RhoDeo 1504 Grooves

Hello, for those unfamiliar with the geography of the blues, we're talking about the birthplace and heart of blues country, Highway 82, the bottom of a fertile musical triangle extending north only to about Clarksdale, Ms. and Helena, Arkansas. More blues artists, past and present, have been born in this flat patch of hardscrabble river country than any other dozen similar areas of the country combined

Our man found an early connection to Country and western music and later fused it with the other two predominant musical influences of the Mississippi Delta: Gospel & Blues. A youthful “Little Milton began studying what he heard and practiced; mastering songs and reciting them, no matter what the style or difficulty. By his early teens, he was performing in local clubs and bars across the Delta.  As Milton grew into a young man, he didn't waste any time learning the ropes or absorbing all the musical possibilities that existed at the time. He played street corners, alleys, dives, you name it, carefully developing his craft and attracting the attention of established acts and local record labels. By the time Ike Turner introduced Milton to Sam Phillips of Sun Records in the early 50's, he was a young but seasoned performer with a momentous live show that created a buzz in every town he played... ..N'joy

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

He may not be a household name, but die-hard blues fans know Little Milton as a superb all-around electric bluesman -- a soulful singer, an evocative guitarist, an accomplished songwriter, and a skillful bandleader. He's often compared to the legendary B.B. King -- as well as Bobby "Blue" Bland -- for the way his signature style combines soul, blues, and R&B, a mixture that helped make him one of the biggest-selling bluesmen of the '60s (even if he's not as well-remembered as King). As time progressed, his music grew more and more orchestrated, with strings and horns galore. He maintained a steadily active recording career all the way from his 1953 debut on Sam Phillips' legendary Sun label, with his stunning longevity including notable stints at Chess (where he found his greatest commercial success), Stax, and Malaco.

James Milton Campbell was born September 7, 1934, in the small Delta town of Inverness, MS, and grew up in Greenville. (He would later legally drop the "James" after learning of a half-brother with the same name.) His father Big Milton, a farmer, was a local blues musician, and Milton also grew up listening to the Grand Ole Opry radio program. At age 12, he began playing the guitar and saved up money from odd jobs to buy his own instrument from a mail-order catalog. By 15, he was performing for pay in local clubs and bars, influenced chiefly by T-Bone Walker but also by proto-rock & roll jump blues shouters. He made a substantial impression on other area musicians, even getting a chance to back Sonny Boy Williamson II, and caught the attention of R&B great Ike Turner, who was doubling as a talent scout for Sam Phillips at Sun. Turner introduced the still-teenaged Little Milton to Phillips, who signed him to a contract in 1953. With Turner's band backing him, Milton's Sun sides tried a little bit of everything -- he hadn't developed a signature style as of yet, but he did have a boundless youthful energy that made these early recordings some of his most exciting and rewarding. Unfortunately, none of them were hits, and Milton's association with Sun was over by the end of 1954. He set about forming his own band, which waxed one single for the small Meteor label in 1957, before picking up and moving to St. Louis in 1958.

 In St. Louis, Milton befriended DJ Bob Lyons, who helped him record a demo in a bid to land a deal on Mercury. The label passed, and the two set up their own label, christened Bobbin. Little Milton's Bobbin singles finally started to attract some more widespread attention, particularly "I'm a Lonely Man," which sold 60,000 copies despite being the very first release on a small label. As head of A&R, Milton brought artists like Albert King and Fontella Bass into the Bobbin fold, and with such a high roster caliber, the label soon struck a distribution arrangement with the legendary Chess Records. Milton himself switched over to the Chess subsidiary Checker in 1961, and it was there that he would settle on his trademark soul-inflected, B.B. King-influenced style. Initially a moderate success, Milton had his big breakthrough with 1965's "We're Gonna Make It," which hit number one on the R&B charts thanks to its resonance with the civil rights movement. "We're Gonna Make It" kicked off a successful string of R&B chart singles that occasionally reached the Top Ten, highlighted by "Who's Cheating Who?," "Grits Ain't Groceries," "If Walls Could Talk," "Baby I Love You," and "Feel So Bad," among others.

The death of Leonard Chess in 1969 threw his label into disarray, and Little Milton eventually left Checker in 1971 and signed with the Memphis-based soul label Stax (also the home of his former protégé Albert King). At Stax, Milton began expanding his studio sound, adding bigger horn and string sections and spotlighting his soulful vocals more than traditional blues. Further hits followed in songs like "Annie Mae's Cafe," "Little Bluebird," "That's What Love Will Make You Do," and "Walkin' the Back Streets and Cryin'," but generally not with the same magnitude of old. Stax went bankrupt in 1975, upon which point Little Milton moved to the TK/Glades label, which was better known for its funk and disco acts. His recordings there were full-blown crossover affairs, which made "Friend of Mine" a minor success, but that label soon went out of business as well. Milton spent some time in limbo; he recorded one album for MCA in 1983 called Age Ain't Nothin' But a Number, and the following year found a home with Malaco, which sustained the careers of quite a few old-school Southern soul and blues artists. During his tenure at Malaco, Milton debuted the song that would become his latter-day anthem, the bar band staple "The Blues Is Alright," which was also widely popular with European blues fans. Milton recorded frequently and steadily for Malaco, issuing 13 albums under their aegis by the end of the millennium. In 1988, he won the W.C. Handy Award for Blues Entertainer of the Year, and was also inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

Over the years, Malaco has released 14 of Little Milton's albums, including the critically acclaimed, Billboard blues smash hit Cheatin Habit. Cheatin Habit followed his wildly successful Little Milton's Greatest Hits compilation.  Some of Little Milton's Malaco cuts that have become American blues standards include Annie Mae's Cafe, The Blues is Alright, Little Bluebird, Room 244, I Was Trying Not to Break Down, Catch You on Your Way Down, Murder on Your Hands, and Comeback Kind of Love.
The year 2001 marked a successful run of sold out shows in the United States and Europe and the release of Feel It.  Malaco doubled back in September, 2002, with the release CD number 14, Guitar Man.  It's celebrated cuts include Guitar Man, Still Some Meat Left on this Bone, and Milton's soulful rendition of My Way.

In 2005, after more than a half century after his early SUN recordings, Little Milton made his debut on the Telarc label with the release of Thnk Of Me, a mesmerizing CD consisting of a dozen tracks distilling a lifetime of rich guitar skills, compelling vocals and deft songwriting all wrapped into a single high powered package. It would be his last studio recording. The man who made the  the Blues is Allright a national anthem with blues enthusiasts around the globe, passed away on August 4, 2005, after suffering a massive brain stroke.  Hundreds of family, friends, and fans attended his memorial on August 10, 2005 in South Haven, Mississippi in a final farewell to "MR. C".

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Milton Campbell was a blues chameleon in his early recording career for Sun and Bobbin, changing styles seemingly with every record he made. But he found his groove -- a Bobby Bland-style R&B with a bluesy edge to it -- when he came to Chess Records in 1963. These 16 tracks collect the highlights of his six-year tenure at the label, featuring the hits "We're Gonna Make It," "Who's Cheating Who?" and "If Walls Could Talk." The majority of the sides feature strong horn charts courtesy of Oliver Sain and Gene Barge, the core of Milton's sound during this period. The stylistic connection of Milton to Bland is no more stronger evidenced than on his cover of "Blind Man," but equal mention in the soulful department must go to the heart-wrenching ballad "Let Me Down Easy" and "Poor Man's Song," one of two songs collected here that Campbell had a hand in writing. Interesting updates of Little Willie John's "All Around the World" ("Grits Ain't Groceries"), Chuck Willis' "I Feel So Bad" and Rosco Gordon's "Just a Little Bit" complete the package. As part of MCA's Chess 50th Anniversary Series, this sweats the two-disc Welcome to the Club: The Essential Chess Recordings down to a perfect introductory package to this sometimes misunderstood (is he blues? soul? R&B?) artist.

Little Milton - The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection (flac 312mb)

01 We're Gonna Make It 2:40
02 So Mean To Me 2:33
03 Blind Man 3:23
04 Who's Cheating Who? 2:57
05 We Got The Winning Hand 2:50
06 Man Loves Two (Man's Temptation) 3:00
07 I Feel So Bad 4:03
08 More And More 2:45
09 Let Me Down Easy 2:42
10 Grits Ain't Groceries 2:39
11 Just A Little Bit 2:23
12 Let's Get Together 3:01
13 Poor Man's Song 2:44
14 I Play Dirty 2:31
15 Baby, I Love You 2:44
16 If Walls Could Talk 3:06

Little Milton - The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection (ogg 122mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Milton cut four albums for the Checker subsidiary, and now the last one, If Walls Could Talk (recorded in '69 and released in ‘70), is reproduced here. The album had as many as five single sides on it.  Let's Get Together is an energetic mover, again written by Morris Dollison aka Cash McCall, and Poor Man makes you stomp some more.  If Walls Could Talk is another rousing scorcher, which, by the way, has always reminded me of Hi-Heel Sneakers.  The song was written by Bobby Miller.  A cover of Jimmy Holiday's impressive beat ballad, Baby I Love You, gave Milton another top-ten hit in a row, and finally it's back to rough and raw with I Play Dirty, written by Pearl Woods.

