Respective

Earning multiple plays by me this month have been:

Category 1: Meditative narrations set to music spawned in the U.K. countryside: Vashti Bunyan’s “Just Another Diamond Day”, the story of which is recounted here by Joe Boyd: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP-voBbE-Lc. This has grown on me like kudzu.

Category 2: Blues film soundtrack: “Blue Collar”, a soundtrack piloted by Jack Nitzsche accompanies a harrowing story on the screen set to exquisitely crafted and chosen tunes performed by Howlin’ Wolf, Jeanne Pruett, Captain Beefheart, Ike and Tina Turner, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Jack himself. The core band includes Ry Cooder, Jim Keltner, the late Milt Holland, the late Jesse Ed Davis, and Tim Drummond.  IMDB says: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077248/.  Film directed by Paul Schrader and starring Richard Pryor, Yaphet Kotto and Harvey Keitel. Unforgettable film and a great record which stands on its own as an artistic statement.

Category 3: Loud electric guitars in the car: “Rocks” by Aerosmith.  A band dancing near the edge of the cliff eventually falls over it, but while they were admiring the view (or had they already fallen?) they cut this record.  I remembered this as sounding fiercely stamped with passion and personality (it’d been so many years since I’d heard the whole album)…my memory really didn’t do it justice. The combined lyric cleverness (usually winning), riffing, sonic variety and spot-on drumming (who defined it: Steven or Joey?  Doesn’t matter a bit) simply bowl over my good taste (sure, go ahead), tickle my sense of humor and overwhelm any resistance brought on by the underlying story.  The band never sounded this great ever again.  And with the sound of this record they spawned (and to me, rendered redundant) a host of imitators who populated MTV in the ’80s.  Let me stay with “the In Crowd” and say that “the original is still the greatest”.

Category 4: Wake up it’s a new day: “Swiss Movement” by Les McCann and Eddie Harris.  We are still trying to make it real compared to what. This record gets the wheels turning nicely.