Cat Stevens/Yusuf — 115, 114

ALBUMS: Catch Bull at Four (1972); Teaser and the Firecat (1971)

MVC RATING: Bull: 4.0/$$$; Teaser 4.0/$$$$

It wasn’t until Cat Stevens accumulated a bunch of songs that I grew to appreciate him. WIth one exception — ‘Wild World.’ That song hooked me from the beginning.

‘Father and Son’ not far behind.

Both songs are on Tea for Tillerman. an album I don’t have. The radio was where I picked up on that song. The truth is, even though I have two of Cat Stevens biggest selling albums, I didn’t listen to them much because the hits were all over the radio, and I never spent the time to explore the songs that weren’t so famous.

Catch Bull at Four, for example has no hits and is a good album. Surprisingly, Catch Bull was one of his biggest hit albums. But Teaser was the breakthrough album for Stevens. It had Peace Train and the gorgeous ‘Morning has Broken,’ a song found in many Christian church hymnals. (Although he popularized the song, Stevens did not write Morning has Broken.)

When I did try out the albums I found some to be erratic. Several songs, I thought, were meandering and oblique (House of the Freezing Steel, for example.) It wasn’t until I got a greatest hits collection on CD that included all in one place “Wild World,” “Peace Train,” Father and Son,” “The First Cut is the Deepest,” “Morning has Broken,” and ‘Moonshadow,’ among others — that I paid attention. His voice and unusual vocal style grew on me.

In the late 1990s after several life-changing events, including nearly dying of tuberculosis, Stevens changed his name to Yusuf Islam and converted to Islam. For years he wouldn’t play his old music or even any secular music. As Yusuf he eventually came back to playing his old songs about 2006 — as well as new ones. I have listened to the Roadsinger one of his first Yusuf secular albums. and though he’s singing in his old familiar voice, the songs are more spiritual and it doesn’t have any potential classic singles on it like his older albums — but certainly worth exploring if you are a big Cat Stevens/Yusuf fan.

How I stopped the horrific hallucinations that threatened my sanity, my family, and my life

NOTE: This is an account of a particularly difficult time in my battle against Lewy body dementia when I lived for months hallucinating around the clock. Much of this occurred May, 2020 through November 2020 ending in December . I will tell you more about escaping the clutches of my hallucinations but first I’m going to describe one of my hallucinations, a serial hallucination involving a lot of the same people or beings. Addendum, June 23, 2021: See this for updated information.

———————–

I didn’t really know where we were sleeping, my wife, Catherine, and I.

It was like a laboratory with lots of stainless steel and glass walls so we could be observed. I hated going to bed every night because I knew that was when the attacks would come.

In this ‘place’ which was actually my home, I felt like I was being studied, to see how well I performed under pressure as a Lewy body patient.

There were Beauty and the Beast style anamorphic scenes where lamps would talk to stuffed animals, where bed time was dreaded because I knew I’d be attacked by my ongoing nemesis Red John – a name I gave him because of his hair color. I also realized, after I had named him, that it was the same name of a fictional serial killer in the TV drama ‘The Mentalist.’

My Red John had no legs and could swim like a dolphin.    

Oddly as this hallucination unfurls, he said he loved me and practically sexually assaulted me in our first encounter. I was so flummoxed by his maneuvering and my confusion as to where I was — I told people, family and friends, about Red John but was told he didn’t exist — that he was a hallucination. Nevertheless, I took to wearing several pairs of underwear in addition to athletic pants with the drawstring tied tight.

Red John put big eel-like creatures under the sheets at the foot of the bed and they’d slide up toward me — I could see them moving under the bed covers. I knew somehow that one, or all of them, was Red John.

