Back In the Day, 2006

The Bluejays

A Hundred Songs

(Hithouse)

It's the desired destination of countless musicians, the point at which alluring strains, siken harmonies and trusted roots stylings collude with thoughtful verse. Real world music grounded in human experience, but reaching still for the fantastic. For the Bluejays, that rainbow's end reward is but the starting line.

Recommended: "A Hundred Songs," "Guess Why I'm Crying," "If You'd Get Out of My Way," "I Do What You Want Me To," "Devil in Disguise," "Anytime," "Too Bad," "What Kind of Girl"

Videos: "A Hundred Songs"   "Devil in Disguise"   "Too Bad"   "What Kind of Girl"

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2014 release

Asturtralla

Fame Sidre y Rockangaita

(Self-issued / Musicasturiana)

"Hunger, Cider, and Rock-Gaita" is a rough English approximation of the disc's Asturian-language title. In Spain's northern region, one smilingly learns, time-honored folk airs and head-through-window, rip'n'stitch maraudings stand tall in shoulder-to-shoulder posture. ("Rockangaita" being a mash-up whose last five letters are Asturian bagpipes' label. Add in anarchic Steve Jones swipes, and the total is impressively singular.) Pretty melodies entrance, only to be followed by grafitti chording gone ga-ga. This is the first time I've heard equilibrium erupt.

Recommended: "Kutxo," "Fame, Sidra y Rockangaita," "Asturtralla 2.0," "Les 6 de La Suiza," "Asturies Insumisa," "Nun somos nada," "Ye un crimen," "Utopia," "Zona Muerta"

Videos: "Kutxo"   "Fame, Sidre y Rockangaita"   "Asturies Insumisa"   "Ye un crimen"

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OtyKen

The dimly-lit Yantar banquet hall's gilded appointments silently beheld grandiosty: Attired elegantly in ancestral garb, the ladies raised up sounds dynamic, from eras winds of time had ushered away. There were, that night, horsehead violins, drums of diverse descriptions, and electric bass. A male throat singer dwelled toward the rear. All undulated, like puppets on the rhythm's strings. Jazz dancers stepped impossibly. 

Video: "Tundra"

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Nathan & Jesse

Joined on gig occasions by fellow Jazz-Folk souls, the entwined twosome labor smilingly to perpetuate frolicsome airs forbears bequeathed us. Raven-tressed Ilonka whirls before mind's eye, tasseled peasant skirt billowing. Accordian, banjo, and resonator hues sing out. Earringed men in the caravan clap and townspeople scatter coins at her tanned feet.

Video: "I'm Gonna Ride"

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Clay Babies

'54 - '64

(Self-issued)

Adventurous and sensitive artistry enjoys vent, as a denim-and-plaid duo have their intriguing ways with Americana stylings. Pleased, indeed, will be ears upon which fall these lissome airs.  A plethora of acoustic music makers are joined in exultant ballet by electrified siblings and judiciously-pitched voices. (And when's the last time you heard an Irish bouzouki?)

Recommended: "Osmanthus," "Coco Tiki," "Rastaman," "Last Banana," "Tilt a Whirl," "Asper Agus P," "Heavy Whipping Cream"

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Bamberdöst

Dharmageddon

(Massacre Music Records)

The natural literacy apparent in the wordplay is as impressive as the runaway-train-up-on-side-wheels presentation. This is what results when plugged-in and chord-crazed agitators with roots in banks of Avon kick off their sneakers in studio confines. There are no weak links in this chain.

Recommended: "Small Shoes," "Loose Canon," "Boyfriend Material," "Someone Should Tell Michelle," "Conversation Heart," "18 Holes While it All Burns Down," "Chase the Burn," "Half Understood"

Videos: "Boyfriend Material" (live)   "Someone Should Tell Michelle"   "18 Holes While it All Burns Down"   "Chase the Burn"  

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Carolina Chocolate Drops

Genuine Negro Jig

(Nonesuch)

"The mission of the Carolina Chocolate Drops was always to preserve the music of our mentor Joe Thompson and to honor the Black string band traditions that helped create American roots music," multi-instrumentalist Dom Flemons wrote recently, on Facebook.

First issued in 2010, Genuine Negro Jig won that year's "Best Traditional Folk album" Grammy. Nonesuch has announced plans to re-release it next January. Clap hands, bend knees, and know that it's good to breathe. Raise dust 'round the porch to these upturned, string-band souls. Rhiannon Giddens, Dom Flemons, and Justin Robinson anthemize jump-down, turn-around people -- and that's all of us, this being a chunk of America's heart. Yesterday/today seamlessness locates actualization via banjos, fiddles, leg percussion, and "computer hard drive 'triangle.'" Humanity steps it down.

“There’s magic in the excitement and drama and the wealth of culture that is translated through a live performance,” Flemons told PineStrawMag, last March.. “It’s something beyond just music. It’s a feeling as well and, if you’re deep in the culture, you understand the nuances of that feeling. In the ’50s, they talked about old-time music and analyzed it a certain way. So, when you read books about it, you can understand it to a degree. But once you’re in it, that’s when you can take on a whole other quality.”

Recommended: "Peace Behind the Bridge," "Trouble in Your Mind," "Your Baby Ain't Sweet Like Mine," "Cornbread and Butterbeans,"  "Snowden's Jig (Genuine Negro Jig)," "Why Don't You Do Right?," "Cindy Gal," "Sandy Boys," "Reynadine," "Trampled Rose," "

Videos: "Your Baby Ain't Sweet Like Mine"   "Cornbread and Butterbeans" (live)   "Snowden's Jig (Genuine Negro Jig" (live)   "Reynadine"

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Rhiannon Giddens

Dom Flemons

Nonesuch

Goner Records

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Al Foul

Come Back a Dog

(Fort Lowell Records)

"I think the reason everybody loved him was that he was a really good person," fellow Tuscon musico Ben Nisbet revealed to a reporter, as the ill tiding of 50 year-old Al's cancer death spread through May 2022. "He was the person who had an incredibly strong sense of integrity and a remarkable moral compass."

The troubadour's austerity is conveyed here to high effect. (He'd traveled considerable distance from his teenage stint with Boston punks Foul-Mouthed Elves.) The title cut imprints plaintiveness. From subtle onset, American standard "Frankie and Johnny" swells into feverishness. "All In the Name of Love" kicks up heels with abandon. And Dave Dudley's "Six Days On the Road" prospers from Al's offhand, bar-stage tack.

That he produced this, ensuring his vision was honorably inscribed, rates as proper. All monuments should be so faithful. 

Recommended: "Come Back a Dog," "Darker Shade of Blue," "Memphis," "Frankie and Johnny," "All In the Name of Love," "Six Days On the Road," "Down Hill"

Video: "Come Back a Dog"   "All In the Name of Love"

Fort Lowell

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