Thought we’d lead off this week’s episode with some interesting music news, after all, one of our goals is to keep our listeners informed:
For starters, I read that Concordia University in Montreal is now offering a course called “Kanye vs Ye: Genius By Design” which focuses on the rapper who gave us albums like “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” Donda 1 and 2, and educational classics like “College Dropout”, “Freshman Adjustment” and “Can’t Tell Me Nothin”. I wonder if they offer it online. And In other Kanye news, he has just announced that he is turning all of his houses into churches.
The other big news was the announcement at the Bandlab New NME Awards of the winner of the Best Band In The World competition. Drum roll, please...
And the winner beating out the likes of Wolf Alice, Maneskin and Amyl & The Sniffers is Fontaines DC.
Here is one of their biggest hits “Boys In The Better Land”:
In other news we’ve learned that nearly a third of the iTunes Top 100 songs is now taken up by oldies and I do mean oldies. A recent list included the 1970 hit by the Edison Lighthouse “Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes”? It’s there along with songs by Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Police, Ronnie Spector and Bon Jovi. I should be surprised but I’m not!
And finally in conjunction with Record Store Day, we have learned that Pope Francis stopped by Stereosound, a cd, and vinyl store in Rome to bless the stores recent renovations. Unfortunately we still haven’t heard what the Pope purchased though we are told that he frequented the store before beginning his papacy in 2013. So all of you good folks who stopped by your favorite record store now know that you were in good company.
So let’s talk about music and we have a few albums we need to mention this week. This first one is unfortunately a little embarrassing. I was trying to find a song that had the word “impeach” in the title…I thought it would be cute.
Well, I came across a song called “Impeach Me Baby” by Beverly Guitar Watkins from her album “Back In Business”. I had absolutely no idea who she was. But the song was really good and had a great guitar part toward the end. So I looked her up and learned that she was the guitar player on the record. I also found out that over the years she had worked with James Brown, Otis Redding, Ray Charles and B.B. King. She lived in Atlanta, stayed pretty much close to home and recorded just 4 albums, with the first coming out on her 60th birthday. She died in 2019 at the age of 90.
She was famous for her acrobatic performances on stage and we’re gong to post a couple of pictures we found. I also found a comment by a writer that pretty much sums up this lady: “she sings and plays with enough poise and verve to make musicians half her age or younger consider alternative means of employment.
-next up is what critics are calling the debut album of the year….so far anyway. It’s the debut from Wet Leg the duo whose hit “Chaise Lounge” was one of the biggest viral hits of 2021 and even made our best of list for 2021.
The duos debut album just came out and while each song is labeled “explicit” their rude and often irreverent humor really sets them apart. Their shows at SXSW were standing room only. And made them about the only act to upstage Dolly Parton’s appearance at South By.
-and finally an album that we talked about last year, but has gotten a big boost by winning the recent Grammy awards for song of the year and record of the year. And while I don’t particularly like the Grammies, for these two awards I will make an exception. The song is “Leave The Door Open” by Silk Sonic from their album “An Evening With Silk Sonic”. If you haven’t heard the album, the music was inspired by an obvious love of 70s funk, soul and r&b. It makes you glad you saved your Marvin Gaye, Spinners and Earth, Wind and Fire albums. And if you didn’t save them or can’t find them, don’t worry because as one reviewer put it, if you play this album there’s no way you’re not playing it again. I’d agree.
So that’s it musically for this week. Next time we’ll have 3 maybe 4 new albums that I think you are going to like and a song about South Dakota that I know you will. Good listening.