I built blockades with towels and pillows. My wife sleeping next to me seemed oblivious until I’d jump up and pull all the covers off the bed. Sometimes there’d be a platter of raw fish in a part of the sheet. That was freaky but my wife showed me how to make it disappear if you shook the sheets. She never saw the fish so I was amazed at her knowledge of the world I was living in. She’d shake the sheets and I’d watch them disappear in mid-air.
“There, all gone she’d say,” And I’d go back to sleep until I’d look over and see some ghostly white old man with hawk like features and talons for hands appearing to be trying to molest my wife. ‘I’d rip the covers off again to the increasing dismay of my wife, now agitated from the sleeping interruptions. This continued for days. Maybe months.

During that time my wife said she sometimes feared I was trying to assault her, after all she never saw Red John or the other people I saw.

I was furious every night at Red John who I know was watching with a group of younger (teen-aged) kids who seemed to idolize him. And then there were people in lab coats with their pens and notebooks. And cameras, both hidden and not hidden, were aimed at me.

My anger was beginning to override my fear.

One night when Red John came rolling around, I leaped out of bed and hit him two times in the face, stuffed him in a burlap bag, from I don’t know where, and started swinging him around over my head singing the theme song to the Beverly Hillbilly’s television show. My strategy was to act like a lunatic to keep them off guard, and I was succeeding.

I told Red John they wouldn’t put me in the other hospital because I was just a little too ‘nuts’ for them. I said it in my crazy voice. Loud. Remember I’m still swinging Red John around in a bag telling him I was going to throw him down the stairs.

I didn’t. Throw him down the stairs, that is.

But his attitude toward me thereafter was one of wary respect.

My middle daughter Emily was in the bedroom next door (somehow this all morphed back to my house) and she came out and saw me swinging around a pillow and yelling at it. I let out a string of profanities and let the world know that I wasn’t going to take any more abuse. Emily said she never saw Red John just me, screaming with the pillows and sheets.

I never really knew where I was.

At one point in my hallucinations I was positive it was a rehab center for people who had lost limbs and by night it was a sort-of pick-up bar for these amputees.

My other working theory that it was a university research team investigating how Lewy body patients react to stress. But I couldn’t understand how they did the special effects — the disappearing and the telepathy and animated furniture. They have some of the best special effects this side of Hollywood, I told my brother.

I asked Red John, who looked a little like Sean Penn: ‘Where are you from, or where is this place? The 7th dimension or another universe or what?

He smiled, I think, and began whispering as these beings did. But sometimes they would yell talk. It seemed extremely fast – this talking, kind of like saying the word ‘onomatopoeia’ over and over again as fast as you can. As they did, their bodies would vibrate, sometimes disappearing altogether.

They can see each other and they could see me. I could  see them which kind of freaked them out.

As soon as they  looked at me they’d lock eyes and I knew they knew I could see them.  I  used this as an advantage. They seemed to tolerate the human who could actually see them. I took this to mean they were usually the unseen.

My goal was to get out and back to this normal life I once  had. I was beginning to grow stronger and less stressed living in the hallucinated state. I got better at knowing I was in a hallucination. I learned to avoid eye contact lest I get pulled down a rabbit hole, or the lair of a creature scarier than a rabbit.

Scientists tell us these hallucinations come from our brains — that brain uses its memories to create this other world. I learned if I told them they did not exist many would disappear — poof. (Red John was resistant to this kind of tactic.

So they may not be real in a traditional measurement detection but I say if you have a full immersion hallucination like I did, it will shake your science beliefs to the core.

You can say hallucinations are not real but they changed my life, forever.

NO MORE RECORD SKIPPING

By all rights I should be dead by now. I feel. But like the reporter I was trained to be, I went in, walked up to the edge of what seemed to be the biggest story of my life. And I came back with notes.

I was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia in 2016, after having been earlier that year diagnosed with Parkinson’s. For Lewy body, death on average comes about 4 –8 years after diagnosis. But some of us live 10 or more years longer.

Thousands have followed my record countdown (myvinylcountdown.com) until it went silent last July. It’s back up and running, I’m happy to report.

Some wondered if I had reneged on my promise of finishing all 678 reviews before I die. I haven’t and I won’t. I have renewed life. I have 188 reviews to go.