Among the other cover songs there's a slow and intense reading of Bobby Parker's Blues Get Off My Shoulder, a swaying soul ballad from the pens of Aretha Franklin and her then-husband Ted White called Good to Me As I Am to You and two melodic and catchy mid-tempo songs, Your Precious Love (by Morris Dollison and Sonny Thompson) and I Don't Know (by Brook Benton and Bobby Stevenson).

On If Walls Could Talk, Little Milton continues to fuse blues with soul -- if anything, the album leans toward soul more than blues. Supported by a band with a thick, wailing horn section, Little Milton sings and plays with power. Though there a couple of wonderful solos, the focus of the record is on the songs, which all sound terrific, thanks to Milton's compassionate vocals. If Walls Could Talk may not be Milton's best album, but it's a good sample of his work in his heyday.

Little Milton - If Walls Could Talk (flac 196mb)

01 If Walls Could Talk 3:09
02 Baby, I Love You 2:47
03 Let's Get Together 3:00
04 Things I Used To Do 3:53
05 Kansas City 3:14
06 Poor Mans Song 2:44
07 Blues Get Off My Shoulder 3:12
08 I Play Dirty 2:27
09 Good To Me As I Am To You 2:40
10 Your Precious Love 2:46
11 I Don't Know 2:21

Little Milton - If Walls Could Talk  (ogg   79mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Although Little Milton (Milton Campbell) is chiefly remembered for his fine Chess Records sides from the '60s, his stay at Stax Records in the early '70s saw him expand his palette with horns and strings in a more soul-oriented direction, and in many ways it was his most creative period. He never strayed too far from the blues, particularly as a guitarist, but his Stax sides increasingly showcased his amazingly expressive singing, and his intense vocals on the best of these tracks is nothing short of redemptive. This generous single-disc overview of Milton's Stax years (it comes in at a little over 70 minutes in length) has a little bit of everything, from live tracks featuring his precision guitar skills to fully arranged sessions with horns and strings that spotlight his voice.

The opener, a live take of "Let Me Down Easy" from the 1973 Montreux Jazz Festival featuring the odd, driving drum skills of Calep Emphrey, is an emotional tour de force and is easily one of the most powerful tracks here, with Milton singing like a desperate, displaced angel. Another live cut, a version of Willie Dixon's "I Can't Quit You Baby" recorded at the Summit Club in Los Angeles in 1972, showcases Milton's lead guitar work, which is reminiscent of B.B. King but with a larger and more raw tone. Highlighting the studio tracks are the impressive "Walkin' the Back Streets and Crying" from 1972 and the loose, garage-feel of 1971's delightful "I'm Living off the Love You Give," which edges into Motown territory with its romping rhythm, backing chorus, and efficient use of both horns and a string section. Another clear highpoint here is Milton's 1973 take on Roy Hawkins' (by way of B.B. King) "The Thrill Is Gone," which is simply an ominous, desperate gem with an eerie string chart played by the Memphis Symphony. Little Milton's Chess years still contain his most clearly defined work, but as he stretched out a bit with Stax, Milton revealed that his guitar and vocal skills weren't just restricted to blues pieces. That he didn't have more commercial success with Stax is a bit of a mystery.

Little Milton - Stax Profiles  (flac  404mb)

01 Let Me Down Easy 5:30
02 I Can't Quit You Baby 7:44
03 That's What Love Will Make You Do 3:48
04 Walkin' The Back Streets And Crying 5:00
05 Blind Man 8:30
06 The Thrill Is Gone 6:27
07 If That Ain't A Reason (For Your Woman To Leave You) 3:22
08 Behind Closed Doors 3:58
09 If You Talk In Your Sleep 3:18
10 Tin Pan Alley 3:50
11 I'm Living Off The Love You Give 2:48
12 Blue Monday 5:43
13 Lovin' Stick 2:52
14 Little Bluebird 6:46

Little Milton - Stax Profiles  (ogg   153mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Albert King and Little Milton Campbell were part of the East St. Louis, Illinois blues scene in the late Fifties. Their first hits for the local Bobbin label showed both men to have been heavily under the spell of B.B. King. By the time their paths crossed again at Stax Records in Memphis more than a decade later, each artist had developed a distinct, highly personal style of his own. This compilation brings together the two Mississippi-born blues giants' biggest Stax hits of the early through mid-Seventies, including King's No. 15 r&b "That's What the Blues Is All About" and Campbell's No. 9 r&b "That's What Love Will Make You Do."

Albert King-Little Milton - Chronicle (flac 292mb)

01 Albert King - Can't You See What You're Doing To Me 4:17
02 Albert King - Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven 4:22
03 Albert King - Angel Of Mercy 4:21
04 Albert King - I'll Play The Blues For You 3:59
05 Albert King - Breaking Up Somebody's Home 4:00
06 Albert King - That's What The Blues Is All About 3:55
07 Little Milton - If That Ain't A Reason (For Your Woman To Leave You) 3:25
08 Little Milton - That's What Love Will Make You Do 4:00
09 Little Milton - What Is It 3:10
10 Little Milton - Tin Pan Alley 3:34
11 Little Milton - Behind Closed Doors 4:00
12 Little Milton - Let Me Back In 3:07
13 Little Milton - If You Talk In Your Sleep 2:43

Albert King-Little Milton - Chronicle (ogg  118mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

RhoDeo 1504 Goldy Rhox 194

Hello, today the 193th post of Goldy Rhox, classic pop rock. Todays artist in the blacklight is a Greek pop and rock singer who became an unlikely international star in the 70s and 80s, famed for his soaring, high-pitched voice and voluminous kaftans, who has died last weekend aged 68. He was a European superstar popular from Russia till Portugal, he has sold over 60 million albums worldwide and became "an unlikely kaftan-wearing sex symbol".

Today's mystery artist was born Artemios Ventouris in Alexandria, Egypt, to Greek-origin parents who had also been born in Egypt. He studied music and sang in the city’s Greek church until, as a teenager, his parents were forced to move to Greece, penniless, following the Suez crisis.

In Athens, he played guitar and sang with the group, the Idols, later meeting Vangelis, who had a major influence on his career. As part of Aphrodite’s Child, he had planned to base himself in London but work permit problems meant the group ended up in Paris, and it was France where they became most successful.
When the group split following the recording of 666, our man began a solo career, having immediate success in 1971 with the single We Shall Dance.

His solo career peaked in the mid 1970s with several hit albums. His single "Forever and Ever" topped the charts in several countries in 1973. It was No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart in 1976. Other hits were "My Friend the Wind", "My Reason", "Velvet Mornings", "Goodbye My Love, Goodbye", "Someday Somewhere" and "Lovely Lady of Arcadia". His first UK single to chart was in 1975: "Happy to Be on an Island in the Sun" written by an Englishman David Lewis with the record reaching No. 5 in the charts. His popularity in the rest of Europe, but not the UK, came to fascinate BBC TV producer John King who made a documentary entitled "The Phenomenon" in 1976. Philips Records released a four-song record of the same name, which was the first extended play to top the UK singles chart. He was equally successful across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Japan.

During much of his peak era mystery man cut a sometimes improbable figure in popular music with his significant girth, which reportedly peaked near 150kg. He later lost much of this and co-authored a diet book, A Question of Weight. In 1985 the singer was on a TWA flight from Cairo to the US that was hijacked by armed men seeking the release of Arab prisoners from Israeli jails.


***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Most of the albums i 'll post made many millions for the music industry and a lot of what i intend to post still gets repackaged and remastered decades later, squeezing the last drop of profit out of bands that for the most part have ceased to exist long ago, although sometimes they get lured out of the mothballs to do a big bucks gig or tour. Now i'm not as naive to post this kinda music for all to see and have deleted, these will be a black box posts, i'm sorry for those on limited bandwidth but for most of you a gamble will get you a quality rip don't like it, deleting is just 2 clicks...That said i will try to accommodate somewhat and produce some cryptic info on the artist and or album.


