[Caveat: I don’t own the copyrights to any of these recordings. They are presented here for entertainment purposes only.]
My Only Man, Helen Merrill & Piero Umiliani (1962) Smooth and sultry, from the 1962 Italian drama Smog. Umiliani wrote many scores for spaghetti westerns and sexploitation films, but was best remembered as the composer of Mah Nà Mah Nà.
Helen Merrill (born Jelena Ana Milcetic) was a jazz vocalist who recorded in the bebop era of the late 50s / early 60s. She traveled abroad for some years before returning to the U.S. in the 1970s.
Smog.
F.I.’s misc. memes.
Memes for $6,000, Alex.
“Andy is hot on a smell trail.”
Balloon ride [via Bunkerville].
Thank You Very Much (trailer).
Ruth’s mallets [via Memo Of The Air].
Venetian entry buzzers [via Everlasting Blört].
I Wanna Rock and Roll Until a Reasonable Hour.
Jayne Mansfield walks around her Hollywood home.
The Alafia River Beer Shed [via The View From Lady Lake].
[Top image: Helen Merrill in studio, unknown date.]
From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago. 15 years ago.
Award winning group from Milwaukee, Altered Five Blues Band features front man Jeff Taylor with Jeff Schroedl / guitar, Mark Solveson / bass, Alan Arber / drums and Steve Huebler / keyboard.
After graduating from Boston’s Berklee College of Music, Gabe Stillman formed his band in 2015, and was a Blues Music Award nominee in the Best New Emerging Artist Album category in 2022.
Vulfpeck grooves with some speed bass. Formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 2011, the group was founded by multi-instrumentalists Jack Stratton, Theo Katzman, Woody Goss, and bassist Joe Dart.
Johnny Winter once told Andrea De Luca, “Hey, you got it, man. Just keep on bluesin’.” Born in Roma, Italy, De Luca has been playing guitar since he was six years old, began touring at 14, and credits Jimi Hendrix for his inspiration.
Porch. Tomorrow. Sooner or later. Your call. See you then.
HeavyDrunk: “Sippi Dupree was my bus driver when I was a kid. He helped me through an emotional crisis when I was in 3rd grade, and became my friend. He disappeared the next year. This is his story.”
Nuno Mindelis (aka “The Beast from Brazil”) is an Angolan-born Brazilian blues guitarist and singer-songwriter. (His website’s bonky, gotta scroll down.) This song is sung in Kimbundo dialect according to the Utoobage notes, Google Translate says it’s Zaptotec, and it seems to be about bears.
19 Twenty is a roots blues / rock / punk band from Australia with a sizeable fan base who know all the words to Tramp Stamp.
Fires are still burning in California, people are still recovering from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, news of just about everything is breaking hourly, and I hope 2025 stops dicking around and shows at least some respect. Meanwhile, I’ll be on the porch talking to dogs, see you at half past whenever you show up.
The end of a long year deserves a playlist to bring in the new one, and just as we did a mere twelve months ago, here’s a compilation of songs that buzzed my earballs in 2024.
Set 1 – January, February, March & April
Set 2 – May, June, July & August
Set 3 – September, October, November & December
[I omitted most of the tunes from the Halloween playlist, but you can hear them all here.]
[Caveat: I don’t own the copyrights to any of these recordings. They are presented here for entertainment purposes only.]
Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, featuring Victor Wooten on fretless bass, his brother Roy “Futureman” Wooten on Drumitar. Alto saxman Jeff Coffin joined the trio in 1996.
Nice laid back groove. BIG DEZ was formed in 1996 by Phil “Big Dez” Fernandez (guitar) and Bala Pradal (keyboards). They spent most of their time rehearsing in a cabin in the suburbs of Paris, and after adding Lamine Guerfi (bass) Archibald Ligonnière (drums), graduated to the bar scene, then moved on to the big time. [More here.]