The big question is: How did I break free from this disorienting, dark – but interesting world?

The big answer is: A new medication and a reorganization of my medications.

The new med is called pimavanserin, or its commercial name, Nuplazid. I am in a project in which I receive doses, free of charge, for one year. I am a happy Guinea pig. It has given my real life back again.

Now anti-psychotic drugs are a powerful and sometimes dangerous tool. Nuplazid has been approved for Parkinson’s psychosis but not ‘dementia-related psychosis.’ So what about Lewy body?

My take is that Parkinson’s psychosis and Lewy body dementia are basically the same thing.

My doctor, Dr. Kasia Rothenberg, MD, PhD, at the esteemed Cleveland Clinic, found out about this study and had to fight the drug overseers, to get it prescribed to me because I had this Lewy diagnosis.

Lewy and Parkinson’s have the same oversupply of the protein alpha-synuclein killing the brain cells. In Parkinson’s the proteins are concentrated in one place whereas Lewy body, the proteins accumulate and kill brain cells in different regions, according to my understanding of the diseases. In the end in some cases Parkinson’s hits the brain in a way that Lewy does — causing hallucinations.

Yet the box says for use with Parkinson’s psychosis only in big bold letters. Dr. Rothenberg, like all good doctors, saw an opportunity to switch things up for the good health of the patient. It has worked.

But remember always, always, consult your doctor or multiple doctors when faced with an illness, especially one as serious and misunderstood as Lewy body dementia. We have seen a total of six doctors, all of them helping push us on the right path. It’s a journey.

I’ve spent the last five years or more trying to get more attention from drugmakers, doctors, and ordinary people who need to know more. As this shows, Lewy body dementia is left out of the conversation.

One of these days, I hope Lewy will receive some attention and publicity about how it is different but very much like Parkinson’s.

Do I worry these major hallucinations will come back. Of course. I still see what I call remnants of the old hallucinations: Red John winking at me. Faces in windows. And drop-in visits by a character from one of my many hallucinations. I usually smile and say, ‘How is it going?’

END NOTE: It should be emphasized here that I wasn’t asked to write this by the drug company or anyone else. Other than free doses as part of the study group, I received no compensation.

Rank and File –230

ALBUM: Sundown (1982)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$

This is a good album that didn’t get played that much — not just by me but collectively the record buying public . But it launched some careers and served as a bridge between the love of country and western music and punk rock.

Lot of groups made a stab at it with varying degrees of success — the Beat Farmers, the Long Ryders (for whom Escovido played for a while., Jason and the Scorchers, and Rubber Rodeo.

Rank and File played it a little straighter than the aforementioned groups, whose songs dripped with irony. But Rank and FIle would b a nice find in a used record store.

If you iike country, rockabilly and a pinch of punk, this is up your alley.

Rank and File had moderate success, Guitarist Alejandro Escoveda put out some excellent solo abums and burned the house down at Bottle Tree (now defunct) in Birmingham some years ago. I thought it was one of the best small venue Friday night live shows I had seen.

Standing room only in a packed room the size of a middle bedroom, Escoveda let it rip.

ELVIS PRESLEY — 256, 255, 254, 253, 252, 251, 250, 249

ALBUMS: Elvis: The Sun Sessions (1979); Elvis Golden Records (1958 RE); Girl Happy (1965); Elvis Pure Gold (1975); Moody Blue (1977); Elvis for Everyone (1965) Blue Hawaii ( 1961); Elvis Country (1971).

MVC Ratings (in order of above): Sun, 5.0/$$$$; Golden Records, 4.5/$$$$; Girl Happy 2.5/$$; Pure Gold, 3.0/$$$: Moody,3.0/$$$; Elvis for Everyone, 2.5/$$; Blue Hawaii 2.5/$$; Country, 2.5/$$.

People looking at my eight Elvis records may think that I’ve got a lot of money tied up in that. I mean Elvis, come on. Got to be worth lots.