Today's mystery album is the biggest million seller album of our mystery artist, it was first released late 1972 when he was at the top of his popularity, and contains hits like "My friend the wind", "My reason", "Velvet mornings", "Good bye, my love good bye" and the title song "Forever and ever". This lossless rip is from a 2013 remastered source and comes with 3 bonustracks...hey, at least you could burn your mother a cd.. N'Joy


Goldy Rhox 194 (flac 349mb)


Goldy Rhox 194 (ogg 123mb)

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

RhoDeo 1504 Aetix

Hello, such a disappointing blizzard but hey CNN and other media outlets got another field-day at fear-mongering. Meanwhile in Europe it was all Aus-witz today, the number of survivors that have popped up over the years and today always astonished me but then that 6 million was always a cynical joke on those 'guilty' goyim, the initial 4 million for Aus-witz have been officially 'adjusted' to 1,5 million which means the mythical 6 million figure isn't reached. Maybe it's time to reset and tell the truth, according to the Red Cross (after the war) 400,000 Jews were murdered by the Nazi's. This is in line with Jewish caucus data taken in 1938 and again in 1948, obviously there was huge displacement in that period. If I was German I could go to jail for posting this, as alas the Germans are still as blind to the truth concerning Jews as they were before the second world war. On a side note Aus means exit /endand witz is german/jewish(jiddisch) for joke yes Aus witz translates as exit/end joke... you couldn't make it up


Today, though he's hardly a cult persona, Jerry Harrison has failed to be recognized as a crucial figure in the history of punk rock, a portion of the music which influenced it, and the styles which had grown out of punk more than 15 years later. Best known as the keyboard player and occasional guitarist of Talking Heads during the 1980s, Harrison had begun his career ten years before, playing with Jonathan Richman's seminal Modern Lovers during the early '70s. He recorded several solo albums while on occasional hiatus from Talking Heads in the '80s, but when the band disintegrated in the late '80s, Harrison resumed his busy production schedule, working with some hot alternative acts. .....N'Joy

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Jeremiah Griffin Harrison was born on 21 February 1949 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has a long history of playing in bands, beginning at High School in Milwaukee with a group called The Walkers. Jerry graduated and moved east to attend Harvard University. There he formed a band called Albatross, in September 1967. They were all students and did some original numbers, through mostly they relied on Steve Miller and Jimi Herdrix songs. The band, with Ernie Brooks playing bass, lasted two years, playing at parties and college dances in the Boston/Cambridge area. It folded in May 1969, when college broke up for the summer, but singer Jim Mahoney and Ernie Brooks went on to form Catfish Black with a number of other musicians. This band lasted from July '69 to July '70.

The next move was for Ernie Brooks and Jerry Harrison to re-unite, which they did in September 1970, to form a band called The Eagles. They lasted two months, finally splitting in November 1970. Still in the Boston area, Jerry and Ernie ran into a guy named Jonathan Richman at a party and Richman began a lengthy campaign for them to join a band with him. It was to be called The Modern Lovers.

In the spring of 1972, they found themselves out in Los Angeles recording a demo for Warner Brothers with John Cale producing it. After a number of legal complexities, this set of demos was released in 1976 on Beserkley records, long after Jerry had left the Modern Lovers. Towards the end of Jerry's stint with the band, he decided to pick up the guitar "because I got frustrated with Johnathan's playing". In the end, Jonathan was getting too crazy for the band and the original line-up of The Modern Lovers broke up in March 1974, having survived for exactly 3 years. Jerry returned to Boston from LA and got a job teaching at Harvard.

Upon the dissolution of The Modern Lovers, Harrison joined up with songwriter Elliott Murphy for the album Night Lights (1976) and its associated tour; brief tenures with a handful of other bands followed, but ultimately he chose to resume his study of architecture at Harvard. His schooling was soon interrupted a second time by an invitation to join Talking Heads, and after completing one more semester Harrison was lured, once and for all, into the life of a professional musician. By the time of his membership, the trio configuration of Talking Heads had already established themselves on the New York City club circuit and released the single Love Goes to a Building on Fire on Sire Records; but it was as a four-piece that the band's popularity expanded to an international scale, particularly with the release of their debut full-length Talking Heads: 77 and the single Psycho Killer.

It wasn't till April 1976 that Jerry first saw Talking Heads play at a concert in Boston. He was impressed: "I saw something in them and I knew straight away. I saw what the group needed: me !". The first time Jerry played with the band was in September 1976, at the lower Manhattan Ocean Club.

During a break from band activity in 1981, Harrison recorded his first solo effort The Red and the Black, an album which featured contributions from guitarist Adrian Belew, former P-Funk keyboardist Bernie Worrell and vocalist Nona Hendryx (all participants in the expanded Heads line-up that had recorded Remain in Light). The release was not given as much attention as his bandmate's extra-curricular projects (David Byrne's Catherine Wheel score and his Brian Eno collaboration My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth's album as Tom Tom Club), and it would be six years before the appearance of his second solo album Casual Gods (1987).

The interim between the two was primarily filled by his work on three further studio albums and two film projects with Talking Heads, although 5 Minutes -- a one-off recording with Bernie Worrell and Bootsy Collins working under the name Bonzo Goes to Washington -- was issued in 1984. During this period Harrison also launched a parallel career as a record producer, helming sessions for The Blind Leading the Naked by The Violent Femmes, Milwaukee by Elliott Murphy, and producing several tracks for the Jonathan Demme film Something Wild (all three of which took place between 1985 and 1986).

After the release of the Talking Heads' final album Naked in 1988, the focus of Jerry Harrison's activities shifted to his production work (although a third solo album Walking on Water and its associated tour were realized in 1990). In the 90s his credits (and industry standing) as a producer grew to considerable proportions through involvement with platinum-selling releases by acts such as Live, Crash Test Dummies, The Verve Pipe, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. His extensive resume also included albums by Poi Dog Pondering (Volo Volo, 1991), Black 47 (Home of the Brave, 1994), Fatima Mansions (Lost in the Former West, 1995), Rusted Root (Remember, 1996) and Bijou Phillips (I'd Rather Eat Glass, 1999).

A short-lived musicial reunion with Frantz and Weymouth came about in 1996 when the three formed The Heads, a project originally intended as a Talking Heads reunion and then altered when Byrne refused to participate; consequently, the group's sole album No Talking, Just Head made use of several replacement vocalists ranging from Debbie Harry to Andy Partridge. A proper reunion of the full band did eventually take place (although only for a single evening) on the occasion of their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. Harrision has since continued to concentrate on his career as a producer for other artists, in addition to maintaining his role as Chairman of the Board for Garageband.com (an internet music resource he co-founded in 1999).

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

While the myth has been widely propagated that David Byrne was the sole creative presence of any consequence among his Talking Heads cohorts, The Red and the Black makes perhaps the strongest case against such a claim. Jerry Harrison, no musical novice by any stretch (check out his work with the early Modern Lovers), proves his formidable talent as a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter for the first time in this close-up. There's little doubt that Harrison's debut is informed most directly by the last few Talking Heads albums, particularly the genre-defining Remain in Light. The polyrhythmic exercises, spoken word interludes, and Enoesque knob twiddling are standard parts of Harrison's palette. He's also free to indulge in some impressive keyboard pyrotechnics, much of which hints at the arena funk of Stop Making Sense. Denser, more abrasive, and yet more musical than Remain in Light, The Red and the Black mines the same musical terrain, but it does so with more urgency and focus. While David Byrne sounded like a man suffocating under the weight of the modern world, Harrison takes a more sober, straightforward approach. He's able to discriminate the desirable parts from the undesirable, and to celebrate the whole.

While Byrne's persona was strictly that of an observer, Harrison isn't afraid to get his hands dirty. His baritone warble may lose pitch or escape as a helpless bark on occasion, but there's warmth and humanity to his timbre, a yearning to connect rather than to distance. This is reflected most immediately in Harrison's no-nonsense pep talks that pop up in the middle of a few songs, just when the intensifying rhythms and synth lines become almost too cacophonous to bear. "Have you ever been in a traffic jam?," he inquires in "Slink." "Have you ever needed a gram? I have, but I got over it." When Harrison shifts the focus from third person to second, the effect is jarring and surprisingly effective. On "Magic Hymie" he grows more impatient with us: "There's a way out of that corner you painted yourself into...you gotta decide you wanna do it, and then you're just gonna do it." Throughout much of the album, Harrison continues to lay heavy condemnation upon modern attitudes of helplessness and irresponsibility. Modern, particularly urban, life has its pitfalls, he seems to say, but we're all equipped to deal with them if we accept some accountability. Besides the relentless attack of fired-up synthesizers and frenzied rhythms, Harrison incorporates a cast of soulful female background vocalists, many of whom would end up on the next Talking Heads record and following tour. Not surprisingly given Harrison's brainy and self-conscious approach, the singers add little soul, but serve rather as a Greek chorus, repeating Harrison's lyrical motifs and bringing substantial drama to his already tense and paranoid compositions. Elsewhere, on "Worlds in Collision," he throws in samples of barking hounds and Hitlerian rally cries to punctuate the monotone din of the rest of the song. The Red and the Black more than holds its own against the rest of Talking Heads' oeuvre, and shows where the band could have gone, had they not opted for a more minimalistic approach later in their career. As a solo project, Harrison's debut is phenomenal. The album's complex and funky musical style has aged impressively, as have Harrison's observations on the modern condition.

Jerry Harrison - The Red And The Black  (flac 254mb)

01 Things Fall Apart 4:58
02 Slink 4:17
03 The New Adventure 5:05
04 Magic Hymie 4:48
05 Fast Karma / No Questions 3:55
06 Worlds In Collision 5:03
07 The Red Nights 4:03
08 No More Reruns 4:23
09 No Warning, No Alarm 3:35

Jerry Harrison - The Red And The Black  (ogg 104mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

With Talking Heads having split, guitarist Jerry Harrison released his second solo effort with 1987's Casual Gods. In addition to playing guitar, keyboards, and singing, Harrison also produced the release which featured players like Bernie Worrel on keyboards and Chris Spedding and Robbie McIntosh playing guitar. Harrison's vocals have a quality similar to David Byrne and the music is reminiscent of Fear of Music-era Talking Heads. "Rev It Up" was an AOR hit and deservedly so. The song lives up to its name with a funky, loose groove, snaky guitar, and throbbing bass. "Man With a Gun" is just one of many great lyrics on Casual Gods with a series of wry observations ("A pretty girl can walk anywhere/All doors open for her") over a moody rhythm punctuated by guitar twitches. Casual Gods is a pleasure for Talking Heads fans, but manages to stand on its own.