Joe Louis Walker, a Blues Hall of Fame inductee and six-time Blues Music Award winner, NPR described him as “a legendary boundary-pushing icon of modern blues.”
Jackie Venson: “Singer-songwriter Jackie Venson’s version of the blues – with its R&B, psychedelic rock – has invigorated Austin’s music scene with its refreshingly electric sound.” — Rolling Stone
Dang. It’s almost December already. Porch time has been scheduled for whenenever you get here. See you tomorrow.
Born in Brooklyn in 1951, Mitch Woods began playing classical piano at eleven, but his real initiation into blues and boogie piano had already been assured at age eight. “My mom would hire this superintendent of the building, a black man, Mr. Brown, to take me to school, and we stopped off at his cousin’s house, where somebody was playing boogie-woogie piano. It really hit me.”
Mitch Woods (without his Rocket 88s) makes it look easy on the streets of New York.
The Bruce Katz Band features Bruce Katz on Hammond B3, Aaron Lieberman on guitar and drummer Liviu Pop (whose snare mic got disconnected in this song).
Singer, songwriter and guitarist Tas Cru is an eclectic, performing original songs that mix roots rock, blues and gospel. Good stuff.
Some interesting historical events transpired this week, and now we’re in the danger zone – a lot can happen between now and January 20.
Good news on the home front. I attended a laser show that lasted two minutes, cost me a few clams, and now my left eye can spot a red tail hawk before it spots me. The porch will be open for business tomorrow as usual, see you there.
The Romain Vuillemin Quartet covers Django Reinhardt in fine Hot Club fashion, and it’s perfect road trip at sunrise music.
Samantha Fish recorded her take on Ronnie Love’s 1961 original, and it works.
Florida slidewinder Albert Castiglia is vicious in an Elmore James meets Negan Smith kind of way.
Been quite the good news / bad news week around here lately, so we mixed them both together and came up with tolerable.
Porch.
Tomorrow.
Be there.
Stardust, The Benny Goodman Sextet (1939) One of the most popular versions of Hoagy Carmichael’s 1927 classic, with Benny Goodman / clarinet, Fletcher Henderson / piano, Lionel Hampton / vibraphone, Charlie Christian / guitar, Artie Bernstein / bass, and Nick Fatool / drums.
“The party is in your stomach.”
Kowloon Walled City cross section.
Proving a negative [via Bunkerville].
Makin’ wheels [via Memo Of The Air].
About the 2025 Presidential Transition Project.
The best Chinese lost tire ballad you’ll ever hear.
Stainless steel aircraft carrier [via Mme. Jujujive].
[Top image found here.]
From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago. 15 years ago.
Known as o Bruxo (the Sorcerer), Pascoal often makes music with unconventional objects such as teapots, children’s toys, and animals, as well as keyboards, button accordions, melodica, saxophones, guitars, flutes, voices, various brass and folkloric instruments. [Wiki]
Brazilian improvisational avant-garde musician Hermeto Pascoal e Grupo play with water in Música da Lagoa, a scene from the 1985 movie Sinfonia do Alto Ribeira by Ricardo Lua.
Texas born Caron “Sugaray” Rayford grew up in starvation-level poverty. His mother struggled to raise three boys alone while battling cancer; when she died, the siblings were relieved. “She suffered and we suffered. Then, we moved in with my grandmother and our lives were a lot better. We ate every day and we were in church every day, which I loved. I grew up in gospel and soul.”
From The Rhythm Shakers‘ website:
As red hair is flailing and double bass pounding, Marlene Perez of the Rhythm Shakers closes out another show in Los Angeles. Ripping wails and howling vocals are rocketed from her torso more reminiscent of Tina Turner and Amy Winehouse than the echo dripped hiccups of the 1950’s rock and roll genre the band exists within.
Happy weekend to all, and tomorrow porch time shall commence promptly at whenever. See you then.
Tacky Raccoons 