Harlem Nocturne, The Viscounts (1959)
The Viscounts’ only hit was released in 1959 and peaked at No. 53 on Billboard’s Top !00. It was re-released in 1966 and made it to No. 39.
[Top image: I was looking for something to go with the music and found Fleur de Guerre, a vintage model from the UK. Her Twitter profile states, “I like old stuff, wrestling & heavy metal.”]
Buckin’ and beer. Buck dancing is related to clogging, flat footing, step dancing, and this film from the 1950s refers to it as skiffle. You already know about beer.
Roy Buchanan, aka “The World’s Greatest Unknown Guitarist,” from a PBS documentary 1971. Buchanan was most famously associated with a 1953 Fender Telecaster nicknamed ‘Nancy’. In 1988 he was arrested for public intoxication and was found hanged from his own shirt in the Fairfax County Virginia Jail. He was 48.
Pete Anderson was “the very first true rocker in the entire former Soviet Union” and formed The Swamp Shakers in Riga, Latvia, in 2009. Anderson passed away in 2016, but The Swamp Shakers continue performing as a trio.
Getting kinda late, so I’ll wrap this up and send it off to the internest. Have a great weekend, we’ll have more fun tomorrow.
Alalaké, Bembeya Jazz National (1971)
Formed by vocalist Aboubacar Dembar Camara in 1961 and specializing in modern arrangements of Manding classic tunes, Bembeya Jazz National won the first two national Biennial festivals in 1962 and 1964 and was crowned National Orchestra (of Guinea-Bissau) in 1966. The songis from a live album, Hommage a Demba Camara, recorded during a 1971 concert.
In 2016, Korean tourist Jun-Hyuk Choi asked to borrow the bass and sat in with some buskers in Florence, Italy. The trio is Romdraculas Firenze.
Influenced by a number of genres including nuevo flamenco, rock, and heavy metal, Rodrigo y Gabriela eventually got tired of the Mexican rock scene. In 1999, despite not speaking English, they moved to Dublin, Ireland and were a hit. They’ve done much more since. More about them here.]
Aw yeah! The Eels vid is an odd one, kinda fits my attitude. The song was released in Japan in 2001, U.S. in 2002, on the album of the same name. The video volume is a bit low, so if you turn it up, turn it back down so you don’t blow your spickers.
Messer Chups doesn’t appear in my “suggested for you” Utoobage, but I know where to find them: St. Petersburg, Russia. They’re listed under vampire space zombie surf rock. Oleg Gitaracula – Guitar; Zombierella – Bass; Rockin Eugene – Drums
“While Messer Chups’ mostly instrumental sound is hard to neatly categorize, it’s safe to say that it would be embraced by fans of rockabilly, horror punk, vintage surf records, Italian slasher films, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Pulp Fiction, lounge music, the theremin, The Cramps, and the theme song from The Munsters.”
Hey, Utoob. Just because I click on a random video out of curiosity doesn’t mean that I like garbage like this, so you can remove it from the “suggested for you” list. I’d really appreciate it, because I’m only interested in finding the really good stuff.
Three day weekend for some of you out there, but we’ll hold down the fart until you return. See you then.
Joey Ramone‘s song and stop-motion vid New York City were made and released in 2012, 11 years after his death. The song was an overdub of a demo tape. Tommy Erdlai (Tommy Ramone) is in there somewhere (I think that’s him at 02:57).
Geddy Lee cranks it. I should have paid more attention to Rush; I liked the sound but couldn’t stand the vocals.
Stanley Clarke‘s Touch, live at the Newport Jazz Festival (2003). Another amazing bass solo (with some annoying narration stuck in the middle of it).
Hope those of you getting hammered by the record breaking cold get some relief soon, and that the following thaw doesn’t make it worse. We’ll all be here tomorrow. See you then.
The Madison Time Parts 1 & 2, Ray Bryant Combo (1960)The Madison Time was a party record (for its namesake line dance) featuring calls by Eddie Morrison.
Spanish guitarist Diego Garcia, aka El Twanguero, plays his original composition Minor Rag / Spanish Rag. Stay with this one; it starts out slow then jumps to amazing.
Austria’s Hot Club du Nax features talent from Innsbruck, Prague, London and Bologna, and do a damn fine job playing 1930s gypsy swing.
John Prine had the perfect voice for his style of songwriting and was “among the English language’s premier phrase-turners with music relevant to any age.”
Grandpa Eliott Small & his PFC Band pulled off a great version of Buster Brown‘s Fannie Mae (complete with some whoopin’ and eefin’). A New Orleans street performer, Small once said he doesn’t know what beer tastes like, he’s never touched drugs and the only thing he smokes is the exhaust from the cars that pass Royal and Toulouse.
As I was looking for some music videos for this post, I began searching my memory for loud, angry, pissed-off frustration songs to reflect the recent abhorrent events that have fallen upon our Republic, knowing that things are about to get worse.
Then I decided that I didn’t want to go there. Venting is wasted energy, at least for me, so I wandered off in a different direction. Hope you like it.
Have a great weekend, folks, and we’ll be back tomorrow.
Great animation followed by “the making of” [via].
Paul Whiteman was known as the King of Jazz, and no one as yet has come near carrying that title with more certainty and dignity. – Duke Ellington
Remastered footage from the 1930 movie King of Jazz (filmed entirely in two-color Technicolor) featured the Paul Whiteman Orchestra performing Happy Feet. Some amazing dance moves in that clip.
The Jubalaires – Orville Brooks, Ted Brooks, J.C. Ginyard & George McFadden – were a gospel group who recorded in the 40’s & 50’s. This version of Noah has a unnecessary modification towards the end, but it sorta works.
Singin’ in the Rain is one of the better ads I’ve seen, and I’m still not sure what they’re selling. [via].
I guess that’s eclectic enough for this edition. Have a great holiday weekend, see you tomorrow for the the post-Christmas sales.
