Category Archives: world music classics

Nick Drake @ 60

video

“River Man” from Nick Drake‘s 1969 album Five Leaves Left

Nicholas Rodney Drake (June 19, 1948 – November 25, 1974) was an English singer-songwriter and musician best known for his acoustic, autumnal songs. Although he failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime, Drake’s work has since grown steadily in stature, to the extent that he is now widely considered one of the most influential English singer-songwriters of the last 50 years. He commited suicide aged 27.

“River Man” is World Music Classic #49. The track is also featured on the 2005 compilation album Late Night Tales: The Flaming Lips.

Jeffrey Lee Pierce @50 and WMC #48

Jeffrey Lee Pierce (June 27, 1958 – March 31, 1996) was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. He was one of the founding members of the 1980s punk band The Gun Club. He would have turned 50 today if he hadn’t exchanged the temporary for the eternal in his late thirties.

The Gun Club injected punk rock with doses of blues and country music. Pierce’s wailing vocals were an ideal delivery for his songs, which generally had a spooky, haunted quality.

Fire of Love was their debut album from whence came “Sex Beat,” released in 1981 on Ruby Records. “Sex Beat” is World Music Classic #48.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMdYi8pWPiw]
“Sex Beat” by The Gun Club

Choreography by Dipsetmuthafucka.

I’ve mentioned “Sex Beats” before here and the most memorable line of the song is: “We can f*** forever but you will never get my soul.”

World music classic #47

As the days of my life have progressed, I’ve made up certain rules from myself: only eat chocolate if it’s from the brand Cote d’or, never buy music albums with ugly cover art, not allow to let in new stuff unless it connects with old stuff, etc… One of these rules is not to discuss music with anyone who does not have at least some cursory knowledge of Neil Young, Lee Perry, Arthur Russell, Serge Gainsbourg, Kraftwerk and Fela Kuti. I know that this makes me sound like an arrogant prick, but to my defense I blame it on my placement within what is known as the autistic spectrum.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRZdEqpTmD4]

Another part of my defense is that I have listened to a great variety of music. One of the albums which has enjoyed lots of my time and attention is the 1976 Super Ape album by Jamaican veteran Lee “Scratch” Perry, an album I rediscovered a couple of weeks after I had initially erroneously dismissed it. Super Ape is generally classified as a dub album, and to my knowledge, it is also the first reggae concept album. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

More goodness from 1976 (and here is more from my wiki):

Eddie Harris - It's All Right Now
Eddie Harris, It’s alright Now

World music classic #43 and 44

 

“Make it Last Forever”

Donna McGhee is an American singer who released one album on Red Greg Records, produced and arranged by Greg Carmichael and Patrick Adams. The track from that album, “Make It Last Forever,” was covered by Loleatta Holloway.

Greg Carmichael (“Barely Breaking Even”) and Patrick Adams (“In the Bush” and “Keep on Jumpin’) produced at least 50 tracks which transcend disco as genre. They are in many ways the auteurs of disco, more so than Larry Levan, Walter Gibbons or Tom Moulton, who were primarily involved in post-production. The only one to rival Adams and Carmichael was Arthur Russell, but his story is altogether different.

One more by Patrick Adams (“My Baby’s Got E.S.P.” notice the similarity of Patrick Adams’s trademark: the string arrangements and slow beats).

“My Baby’s Got E.S.P.”

WMC#42: To shake memories into the air

This post rhymes with air

She threw back her hair
Like I wasn’t there
And she sipped on a julep.
Her shoulders were bare
And I tried not to stare

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYHEBa6Xx48&]

“Summer (The First Time)” (1973) by Bobby Goldsboro

A Hemisphere in Your Hair (French: Un hémisphère dans une chevelure) is a poem by Baudelaire collected in Paris Spleen.

Laisse-moi respirer longtemps, longtemps, l’odeur de tes cheveux, y plonger tout mon visage, comme un homme altéré dans l’eau d’une source, et les agiter avec ma main comme un mouchoir odorant, pour secouer des souvenirs dans l’air.
Long let me inhale, the odour of your hair,
into it plunge the whole of my face, like a thirsty man
into the waters of a spring and wave it in my fingers like a scented handkerchief,
to shake memories into the air.

