Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 53 (MP3s)

February 03, 2010

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 53 (MP3s)

Give the Drummer Some's
6 Favorite Downloads from the MP3 Blogosphere

You just gotta love the ironic touch of naming a nightspot in the the middle of landlocked Iowa the Surf Ballroom. No wild guffaws, though, as we doff fedoras in quiet contemplation of the tragedy, 51 years ago today, that put the Surf on the map.

(1) Thirty years after making the experimental film New York Eye and Ear Control, filmmaker/painter/sculptor/writer/musician Michael Snow recorded this compelling piano/drum duet with fellow Canadian Jack Vorvis. ••• (2) Hammond B-3 demon Clifford Coulter first gained wider recognition playing in John Lee Hooker's backing band. Bay-area guitarist Mel Brown was in that group, too, and he joins Cliff on this rollicking funkfest. (His "Big Fat Funky Shirley" is one of my favorite talkover tracks on the radio.) ••• (3) One of the greatest of all American balladeers, Granny Riddle was as much a living, breathing encyclopedia as she was folk singer. With her clarion voice and cavernous knowledge, this griot of the Arkansas outback was in her mid-fifties when she was "discovered," by folklorist John Quincy Wolf and folk-song hunter Alan Lomax. She's a national treasure in perpetuity. ••• (4) Infectious Ethiopian pop bands Ethio Stars and Tukul Band started out as session crews backing singers like Mahmoud Ahmed in the '80s before breaking out with Amhartic hits of electronified reggae- and soul-infused rock. Well worth hearing even if you have all 24 volumes of the brilliant Ethiopiques series. ••• (5) The late, great Bo Diddley knew a thing or two about the guitar, but his extensive legend doesn't reveal whether or not he ever actually wielded the famed one-string diddley bow (Speaking of legend, Bo's gravestone bares the legend: "Pioneer • Icon • Pharoah • Originator • Legend." Um, Pharoah?!) One infamous gentleman known to have played the diddley bow is Eddie "One String" Jones, who—if the liner notes are to be believed—was a beggar recorded playing his contraption on L.A.'s skid row in 1960. ••• (6) Not to be confused with the late-'60s California-based orchestral psych/pop band The David, this late-'60s orchestral psych/pop band was a septet, named merely David, that hailed from Ontario.