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Saturday, April 25, 2020

Don't Get Around Much Anymore: David's April 2020 Playlist

Given the current situation, I suppose I've been consuming the musical equivalent of comfort food, mostly older tracks that I already know and love. So unlike Porter's April playlist, there's not much new music in mine, though a couple of these tracks are new to me. The Spotify playlist is embedded below, followed by a track-by-track breakdown.



1. "Little Sister" by Elvis Presley



Elvis Presley's post-Army output, prior to his '68 Comeback Special and "Suspicious Minds" from the following year, doesn't get much respect. But he released some great songs in the early '60s, including this one in 1961, by the songwriting team of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. The flip side, "(Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame," also written by Pomus and Shuman isn't bad either.

2. "Everybody's Talkin'" by Bill Withers



I must confess that prior to his death in March, the only two Bill Withers tracks I could name off the top of my head were "Lean on Me" and "Ain't No Sunshine." But his backstory is fascinating, and I love his cover of "Everybody's Talkin'" from his first album. (He did the "record-skipping" vocal repeat for the "skipping over the ocean" line years before Squeeze used the same trick on "If I Didn't Love You.")

3. "Somebody's Crying" by Chris Isaak



Back in the 1990s, in my early years in Chicago, my main discovery system for new music was the banks of CD players with headphones at the Tower Records at Clark and Belden. It seems like the bulk of my CD collection came from stuff I found there, including this album.

4. "Killing the Blues" by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss



Listening to Chris Isaak sent me down an Internet rabbit hole, wondering what he was up to these days. That led to the discovery of the Robert Plant & Alison Krauss version of this wonderful song, written by his bass player, Rowland Salley.

5. "What Kind of People Live in These Houses" by Morrissey



Morrissey might be the musical equivalent of cilantro -- those who like him love him, while many listeners find him unpalatable. I'm in the former camp. (Referring here to the music, not his personality or political statements.) While this is technically a new song, his vocal melody borrows from previous Smiths and Morrissey solo songs. And the instrumental melody that appears throughout the song is a direct lift of "Rhythm of the Rain."

6. "Rawhide" by Link Wray & The Wraymen



Not as well-known as Wray's "Rumble," which appeared on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, but this instrumental rocks.

7. "Why Not Your Baby" by Velvet Crush



This is one of my favorite songs from the 1990s, but it's an older song, a cover of a Gene Clark (from the Byrds) track.

8. "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" by Ella Fitzgerald



It seems like everyone has covered this Duke Ellington/Bob Russell song at some point (Paul McCartney did a rocked-up version on his 1988 covers album) and I must have heard multiple versions of it over the years. But it didn't stick with me until I started watching the "Peter Gunn" series on Amazon Prime last year. The series, which ran from 1958 to 1961, often featured a song performed by Lola Albright, who played singer Edie Hart, the love interest of Gunn's character. Their relationship was somewhat racy for television of that era. Nothing too explicit was ever said or shown, but Lola's character was often seen at Gunn's residence, waiting for him to return after working a case, and it seemed pretty clear she wasn't going home that night. Her performance of "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" isn't available on YouTube or Spotify, but it seems likely that it was modeled on this 1957 version by Ella Fitzgerald, who was born 103 years ago today.

9. "Over You" by Roxy Music



For me, the Roxy Music catalogue is hit or miss. The more experimental early years, when Brian Eno was still in the band, never did that much for me. But the highlights of their later years are perfect.

10. "California Stars" by Wilco (and Billy Bragg)



I'm not sure if Billy Bragg actually appears on this track from the first album of his collaborations with Wilco, where they set Woody Guthrie lyrics to music. But it might be my favorite Wilco song of all time, with music that was primarily written by the late Jay Bennett.

posted by David

Monday, April 13, 2020

All In It Together: Porter's April 2020 Playlist

Porter's playlist for April is embedded below, or you can follow this link to open it on Spotify. I'll be posting my own April playlist later this month.



posted by David

Thursday, April 9, 2020

RIP John Prine

Porter of put together a quick tribute to John Prine last night, a cover of "Summer's End," with a remote mandolin overdub from his friend Chris Lozier.



posted by David

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