In the film Withnail & I Richard Griffith’s character recites the line “Laisse-moi respirer longtemps, longtemps, l’odeur de tes cheveux” (Eng: Long let me inhale, the odour of your hair).

World music classics #39, 40 and 41

Beastie Boys - Cooky puss
Beastie Boys – Cooky puss
04:30
Added: 6 months ago
From: iwillluvher
Views: 7,489
Ciccone Youth -
Ciccone Youth – “Into the Groovey”
02:47
Added: 3 months ago
From: dipsetmuthafucka
Views: 2,381
Liquid Liquid -
Liquid Liquid – “Cavern” 1983
04:38
Added: 6 months ago
From: tertolkin
Views: 7,336

Background info:

Notes: There is a better version on Youtube of “Cavern” (sound-wise), but the one featured here has the original music video, and the only one commissioned by New York record label 99 Records. “Cooky Puss” was a revelation when it came out, and my first exposure to the Beastie Boys. “Into the Groove(y)” was also my first exposure to SY, there are two alternative versions of this Madonna spoof/cover.

If you have the time, check dipsetmuthafucka‘s Youtube channel, he, or rather his musical selection, is the incarnation of taste.

Introducing August Darnell


[Amazon.com]
[FR] [DE] [UK]

August Darnell aka Kid Creole (Montreal, Canada, 12 August, 1950) is a Canadian musician who has been involved in several dance-oriented projects in New York in the late 1970s and early to mid 1980s. Projects include Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band[0] (led by Darnell’s brother Stony), Don Armando’s Second Avenue Rhumba Band[1], Gichy Dan’s Beechwood #9, the “mutant disco” of Aural Exciters and, of course, Kid Creole and the Coconuts[2], as well as “solo” projects involving Andy “Coati Mundi” Hernandez[2,5], Taana Gardner[3], Fonda Rae[4]. and Lizzy Mercier Descloux[5]. Some of the more (and less)obscure offerings of Darnell have been released on an music compilation in 2008 by Strut Records as Going Places: The August Darnell Years 1976-1983.

Click the number to listen to the tracks, not all tracks are Darnell projects, but also just of the artists mentioned.

Fonda Rae in Machine’s “There but for the Grace of God Go I”[4] is world music classic 38, and has an interesting bit of music censorship history behind it, perhaps more on that later.

World music classic 37

“I’m looking for the party people, to get down”

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMEEYPc87OQ]

“Wicki Wacky‘” (1974) by Fatback Band

“Wicki Wacky‘” (1974) is a single released on Event Records by the Fatback Band. It was featured on their album “Keep On Steppin’“. The proto-disco song is noted for its driving hi-hats and was a blueprint for subsequent four-on-the-floor dance records. Other notable songs from Fatback include the 80s groove “Is this the Future,” currently unavailable on Youtube. Enjoy and let me know how you like it.

Brigitte Bardot and music (wmc #35 and 36)

Brigitte Bardot photographed by Michel Bernanau in 1968

Brigitte Bardot participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including “Harley Davidson”[1], “Je Me Donne A Qui Me Plait“[2], “Bubble gum“[3], “Contact“[4], “La bise aux hippies”[5], “Je Reviendrais Toujours Vers Toi“[6], “L’Appareil A Sous[7]“, “La Madrague[8]“, “On Demenage“, “Sidonie“, “Je danse donc je suis”[9] “Tu Veux, Ou Tu Veux Pas?“, “Le Soleil De Ma Vie“[10] (the cover of Stevie Wonder‘s “You Are the Sunshine of My Life“) and notorious “Je t’aime… moi non plus“.

Click the numbers to listen to the tracks.

“Je t’aime moi non plus”, which I’ve mentioned here, is World Music Classic #35, and the philosophical “Je danse donc je suis”[9] (I dance therefore I am) is World Music Classic #36.