Jerry Harrison - Casual Gods  (flac 343mb)

01 Rev It Up 4:10
02 Song Of Angels 3:36
03 Man With A Gun 4:39
04 Let It Come Down 4:53
05 Cherokee Chief 4:42
06 A Perfect Lie 4:29
07 Are You Running? 3:55
08 Breakdown In The Passing Lane 4:36
09 A.K.A. Love 4:23
10 We're Always Talking 4:53
11 Bobby 4:04
12 Bobby (Extended Mix) 6:58

Jerry Harrison - Casual Gods  (ogg 138mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Jerry Harrison was so impressed with the performance of his backup band on his 1988 tour that he brought them back around to share billing on his third album, Walk on Water. It's ironic, then, that none of his star players and partisans feature audibly on the recording. The soulful backing of vocalists Dollette McDonald and Nona Hendryx creep into the mix from time to time, as does Bernie Worrell's blistering keyboard work, but it's clear that Harrison has chosen Walk on Water, his first post-Talking Heads album, to be a stylistic departure from his earlier works. For one, the dense, syncopated textures from his previous albums have given way to a significantly more laid-back and monorhythmic feel. No doubt Harrison felt a simpler, pop-oriented approach would seem less self-conscious than his tense, meticulous early material. Tension, however, has always been an important quality in Jerry Harrison's music. Without it, his songs suffer here, as listenable but vaguely unremarkable tunes. Harrison brings his political activism to the fore, too, most notably in "I Cry for Iran" and "Cowboy's Got to Go." Unfortunately, the lyrics come across heavy-handed and lack personality, hardly benefiting from the sparser production. It's only when Harrison truly lets his guard down that Walk on Water succeeds. A handful of surprisingly tender ballads manage to buoy the album up from mediocrity. "If the Rains Return" is an affectionate ode to a lover with a lush tropical backdrop, while the exquisite lullaby "Sleep Angel" seems to channel Chris Isaak with its silvery steel guitar and husky vocal delivery.

Jerry Harrison - Walk On Water  (flac 362mb)

01 Flying Under Radar 3:49
02 Cowboys Got To Go 4:52
03 Kick Start 3:51
04 I Don't Mind 3:29
05 Sleep Angel 6:05
06 I Cry For Iran 6:01
07 Confess 3:10
08 Never Let It Slip 3:18
09 Facing The Fire 4:35
10 If The Rain Returns 4:23
11 The Doctors Lie 5:39

Jerry Harrison - Walk On Water (ogg 136mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

RhoDeo 1504 Roots

Hello,  a blizzard chills the north east of the states tonight and tomorrow, New York streets deserted airports closed down till Wednesday, electricity lines snap for the umpteenth time (apparently nobody is prepared to pay for having these laid underground). Yes and CNN is all over it with reporters in the wind and snow, how idyllic, anyway suppose this storm would last weeks now that would shock the system. Meanwhile the kids enjoy a day off from school....


Cheikh Lô is one of the great mavericks of African music. A singer and songwriter as well as a distinctive guitarist, percussionist, and drummer, he has personalized and distilled a variety of influences from West and Central Africa, to create a style that is uniquely his own.

Lô dedicates both his life and music to Baye Fall, a specifically Senegalese form of Islam and part of the larger Islamic brotherhood of Mouridism. Established by Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba M’Becke at the end of the 19th century, Mouridism emerged from opposition to French colonialism and many fabulous stories are told of Bamba’s struggles with the authorities who feared that the rapid spread of Mouridism would inspire armed insurrection. Bamba’s closest disciple Cheikh Ibra Fall (also known as Lamp Fall) established the Baye Fall movement, and he was the first to wear the patchwork clothes and long dreadlocks that are still Baye Fall trademarks today. Cheikh Lô’s own marabout, Maame Massamba N’Diaye is said to be over 100 years old, and was a disciple of Cheikh Ibra Fall; Cheikh Lô wears his picture in a pendant around his neck.

It follows that he's an artist unlike any other in music. It’s not just his unique appearance—with long dreadlocks and his colorful patchwork clothes—that sets him apart; his career is constantly evolving, incorporating influences from around the world. Wherever his musical journey takes him, he will surely remain rooted to his Baye Fall beliefs and, no matter what, will always sound like Cheikh Lô.  ...N'Joy.

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Mbalax, the intricate dance music of Senegal, has been made more accessible to Western listeners by Cheikh Lô (born Cheikh N'Digel Lô). Softening the hard edges of mbalax and incorporating elements of salsa, Zairian/Congolese rhumba, folk, and jazz, Lô has created an infectious, hook-laden style of pop music. While Roots World described Lô's musical approach by writing "complemented by the acoustic guitar, exploding tama, and free-falling electric bass, Lô's voice has a rounded sweetness with poetic hills and valleys," Real Groove Magazine explained, "with its enigmatic complexity and so non 4/4 beat, mbalax has had difficulty outside West Africa. Where even N'Dour's overdone attempts to counter this problem have failed, [Lô] has succeeded. His acoustic approach gives a magic mbalax music that my friends can appreciate." Cora Correction, also with a similar view, wrote, "West Africa has produced the continent's most powerful singers and Lô easily earns a high position in the pantheon."

 The son of a successful jeweler, Lô was born in Bobo-Dioulasso, a small village near Senegal's border with Mali. He grew up speaking Bambara, Wolof, and French. As a youngster, he became fascinated with music and taught himself to play drums and guitar. In 1976, he accepted an invitation to join a local group, Orchestra Volta Jazz, as a percussionist. He remained with the band until moving to the capital city of Dakar in 1980.

Lô quickly became involved with the music scene of Dakar. After a three-year stint as drummer for progressive vocalist Ouza, he joined the house band at the Hotel Savana in 1984. Although he performed with the group for a little over a year, the experience exposed him to a global range of pop influences.

 Emigrating to France in 1985, Lô found work as a session drummer in Paris. Soon afterward, he purchased his first guitar and began writing songs. Although he formed a band with Ivoirean and French musicians and began working on an album in 1987, the group separated before its completion. Lô's debut solo album, Doxandeme (Immigrants), was released as a cassette in 1990. Despite receiving a Nouveau Talent award, the album fell short of Lô's artistic expectations. Although he began working on a second album, he became disenchanted and canceled the project. For the next four years, he maintained a low profile.


 In 1995, Lô convinced Youssou N'Dour, whom he met in 1989 while playing on an album by traditional Wolof griot singer N'diaga M'baye, to produce an album for him. The resulting album, Ne La Thiass, was released on N'Dour's label, Jololi, shortly before Lô joined the multi-artist Jololi Revue tour in November 1996. Lô continued to promote the album during a European tour with his own eight-piece band, N'Diguel, in April 1997. The same year, Lô received Best Newcomer and Kora All-American awards in South Africa. Lô continued to expand his following to the United States as a featured performer with Africa Fete in 1998. The following year, he received the Ordre National de Merite de Leon from the president of Senegal. In 2000, he returned to recording with the release of Bambay Gueej. The title means "bamba, ocean of peace," and was co-produced by Nick Gold and Youssou N'Dour in Dakar with additional recording in Havana and London. Expanding on his previous album, Lô drew on sounds from Burkina Faso, Mali (with guest Oumou Sangare), and incorporated touches of Cuban son (with Richard Egües on flute) and funk (with Pee Wee Ellis of James Brown fame on sax).

Following the album’s release, Lô continued to tour successfully and to gather and refine songs for his next recording. His eclectic mix was furthered on Lamp Fall (World Circuit, 2005; Nonesuch Records 2006) by his discovery of Brazilian sounds and rhythms, and he traveled to Bahia, Brazil, to work with acclaimed producer Alê Siqueira (Tribalistas, Omara Portuondo). These Brazilian recordings were coupled on the album with sessions recorded in Dakar and London.

For the next few years, Lô withdrew from the international stage and immersed himself in the Dakar scene playing regularly with his own band; this return home is reflected in his 2010 World Circuit release, Jamm, released the following year on Nonesuch. His signature blend of semi-acoustic flavors—West and Central African, Cuban, flamenco—has been distilled into his most mature, focused, yet diverse statement to date.

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Cheikh Lô has created an inspired and sensual acoustic/electric mix which embraces double bass, acoustic guitars, talking drum, flute and a hint of electric bass and keyboards. Né La Thiass, his debut recording, infuses rare mbalax rhythms with rippling tides of energy, but the mood is strikingly Latin.

