Give the Drummer Some's
6 Favorite Downloads from the MP3 Blogosphere
Don't curse the silence! Let the Miner light up your iMenorah with the following incandescent audibles:
(1) Johnny Cash played Folsom (and San Quentin) and Eddie Palmieri rocked Sing Sing, but if you're looking to fill out that "Recorded Behind Bars" section of your record collection, it'd be a crime to overlook Jimmy McGriff's crackling '72 session from Chicago's Cook County lockup. ••• (2) "Don't be frightened, Mr. Gould is here," is how Lenny Bernstein introduced Glenn Gould's "highly unorthodox" interpretation of a Brahms concerto before a Carnegie Hall collaboration in '62. (Hear the audio of his intro.) Lucky for us, the lovable loons paired up that same year to thrash about some Beethoven and Bach for a Columbia recording session. ••• (3) The WILD in "N.Y. Wild Guitars" is all about Wild Jimmy Spruill, who appears up and down the track list on this massive collection. (Visit the Hound's brilliant blog for a treatise on Jimmy, which contains a bevy of MP3s, including the unreleased "Raisin' Hell." ••• (4) While salsa left behind the dusty streets of San Juan and Spanish Harlem for high-class ballrooms, some maestros, like Rafael Cortijo, kept it earthy by fusing Afro-Cuban dance music with the bombas y plenas of Puerto Rico's older folk traditions. ••• (5) For Bristol residents in the mid-'70s, a hot night out dancing to 17th-century English folk ditties would invariably have been serenaded by Dr. Bowser's Brown Bowel Oil Band. (Don't ask.) ••• (6) Following the blockbuster success of Superfly, Curtis Mayfield produced the soundtrack to Short Eyes, the film version of an award-winning play about the murder of a pedophile in jail. (The play was written by Miguel Piñero, who was one of the founders of the famed Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Piñero had earlier done some time in prison and was at Sing Sing in '72, where he almost certainly was in the audience for Eddie Palmieri's live recording session there.)
[Don't forget to send in selections of your favorite downloads from the past year of Mining the Audio Motherlode. (To see all 46 volumes in one long continuous post, go here.) Either e-mail me your lists of faves or just leave them in the comments below and I will compile them into a Readers' Choice Best of 2009 list. On December 30, I will post your Top Five selections along with a Top Five from the home office.]
Organ Donor
Jimmy McGriff ~ "Friday the 13th: Live From the Cook County Jail"
(Blog: Black Man Land)
Twin Brothers of Other Mothers
Glenn Gould/Leonard Bernstein ~ "Beethoven/Bach Piano Concerti"
(Blog: Singers Saints)
From Beethoven's Piano Concerto #2 in B Flat: Rondo Molto Allegro (mp3)
Twang Dang Doodle
Various ~ "N.Y. Wild Guitars"
(Blog: Twilightzone!)
Con Kako y Chivirico Dávila: ¡Espectacular!
Cortijo y Su Bonche ~ "Pa' Los Caseríos"
(Blog: La Musica Latina)
From the album: Policia-Policia (mp3)
Over 450 Copies Sold!
Dr. Bowser's Brown Bowel Oil Band ~ "A Good Run for Your Money"
(Blog: Gonzo-archive)
[ password= boweloil ]
Music for a Flick Based on a Play (About a Pedophile)
Curtis Mayfield ~ "Short Eyes" (O.S.T.)
(Blog: Blog-O-Blog)
From the soundtrack: Back Against the Wall (mp3)
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Fantastic as always!
That Happy End record is probably my vote for best find from this year, only because it is definitely one of my favorite records of all time. I remember finding it a few years ago at Amoeba Records in SF and thinking it was a steal for $25 or thereabouts.
Posted by: Christian | December 17, 2009 at 02:19 PM