We pick up posting again with an artist who has brought me continuous joy for over ten years. I started the C’s with Sheryl Crow’s C’mon C’mon. This was the follow up to 1998’s The Globe Sessions, released in 2002 and one of those albums you actually can track all the way through. The song that stands out this pass through, is actually written by Stevie Nicks (who does the song with Sheryl) and appears on the special edition of the album. Yes, I am a geek. Moving on. The song is called “You’re Not The One” and when I first heard it it made sense in my life. I had sort of forgotten the lyrics until it popped up in this rotation. Sheryl always has a way of making me feel better.

I wish I could change the way I feel
I wish I could just get real
I wish I could love you
The way you love me
But it cannot be done
‘Cause you’re not the one

I went next to an indie artist who has left the scene to create jewlery. Her name is Dani Linnetz, and I saw her perform about a year ago and picked up her records. Very cool. Next up was a collection of Hoboken artists from the 1990’s, called Can You Say Hoboken, Vol. 1. From there was Nikka Costa’s sophomore album, Can’tneverdidnothin, with the great track/play on words, “Till I Get To You”

It’s just a matter of time till I get to you
No matter how many I gotta get through
It’s just a matter of time till I get to you
Just a matter of time till I get to you

After Nikka, I went back to Neko Case’s Canadian Amp album, which was the first album I heard from Neko. This is a collection of covers by Canadian sogns. Sometimes a singer will sing from her own perspective, even if the original composition is written by a man. Neko doesn’t do that, and it makes her versions of the songs much more haunting.

The next collection is from a band called The Essex Green, and their 2006 release Cannibal Sea This past summer, I was driving home from a lady friend’s house and I had WFMU on Jersey City, NJ on the radio. I heard this great song called “Snakes In The Grass” and looked up the band. I really like this band and their songwriting. My favorite track is “Uniform.” Not since Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber has anyone tied self loathing and misunderstanding to the Apostle who got it wrong:

You’re thinkin’ like you’re drunk but you’re not, you’re not
You’re just stone-cold blind to what you’ve got
And you keep takin’ all your cues from Iscariot, but you keep runnin’

After a brief visit with Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain collection, I went to one of my favorites, Morcheeba and their Charango album, to a couple of brilliant soundtracks: Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and A Charlie Brown Christmas. After that some chill music from Nettwerk Records: Chillout – A Nettwerk Escape and Delerium’s Chimera.

Next, I breezed through some Christmas Remixed collections and Classic Sinatra and found myself at George Harrison’s 1987 studio effort, Cloud Nine. At the time this record came out, I was in High School and was fully committed to being in radio. I had no idea how prophetic George was:

It’s white and black like industrial waste
Pollution of the highest degree
You wonder why I don’t hang out much
I wonder how you can’t see

… until I found myself working at a Top 40 station a few years ago. I still believe that radio can effect positive change, but sometimes, like TV, radio is a shill for crap (extreme politics on either end, Britney Spears etc). I understand making money… but does one company need to make all of it? I am so happy on the other side of the fence, working at a company that cares. But I digress.

Next up: Nora Jonses‘ debut album, Come Away With Me, Mary Chapin Carpenter’s Come On Come On and The Kinks’ Come Dancing with The Kinks (a much better name than “Greatest Hits”).

Now, Complete Greatest Hits is a bold name for an album. It totally sums up a career, as the label did for Gordon Lightfoot. I really enjoy Lightfoot. We studied his writing in high school English (thanks Mr. Lux!), and I feel Gordon conjures up some of the best musical imagery, as demonstrated in “Sundown”:

I can see her lookin’ fast in her faded jeans
She’s a hard lovin’ woman, got me feelin’ mean
Sometimes I think it’s a shame
When I get feelin’ better when I’m feelin’ no pain

I went for Jerry Garcia’s Compliments All Good Things to Conjure One’s self titled effort, to some random Dead one shows to some mashups that started with C. More C and some D’s later!

That’s all for now. Happy Listening!

Neko Case is one of the best vocalists, songwriters and all around classy people in all the land. While I am not too familiar with her work with the New Pornographers, I am a HUGE fan of her solo work. It all started at the turn of the century, when an old friend, Greg, from High School took me to see Neko and some other alt.Country bands. I was hooked when she took the stage, picked up two albums that night, keep picking up her music and have never looked back. She haunts me, in a real good way. This selection was Blacklisted.