Lô began working on the compositions for the album in 1991, and the next five years saw the music simmering while he sought the most favorable conditions in which to record. He wanted to record live with real musicians who understood his music. On hearing a demo of the songs, Youssou N’Dour was immediately interested in producing. A cast of Senegal’s finest was assembled with musicians from N’Dour’s Super Etoile band, including master percussionists Assane Thiam and Mbaye Dieye Faye and guitarist/arranger Oumar Sow. Recording and mixing were completed in nine days, giving the album the freshness and immediacy of a live recording.

This strong debut from the Senegalese singer is a healthy hybrid of African and Cuban rhythms. Lô's high, reedy vocals are immediately evocative of countryman Youssou N'Dour -- no surprise since N'Dour helms as producer. But the acoustic aesthetic here is warmer than N'Dour's usual high-gloss pop. If you're looking for an album to turn winter to spring, darkness to light, this disc is a safe bet.

Cheikh Lô - Ne La Thiass  (flac  301mb)

01 Boul Di Tagale 6:07
02 Ne La Thiass 4:25
03 Ndogal 5:24
04 Doxandeme 6:04
05 Sant Maam 4:46
06 Set 5:26
07 Cheikh Ibra Fall 4:30
08 Bamba Sunu Goorgui 4:52
09 Guiss Guiss 4:36

Cheikh Lô - Ne La Thiass  (ogg  120mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Bambay Gueej (Bamba, Ocean of Peace) is Cheikh Lô’s follow up to his highly acclaimed 1996 debut album Ne La Thiass. The nine new tracks on this recording were co-produced by Nick Gold and Youssou N’Dour and were recorded at N’Dour’s Xippi Studio in Dakar, with additional recording in Havana and London.This album finds Cheikh Lô in an even sweeter voice, with his Dakar-based "N’Diguel" band augmented by very special guests Richard Egües (flute), Pee Wee Ellis (horns), Oumou Sangare (vocals), and Bigga Morrison (Hammond organ). Adding to the rippling Senegalese m’balax rhythms, felicitous Latin inflections, and spiritual intensity of his debut, Cheikh Lô draws on sounds from Burkina Faso, Mali, and Congo and adds influences from Cuba, subtle reggae and blasting African funk into the mix.

Pee Wee Ellis, erstwhile James Brown horn arranger and saxophonist during the Heavy Funk period of Cold Sweat and musical director for Van Morrison, fell in love with Lô’s music on first hearing. To Lô, who grew up listening to the sounds of James Brown, the arrival of Pee Wee at the Dakar sessions was akin to a homecoming. Ellis’s arrangements, in particular on the title track "Bambay Gueej" (which includes the groove-driven Hammond organ of Aswad’s Bigga Morrison, and a spontaneous vocal tribute to Fela Kuti), add a new dimension to the mix.


Lô was nurtured on Cuban music, and he names Richard Egües, for years the mainstay of the Orquesta Aragón, as his favorite musician. Egües, in his 80s during the recording of this record, gives a performance on "M’Beddemi" that was a dream come true for Lô. The Cuban connection is also present on "Jeunesse Senegal" with its spectacular Havana trumpet section featuring members of the Afro-Cuban All Stars. Lô heard Malian diva Oumou Sangare through their mutual label, World Circuit. They first met at the 1997 Kora Awards in South Africa, where Lô was named Best Newcomer. When he penned "Bobo-Dioulasso," sung in Bambara and dedicated to his hometown in Burkina Faso, Lô immediately thought of her for this atmospheric duet.

Lô is a very spiritual man and the album is dedicated to Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, the founder of Senegal’s main Muslim brotherhood, Mouridism. The final track, "Zikr," with backing vocals from N’Dour, is a lilting, lyrical adaptation of a traditional chant of the Baye Fall, a branch of Mouridism that Lô follows. Lô is featured not only as lead vocal, but also on rhythm guitar, drums, and percussion, and his band retains the core of musicians from his first album: Oumar Sow (guitar), Pathé Jassy (bass guitar), Samba N’Dokh M’Baye (tama -talking drum), Thio M’Baye (percussion and Sabar drums), Thierno Kouyate (alto and tenor saxophones), and Badou N’Diaye (drums on "Bamba Gueej"). Members of N’Dour’s Super Étoile, Babacar Faye (percussion) and Habib Faye (bass, acoustic guitar), make additional contributions.

Cheikh Lô - Bambay Gueej  (flac  315mb)

01 M'Beddemi 4:25
02 Jeunesse Senegal 5:42
03 N'Jarinu Garab 4:28
04 Bambay Gueej 7:15
05 N'Dawsile 6:14
06 Africadën 6:13
07 Bobo-Dioulasso 4:45
08 N'Dokh 4:46
09 Zikr 4:00

Cheikh Lô - Bambay Gueej  (ogg 131mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Lamp Fall is the first international release from the Senegalese singer/songwriter and guitarist Cheikh Lô. Issued on World Circuit, it is a collection of traditional and original songs that heavily showcase his trademark mbalax drums, reggae grooves, and funky polyrhythms, with a host of colors and textures added by widely varying instrumentation. This time out, Lô goes to Brazil for inspiration -- about half the album's tracks were recorded in Bahia. Lamp Fall's opener, "Sou," is a traditional song with a radically different arrangement. It is sung in Bambara, the language Lô learned in Burkina Faso. It is a Mandinka song in origin, and comes form Mali. One can heard the Brazilian feel here in the employment of a sanfona accordion -- a close relative of the bandoneon. It is juxtaposed against a talking drum, as Lô's falsetto carries its melody -- a love song -- over. The title track was one of many recorded in Dakar and in London. Lamp Fall is a tribute to Cheikh Ibra Fall, a religious leader whose faith Lô belongs to. What's startling is the opening guitar chord, which sounds like it could have been lifted off James Blood Ulmer's Are You Glad to Be in America? Saxophone great Pee Wee Ellis blows hard and funky here against crisscrossing rhythms by Saliou Seck, accented by a Crescent City piano vamp played by Arona Barry. The Brazilian feel comes to the fore in "Satta Kaani Xeen," where castanets, wood blocks, cajon, and berimbau make up the main body of the tune lyrically and rhythmically. The band here is large, with a sitar, tama, bass clarinet, and Paulinho Andrade's flute orchestrating the melody. Ellis is heard fiercely in "Bamba Mo Woor," over the top of twin electric guitars riffing like hell, and fronting both Bigga Morrisson's Hammond B-3 and the rest of a horn section featuring Byron Wallen on trumpet and Tim Smart on trombone. The reggae groove here is deeply dread, shuffling and slipping along a bubbling bassline and Lô's sweet -- but not saccharine -- falsetto vocals. The only pure mbalax tune here is "Fattaliku Dëmb," where Lô plays a mean flamenco-style rhythm guitar part over the rolling drums and pumped bassline. It also features a fine guitar solo by Lamine Faye. In sum, Lamp Fall is a further extension of the already heady mix of styles, rhythms, and harmonics Lô has amassed over the past decade and a half. It's an utter joy in that it's so dense that most of its secrets won't be revealed until many repeated listenings are undertaken. That said, its sunny sheen and easy, airy atmosphere are intoxicating and elegant. This is early candidate for one of the best recordings of 2006.

Cheikh Lô - Lamp Fall  (flac  335mb)

01 Sou 3:03
02 Lamp Fall 4:32
03 Xalé 4:12
04 Kelle Magni 4:08
05 Sénégal - Brésil 4:24
06 Sante Yalla 4:36
07 Toogayu M'Bedd 3:58
08 N'Galula 3:49
09 Sama Kaani Xeen 4:29
10 Bamba Mô Woor 3:48
11 Fattaliku Demb 3:09
12 Kelle Magni (encore) 4:00
13 Zikroulah 2:43

Cheikh Lô - Lamp Fall  (ogg 130mb )

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

RhoDeo 1504 A New Hope 07

Hello,

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away...................

At first, the idea seems bizarre, even ridiculous. Star Wars, a movie best known for its vistas of alien worlds and epic battles, as a 13 part radio drama? Well, unless you have the cold heart of a Sith, Star Wars did indeed translate well from the silver screen to radio, thank you very much. Yes, Star Wars' visual effects are a big part of the magic of the saga, but the heart and soul of George Lucas' galaxy far, far away are the characters and the storyline. And while the movie is satisfying on its own, the radio dramatization written by the late Brian Daley takes us beyond the movie....beyond the screenplay...and even beyond the novelization.

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Produced by National Public Radio, with the cooperation of Lucasfilm, Ltd.

When this series was first broadcast on National Public Radio in 1981, it generated the largest response in the network's history: 50,000 letters and phone calls in a single week, an audience of 750,000 per episode, and a subsequent 40-percent jump in NPR listenership.

This landmark production, perhaps the most ambitious radio project ever attempted, began when Star Wars creator George Lucas donated the story rights to an NPR affiliate. Writer Brian Daley adapted the film's highly visual script to the special demands and unique possibilities of radio, creating a more richly textured tale with greater emphasis on character development. Director John Madden guided a splendid cast—including Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels, reprising their film roles as Luke Skywalker and the persnickety robot See Threepio—through an intense 10 day dialogue recording session. Then came months of painstaking work for virtuoso sound engineer Tom Voegeli, whose brilliant blending of the actors' voices, the music, and hundreds of sound effects takes this intergalactic adventure into a realm of imagination that is beyond the reach of cinema.

