“I started playing around the age of four, and started getting good at seven.” G.E. Smith is an unpretentious and underrated guitar player with an impressive resume, best known as the pony-tailed bandleader for The Saturday Night Live Band. The song is a cover of Robert Johnson’s 1936 recording of 32-20 Blues, which itself is a remake of Skip Jame’s 22-20 Blues.(1931).
Propellerheads, with Shirley Bassey, the Welsh vocalist known for her renditions of themes to three James Bond movies.
“Propellerheads were a British big beat music band, formed in 1995, from Bath made up of electronic producers Will White and Alex Gifford. The term ‘Propellerhead’ is Californian slang for a computer nerd, and when Gifford and White heard a friend from California drop this into conversation, they thought it the perfect name for their band.”
Boney D. (1996) by Bill Plympton & Jonathan Lee . Better than computer animation, and Plymptoons always made me smile.
Elise LeGrow‘s unusual take on Fontella Bass’ 1965 hit Rescue Me is sultry and sleazy, yet still respectful to the original.
Boogie woogie master Jools Holland and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra head over to Fat Freddie’s Place. Don’t know who the soloists are in this lineup, but that trumpet player melts it.
Fun times this week, and I’m getting a bit tired of it. See you back here tomorrow and we’ll cook up a big ‘ol pot of drudgery. Have a great weekend.
According to their bio, The Howlin’ Brothers sound “like what would happen if a bunch of Appalachian punk rockers formed a jug-band.”
Close enough.
Luther and Cody Dickenson and bassist Chris Chew make up The North Mississippi Allstars. They’ve been around for a while, and crank out some damn fine roots blues and bluegrass, like this cover of Charley Patton’s Mississippi Bo Weevil Blues (1929).
Oorutaichi is a “free-form, improvisational electropop artist from Osaka. Inspired by The Doors and The Residents,” he once had a band called Urichipang, and the Utoob description (via Google Translate) doesn’t help much:
PV of “Atlantis” from the album “Giant Club” by Urichipan-gun, which has been well received by UA, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Seiichi Yamamoto, and many other people as one of the masterpieces in J-POP history.
What a laid-back groovy groove. The Heavy Heavy is “a reverb-drenched collision of psychedelia and blues, acid rock and sunshine pop” based in Brighton, UK.
“It looks like vomit.”
“I’m so scared to try this.”
“It looks like a chopped up ferret.”
Born in Yakutia, Russia, Olena Uutai (Olga Podluzhnaya Uutai) pulls unearthly sounds from a khomus, a type of jaw harp once played by tribal shamans of the far east. [h/t Pam M.]
From St. Petersburg, Russia, Messer Chups is listed under vampire space zombie surf rock.
Oleg Gitaracula – guitar
Zombierella – Bass
Rockin Eugene – Drums
Kevin Ayers with Ollie Halsall, 1981 Barcelona. Nice groove, too bad he had to sing. British rock journalist Nick Kent once wrote: “Kevin Ayers and Syd Barrett were the two most important people in British pop music. Everything that came after came from them.”
Idiot Wind is a Bob Dylan classic, pretty much my favorite, and it doesn’t have to do with weather, even though it’s blowing like hell around these parts.
That’ll do for now. See you tomorrow if we don’t get blown away.
Transfiguration (2020) by Universal Everything is a remaster from their 2011 original. UE is a global collective of digital artists, architects and engineers, and there’s some very cool CGI animations in their portfolio.
Donks by Felix Colgrave: “The name comes from a box of miscellaneous plastic objects my child has. Things that are not categorically blocks or figurines or anything describable. I referred to them as ‘gonks’, which was pronounced by my then-2-year-old as ‘donks’. “
[h/t Mme. Jujujive]
Matt “Guitar” Murphy, Memphis Slim & Billy Stepney on Jazz Prisma, Brussels, Belgium (1963).
Regarding Matt Murphy, one UToob commenter summed it up: “I’ve heard many a fine guitarist mention this guy as a major influence, from Jimmy Page to fellow blues legend Freddie King. He was Howlin Wolf’s lead guitarist before Hubert Sumlin came along, and played with Ike Turner, Buddy Guy, Etta James, Chuck Berry, Sonny Boy Williamson, Otis Rush, and of course the Blues Brothers. Underrated player.”