Next was an EP from Vanessa Peters (I’ll post more on her later, when I talk about her full length albums) and on to Blind Faith. Their one and only self titled album is a classic. I will be fortunate enough to see 1/2 the band next month when my rock and roll aunt and I take in Clapton/Winwood at the Garden.

A couple of Dylan albums, Blonde on Blonde / Blood on the Tracks (with a very bad Blondie Live album in between). Ironically and crypticaly enough, I came up to the sixth track on Blonde on Blonde at a really low point a few weeks ago:

Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

Then “Tangled Up In Blue” came up. Oh that Bob!

I helped her out of a jam, I guess,
But I used a little too much force.
We drove that car as far as we could
Abandoned it out West
Split up on a dark sad night
Both agreeing it was best.

But then “Meet Me In The Morning” came around and I started to feel better. Hope in all it’s glory, I suppose.

They say the darkest hour is right before the dawn
They say the darkest hour is right before the dawn
But you wouldn’t know it by me
Every day’s been darkness since you been gone.

From the deep, soul searching Dylan forces you to do, to a remix of some Sarah McLachlan tracks to the Good Ole Grateful Dead’s Blues for Allah. I was in a particularly low self loathing place when what do my wondering ears hear? “Help On The Way,” and “The Music Never Stopped”. I dare you to be in a bad mood when you hear wonderful lines like this:

There’s a band out on the highway, They’re high steppin’ into town
It’s a rainbow full of sound, It’s fireworks, calliopes and clowns
Everybody dancin’ C’mon children, C’mon children, Come on clap your hands.

For the next day was my Rhino Blues Masters Collection. What a ride that was. Uplifting and lots of Whiskey. But hey, what are Sunday’s for, right? After that was more Dylan, At Budokan and Bookends by Simon and Garfunkel. Some odds and ends, Including the Led Zeppelin Boxed Set (which comes up as Box Set in my iTunes. I should re-name that).

U2’s Boy - the first time I knew of U2 – is still a great record. Some of the best progressive (before it was alternative) music from the early 80’s. Put that in your “Cure” pipe and smoke it! My favorite, still: “A Day With Out Me,” and it has nothing to do with the lovely blonde who gave me a copy of the record when I was a kid.

The breakthrough Tori Amos for me was Boys of Pele. I do like 70’s soccer and am a sucker for Victorian instrumentation. After some more Sinatra/Martin and Davis Jr. (Boys Night Out), I went back to feeling sad and yet uplifted by the self titled first album by Brandi Carlisle. She has a very special place in my musical heart, after being exposed to her by who is now a deep and dear friend. The lines that screamed out to me were right at the beginning:

Look to the clock on the wall
Hands hardly moving at all
I can’t stand the state that I’m in
Sometimes it feels like the wall’s closing in

Oh Lord what can I say
I’m so sad since you went away
Time time tickin’ on me
Alone is the last place I wanted to be
Lord what can I say

If you have an opportunity to see Brandi, you really must.

Next was onto Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Waters and a song that prepped my trip to Dallas last week, “Keep The Customer Satisfied”:

Its the same old story
Everywhere I go,
I get slandered,
Libeled,
I hear words I never heard
In the bible

More Dylan: Bringing It All Back Home, Brooks and Dunn’s Brooks and Dunn’s Greatest Hits II, a collection of great indie music called Brown Bag Lunch, and a great soundtrack to Buena Vista Social Club.

I rounded out the B’s with The Grateful Dead’s final studio album, Built to Last. My favorite track, one that is so not your typical Dead song is
“I Will Take You Home.” A song that should I ever be blessed with a daughter, I intend to play for her when she is scared:

Long is the road
We must travel on down.
Short are the legs
That will struggle behind.
I wish I knew for sure
Just where we’re bound,
What we will be doin’
And what we’re gonna find.
Wherever we go, there will be birds to cheer you
Flowers to color in the fields around.
Wherever we go, I’ll be right here near you
You can’t get lost when you’re always found.

Next up, the woman who consistently makes me feel good.

That’s all for now. Happy Listening!