
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Booker T. Jones with his Hammond B3 organ and Leslie speaker |
Jones's entry into professional music came at the age of 16, when he played baritone saxophone on Satellite (soon to be Stax) Records' first hit, "Cause I Love You", by Carla and Rufus Thomas. Willie Mitchell hired Jones for his band, in which Jones started on sax and later moved to bass. It was here that he met Al Jackson Jr., whom he brought to Stax.
Steve Cropper, born October 21, 1941 (age 81) in Dora Missouri, but most importantly moved to Memphis, Tennessee at age 9. In Memphis, Cropper was exposed to black church music saying it, "Blew me away" and motivated him to purchase his first guitar at 14. Rolling Stone has ranked Steve Cropper as the 36th greatest guitar player on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Players.
Donald "Duck" Dunn, born November 24, 1941 in Memphis, Tennessee. Dunn a boyhood friend of Cropper started playing bass as Cropper started playing guitar with other friends and formed bands in high school. The two would be signed to local Stax Records and became part of the house band and helped form the "Stax sound" in the 1960's. Duck Dunn is ranked number 40 on Bass Player magazine's list of "The 100 Greatest Bass Players of All Time." He died in his sleep in 2012 after playing a gig in Japan with Steve Cropper.
Albert J. Jackson Jr., born November 27, 1935 in Memphis, Tennessee. Jackson's father, Al Jackson Sr., led a jazz/swing dance band in Memphis, Tennessee. The young Jackson started drumming at an early age and began playing on stage with his father's band in 1940, at the age of five (Wikipedia). By 14, Al Jackson had established himself as an exceptional drummer and was called, "The Human Timekeeper." Sadly, Al Jackson Jr. was murdered in 1975 in a mysterious home robbery that had connections to his estranged wife at the time.In the early 60's instrumental "surf" bands were quite popular with bands like the Chantays (Pipeline) and The Surfaris (Wipe Out) generating big hit singles. On the R&B side, Stax records started having big hits with singers like Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Albert King, Johnnie Taylor, Eddie Floyd, the Staple Singers, Wilson Pickett, Delaney & Bonnie and many others. Backing many of these sessions were a tight group of young musicians that would soon create a new mainstream of cross-over instrumental R&B.
In the summer of 1962, 17-year-old keyboardist Booker T. Jones, 20-year-old guitarist Steve Cropper, and two seasoned players, bassist Lewie Steinberg and drummer Al Jackson Jr. (the latter making his debut with the company) were in the Memphis studio to back the former Sun Records star Billy Lee Riley. During downtime, the four started playing around with a bluesy organ riff. Jim Stewart, the president of Stax Records, was in the control booth. He liked what he heard, and he recorded it. Cropper remembered a riff that Jones had come up with weeks earlier, and before long they had a second track.
Stewart wanted to release the single with the first track, "Behave Yourself", as the A-side and the second track as the B-side. Cropper and radio disc jockeys thought otherwise; soon, Stax released Booker T. & the M.G.'s' "Green Onions" backed with "Behave Yourself". In conversation with BBC Radio 2's Johnnie Walker, on his show broadcast on September 7, 2008, Cropper recalled that the record became an instant success when DJ Reuben Washington, at Memphis radio station WLOK, played it four times in succession, before the track or even the band had a name. For the rest of the day, people were calling in to the station, asking if the record was out yet.
The single went to number 1 on the US Billboard R&B chart and number 3 on the pop chart. It sold over one million copies and was certified a gold disc.
Now in all the years since I first heard Green Onions as a seven year old on AM radio, I have never heard anyone say they didn't like Booker T. & The MG's. Everybody loves Booker T. & The MG's. Like instrumental surfer music, The MG's R&B instrumentals never seem to tire with the public.
I've also never purchased a instrumental surfer album, or Booker T. & The MG's album. Why? I'm not the first to say that their songs are so strong individually but seem a little boxed in an album. It seems for my taste, the individual songs work better as singles or play well within a mixtape or playlist rather than a connected album.
I hope you enjoy this playlist of 60+ songs of the group going back to that first big hit in 1962. Once I put the playlist together, I found myself going to a song and then skipping down to something else. In any event, I now have a playlist of their tunes that I will tap into for years to come as songs I will use in future playlists. BTW, my favorite Booker T. & The MG's song is Time is Tight.
Enjoy this wonderful band and their timeless instrumentals my friends.
Monday, January 16, 2023
Fifty Years of Music • January, 1973
Monday, January 09, 2023
#BestSongIHeardToday • Volume 18
Actually, it's my lower left back this round.
Friends, have I got a solution to help in these cold winter days (says the guy from San Diego) to keep you warm and help your lower back stay loose and seizing up in pain.
It's a mix of something old with a little technology thrown in there too.
Introducing my new little friend, the Sunbeam GO HEAT, USB Powered Heating Pad.What's nice about this heating pad is its portability, I can take it anywhere! Lately, I've been working long hours in front of my computer and my lower back has been paying the price. I have an electric sit/stand desk that's a tremendous help but not enough to prevent my old lower back pain from roaring back to say, "Ha Ha, I'm still here!"![]() |
Note- Woman not included |
Monday, January 02, 2023
60 Years of Music • January, 1963
The Beatles are coming...
January 7 – Gary U.S. Bonds files a $100,000 lawsuit against Chubby Checker, claiming that Checker stole "Quarter to Three" and turned it into "Dancin' Party." The lawsuit is later settled out of court.
January 11 – "Please Please Me" is released in the United Kingdom by the Beatles, with "Ask Me Why" as the B-side.
January 12 – Bob Dylan portrays a folk singer in The Madhouse of Castle Street, a radio play for the BBC in London.
February 16 - The Beatles achieve their first No. 1 hit single, when "Please Please Me" tops the charts in the UK.
February 22 – The Beatles form Northern Songs Publishing Company.
March 5 – 1963 Camden PA-24 crash: Patsy Cline is killed in small plane crash near Camden, Tennessee, while on her way to Nashville, Tennessee, from Kansas City, Missouri, at the height of her career, together with Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins.
March 22 – The Beatles release their first album, Please Please Me, in the UK.
In 1963, music singles are king. In looking at the singles recorded in 1963 it was amazing to see that many were released just a month later. The mentality was, get it out there, and then, get another one out there. Kids were buying 45's with the marketed 'hit' on the A side, and then typically a deeper cut on the B side that would eventually be part of a released album coming soon. (The Beatles would later buck that trend, but that's a story for another day.)