Monday, July 31, 2017

Grits & Gravy (TOTR 302)



The Fame Gang - Sweet Caroline
The Fame Gang - Grits and Gravy
Boz Scaggs - Loan Me A Dime
Wilson Pickett - Hey Jude
Aretha Franklin - The Weight
Bob Seger - Ship Of Fools
The Rolling Stones - You Gotta Move
Arthur Alexander - You Better Move On
Etta James - I’d Rather Go Blind
Clarence Carter - Patches
Percy Sledge - When A Man Loves A Woman
Rod Stewart - The First Cut Is The Deepest
Jimmy Cliff - Sitting In Limbo
The Staple Singers - I’ll Take You There
Paul Simon - Kodachrome
Joe Cocker - High Time We Went
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Comin’ Home
Jason Isbell - Alabama Pines
Jason Isbell - The Magician
Traffic - (Sometimes I Feel So) Uninspired
Bobby Womack - I Can Understand It
The Black Keys - Unknown Brother
St. Paul & the Broken Bones - Like A Mighty River
Dr. Hook - Storms Never Last

Arthur Conley - Sweet Soul Music

Monday, July 3, 2017

Hippies & Cowboys (TOTR 301*)


I migrated from Motown to the mid-south on the first day of 1995, in a used Winnebago that broke down before we got to Nashville. After a long detour around the continent and a winter in Key West, I settled in Tennessee for good in 1996.

Now that I’ve lived in Tennessee longer than I lived in Chicago, longer than I lived in Cleveland, longer than I lived in Detroit, I claim Tennessee as home, borrowing the term “yankabilly” that I learned in a Cookeville laundromat around 2007.

One of my first attempts at my own assimilation went down in the kitchen, as I taught myself to make collard greens and cornbread and homemade BBQ sauce in the late 1990s.

Lately I’ve been obsessed with learning about the sounds of my adopted lands, the sounds that take place on the turntable or in the tapedeck, with the laptop and the headphones.

This is not a new passion in my lifelong hardcore hobby of music fan, in my perpetual avocation a writer/blogger/fanzine editor/DJ, so I hope this post is one of many exploring the intersections of southern rock and outlaw country and so much more under the Americana umbrella.

I couldn’t find my way to the WTTU booth for a live set for #301, so I offer this note, this YouTube commentary, and this playlist for your edification and listening pleasure.

It’s summer, and I think of the lazy days that evaporate like fresh rain on hot pavement, I think of the dirt and the dust, the early mornings and late nights, the fire-pits and grills, the glowsticks and lawn seats at the amphitheaters of America.


Check out Dixie Lullaby by Mark Kemp. https://www.amazon.com/Dixie-Lullaby-Story-Music-Beginnings/dp/0820328723

TOTR 301*
Hippies & Cowboys

Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit - Last of My Kind
Cody Jinks - Hippies and Cowboys
The Youngbloods - Hippie From Olema No. 5
Townes Van Zandt - To Live Is To Fly
The Marshall Tucker Band - Fly Eagle Fly
Jason Isbell - Flying Over Water
The Allman Brothers Band - It’s Not My Cross To Bear
Robert Earl Keen - I Would Change My Life
Rich Mountain Tower - Circle Sky Moon Mix
Goose Creek Symphony - Rush On Love
Turnpike Troubadours - Quit While I’m Ahead
Jason Isbell - New South Wales
Waylon Jennings - Don’t You Think This Outlaw Bit’s Done Got Out Of Hand
Willie Nelson - Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other
Barefoot Jerry - Hospitality Song
Elizabeth Cook - All The Time
Allison Moorer - Thunderstorm/Hurricane
Margo Price - Tennessee Song
My Morning Jacket - Nashville To Kentucky
Drive By Truckers - What It Means
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit - White Man’s World
If You Wanna Get To Heaven - The Ozark Mountain Daredevils
Little Feat - On Your Way Down
R.E.M. - Country Feedback