Comments:

Dr. Geek - 2007-04-13 18:37:29
*blush* Awwww... I'm just so VERY glad that you liked the mix. When putting it together, I had a couple ideas in mind. I wanted to sample primarily from discs that I purchased in the last year or two. Intermixed with that, I wanted to include a few old favorites (from discs that are now, sadly, out of print) and music that I figured you might like based on some comments we've exchanged. A few notes about the songs/artists: The Muddy Waters is off the album "Hard Again", produced by Johnny Winter in the mid-1970s. The Treat Her Right is off their second disc "Tied To The Tracks", one of the first two CDs I ever bought (and now out of print). The core of Treat Her Right went on to form Morphine. James Hunter is awesome. He's one of Van Morrison's favorite singers in England. Heard a "live in the (radio station) studio" version of Smoke Without Fire on local radio in the car one day and fell in love (I agree about the sax player -- and my God he WAILS on the live version). I found Amy Winehouse a couple weeks ago on the iTunes music store. She evidently got a lot of buzz going at the SXSW Festival last month. She's got two discs out in the UK; only the second is out in the US. The first one is much more jazz inflected, very different but equally good. Yes, Tift Merritt has a country music background, but her last disc "Tambourine" was produced by George Drakulias (the Black Crowes, the Jayhawks and others) and he bought out more of a Memphis R&B side to her sound. "Hollywood Town Hall" is the first Jayhawks CD and is one of their best. According to Amazon.com, it's an "Amazon essential". Also out of print, but available used. I seem to recall you saying that you weren't too familiar with Wilco, but I must be wrong. I was tempted to include something from the Billy Bragg/Wilco collaboration "Mermaid Avenue", but I've just started to really listen to Summerteeth after a long time on the shelf and this track seemed to fit the mood. The Little Willies is a pretty nice side project for Norah Jones, specializing in mostly old country tunes. I picked "Best Of All Possible Worlds" because as a Kristofferson song, it's got a great, great story in the lyrics. Yes, it may be "honky tonk" but it's a trucking song by a Rhodes Scholar. "First Of A Million Kisses" is a great, great disc by Fairground Attraction, and "Clare" was one of my favorite tracks. I wanted to finish up the disc with something with a decidedly French feel, since I recalled you spent time in France. As Madelaine Peyroux cut her teeth busking on the streets of Paris, I thought one of her French-language tracks would be a perfect finish. The next disc will continue the French feel with an instrumental in the style of Django Reinhardt by John Jorgenson and from there depart into more blues and jazzy influences.
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Harriet - 2007-04-13 21:19:04
I love the Jorgenson too -- but I'll talk about that next time. I've been listening to a lot of Django Reinhart/Stephane Grappelli lately and also some Piaf, so that fit right in with my playlist (as did the Peyroux and the Fairground Attraction, for that matter). I may have said something like that about Wilco, but we've been on a huge Wilco binge in this house over the last year after I discovered Mr. Spy owned a few CDS and a couple of other people sent me some Wilco on mixes, so I've been making up for lost time. I Also, I didn't mean honky tonk as a pejorative term, just as a categorical one. And I agree, what could be better than a Rhodes scholar writing trucker songs? It's an excellent tune. I'm looking forward to exploring other tracks by many of these artists. It's always nice to find new things to listen to.
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Dave3 - 2007-04-14 02:29:37
Dr. Geek has really wonderful taste in music! That's a great mix of styles and moods. From Muddy Waters to Amy Winehouse to the Jayhawks... that's a nice journey!
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Smed - 2007-04-16 09:05:57
Good stuff. But since I can't draw worth diddly-poo (technical art term) I let the music do the talkin' in my mix.
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