Truth is most Elvis albums aren’t worth that much. Coupla reasons. They made a lot of them as, for a time, anything with Elvis’ name and picture flew off the shelves. Secondly they weren’t that good. Elvis made a lot of mediocre to bad movies. He made a lot of mediocre to bad songs that Elvis recorded for these movies.

If you look at my list of albums I have and the photo, the two albums on the far left are the most valuable. The rest you can find at a used record store in the $4-$8 range. Or in a thrift store for $2. The other two go for 5 or 10 times that. Of course there’s other Elvis music that is worth a lot. We sat next to a couple at the Alabama Record Collector’s Association a few weeks ago who had five Sun Label singles by Elvis. He turned down offers that were in the many thousands of dollars. They actually may be headed to a museum.

Elvis had his growth stunted with the movies. I’m sure he made a lot of money and helped Col. Parker make a lot but his best stuff was clearly in his early years, starting out in 1954 when he was a 19-year-old truck driver. up until the time he was drafted in the army. He served two years, came back still putting out hit after hit, but then chose a path that I believe stunted his growth as a musician. By his early 20’s he already had an everlasting discography with classics like Jailhouse Rock, Love Me Tender, That’s All Right, Mystery Train, Don’t Be Cruel and Hound Dog.

I remember when I was high school age we went to visit some cousins, relatively distant I believe and, the one my age they called Twinkle. We watched an Elvis movie marathon and I was drawn by Elvis even if he was cheesy. She seemed to have been interested as well over Elvis. (Or was it me?) I don’t know I was watching Elvis do the ‘Clam.’

He came back and did movie music, silly music like Do the Clam. He felt like an outsider on the whole British invasion with Beatles. He staged a comeback of sorts when in 1968, dressed in all black leather he went on live TV in a performance hailed as a return to form. But while he had some good songs in the later stages of his career, they were mostly Vegas production pieces written by other people (as was the case always with Elvis). In that era came out ‘In the Ghetto,’ ‘Kentucky Rain,’ ‘A Little too Much Conversation, and ‘Fever.’

In my eyes, despite the many things you can find wrong, Elvis was the King who brought R&B to a mass audience under the new name of Rock ‘n Roll. He was talented, charismatic, good looking and could sing and dance a little bt.

John Prine — 264

Hello in there John Prine

ALBUM: John Prine 1971

MVC Rating: 4.5/$$$$ (First pressings and promo albums can be expensive.)

John Prine wrote some classic songs. Socially conscious, witty and biting, he upon further review should go down as one of America’s finest songwriters.

‘Angel from Montgomery,’ ‘Sam Stone,’ ‘Illegal Smile,’ ‘Hello in there,’ and ‘Donald and Lydia’ are major and minor classics. And that was just his first album. I believe I got this in Middle School (actually we called it Junior high school back then). I was about 9th grade. I remember hearing ‘Donald and Lydia’ and thinking I had to find this song. I had to tell my brother to turn down the Alice Cooper so I could figure out a way to find out who did that song and what was it called. It took some sleuthing. Spanish Pipedream was another favorite: “Blow up the TV, throw out your paper … go find Jesus on your own.”

Bob Dylan is reportedly a big fan.

In 2017 Rolling Stone did a profile calling Prine the Mark Twain of singer-songwriters.

Prine’s lyrics can be funny, biting and can make you cry — sometimes all within one song.

From Sam Stone he sets the tone, a family where ‘Daddy,’ a war veteran with a Purple Heart, has a drug problem:
‘There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes,
Jesus Christ died for nothin I suppose.
Little pitchers have big ears,
Don’t stop to count the years,
Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios.

His much covered ‘Angel from Montgomery’ has these lyrics near the end of the song.. They always give me the chills because I think it is a strong hint that that she (the song’s protagonist killed her husband. I’ve been in debates over this, but here they are followed by a famous cover of the song by Bonnie Raitt.

