What are you listening to?

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Been coughing up a lung and listening to Cat Stevens' one-two punch of Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat. Quite a lot of great tracks in less than a full year. My daughter likes Teaser and the Firecat better, but I suspect it has more to do with her loving cats and there being a cat in the title, a cat in the cover art, and his name being Cat Stevens--but I pointed out she has an aunt named Cat (as in Catalina) that she doesn't particularly like.
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Since Giganotosaurus Giganotosaurus was playing Jim Croce a couple of weeks ago and I've been playing mainly acoustical sounds while getting over a bad cold (or whatever it is), I dug out my copy of Greatest Hits.
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I'm posting photos of the front and back because my copy is a little unusual. I'm not sure how legible it is, but the sticker at the top right front says "MADE IN SPAIN" and the track listing on the back side lists tracks for "CARA A" and "CARA B" of the record--"face A" and "face B." Also note the nifty K-Tel logo on both sides, along with EDIGSA, which I believe is the Spanish lincensee. EDIGSA = EDItorial General Sociedad Anónima (loosely: "Anonymous General Publishing Company").

Some lesser-heard tracks:











He often strikes me as the urban equivalent of John Denver. And it just occurred to me they both died in plane crashes.
 
Since Giganotosaurus Giganotosaurus was playing Jim Croce a couple of weeks ago and I've been playing mainly acoustical sounds while getting over a bad cold (or whatever it is), I dug out my copy of Greatest Hits.
I'm posting photos of the front and back because my copy is a little unusual. I'm not sure how legible it is, but the sticker at the top right front says "MADE IN SPAIN" and the track listing on the back side lists tracks for "CARA A" and "CARA B" of the record--"face A" and "face B." Also note the nifty K-Tel logo on both sides, along with EDIGSA, which I believe is the Spanish lincensee. EDIGSA = EDItorial General Sociedad Anónima (loosely: "Anonymous General Publishing Company").

Some lesser-heard tracks:











He often strikes me as the urban equivalent of John Denver. And it just occurred to me they both died in plane crashes.

My father would chastise me whenever I spit outside with "You Don't Mess Around with Jim". Other than that I never really knew who Jim Croce was until about 2 years ago. So thanks for sharing some of his other stuff!
 
On my lunch break listening to the incredbile The Giant is Awakened (1969) by the Horace Tapscott Quintet. Horace Tapscott was an interesting guy well worth Googling.
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Entering binding arbitration decisions while listening to Soul Station by Hank Mobley. This is a reissue with different cover art. I really would prefer if labels would keep the artwork intact when they reissue records.
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Here's the original front cover that also lists his compeers :
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Just put on another reissue by the same company, again with new cover art: Study in Brown by Clifford Brown and Max Roach.
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I think the original cover is much better if only because of the brown tint they gave it to match the title:
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But whatever, it's what's in those vinyl grooves that matters most. Here's the full LP:
 


I don't listen to a lot of reggae, but when I do it's Fantan Mojah.
 
I don't care what anyone claims, Their Satanic Majesties Request is easily in my top handful of Rolling Stones albums. It's also a fascinating peek down a road they could easily have traveled but then turned off at the next fork. And yes, this has the proper lenticular cover! I tried to capture both poses as well as I could:
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I know I play it more often than the album it "imitates"--imitation apparently meaning "inspired by the same zeitgeist but sounding nothing at all like what you're 'copying.'" A few of my favorite tracks:





 
I don't care what anyone claims, Their Satanic Majesties Request is easily in my top handful of Rolling Stones albums. It's also a fascinating peek down a road they could easily have traveled but then turned off at the next fork. And yes, this has the proper lenticular cover! I tried to capture both poses as well as I could:
I know I play it more often than the album it "imitates"--imitation apparently meaning "inspired by the same zeitgeist but sounding nothing at all like what you're 'copying.'" A few of my favorite tracks:







She's a Rainbow is one of their best singles.
 