By expanding the movie's story beyond its two hour running time, the Radio Drama allows us to catch glimpses of Luke Skywalker's life BEFORE the movie. It tells us how Princess Leia acquired the Death Star plans....and what, exactly, happened to her during her interrogation aboard the Empire's battle station...(it is an interesting scene, but not for the squeamish, by the way). In short, by expanding the story to nearly seven hours, characters we loved on screen acquire depth only equaled by novelizations.

The Radio Drama makes extensive use of material written (and in some cases filmed) for A New Hope's silver screen version but cut for editorial or technical reasons. Also, Ben Burtt's sound effects, John Williams' score, and the acting of Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) and Anthony Daniels (See Threepio) give the whole project its "true" Star Wars cachet.

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Many of the actors involved in the movie were unavailable to reprise their roles. Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels returned to reprise their roles as Luke Skywalker and C-3PO respectively. Recorded in 1981 at Westlake Recording Studios in West Hollywood, California.

With among others:
    Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker
    Ann Sachs as Princess Leia Organa
    Perry King as Han Solo
    Bernard Behrens as Obi-Wan Kenobi
    Brock Peters as Lord Darth Vader
    Anthony Daniels as C-3PO
    Keene Curtis as Grand Moff Tarkin
    John Considine as Lord Tion
    Stephen Elliott as Prestor – more widely known as Bail Organa
    David Ackroyd as Captain Antilles



A New Hope 107 The Han Solo Solution (mp3 25mb)

107 The Han Solo Solution 25:44


xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
previously

A New Hope 101 A Wind to Shake the Stars (mp3 25mb)
A New Hope 102 Points of Origin (mp3 25mb)
A New Hope 103 Black Knight, White Princess (mp3 25mb)
A New Hope 104 While Giants Mark Time (mp3 25mb)
A New Hope 105 Jedi That Was Jedi To Be (mp3 25mb)
A New Hope 106 The Millenium Falcon Deal (mp3 25mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Sundaze 1504

Hello,

Today some very atmospheric Sundaze with ambient and techno influences....DeepChord, for the neophyte, is Rod Modell (assisted by Mike von Schommer), synthesizing an amalgam of Detroit (Modell’s techno base) and Berlin, back-channelling (basically) Detroit and, from beyond, Kingston, Jamaica. Echospace is… well, largely more of the same, only with Soultek’s Steve Hitchell as Modell’s co-pilot. ......N'joy

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Rod Modell is best known as DeepChord, the creative force behind popular dub techno records such as Vantage Isle and The Coldest Season, but that moniker is just the tip of the iceberg. Modell’s back catalogue is enormous, encompassing ambient and sound-art releases on obscure labels which even the Discogs radar doesn't pick up: imprints such as Silentes, Hypnos, Amplexus, Linear Logic and Silver to name a few.

Rod was in Detroit during the birth of techno in the mid-to-late ‘80s. Charles Johnson’s Mothership landings (10 pm) and his Midnight Funk Association were rarely ever missed. I experienced the Music Institute first-hand, and was buying tons of vinyl at Buy Rite Music years before Record Time sold a single techno record. I was there. Ditto for Steve in regards to Chicago. He personally knows many of the original purveyors of the Chicago house and acid sound. I think it would be impossible to ignore the obvious fact that there is some definite significance to this allegory. We are all a product of our experiences whether we want to be or not. The things that we’ve seen are part of our fabric. Chicago House is part of Steve’s makeup, as is Detroit Techno for me. Add in the Berlin element, and you have the holy trinity of underground dance music represented.

Rod & Steve like analog because it’s alive. Rod" I used to love putting my old Korg MS-20 outside in the cold garage for a few hours during the winter months. I would then bring it inside the warm house, power it up, and program something simple with a SQ-10 sequencer, and that little twelve-step sequence would mutate for two hours. Constantly changing. It was amazing to me. You would leave the room, and come back and it would sound totally different. So organic and so alive. Its personality would change as it warmed up and became more comfortable, just like a human being’s would.A lso, this old gear generates amazing harmonics and overtones that I’ve never heard from a computer. Even algorithms designed to emulate this analog side-effect fail miserably. These elements add up to a sound quality that’s impossible to achieve without this old gear and, as this sound is an integral part of Echospace, we don’t have an option: it’s either use the old stuff, or don’t make music."

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the fellows in Berlin's Rhythm & Sound camp will have no problem endorsing Detroit-based Deepchord as their dub-techno heir apparent. Already an established ambient producer, Rod Modell partnered with Mike Schommer, quietly releasing their first 12" together in the late '90s. Like Rhythm & Sound, Deepchord based their compositions around minimal arrangements: repetitive rhythms inspired by dub, faint traces of white noise, and warm synth stabs. The group retained a loyal cult following, releasing several more singles in the early 2000s as well as a limited-run CD version of their first six releases (originally pressed up in extremely limited quantities). The duo's production went from prolific to a screeching halt around 2002, making a remarkable and rare live performance at the Detroit Electronic Music Festival and releasing singles in a scarce fashion (the group's 2006 single was only pressed to 100 copies). A retrospective of the group's work, Vibrasound, was issued under Modell's name and released on the Silentes label in 2005. Later that year, Modell teamed with Kevin Hanton to release Illuminati Audio Science and used a generous portion of the group's output, looped and sliced into small segments (much like Richie Hawtin's DE9 experiments), for a continuous 70-minute mix CD.

In 2007, Modell teamed with Stephen Hitchell, aka Soultek, for what would go on to be one of his most commercially successful projects, Echospace (also the name of a new label he started at the same time). Its debut album, The Coldest Season, was released on cult British label Modern Love and featured one of the most deconstructed interpretations of the Basic Channel sound ever released, its dubby, decayed textures swathed in shrouds of tape hiss. The 2010 follow-up Liumin (a Chinese personal name) was a greater success still, even as it played up this "destroyed" sound yet more, turning hundreds of hours of field recordings made in China into an unrecognizable murk. In 2011 Modell, now piloting Deepchord solo, signed to legendary Glasgow label Soma, which issued what was actually the first ever "proper" Deepchord album, Hash-Bar Loops. A period of intense creativity followed and 2012 saw the release both of another Echospace album, Silent World -- the soundtrack to an experimental film produced by Modell himself -- and the Deepchord follow-up Sommer. In 2013 20 Electrostatic Soundfields which features recordings made from 2008-2012 in cities such as Amsterdam and Barcelona saw the light. Very hypnotic and hazy sounds which are perfect for when you just want to listen to ambient soundscapes DC style. I'm not really a fan of the extra short (minute) tracks but it shows that Rod is experimenting with different outcomes in order to create a very succinct record. The latest release Laterns delivered more deep spaced out grooves from Mr Modell, very washed out percussion and woozy hypnotic, tripped out atmospheres.


xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Original produced by Rod Modell for the 2002 Detroit Electronic Music Festival. Remixed / Reshaped by Stephen Hitchell & Rod Modell (cv313 & Echospace) and Gerard Hanson (Convextion). Restored from original multitrack reel-to-reel master tapes in 2007. It's an absolute journey through the abyss of sheer deepness, its almost freighting, its hard to believe there all the same track remixed as each has its own distinct sound. It’s true that DC has always cultivated a strong hardware sound, distinguishing it from the digital plug-in ethos of mainstream mnml production. But, though much is made of vintage analogue keyboards, it’s the godlike Roland Space Echo (SE) and attending angel, Korg Tape Delay (TD), that are central to DeepChord’s archaeology. More than mere tools, without their excavations all this would be but a prosaic thumpy pedestrain precinct thinly inhabited by a few mealy-mouthed synth phrases, the odd dry-hack studio wheeze and fuzzy outdoors fragment. Fortunately, with the agency of mighty SE and trusty sidekick TD, a teeming viscous soundfield is drawn out from scant sources, conjuring up vast expanses of ice-floe dancefloor, gushing geysers of hiss’n’quake, and reverberant tracts of oceanism.

Vantage Isle Sessions is in fact thirteen different takes of the one track, various aliases (Deepchord, Echospace, Spacecho, cv313) being adopted to tweak it into differently vibrant forms. The opener, “DC Mix I,” is in mellowest mode, centred around insistent mid-tempo 4/4 kicks and the merest hint of chord-depth, soft-imploding snareshots, the ghost in Maurizio’s M-achine sprinkling it with echo-shards. The blasted and beatless (like “Spacecho Dub”) paves the way for soft-techno workouts (try “Echospace Reshape”), stopping off to dip into warm vapor-baths (visit “Echospace Spatial Dub”). The album centrepiece sees a windswept ambient-dub-techno peak reached in “Spacecho Dub II – Extended Mix,” maintained and even furthered in sonorous intensity by special guest, Convextion. His “Convextion Remix” is a twisted and compressed version stretched out into a throbbing jerking burbling beast, over which a massive sky-gaze gauze of post-Detroit chords is stratospherically trailed. It’s arguably the most radical transformation of the ‘original,’ against which the likes of DC mixes II and III seem almost plodding, somehow short of alterations of state, all ho-hum drums and just-so soft-pedalled chord drops – the minimal modern dance. Better is “Echospace Spatial Dub,” all veils and streamers over a spectral sub-metronome. Different again is the “CV313 mix I,” possessed of a more explicitly stated tech-house jack-dynamic, and the final “CV313 Reduction II,” three minutes of air rolled back and forth like waves on a still day over a fragment of ambient keyboard chord, the whole presided over by the ever-present SE-TD team.