There’s flies in the kitchen
I can hear ’em there buzzing
And I ain’t done nothing since I woke up today
How the hell can a person go to work in the morning
And come home in the evening and have nothing to say
— John Prine “Angel from Montgomery.’

Here’s Bonnie Raitt covering the song:

In the middle of the Vietnam War — Prine was drafted and did a tour of duty — he wrote this:

But your flag decal won’t get you
Into Heaven any more
They’re already overcrowded
From your dirty little war
Now Jesus don’t like killin’
No matter what the reasons for
And your flag decal won’t get you
Into Heaven any more

Another example of his funny side.

Alabama man’s massive 78 RPM record collection: Is it valuable? (Blog version)

A version of this was published Monday night on AL.com.

A 20-something Alabama man may be sitting on a goldmine with thousands of 78 RPM records he inherited from his grandfather.

Or. he may not be.

Sitting on a goldmine, that is.

Now it’s time for the thrill of the search and research.

A 78 sold for $19,600 just last week. It was by pre-war blues singer Charley Patton, according to ValueYourMusic.com.

The young man who inherited the giant collection contacted me after reading a column I wrote recently on 78’s — those antiquated platters, 10 inches in diameter, made from shellac. The heavy but fragile discs give you one song at a time on the turntable, spinning at a blistering pace of 78 revolutions per minute.

Is there another Patton in these endless boxes? How about a Robert Johnson, another pioneering blues singer, whose music on 78s have sold for more than $10,000 at least three times.  Tommy Johnson, another now deceased bluesman, had one of his 78s sell for $37,000.

But the man with inherited records knows there may be money in those boxes but he isn’t holding his breath for something that is kind of like winning the lottery. The man who agreed to talk as long as we don’t name him for security and privacy reasons, may just have a big collection of fine music, whose value might make him wonder whether it’s worth the time and effort to store and catalog. Upon his invitation, I went to view the collection a few days ago and am still in awe of its scope and quality — most were in mint or near mint condition — that’s a big plus in the collectors world.

I warned him ahead of time I’m no expert. After looking at about 10 percent of his collection I found no Holy grails — Pattons or Johnsons. They may be in there — but it is kind of a needle in haystck search. I got the feeling there’s stuff in here that people have forgotten.

On a tight schedule, I took some pictures and poked around for two hours. He has some interesting stuff. Early Louis Armstrong, The Ink Spots, Rosetta Tharpe, King Oliver, Sy Oliver, Bud Powell, the Mad Caps, the Royal Mounties, some spoken word, and lots of promotional records (for the DJ’s).

He has more than a dozen 78s of a young Frank Sinatra. Early stuff. There was a whole box of only Gennett labels, a label started in a piano maker’s business in Indiana. Some of those Gennett’s dated back to the turn of the century.

I discovered Lincoln Chase — he’s the guy who wrote the novelty song ‘Jim Dandy’ made famous by Black Oak Arkansas.

You can see how I can go down a rabbit hole like this and never come back.

But back to the needle-and-haystack cliche’.

As the generation of people who actually bought and listened to 78 RPM records dwindle, the attics are being searched and basements explored, sending a lot of shellac to market.

The old blues music being the most sought after is a supply and demand issue. Blues at that time consisted of black musicians playing to black audiences, often in rural areas.

That’s why there are so many 78 collections out there that are flush with Big Band and Easy Listening music — Tommy Dorsey, Guy Lombardo, Lawrence Welk and Fred Waring. That was what sold to mainstream white America. Of course, blues music came to be one of the cornerstones of rock and roll. And the Brits, for the most part, beat white Americans to the discovery of this timeless music made in America.

The records most people are familiar with are 12-inch vinyl records that spin at 33 1/3 RPM, and the 7-inch 45’s that spin at, well you know.