Four sides of greatness recorded at the Los Angeles Forum on December 20, 1976 and released in May 1977, so they were back on top with some big recent hits, but before Saturday Night Fever raised their profile to superstar status. I like their performances of their '60s material far better than the studio recordings.
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Here's a little sample from every side to demonstrate their versatility and their crack band (the same players they used in the studio):









 

The Planets, by Gustav Holst
The ones I've heard most commonly are Mars and Mercury. I've never heard Neptune or Uranus. Jupiter was great but some of it sounded like christmas music.
A side note, the Pubs auto correct seems to think that I meant masochist instead of christmas.
 
My 2nd favorite Elvis Costello LP. I used to cover two or three of these. Can still play "Radio, Radio" just by muscle memory.
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I have a bunch of James Brown on CD but I'm always hoping to come across affordable vinyl, particularly Hell and the soundtracks for The Payback and Black Caesar. My favorite of his albums that I've heard is probably Hell...partly just for the album art:
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Lily is a young kitty but an old soul. She requested to hear this LP from 1960:
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Who could resist that face? Naturally I obliged her:
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These performances seem so off-the-cuff, like these guys were just fooling around and Folkways just happened to capture it on tape:











This is another of those reissues where I wish they would have kept the original cover art:
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Fun fact: "Kansas City" is erroneously credited to Willie Dixon on the back of the record jacket--it was in fact written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
 
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Happened upon this interesting performance:


Cf. studio recording:


Usually the studio performance has the lighter touch.
 
They showed The T.A.M.I Show on TCM recently and while James Brown was clearly and infamously the highlight (although Smokey was no slouch either) I was surprised how tight the early Stones were.

Later peak Stones were charmingly shambolic live, it was part of their greatness and as Jon Savage notes in England's Dreaming just one of the reason's they cast such a long shadow over punk rock..
 
From 1978, a rather ridiculous attempt at a "best-of" compilation as Paul McCartney/Wings already had far too many hit singles and great album tracks by then to fit on a single LP. "Maybe I'm Amazed" isn't here--they even left off a #1 single ("Listen to What the Man Said")!

Still good to have because out of the 12 tracks on this LP, 5 are singles that were not included on an album--and they still had more than a few other non-LP singles they left off. Also 5 of the tracks were released in a span of only 16 months in 1973 and 1974. And nothing from Mccartney, Wild Life, and Venus and Mars! Really this should have been at least a double album.

The reason it was released as a single LP: Capitol Records thought it would sell better than a double. The reason it was released at all: McCartney decided to change record labels.
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The 5 non-album A-sides:

(The B-side is actually better)


(Banned!)



(Still the best James Bond movie theme)



 
Live and Let Die was one of the best Bond films, and arguably the best of the Roger Moore era.

Having said that, I rather liked Roger Moore's comment on Daniel Craig, which went something along the lines of "Daniel looks like someone who might actually kill you. I just looked like someone who might cheat at backgammon."
 
Live and Let Die was one of the best Bond films, and arguably the best of the Roger Moore era.

Having said that, I rather liked Roger Moore's comment on Daniel Craig, which went something along the lines of "Daniel looks like someone who might actually kill you. I just looked like someone who might cheat at backgammon."
So, what are you listening to?
 
Another thrift-store acquisition from 1990 or thereabouts...here's David Cassidy's solo debut Cherish, released in February 1972. I don't give a :crap: what anyone says, David Cassidy was a damn good singer and his LPs are very relaxing listens. Given his popularity at the time, they could have released and old slapdash piece of crap and made plenty of fast cash from preteen and teenage girls, but the production and musicianship are outstanding. My favorite track is actually "Ricky's Tune," the one he wrote himself.
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Bought this same day, same place as the debut LP--someone must have given away her record collection. Rock Me Baby (1972) was David Cassidy's rockier follow-up to the smoother Cherish. This time out he wrote 2 of the tracks himself.
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Supposedly Frank Sinatra's favorite of his own LPs, the 1958 concept album Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely, is an unrelenting record that is the musical equivalent of being alone in a new town where you know no one, your wife left you for your best friend and took the dog and kids with her, you just got fired from your job, your head aches, your doctor told you your diagnosis is terminal, your bank sent you an overdraft notice, you have an eviction notice in your pocket, an empty liquor bottle in one hand, and a loaded pistol in the other.
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A couple of weeks ago I posted some tracks from the opera Carmen featuring Risë Stevens in the title role. Here are some selections from Samson and Delilah, also starring Risë Stevens.
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