A Music Thread

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And an easy segue to Joe Harriott and John Mayer:

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A song for Al. 'White Cell' by Clock Dva:

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Oumou Sangare, from Mali:

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my fav Kraftwerk



and something diff by kraftwerk

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not such a good take on a classic



may no one ever remake this classic

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SOOooo EPIC



can you name all the cameo's

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More good stuff from Mali. Fatoumata Diawara:

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Toumani Diabate, also of Mali:

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The Taj Mahal Trio and Mamadou Diabate perform 'Honey Bee' :

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This is 'The Red Rippers' and a track from 'Over There...And Over Here'.

Edwin Bankston:

BIO
Scarce and seemingly inscrutable, the sole recording credited to the Red Rippers has long captivated and mystified record collectors. When we first encountered Over There … and Over Here, we were fascinated by the prescient, genre-dredging synthesis of Waylonesque honky-stomp with early ’80s new wave production values and eerie, out-of-time psychedelic guitar leads weirdly reminiscent of the Blue Öyster Cult, Dire Straits, and the Meat Puppets at their most desert-drunk. We were intrigued by the record’s ambiguous provenance (Oracle Records?) and moved by its complex, apparently deeply personal articulation of an enlisted man’s efforts to break on through his fear, anger, and disillusionment during and after the Vietnam War.

Once we finally tracked down songwriter, singer, and guitarist Edwin Dale Bankston in Phoenix, Arizona, he told us that he wrote these nine potent blues during the decade following his return in 1972 from serving on the Navy aircraft carrier USS Kittyhawk in Vietnam. He recorded them while stationed in Pensacola, Florida and sold the resulting 1983 album through an advertisement in Soldier of Fortune magazine, largely to other veterans. The songs—nine battle-scarred country-boogie dispatches—chronicle his own and other vets’ harrowing experiences both in country and back home, and are utterly unlike most popular music commentaries on the Vietnam War. You’ve heard the strident protest songs blasted forth from that myth-shrouded era; many retain a visceral power and poetic outrage, but few, beyond a professed empathy for flimsy, victimized stock characters, accurately represent the actual lived experience and agency of soldiers.

Assuming the role of folklorist or documentarian, Bankston composed up to forty songs based on real-life wartime stories recounted by fellow vets who attended his concerts, many of whom were united by their marginalization and alienation from both the military and the antiwar movement alike. They felt disgust for warmongers as well as wartime atrocities, for the popular as well as the underground press. Ed’s evocative, ambivalent lyrics are at once highly critical of the U.S. government’s engagement in Southeast Asia and thoroughly patriotic. The album reflects this sense of dislocation, describing scenes of chaos, death, disembodiment and absolute burnout. It feels as relevant as ever given our ongoing foreign military engagements and the daunting challenges our veterans continue to face.

The reissue package includes never before seen photos of Bankston and his family, a reproduction of the 1983 Soldier of Fortune ad for the album, and extensive notes, featuring an introductory essay, a 4500-word oral history with Bankston, and complete transcribed lyrics (lyrics available in vinyl edition only.) In accordance with Ed’s wishes, we’re donating a share of the proceeds to a veterans’ charity.

http://www.paradiseofbachelors.com/the-red-rippers

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Thougt I'd post this for info:

Artist: Your Gang
Title: Your Gang
Year: 1966
Format: LP
Label: Mercury

The self-titled Your Gang LP was a late 1966 release on the Mercury Records label. Curt Boettcher cut the record during the period between his work on albums by the Association and Tommy Roe. It is the only album of instrumental music that he is known to have worked on.

Not much information is currently available regarding this lost chapter in the Curt Boettcher saga. What can be deduced is that the group Your Gang was actually comprised of Curt and his stable of sidemen. It’s the same line-up of musicians that appear on Mike Deasy’s 1967 Mercury LP release FRIAR TUCK AND HIS PSYCHEDELIC GUITAR (see previous post), for which Curt served as vocal arranger.

That line-up is as follows: Mike Deasy – lead guitar, Ben Benay – guitar, Mike Henderson – organ, Butch Parker – keyboards, Jerry Scheff – bass, Jim Bell – oboe, Toxey French – vibes, Jim Troxell – drums and Boettcher himself on percussion.

Most of these players also appeared on the Curt-produced albums for The Association and Tommy Roe. The Our Productions House Band (or “Your Gang”) as they were known were further augmented on this album by trombones, clarinets and even a tuba, but unfortunately the names of these brass and wind players may have already been lost to the ages.