Spinning is what my head was doing when I saw the collection. There were boxes and boxes — I counted about 45 to 50 that I could see, boxes of 40 to 50 records each. There were rows high up I couldn’t count and, he said, there were more up in the attic. To add to it, he had LP’s (33 1/3) and 45’s — boxes of them. I Iooked through a box of 45’s and LP’s and saw a real hodgepodge of older and newer records from the likes of Pink Floyd, Roy Orbison, Beastie Boys, Michael Jackson, and Johnny Cash.

I’ll follow this search and bring results when he gets them. He says he wants to sell but like everyone with a large collection he is unsure whether to sell individually, in lots, or in bulk.

No matter what method, I think he’ll do well.

My own MyVInylCountdown collection started at 678 and has grown some. But as I age and battle this disease I, too, will downsize my records. While it is fun to nab a record that gets more valuable with time, the most important thing is the music.

As the Doobie Brothers sang, “Listen to the music.”

I’m here

I am indeed here. Took a few days off over the holidays. Went to see family in Georgia. Meant or intended to blog, ruminate. But I felt repelled from going into my blog and writing for some reason. I felt empty. Not so much empty like void of all thoughts. But empty like no gasoline to go. I felt tired of thinking about my brain. My brain felt tired of being used by me. It was so bad I went to WUXTRY — my old record store from High School and college days — and and couldn’t find anything I wanted. That’s a rarity of a different level of scarcity.

Now what.

I came home Monday and went to work Tuesday only to find that Charlemagne Records after 42 years of business at Five Points on Birmingham’s Southside is shutting down. Is this a signal of things to come? Has vinyl peaked?

I don’t think so from what I read. More later on that topic.

I’m behind on my reviews for the Countdown. of my 678 vinyl records. I ‘ve added to that number through some purchases and gifts at birthdays, Christmas, etc.. Plus I’m slowing down. Heck at this rate I’ll never die.

Inecentives on this blog deal are inverted.

Like our health care.

The high deductible model incentivises people not to go to the doctor because you have to pay bucks, sometimes big bucks. So you going put off going put off going. Then your leg needs amputating. How is that good health care?

Or your chest cold turns into pneumonia and you die.

It’s always back to dying with me, isn’t it. Well it’s a thing that happens to everyone who lives. Don’t want to die? Don’t live.

7X7x7: Seven underrated artists, albums and songs, album in MVC collection (blog)

This is the first in a three-part series.



TODAY: The Top 7 Most underrated artists in my collection of 678-plus records

I’ll say it out front. This is a list story.

You know how much news sites love lists. You know why?

Because you, my readers love lists. This time we are going 7X7X7.

That means: Three lists, with 7 spots each. I feel lucky. I am starting No. 1 of 3 today on my blog. I will smooth it all into one long story for AL.com by the weekend end.

The collection I have been using on my website, www.myvinylcountdown.com to raise awareness to my fatal brain disease, Lewy body dementia. As  I count them down, I stop now and again to write something different or pull out a story like this. The rules are simple. I make the picks. I can’t have any one artist on more than one list. John Hiatt does not qualify because I wrote an earlier post pretty much anointing him the most underrated artists of the 1980s.

I will provide links, please listen to the music, especially if you haven’t heard it. When we talk about underrated we are mostly dealing with folks that have lower name recognition but deserve better. But a band of renown could have an underrated song or album, for example. Also worth noting that since these are from my vinyl records, there’s a good chance that most will be older music from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, although there are some exceptions involving cases where I bought new vinyl. So here we go.

The Top 7 Underrated Artists from MyVinylCountdown.com

  1. Tonio K. – Those who know me well won’t be surprised at this choice. Tonio K. aka as Steve Krikorian debuted with Life in the Foodchain, a punky, intelligent tour de force in 1978. It is a legitimate classic with the title song, Funky Western Civilization and H-A-T-R-E-D, <Note language in that song that may be objectionable to some>standing out. The rest of his body of work is excellent as he followed Foodchain with an almost equally angry album “Amerika’ and later some spiritually infused albums with songs like ‘You Will Go Free’ that, with exceptions, deep-sixed the anger — but let fly intelligent, socially conscious music elevated by great writing.