Ultimately, though, Vantage Isle Sessions might be summed up as a restatement of the proposal already put forward on Echospace’s The Coldest Season – that of DeepChord/Echospace as carriers of the dub-techno torch for those that missed the original Detroit-Berlin bus. And, looking at their output in 2007/8, a sense of same-furrow ploughing is setting in, and one wonders how much more mileage there is in remakes and remodels, however well-crafted, of a design classic. Time for new prototypes?

DeepChord - Vantage Isle Sessions  (flac 453mb)

01 Vantage Isle (DC Mix I) 8:39
02 Vantage Isle (Echospace Glacial) 3:08
03 Vantage Isle (Echospace Reshape) 8:47
04 Vantage Isle (Spacecho Dub) 2:54
05 Vantage Isle (DC Mix II) 7:20
06 Vantage Isle (Spacecho Dub II - Extended Mix) 10:39
07 Vantage Isle (Convextion Remix) 7:49
08 Vantage Isle (Echospace Reform) 3:36
09 Vantage Isle (Echospace Spatial Dub) 6:01
10 Vantage Isle (DC Mix III) 5:45
11 Vantage Isle (CV313 Reduction) 5:16
12 Vantage Isle (Echospace Excursion) 6:09
13 Vantage Isle (CV313 Reduction II) 3:00

DeepChord - Vantage Isle Sessions   (ogg  178mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

From the liner notes:

Sonic Theory:
“Silence is where enlightenment exists. Doing nothing, thinking nothing, resisting nothing, we are expressing pure self to self. It is in solitude that we are able to understand our own enlightenment. Only in silence, we can acknowledge and release modules of our consciousness that lead to unhappiness. In these mystical quiet-zones, we become whole. Transformation is possible only in the sacred realm of silence. Atmospheric elements composed with snapshots of normally unheard sonic worlds.

Captured with hydrophones, piezo-electric transducers, wind harps, and binaural dummy-head microphones, these phonographs were further accentuated with proprietary processing to reveal even deeper layers, then blended with care to retain the full mystical element of the source recordings.” Recorded in echospace 2007/12.

Silent World was a project comprised primarily of unprocessed material used in the creation of their controversial second album Liumin, released by Modern Love back in 2008, so rather than this being essentially a remix album it would probably be more accurate to describe it as Liumin (Original Version). There are tracks here that are clearly different mixes of those found on Liumin, as well as the original versions of both “In Echospace” and “BCN Dub,” but as most dub techno fans will know, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be any less distinctive an experience.

If anything, Silent World sits somewhere between the heavy duty thump of the cityscape describing Liumin and the gaseous, distant, drone-tone adorned field-recordings-fest that is Liumin Reduced (which came with initial copies of the original CD), a sort of middle-tier version that occupies that all-important “sweet-spot.” It combines the duo’s trademark ultra-deep atmospherics with rhythms and wells of bass, then infuses every element with a sort of radiance and soft glow that blurs the lines between them to create what is probably their most immersive, hazy and intoxicating album experience to date.

“Lisbon” is to Silent World what the titanic “Burnt Sage” was to Liumin, the pinnacle of deep-focus, atmospheric beauty in perfect balance with heady, relentless rhythms and softly pounding bass that – like all the best dub-techno out there—almost has the power to invoke a transcendent out of body experience. In actual fact, this continues right into the very next track, as “Rippling” floats through the ether on gossamer wings, whilst “BCN Dub (Original Version)” is destined I’m sure to become recognised as one of their all time classics, asserting it’s superiority over the Liumin version in almost every respect. The migraine-inducing bass drum has gone, replaced by a more muted, vague, far off and skitterish pulse and the flicker and strobe of the horn section has never sounded better. It might be outrageous hyperbole, but honestly, these three tracks represent one of the most seminal moments in Modell and Hitchell’s careers to date, a literally faultless thirty minutes of dub techno nirvana.

Interestingly, the compact disc version seems to get the best deal on the exclusive track front as the blissful six minutes of “Orbiting” bridges the gap between “BCN Dub (Original Version)” and the CD-only “Hydrodynamics,” an expansive and richly layered fourteen minutes of soft but frenetic, bass pulses, scuffed hi-hats and synapse-flaring synths. The vinyl version gets lumped with the thudding of “Ghost Theory,” which compared to the rest of the material here sounds like a Liumin reject: it’s noisy, repetitive, lacking progression and sticks out like a weird distant relative at a wedding. Finally, Silent World closes on another high with “Theme From Silent World” which is essentially a beatless version of the superlative “Burnt Sage” from Liumin.

Regardless, Silent World is a beautiful DeepChord presents Echospace record, arguably Liumin‘s superior in any number of ways and should be an essential purchase for dub techno fans.

DeepChord Presents Echospace - Silent World (O.S.T.)  (flac  642mb)

01 In Echospace (Original Version) 10:40
02 Lisbon 11:43
03 Rippling 9:20
04 BCN Dub (Original) 13:19
05 Orbiting 7:04
06 Hydrodynamics 14:37
07 Theme For Silent World 11:15
08 Ghost Theory 10:54
Digital bonus
09 Lisbon (Live Version) 10:52
10 Rippling (Live Version) 12:16

DeepChord Presents Echospace - Silent World (O.S.T.)  (ogg 253mb)

xxxxx

DeepChord Presents Echospace - Live Silent World (O.S.T.)  (flac  442mb)

11 Silent World (OST Live In Gent, Belgium) 71:12

DeepChord Presents Echospace - Live Silent World (O.S.T.)  (ogg 169mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Previously

RhoDeo Beats 1238 re-upped
DeepChord Presents Echospace - Liumin   (flac  487mb)
DeepChord Presents Echospace - Liumin Reduced   (flac  491mb)
Sundaze 1239 updated
Rod Modell&Chris Troy (W T) - V 1.0-1.9 (flac 230mb)
Rod Modell & Michael Mantra - Sonic Continuum (flac 333mb)
Rod Modell - Autonomous Music Project (flac 271mb)

RhoDeo 1503 Grooves

Hello,


Last post on an American blues guitarist and singer, and a major influence in the world of blues guitar playing. King was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in May 2013. King stood 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m), some reports say 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m) and weighed 250 pounds (110 kg)[1] and was known as "The Velvet Bulldozer". Albert King is truly a "King of the Blues," although he doesn't hold that title (B.B. does). Along with B.B. and Freddie King, Albert King is one of the major influences on blues and rock guitar players. Without him, modern guitar music would not sound as it does -- his style has influenced both black and white blues players from Otis Rush and Robert Cray to Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. It's important to note that while almost all modern blues guitarists seldom play for long without falling into a B.B. King guitar cliché, Albert King never does -- he's had his own style and unique tone from the beginning. ..N'joy

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Albert King plays guitar left-handed, without re-stringing the guitar from the right-handed setup; this "upside-down" playing accounts for his difference in tone, since he pulls down on the same strings that most players push up on when bending the blues notes. King's massive tone and totally unique way of squeezing bends out of a guitar string has had a major impact. Many young white guitarists -- especially rock & rollers -- have been influenced by King's playing, and many players who emulate his style may never have heard of Albert King, let alone heard his music. His style is immediately distinguishable from all other blues guitarists, and he's one of the most important blues guitarists to ever pick up the electric guitar.

Born in Indianola, MS, but raised in Forrest City, AR, Albert King (born Albert Nelson) taught himself how to play guitar when he was a child, building his own instrument out of a cigar box. At first, he played with gospel groups -- most notably the Harmony Kings -- but after hearing Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, and several other blues musicians, he solely played the blues. In 1950, he met MC Reeder, who owned the T-99 nightclub in Osceola, AR. King moved to Osceola shortly afterward, joining the T-99's house band, the In the Groove Boys. The band played several local Arkansas gigs besides the T-99, including several shows for a local radio station.

After enjoying success in the Arkansas area, King moved to Gary, IN, in 1953, where he joined a band that also featured Jimmy Reed and John Brim. Both Reed and Brim were guitarists, which forced King to play drums in the group. At this time, he adopted the name Albert King, which he assumed after B.B. King's "Three O'Clock Blues" became a huge hit. Albert met Willie Dixon shortly after moving to Gary, and the bassist/songwriter helped the guitarist set up an audition at Parrot Records. King passed the audition and cut his first session late in 1953. Five songs were recorded during the session and only one single, "Be on Your Merry Way" / "Bad Luck Blues," was released; the other tracks appeared on various compilations over the next four decades. Although it sold respectably, the single didn't gather enough attention to earn him another session with Parrot. In early 1954, King returned to Osceola and re-joined theIn the Groove Boys; he stayed in Arkansas for the next two years.

