Monthly Archives: April 2016

“My first memory of vinyl is my Grandpa’s collection of old classical albums which I had no appreciation for at the time, but I remember being fascinated by how it all worked.”

“My Grandpa use to be quite unfriendly and intimidating when I was young, I was actually terrified of him. I knew he wouldn’t let me mess with the record player so I would always wait until he wasn’t around and then I’d try to figure it out. I got away with it a few times, but seeing as classical music wasn’t doing it for me at my young age, I eventually lost interest.

It wasn’t until my late teens that my love for vinyl truly began. I grew up in Florida which as everyone knows is full of old people. One good thing about that is the thrift stores are always full of vintage clothes and vinyl. I bought my first vinyl at a thrift store for something like 25 cents. Fly Like an Eagle by the Steve Miller Band. Pretty sure I listened to it on my roommate’s record player every morning for a year. There’s no better way to start off your day than sipping on some coffee and listening to a great album on vinyl.

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The musical history of Jamaica is so immense that it’s sensible for novices to engage with the rewards in digestible chunks; this Record Store Day VP Records’ vintage imprint 17 North Parade offers just that with First Class Rocksteady, its seven 45s celebrating the 50th anniversary of the titular island style. But in a sweet maneuver its contents have been assiduously gathered from the want lists of savvy collectors, forming a selection wide of range and suitable for newbies and experienced heads. Demand will surely exceed supply; additionally, on April 16 two vinyl-only showcases hosted in VP Records’ New York and South Florida retail stores will feature DJ sets from Downbeat the Ruler (NYC) and King Jammy (Miami).

Reportedly taking its name from a ’67 cut by Alton Ellis, rocksteady flourished in the latter half of the 1960s as it served as the bridge between ska and reggae. Succinctly defined by its slowing down of the ska tempo to allow for greater exploration around the constant offbeat, rocksteady thrived for only a couple of years and sometimes gets downgraded as a mere transition on the path to reggae’s world domination, though the case in favor of the style is tidily made through the 14 songs comprising First Class Rocksteady.

Initially issued in ’67 by Amalgamated Records, The Jupiters’ “Return of Ezekial” fills side one of this set’s first 45, wasting no time in locating a brass-spiked groove and then riding it unshakably as the vocalist, cited by numerous sources as Derrick Morgan, expounds upon the return of “rudeboy Ezekial Marascus Sabascus.”

The producer for “Return of Ezekial” is listed as Joe Gibbs, but that’s apparently because he owned and operated the label; much of Amalgamated’s output has subsequently been credited to none other than Lee “Scratch” Perry, who just might be amongst the backing singers on this unrelenting and unusual number.

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When it comes to great pipes, Chaka Khan is hard to beat. Songbirds, and I’m talking your top-notch mellifluous as all hell songbirds, fall suddenly silent when she walks into the room. Because they know they can’t compete. They’re beat. It’s time to go home, sit in front of the television with a fifth of vodka, and sulk.

Khan, as everybody in the universe knows, got her start with Rufus, a multi-racial funk band of extraordinary merit. She shared singing duties with Ron Stockert on the band’s eponymous 1973 debut, but by 1974’s Rags to Rufus she had, with some not so gentle nudging by ABC Records, more or less become the whole show, a move that led Stockert to up and split halfway through the sessions for From Rags to Rufus.

Khan was more or less a force of nature, and her singing and scanty attire won her favorable comparisons to both Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin (she was nicknamed “the wild child” and “Little Aretha”). She also had balls, as Stevie Wonder, who contributed the smash hit “Tell Me Something Good” to the band, found out when Khan, only 20 at the time, turned down another of his compositions for the band, “Come and Get This Stuff.”

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Today ’70s Outlaw-country is revered as a corrective to Nashville’s overly slick tendencies, but at the time this predecessor of the Alt-country genre was a scene defined by struggle; filmed in late ’75 and into ’76, the outlaw documentary Heartworn Highways wasn’t released theatrically until 1981. Featuring singer-songwriter heavyweights Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, and more, the movie has developed an understandable cult following over the decades while being frequently hard to see; on April 16 for Record Store Day Light in the Attic’s 40th anniversary box set remedies this with panache, its contents including a DVD and double LP amid a fiesta of creative packaging.

I guess it’s possible to review the soundtrack to Heartworn Highways without delving into the movie’s content, but as Light in the Attic’s box set contains both, separating the film and its OST frankly doesn’t make a lot of sense. At the core of James Szalapski’s cinema verité portrait and providing sizable enduring appeal are Clark, Van Zandt, Steve Young, Crowell, and Earle; if Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, and Kris Kristofferson can be said to constitute outlaw-country’s success, then the subjects of Heartworn Highways shape up its fringe/underbelly.

However, the movie’s reach is ultimately much broader, as the time spent with these youthful outsiders gets complemented by the recollections and informal performances of an older generation, specifically bar owner Big Mack McGowan with former Uncle Dave Macon sideman Glenn Stagner and enigmatic vocalist Peggy Brooks.

Szalapski also profiles all-around controversial personality David Allen Coe en route to a gig at the Tennessee State Penitentiary, the highly productive outlaw-country songwriter’s movements ranging from an intimate display of his talent as a singer-songwriter to the delivery of a rambling and somewhat desperate monologue to the captive crowd regarding his own experience behind bars; it all contrasts interestingly with a packed high school gym show by an all-business Charlie Daniels Band.

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Primarily remembered for his mid-20th century novel The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles was in fact a multifaceted wordsmith, translator, and composer, and a dip into his historical profile reveals him to be a non-clichéd bohemian expatriate to boot. Moving to Tangier in 1947, Morocco served as his home until his death in 1999, though Bowles didn’t completely sever ties with the USA; in the 1950s he received a Rockefeller Foundation grant to record the music of his adopted home. Dust-to-Digital’s Music of Morocco from the Library of Congress: Recorded by Paul Bowles, 1959 offers the exceptional results on four CDs and will surely rank amongst 2016’s best box sets.

By any yardstick Paul Bowles led an eventful and unconventional life. Like Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo, who contributes a brief opening essay to this set’s accompanying notes, my discovery of the man came through his connection to the Beats; indeed, Music of Morocco includes the often reproduced 1961 photo of Bowles in Tangiers with William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky, Alan Ansen, and Ian Sommerville that brought Ranaldo, myself and scores of others directly to The Sheltering Sky.

To some this instance of hipness by association may seem like a superficial road to Bowles’ existentialist classic, but that’s just how it is, or more aptly put is one way of it; undoubtedly many Charles Bukowski fans stumbled upon Bowles’ Collected Stories in the catalog of alternative/underground publishing house Black Sparrow Press.

However, Paul Bowles encompassed far more than writing and throughout 88 years on this planet his copious achievements ride on nobody’s coattails. Early evidence of his greatness was articulated in his desire to be a poet, but Gertrude Stein set him straight and additionally proposed Bowles and his teacher Aaron Copland travel to Morocco in 1931.

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