Excerpt:‘ Funky Western Civilization’

They put Jesus on a cross; they put a hole in JFK; they put Hitler in the driver’s seat and looked the other way; Now we got poison in the water; and the whole world is in a trance; but just because we’re hypnotized don’t mean we can’t dance.

(Queue Dick Dale chicken scratch guitar and a river of melodic metal by Earl Slick and Albert Lee.)

 (2) 10cc — A British band that walked a fine line between art school pretension and brilliant pop songs. The music is full of biting satire, irony and good playing. The album ‘100cc 10cc’ is a compilation of early songs that is top-notch from top to bottom, including Rubber Bullets and the Wall Street Shuffle. Later they had some well-known singles, ‘I’m Not in Love,’ ‘Dreadlock Holiday’and ‘’Things We Do For Love.’ But they never rose to levels  expected given the talent here. They probably lost the cool crowd with the high charting bubble-gummy ‘Things We Do for Love.” They had to pay the rent you know, but some of their work such as the record ‘How Dare You’ experimented with jazzy, multi-layered sophisticated sound and sharp as a stiletto lyrics. Queen, though brasher and more theatrical, was influenced by this band.

(3) War — The band had some hits. Cisco Kid, Low Rider, Why Can’t We Be Friends. Those first two were some of the best songs on Top 40 radio at the time. ‘Friends’ was just kind of a ditty. Those who heard only the radio and didn’t get the albums were missing out on an extremely tight funk/jazz/rock band. I don’t think they ever got their due as true pioneers, perhaps overshadowed by Earth Wind and Fire, Parliament, and Sly and the Family Stone. But they could jam like the best of friends in songs like ‘Smile Happy‘ and ‘Four Cornered Room.’ BTW my two old War albums have terrific sound with a heavy bottom as this music needs.

(4) Gayle McCormick/A Group Called Smith

McCormick had the kind of voice that made you marvel where it came from, powerful as a bullhorn when she sang ballads and straight ahead blues and rock and roll. Despite her obvious break-out talent, with Smith (and a Group Called Smith after legal conflicts with another group — and, no it was not the Morissey group that came much later out of the UK.) The group and McCormick scored big with a song “Baby It’s You,” later picked by Quentin Tarantino to be used in ‘Pulp Fiction.’

She went on to record a couple of albums that are hard to find. I got a used copy of her first solo album which has some decent covers of popular songs such as ‘Superstar’ and ‘You Really Got a Hold of Me.’

The two Smith group albums, however, should be better known. There’s good hard rock and roll on these. Highlights: ‘Tell Him No,’ ‘Last Time,’ Let’s Get Together,’ ‘What Am I Gonna Do‘ and ‘Take a Look Around.‘ Oh and did I mention there’s some nasty organ and dirty horns on these, not to mention a bass player who gets under the songs and lifts..

(5) Peter Himmelman (Solo; Sussman Lawrence)

OK get the ‘newsy’ thing out of the way, his wife is Bob Dylan’s adopted daughter. On to the music which Catherine, my wife, and I would agree has been at many times the soundtrack of our lives — from Mission of my Soul to Rich Men Run the World ; from Woman With The Strength of 10,000 Men‘ to The Boat that Carries Us; From Raina (beloved Raina) to Angels Die.

When Peter learned I had Lewy body dementia, he sent me three vinyls of his music. Listening right now to ‘Fear is Our Undoing.‘ Brilliant song off of the brilliant record ‘There is no Calamity.’ )

A Minnesotan by birth now in California, Himmelman played in an indie band called Sussman Lawrence before going solo. He has been nominated for a Grammy for a children’s album and has written music for several TV shows. His songs are great and I can hear between the notes and words a search for that elusive truth that connects us.

