Archive for the 'Blues Music' Category

Eddie Floyd demands 100 percent Sweet Soul

Eddie Floyd – “Ninety Nine and a Half”

Soul music legend Eddie Floyd has been singing, recording and touring for something like five decades, and the man shows no sign of letting up today. This classic recording of “Ninety-Nine and a Half” is pure molten gold – just puts a lot of more contemporary records flat to shame, I’m afraid.  Probably best known for “Knock On Wood” – a song he co-wrote with Steve Cropper which was a hit in 1966 and subsequently covered by like a hundred major artists, some of whom also charted with it – Eddie Floyd is a real as real gets. Listen to his voice on this, and then tell me how you feel about the auto-tuned piffle that’s so prevalent these days. This is a gr8 record you should have at the ready, to heat up those cold winter nights.

Sweet SoulEddie Floyd
“Ninety-Nine and a Half” (mp3)
from “Sweet Soul”
(LocoBop)

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Lew’s other worldly steel guitar Jones

The Lew Jones Act – “Today Is Forever”

Virtuoso acoustic guitar jam fer daze. Perfect find for the slow autumn drizzle that descends like fine mist on this SuperFan’s Oaksterdam home today. “Today is forever, now that we are through” is the haunting refrain that frames this instrumental exploration of steel string slide guitar, furious pluckin’, and one suspects, a little blood.  Mad @ The Live Creek? Or Live @ The Mad Creek? Take your pick. Mad flatpickin’ from a talented solo artist on the ever lovin’ ItsAboutMusic label.

Mad @ The Live CreekThe Lew Jones Act
“Today Is Forever” (mp3)
from “Mad @ The Live Creek”
(ItsAboutMusic.com)

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Nathaniel Street West’s “Motorpsycho Nightmare”

Nathaniel Street West – “Motorpsycho Nightmare”

Ah, the travails and adventures of a good motorcycle road trip. Somewhere between a Bob Dylan yarn and a Lynyrd Skynyrd cautionary tale, we find Nathaniel Street West seeking help from a stranger, sleeping under a stove and running for his life. I won’t tell ya the rest, that would be a spoiler. But I am delighted to present this honky tonk, rock and roll, blues-y fried number for your listening pleasure.

Light Out For The TerritoryNathaniel Street West
“Motorpsycho Nightmare” (mp3)
from “Light Out For The Territory”
(Puffin Records)

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Betty Davis way too hot to handle

Betty Davis – “Is It Love Or Desire”

Rediscovered in recent years through re-releases and bootlegs of her classic 1970’s records, Betty Davis’ amazing voice and incendiary vision blew away the walls between soul, funk, and rock. I’ve crowed about her in these pages before, but I think we need another dose of her exquisite musical medicine. The vocal on this song is an unrestrained outburst of passion that is physically affecting. This is the uncut, the real, the antidote to auto-tune. Take it away, Betty!

Is It Love or DesireBetty Davis
“Is It Love Or Desire” (mp3)
from “Is It Love or Desire”
(Light In The Attic)

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