#NewMusicMonday • March-April, 2022

 I'm a folk and Rock 'n' album guy. In reviewing albums released in March and April of this year I found six worthy of note from a songwriting perspective. For me, it's hard to find an album these days where I like most of the songs. You know that Bonnie Raitt is going to deliver, and of course she does as she writes or covers songs with style and grace, not to mention she can still make you shed a tear. Listen to the songs, Just Like That and Down The Hall, and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Colin Hay is my personal find of 2022. I really never paid attention to him as I wasn't a big Men At Work fan. Colin has been busy over the years touring, playing in Ringo's All Star Band, and putting out some fine albums the last several years. The guy speaks right to me and I enjoy everything he records on YouTube, a real gem, you should check him out.

Of the six albums, I've only seen Mike Campbell live with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and also a few years back in Fleetwood Mac. External Combustion is a really good rock 'n' roll album and Campbell is a very good front man for his band, The Dirty Knobs. How does one go on after losing their lifetime musical collaborator? Well nobody's going to replace Tom, and Mike is just being Mike Campbell, a fantastic guitar player, and not a bad lead singer too. The Heartbreaker spirit lives on and thank the gods we still have rock 'n' rollers like Mike Campbell making music.

I also just discovered Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices this past year. The Band was formed in 1983 and is just another great rock 'n' roll band to come out of the mid-west (Ohio). He writes and plays nice little guitar riffs and I ended up including song after song from Crystal Nuns Cathedral to the playlist.

If you're looking for introspective folk, you'll find it all over the streaming services with most of it just sounding the same. If I hear one more droning indie female or male voice... skip. Well, Christian Lee Hudson is for me an exception. Produced by Phoebe Bridgers who is also a cut above, lets Hudson's songwriting carry the day. I'm thinking Joni Mitchell probably likes Christian Lee Hudson.

And lastly, Jeremy Ivey. Invisible Pictures is his third solo album and a guy you want to succeed as an emerging Americana star. I was feeling for him after trying to look him up on Wikipedia. He didn't have a Wikipedia page as it cross referenced him to his wife, the now very famous Margo Price. He probably gets that a lot, as just being "the husband" of Margo Price. Anyway, I love most everything both of them do together and separately, and this is a couple you just want to root for to counter the stereotypical Nashville country pop tripe.

Enjoy the playlist my friends.

Here is the YouTube Music app which is great for listening to this playlist on your phone. Click on the text link below. 
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE7OYmYUxGQd91SiRY_cgZZM9NyEYNjWL&feature=share

Top 10 Albums • January - June • 2020

Okay, I say I'm an album guy but most of my blogs focus on individual songs. This week I'll be backing up my talk with my list of the most impressive new album releases in this first half of 2020. I'm even going to rate them 1-10 which is something I normally don't do. It is also no surprise to me that I have picked five albums by females and five by males not by design, but for the fact that women in music today make up half if not more of the great music being created today.

Making an album of typically 9-12 strong songs has always been a tall order for any artist or band. On any good album there are maybe three outstanding tracks that jump off the needle. The trick is getting the listener to come back and listen to the rest of the tracks that always seem to get better the more you do come back. After several listens, these 'deeper cuts' suck you in and the whole thing just comes together into a cohesive unit. You then tell your friends about the album. In your long-term memory, you'll even remember (sometimes fifty years later) the time and place where you shared that album with a friend.

I hope you can make the time this week to listen to one or more albums here, start to finish. Maybe there's even a new favorite to add to your collection.

Stay well and enjoy my friends.

1. Sarah Jarosz • Review: World On The Ground • Purchase




2. Bob Dylan • Review: Rough And Rowdy Ways • Purchase




3. Nora Jones • Review: Pick Me Up Off The Floor • Purchase




4. Hiam • Review: Women In Music Pt. III • Purchase




5. Ayla Brook & The Soundmen • Review: Desolation Sounds • Purchase




6. James Elkington • Review: Ever Roving Eye • Purchase




7. Shelby Lynne • Review: Shelby Lynne • Purchase




8. Tomar & The FCs • Review: Rise Above • Purchase




9. Christian Lee Hutson • Review: Beginners • Purchase




10. Sarah Siskind • Review: Modern Appalachia • Purchase

#NewMusicMonday • June • 2020

Hampton & Papa social distancing
with strangers in the kiddie pool.

A YEAR of #NewMusicMondays  

January-March • April-May • June • July-August • September • October • November • My Favorites of 2020

Summer's here
I'm for that

Got my rubber sandals

Got my straw hat

Got my cold beer

I'm just glad that I'm here
–James Taylor

Adaptations

So we've had a rough four months. Everybody's glad summer is finally here. My HOA pool has just reopened with 'new rules' - residents must register online to reserve a 2 hour block with limited capacity in designated social distanced squares. Most people never have anything good to say about any HOA (Hobby Opportunity for Authority), but I have to say they have done a good job trying to keep everyone safe.

A typical Pickleball setup using a tennis court

The HOA tennis courts have also just reopened right across from my house. Pickleball is back in full-swing, the game made for my generation who have either forgotten how to run or can't. I'm not poking pickleballers here, it's more about me dealing with my own body and what it used to do compared to now. I'm also lamenting about the wonderful game of tennis, with less young people playing real tennis, I just hope the original white court lines don't fade away.

Pickleball is a great social activity. Everybody is chatting it up with lots of laughter just like old times, but from my box seat view, I see no masks or social distancing. C'mon boomers, you still can be flexible, just like your pickleball wrist!

I have family driving down all the way from Seattle on several different trips this summer, finally merging our packs together. Quite a long distance travel adaptation, all the while airlines like American Airlines announced they will scrap social distancing and start booking full planes July 1.

For our visiting grandkids their parents have come up with a simple term to explain our times, No San Diego Zoo (opened last week), Legoland, or Disneyland because of the "Big Germs." :-(

It's a different summer in a turbulent year, but we are learning to do things differently and still have fun together.

Recently I wrote a blog, Outdoor Exercise In The Time Of Coronavirus: Who was that masked man? where I basically talked about the current culture war of wearing a mask. My working titles were, #ManUpMaskUp, or #MaskUpMother####ers, but opted for a little more informative heading in the end. For people walking, running or biking it's really not political, wearing a mask just has become more of a hassle and can't be bothered with, I call it, "an inconvenient truth- coronavirus edition." I see my regulars, the people that exercise around me in my neighborhood every week. Most everyone, young and old have just given up the mask outdoors. There is such irony here, people making the effort to exercise, but too damn lazy to adapt to a new simple behavior by wearing a mask that SAVES LIVES.

Breaking News- VP Pence gets pensive and decides to wear a mask to a Texas mega-church on Sunday. Better late than never... at least I hope it's not too late?  Anyway, baby steps for Trump's little bucko.

So unless you're living under a rock, you know that there is more than a little uptick in coronavirus cases across the country in the month of June. I haven't heard, "flatten the curve" since the end of May. 

However, I still hear that we are still in the 1st wave, and there is going to be a second wave sometime in the fall. I think after the past several weeks, we probably should adjust our 'waves' talk too. For Western States who has lived through enough wildfires in the last twenty years, the analogy of the coronavirus being an 'uncontained wildfire' is a much more accurate way to describe how the virus is currently surging and spreading across the country. The term, "hot spots" seems quite appropriate.

Source - New York Times

The solid burnt orange of new coronavirus cases in Southern California is disconcerting to say the least, where as Disneyland staying closed is not really our biggest problem. When the brush fires do start in the coming days ahead, maybe the masks people aren't wearing now will suddenly have a function to them. Instead of Fire and Rain, we'll call it Fire and Fire and the masks will serve a dual purpose- keeping coronavirus from going red in your town while breathing in falling ash from your local brush fire.

Hey, but on the positive side, new music keeps rolling in everyday. I can't keep up with all the broadcast and Internet services with artists and bands just putting out more live and recorded music across all the streaming services everyday. I'm glad I've made #NewMusicMonday a series because I keep finding new songs and albums being pumped out in this first half of 2020.

If you are spending the time to read this blog, you probably love music, and I will suggest, you need to be listening to music more than ever! Make the adaptation necessary in your behavior to spend 15 more minutes a day listening to music. I'm just a guy here finding and organizing what I think are good songs to listen to and if you like my playlists, cool. If not, find sources where you can hear music that moves you emotionally. I need that movement more than ever, and I'm guessing so do you.

Stay well and enjoy this playlist my friends.

References

• Americana Music Show
• Pitchfork
• Rolling Stone Magazine
• Uncut Magazine
• Wikipedia List of 2020 Albums