Category: Americana

As I was heading down Hartford Road this morning toward the site I was going to in Medford, I was checking out the wooded wetlands along the way. After two days of rain they looked a lot like the Louisiana Bayou and I knew I had the right CD playing, Night Train to Nashville by Tab Benoit. This is a favorite (aren’t they all?) and captures Benoit at his best. The album has a great mix of music (I’ll write more about the album tomorrow when I get my notes!) I do know that three songs that really stood out again…

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After the trip to the basement to browse through the vinyl, I came up with five albums to put on the turntable and listen to and remember when. Tonight I listened to one side of each of the albums. The albums were: An Anthology of British Blues, featuring various British blues musicians, Lord Sutch and His Heavy Friends, The Souther Hillman Furay Band, A Long Time Comin’ The Electric Flag, and David Buskin. As I said, An Anthology of British Blues released on Immediate Records in 1970 was a collection some of the best in British blues and featured tracks…

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Today was a mixed blues day, I started by going to the Roots Music Report and looking at the Blues chart. A couple of musicians with new albums stood out one I knew Coco Montoya and the other not so much, one of those artist, where I know the name not the music, Guitar Shorty. So I downloaded both the albums and started the day with Coco Montoya’s new CD I Want it All Back. I first heard Coco Montoya’s guitar on John Mayall’s album Chicago Line, which is an outstanding album and Montoya’s guitar playing is one of the…

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So in honor of St. Patrick’s Day and my McCloskey ancestors, yes, they are the ones that my wife keeps finding newspaper articles about often being arrested in Beverly. Mostly for drunk and disorderly behavior including, my great-grandmother Margaret McCloskey Ashton, I listened to some Irish blues men,  Rory Gallagher and Gary Moore. Now Rory Gallagher is one of those artist that I’ve heard the name and never really listened to their music, while Garry Moore I’ve heard and really like. The Gallagher album that I chose was Live at Montreux and is a collection of recording made during his…

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One of my favorite bands from the 60’s and early 70’s was Ten Years After and not just because of Alvin Lee’s guitar wizardry. No, while I liked the overall blues rock feel of the band and loved tracks like “Good Morning, Little School Girl” and “Woke up this Morning”‘ I also liked that the rest of the bands members could play and  the strong  jazz influences on their early  albums particularly on the second release  Undead. I loved the track  “Woodchopper’s Ball”. A cover of the Woody Herman hit. The band was the first band booked by the  Chrysalis…

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