“I am not a blues singer, I am not a jazz singer, I am not a country and western singer. But, I am a singer that sings rhythm and blues, I am a singer that can sing country music, I am a singer that can sing jazz. There’s a big difference.” -–Ray Charles, in […]
Read MoreGive Back The Key To My Heart
Texas Rock For Country Rollers was the first Doug Sahm album I ever bought. 1992 at Melody Records in Chico, CA. Found an old vinyl cut-out that looked like it might’ve been used to chamois a ’74 Pinto. That was the bad news. The good news is that the record itself was in fine condition. […]
Read MoreLevon Helm: Only Halfway Home
Got turned onto this the other day. It’s a short film inspired by and featuring music from Levon Helm‘s 2007 album, Dirt Farmer. The music is uniformly excellent — big surprise there — but the film itself is a poignant snapshot of life in one desperate corner of rural America. In that sense, I’d say […]
Read MoreSee That My Grave Is Kept Clean
Does the singer catch the song or does the song catch the singer? Blind Lemon Jefferson, writer of “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean,” hit with the tune on separate recordings in 1927 and 1928, but was dead of unknown causes by 1929. I like to think that maybe the song was trying to […]
Read MoreTakin A Ride
Big week here at the Lounge. We’re finally open for business, the coffee is brewing, the jukebox is humming, and we just found a stack of Replacements reissues in the mail. Sweet! Before we kick things off, though, special thanks are in order for Paul Smith, commander-in-chief of the interweb’s butt-kickinest music blog, Setting The […]
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