The music contained within the grooves of YOUR GANG is something of an anomaly amongst Boettcher’s body of work. The sound is generally a throwback to the Dixieland jazz style of the roaring 1920s, quite like something one would expect to hear upon entering a house of burlesque. Dixie, or “trad jazz” as it is sometimes called, was popular in the 1960′s with young people who looked back upon the twenties as an era of unabashed good cheer and high times.

It was a natural fit with the sunshine pop sound of 1966-67, and groups such as the Association, the Mamas & Papas, Sopwith Camel, Lyme & Cybelle, the Sunshine Company and Spanky & Our Gang all incorporated it into their sound to some extent.

What’s missing from this particular record, however, is what any fan of Curt Boettcher would instantly expect from anything associated with the producer– soaring walls of harmony vocals and spacey studio experimentation. Instead, we are treated to a different side of the Our Productions House Band. It is fun to hear the musical give and take here between the rhythm section and the horns, quite unlike any of the other dynamic grooves that the O.P.H.B. specialized in.

Occasionally, a stellar instrumental run will break through the polished arrangements– Mike Deasy’s trademark guitar frenzy on the group’s own “Let’s Go Again” and the anonymous sax solo that penetrates the optimistic “Spoonful of Love” come to mind immediately. More often than not, however, the musicians relax comfortably into their groove and maintain stasis.

This, as well as the lack of vocals, may be why this album has failed to ignite much passion amongst Boettcher devotees. Occasionally, however, the group would try to stretch the Dixie sound to suit the 1960s, rather than simply matching hit songs to retro arrangements.

The most obvious example is the Boettcher-composed “Tomorrow’s Dreams”, a charming pop ditty reminiscent of Brian Wilson’s PET SOUNDS outtake “Trombone Dixie” (which was itself a forward-looking homage to the vintage “trad” sound.) Wilson and Boettcher had already crossed paths at this point during the infamous Lee Mallory vocal session at Columbia Studios.

Whether Curt had actually heard the unreleased Wilson track by the time of the Your Gang sessions is questionable. As to the issue of why the album itself was initially contrived, it is possible that the idea here was to market current pop music hits to an older generation of record buyers.

However, despite takes on the current hits “Daydream”, “Rainy Day Women”, “These Boots Are Made for Walking”, and the Mamas & Papas’ version of the Beatles “I Call Your Name”, the album didn’t make the charts and any notion of a Your Gang follow-up was quickly dropped. According to author Kingsley Abbott, Boettcher would later disavow any involvement in the making of the Your Gang album.

After the Your Gang sessions, Curt and Jim Bell went on to record with The Ballroom, while Ben Benay, Jerry Scheff and Toxey French (now ensconced on the drums) would team up to back Lee Mallory as the Lee Mallory Group during various gigs around L.A. Mallory was also a part-time contributor to the Ballroom who would go on to work with Curt and Gary Usher on the classic Sagittarius PRESENT TENSE LP. Around that time, Benay, Scheff and French formed their own band Goldenrod.

Their self-titled 1967 LP contained a fantastic instrumental version of Mallory’s “Karmic Dream Sequence #1″. The Goldenrod were all offered slots in the Millennium, but Benay and French chose to persue their careers as session musicians instead. (Scheff would go on to serve as the Millennium’s unofficial bass player.)

The 1969 ouster of nearly all of the Gary Usher contingent at Columbia Records would mark the end of the association of most of these musicians, though Curt would continue to work with Deasy and Benay occasionally over the next few years. (Jason Penick)

Track Listing

1.Day Dream
2.Sign Of The Times
3.Let’s Go Again
4.Tomorrow’s Dreams
5.Rainy Day Women 12 & 35
6.Leaning On The Lampost
7.These Boots Are Made For Walking
8.Journey To Nowhere
9.Charleston
10.Spoonful Of Love
11.I Call Your Name

http://www.redtelephone66.com/2010/10/your-gang-your-gang-vinyl-1966/

Can't seem to find a Youtube to match yet... hope this suffices:

Big Amos and 'Going to Viet Nam' appears on: 'A Soldier's Sad Story: Vietnam Through the Eyes of Black America 1966-73'

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For gentlemen of a certain age... and a few gentlewomen too, I'm sure...

Ann Margret and 'You Turn My Head Around' :

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Lee Hazlewood solo... just a 'Poor Man' :

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A dream within a dream... Gheorghe Zamfir and the theme from 'Picnic At Hanging Rock' :

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More mellow grooves for Sunday morning. Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66: