DC Larson's JUKEBOX JURY

Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Drunken Prayer

Thy Burdens

(Dial Back Sound / Well-Kept Secret)

The enriching product of Appalachian-dwelling Morgan Geer's bended-knee, musical heritage and fertile imagination. The man's past, per legend, includes regaling bikers with hymns learned from a great-grandmother. Guided here by Drive-By Trucker Matt Patton and accompanied by unassumingly adroit companions to actualize his marvelous (and broadly accessible) musings, Morgan draws from rural wellsprings. His grained throat bespeaks worldly seasoning as it rises to proclaim Divine adoration and hopes for transcendence.

Recommended: "Selfishness of Man," "Just a Closer Walk with Thee," "When They Ring Them Golden Bells," "Rock of Ages," "Bedside of a Neighbor," "Tramp on the Street," "Ezekiel Saw the Wheel," "Soldier of the Cross," "Long Ago, Far Away," "Thy Burdens Are Greater Than Mine"

Videos: "When They Ring Them Golden Bells" "Ezekiel Saw the Wheel" "Thy Burdens Are Greater Than Mine"

John Lindberg Trio

Best Friend's Girlfriend

(Cosmos)

No hardwood-gliding Big Beat rascal worth his Ricky jacket will judge this at all resistable. John and crack compatriots know well how best to free Rockabilly from leash and press it to extreme raucouness - though they ensure melodic undergirding is an influential constant. Pop the top, and watch the night go frantic.

Recommended: "Best Friend's Girlfriend," "(There's) No Getting Over Me ," "Cry Cry Cry," "Rock'n'Roll Girl," "Stand By Me"

Video: "Best Friend's Girlfriend" "Cry Cry Cry"

Bloodshot Bill

So Fed Up!

(Goner)

One-wildcat-band Bill illustrates that hep hicks from back-country juke joints can tip jugs with their calloused left hands, flay every tune tool with their rights, and make hillbillies bop like fevered bone machines. Technical trickery can stay the hell away, 'cause inimitable Human Being stylings are in hot-blooded progress.

Recommended: "Talk To You," "Kissin' Underwater," "Rule Book," "Say What You Want To Say," "It Happens," "Emilina," "Please Don't Break My Heart," "The Very Thought of You," "What She Said"

Videos: "Talk to You" "Emilina"

Back in the Day, 1964

Scotty Moore

The Guitar That Changed the World vinyl

(Sony Epic)

Of course, truck-driving kid Elvis loomed highest on the earlier Sun was incarnations of these earthquake, but the late Scotty and his polished, back-country master picking also claimed abundant regard; indeed, so much so that the inspirational flames he ignited then will surely blaze into perpetuity. As the legendary string-maestro enjoys instrumental latitude in these reinterpretations, his soloing is of greater body, its poised pronouncements make idiosyncratic impacts, and consistently adventurous articulations - ones echoing hillbilly persuasions and youthful exuberance - knock cats seasoned and crisp off their feet.

The cover asserts lofty credit: "And at [Elvis's] right hand from the beginning - from ragged rehearsals in a boardinghouse room and first record sessions to barnstorming the flatbed truck circuit, from flat-broke to that historic first appearance with Tommy Dorsey, from roadhouse to the glittering spotlight in Las Vegas, from hillbilly honky-tonk to Hollywood - Scotty was there."

In later years, this 1964 LP was rereleased in CD format.

Recommended: "Hound Dog," "Loving You," "Money Honey," "My Baby Left Me," "Heartbreak Hotel," "Don't Be Cruel," "Love Me Tender," "Mean Woman Blues"

Videos: "Money Honey" "My Baby Left Me" "Heartbreak Hotel" "Mean Woman Blues"

Sunday, June 15, 2025

The Original Alice Cooper Group

"Black Mamba" "Wild Ones" singles

(earMUSIC)

On "The Return Album the World Was Afraid Of," storied rockers harkening from 1970s arena stages lean into the business of pounding out Rock'n'Roll of metallic massiveness. And it's as if intervening decades matter naught. The triumphantly reunited glitter-alums are arsonists as much as anything, building up and igniting conflagrationary spectacle both dazzling and life imperiling.

These singles were excerpted from forthcoming full-length "The Revenge of Alice Cooper." A team of greater thunderclap dynamism than bassist Dennis Dunaway, guitarist Michael Bruce, and drum master Neal Smith could not be solicited. The three would be justified in smirking down at adversaries. Alice's snarl is no less stentorian than when they and late lead guitarist Glen Buxton loomed on Don Kirshner's 1972 In Concert venue.

("What Happened to You?," another cut on the upcoming long-player, features Buxton via a previously unissued recording.)

Producer Bob Ezrin, long a collaborator, ensured the tempestuousness common to the band batters boldly. Through vivid and lofty musical architecture, the Alice Cooper Group was - and clearly remains - among the crop's cream.

Video: "Black Mamba"

Video: "Wild Ones"

The Brains

"Feel No Pain" single

(Cleopatra)

"An undead nation with my favorite ghouls, this song was a blast to write!!," enthused front man Rene De La Muerte, per a Cleopatra blurb. "Getting back to old school Brains songs...I feel no pain!"

Scowling mates Gui Kitty and Colin the Dead abet Rene in realizing to a fearsome metric the rampage he'd dared to conceptualize when putting pen to paper. Wreckers will collide in delirium when this shard from imminent exhaustive disc Crazy Monster carves jaggedly into surrounding ether.

Video

Reilly

What Else Ya Got? CD / digital

(Self-issued)

Laboratory slide-rule sharpies hypothesize that crafting sublime Rock'n'Roll both stalwart and mindful of its Poppish responsibilities is a matter of scientific calculation. This release illustrates their veracity. String-bending auteur Richard Reilly (erstwhile 1970s NYC Victim, a band whose whose Punk members included future Rockat Barry Ryan) has honed economical, trippingly fluid compositions that entrance with lissome lilts. Mannerly beat interpretation is of victory circle caliber. Visible here are twelve specimens of sideways-grin elegance that bound on limber legs.

Recommended: "The Cure," "What Else Ya Got?," "Linda Lee," "Girl on the Radio," "I Still Want You," "Memphis DQ," "So Mixed Up," "Boomerang," "Nothing of My Own," "You Won't Be Around," "Voice in My Heart," "Talk Too Much"

Videos: "What Else Ya Got?" "You Won't Be Around" "Voice in My Heart"

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