(6) Ronnie Lane (Small Faces, Faces, solo)

Ronnie Lane was an elfin man with a lilting voice that worked to perfection when he was harmonizing, Lane embodied happy music, and yes probably happy hour music. He played his long necked electric bass like he was hugging a woman taller than he was.

The bass player was a founding member of Small Faces and Faces, two highly influential rock bands. ItchyKoo Park and All or Nothing were sizeable hits, at least overseas. And Ooh La La is a classic.

Listen to his music and try not to smile. You’d follow him out to the country side and he would lead like the pied piper to his dilapidated country farm. When Steve Marriott left Small Faces, Rod Stewart joined. Because the band’s name was based on Lane’s and other group members’ stature — they were all under 5-foot-5, they dropped the ‘Small’ when the 6-footer Stewart joined. Faces.

In addition to his fabulous singing and writing and playing with both Faces incarnations, he also had successful collaborations with Ron Wood (Mahoney’s Last Stand) and Pete Townshend solidifying his status as a top-notch collaborator and creator. The songs ‘Stone,’ ‘The Poacher’ and ‘Brother Can you Spare a Dime’ are standouts on his Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance album, which I have. (I also have Mahoney’s and Rough Mix plus lots of Small Faces and Faces, including the experimental concept album Ogden’s Gone Nut Flake.) The beautiful song ‘Annie‘ was one of the best on his Townshend project ‘Rough Mix. After battling Multiple Sclerosis for 21 years, Lane died in 1997 at 51.

(7)Joseph Arthur (Solo, Joseph Arthur and the Astronauts)

It’s hard to describe this prolific musician other than to say he’s been writing some of the best songs of the millennium. But there seems to be a million of ’em. His latest — or probably not latest at this point — but a recent one teaming up with REM’s Peter Buck. The album, ‘Arthur Buck,’ approaches ear weevil stages at about the fourth listen. It’s good and gets better the more you listen and figure out what’s going on. Arthur has a good two decades behind him. I’ve seen him in concert a couple of times in the SF Bay Area and he’s the real deal. As I said, he has so many great songs including, ‘In the Sun,’ in which he recorded several versions, one featuring REM’s Michael Stipe and the other featuring Coldplay’s Chris Martin — all for Hurricane Katrina relief. Other songs that he’s known for include ‘Honey and Moon,’ ‘Temporary People,‘ and ‘The Smile that Explodes, ‘I Miss the Zoo‘ and ‘Say Goodbye.’ Albums include. ‘Nuclear Daydreams,’ ‘Redemption Son,’ and ‘The Ballad of Boogie Christ.’ He is well worth exploring because even if you run into songs you don’t like if you keep looking you’ll find something that will change your life — or, at least, your week. And one close to my heart, a tribute to Robin Williams.



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Daniele Luppi’s MILANO — 315

ALBUM: Milano (2017)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$

This is composer Daniele Luppi’s musical statement regarding Milan when it was party central in the 1980’s.

This album features Karen O and Parquet Floors. It has some interesting songs including a few that have nothing on Prince’s early work when it comes to R-rated sexual content.

The last song on the album is an instrumental free jazz piece that is as good as it is long and as long as it is unexpected in the context of other songs. I’ll have to file this record under ‘re-visit’ when I’m in a better place to take more time to get into it.

I believe this was sent to me — new vinyl late last year by one of my relatives but honestly have forgotten who.

Danielle Luppi worked as an arranger for artists like Gnarls Barkley and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

According to a Pitchfork review in the Milan Luppi is evoking is that of a city where everything was possible.. “Money flowed, parties raged, and the streets were filled with glamorous foreigners.”

It was superficial but vibrant.

Featured here are Karen O, the lead singer with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Parquet Floors. One blogger called it the strangest albums recorded. I’d say yes, it’s strange, but after recently reviewing the Mothers of the Invention, my threshold for strange has been broadened and few albums are stranger than several of Zappa.

I also hear a B-52’s influence here in songs like Flush. I hear bits of Talking Heads and Prince as well.