In 1956, Albert moved to St. Louis, where he initially sat in with local bands. By the fall of 1956, King was headlining several clubs in the area. King continued to play the St. Louis circuit, honing his style. During these years, he began playing his signature Gibson Flying V, which he named Lucy. By 1958, Albert was quite popular in St. Louis, which led to a contract with the fledgling Bobbin Records in the summer of 1959. On his first Bobbin recordings, King recorded with a pianist and a small horn section, which made the music sound closer to jump blues than Delta or Chicago blues. Nevertheless, his guitar was taking a center stage and it was clear that he had developed a unique, forceful sound. King's records for Bobbin sold well in the St. Louis area, enough so that King Records leased the "Don't Throw Your Love on Me So Strong" single from the smaller label. When the single was released nationally late in 1961, it became a hit, reaching number 14 on the R&B charts. King Records continued to lease more material from Bobbin -- including a full album, Big Blues, which was released in 1963 -- but nothing else approached the initial success of "Don't Throw Your Love on Me So Strong." Bobbin also leased material to Chess, which appeared in the late '60s.

Albert King left Bobbin in late 1962 and recorded one session for King Records in the spring of 1963, which were much more pop-oriented than his previous work; the singles issued from the session failed to sell. Within a year, he cut four songs for the local St. Louis independent label Coun-Tree, which was run by a jazz singer named Leo Gooden. Though these singles didn't appear in many cities -- St. Louis, Chicago, and Kansas City were the only three to register sales -- they foreshadowed his coming work with Stax Records. Furthermore, they were very popular within St. Louis, so much so that Gooden resented King's success and pushed him off the label.

Following his stint at Coun-Tree, Albert King signed with Stax Records in 1966. Albert's records for Stax would bring him stardom, both within blues and rock circles. All of his '60s Stax sides were recorded with the label's house band, Booker T. & the MG's, which gave his blues a sleek, soulful sound. That soul underpinning gave King crossover appeal, as evidenced by his R&B chart hits -- "Laundromat Blues" (1966) and "Cross Cut Saw" (1967) both went Top 40, while "Born Under a Bad Sign" (1967) charted in the Top 50. Furthermore, King's style was appropriated by several rock & roll players, most notably Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, who copied Albert's "Personal Manager" guitar solo on the Cream song, "Strange Brew." Albert King's first album for Stax, 1967's Born Under a Bad Sign, was a collection of his singles for the label and became one of the most popular and influential blues albums of the late '60s. Beginning in 1968, Albert King was playing not only to blues audiences, but also to crowds of young rock & rollers. He frequently played at the Fillmore West in San Francisco and he even recorded an album, Live Wire/Blues Power, at the hall in the summer of 1968.

Early in 1969, King recorded Years Gone By, his first true studio album. Later that year, he recorded a tribute album to Elvis Presley (Blues for Elvis: Albert King Does the King's Things) and a jam session with Steve Cropper and Pops Staples (Jammed Together), in addition to performing a concert with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. For the next few years, Albert toured America and Europe, returning to the studio in 1971, to record the Lovejoy album. In 1972, he recorded I'll Play the Blues for You, which featured accompaniment from the Bar-Kays, the Memphis Horns, and the Movement. The album was rooted in the blues, but featured distinctively modern soul and funk overtones.

By the mid-'70s, Stax was suffering major financial problems, so King left the label for Utopia, a small subsidiary of RCA Records. Albert released two albums on Utopia, which featured some concessions to the constraints of commercial soul productions. Although he had a few hits at Utopia, his time there was essentially a transitional period, where he discovered that it was better to follow a straight blues direction and abandon contemporary soul crossovers. King's subtle shift in style was evident on his first albums for Tomato Records, the label he signed with in 1978. Albert stayed at Tomato for several years, switching to Fantasy in 1983, releasing two albums for the label.

In the mid-'80s, Albert King announced his retirement, but it was short-lived -- Albert continued to regularly play concerts and festivals throughout America and Europe for the rest of the decade. King continued to perform until his sudden death in 1992, when he suffered a fatal heart attack on December 21. The loss to the blues was a major one -- although many guitarists have tried, no one can replace King's distinctive, trailblazing style. Albert King is a tough act to follow.

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

It's not as if Albert King hadn't tasted success in his first decade and a half as a performer, but his late-'60s/early-'70s recordings for Stax did win him a substantially larger audience. During those years, the label began earning significant clout amongst rock fans through events like Otis Redding's appearance at the Monterey International Pop Festival and a seemingly endless string of classic singles. When King signed to the label in 1966, he was immediately paired with the Stax session team Booker T. & the MG's. The results were impressive: "Crosscut Saw," "Laundromat Blues," and the singles collection Born Under a Bad Sign were all hits. Though 1972's I'll Play the Blues for You followed a slightly different formula, the combination of King, members of the legendary Bar-Kays, the Isaac Hayes Movement, and the sparkling Memphis Horns was hardly a risky endeavor. The result was a trim, funk-infused blues sound that provided ample space for King's oft-imitated guitar playing. King has always been more impressive as a soloist than a singer, and some of his vocal performances on I'll Play the Blues for You lack the intensity one might hope for. As usual, he more than compensates with a series of exquisite six-string workouts. The title track and "Breaking Up Somebody's Home" both stretch past seven minutes, while "I'll Be Doggone" and "Don't Burn Down the Bridge" (where King coaxes a crowd to "take it to the bridge," James Brown-style) break the five-minute barrier. Riding strutting lines by bassist James Alexander, King runs the gamut from tough, muscular playing to impassioned cries on his instrument, making I'll Play the Blues for You one of a handful of his great Stax sets. On Lovejoy Albert teamed up with producer Don Nix, who supplied the majority of the original material here. Kicking off with a typical reading of the Stones' "Honky Tonk Woman" and including Taj Mahal's "She Caught the Katy and Left Me a Mule to Ride," the session is split between a Hollywood date with Jesse Ed Davis, Jim Keltner, and Duck Dunn in the band and one at Muscle Shoals with Roger Hawkins, David Hood, and Barry Beckett in the lineup. Although all of this is well-produced, alas there's hardly any fireworks out of Albert or any of the players aboard.

Albert King - I'll Play The Blues For You / Lovejoy (flac 446mb)

01 I'll Play The Blues For You (Parts 1 & 2) 7:17
02 Little Brother (Make A Way) 2:45
03 Breaking Up Somebody's Home 7:15
04 High Cost Of Loving2:52
05 I'll Be Doggone 5:39
06 Answer To The Laundromat Blues 4:33
07 Don't Burn Down The Bridge ('Cause You Might Wanna Come Back Across) 5:05
08 Angel Of Mercy 4:18
Lovejoy
09 Honky Tonk Woman 3:59
10 Bay Area Blues 2:55
11 Corina Corina 3:45
12 She Caught The Katy And Left A Mule To Ride 3:56
13 For The Love Of A Woman 4:20
14 Lovejoy, ILL. 3:46
15 Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven 4:20
16 Going Back To Iuka 3:58
17 Like A Road Leading Home 5:24

Albert King - I'll Play The Blues For You / Lovejoy (ogg  185mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

This 1973 release has King using his upside-down Flying V to slash a blues path through the Memphis Horns, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and the dawn-of-disco funk rhythm players. He half-sings with one eye on B. B. King and Bobby Bland and the other fixed on hot-buttered soul crooner Isaac Hayes. "Crosscut Saw" best captures the album title, with the leader and astounding drummer, Al Jackson, charbroiling a song the two had soul basted back in the mid 1960s with Booker T. Jones. Some of it sounds very Isaac Hayes-ish, ala "Shaft". In this case Albert teams up with the Bar-Kays. The result is some truly soulful funk, with Albert's rough voice and fiery guitar licks. Is is blues? Is it funk? Who cares? It's just great music. A must have for Albert King fans and fans of "old school" soul and funk. And the cover with Albert smoking his pipe while playing a Stratocaster left-handed...ala Hendrix.....is simple badass!!!!!

Albert King - I Wanna Get Funky (flac 264mb)

01 I Wanna Get Funky 4:08
02 Playin' On Me 3:25
03 Walkin' The Back Streets 6:28
04 'Til My Back Ain't Got No Bone 7:32
05 Flat Tire 4:43
06 I Can't Hear Nothing But The Blues 4:16
07 Travelin' Man 2:52
08 Cross Cut Saw 7:45
09 That's What The Blues Is All About 3:53

Albert King - I Wanna Get Funky  (ogg   104mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Recorded at Albert King's appearance at the 1973 Montreux Jazz Festival, Blues at Sunrise: Live at Montreux is a typically engaging live record from the guitarist. King is in good form and the set list is a little unpredictable, featuring standards like "Blues at Sunrise" and "I'll Play the Blues for You" as well as lesser-known items like "Little Brother (Make a Way)" and "Don't Burn Down the Bridge."

Albert King - Blues At Sunrise (flac 248mb)

01 Don't Burn Down The Bridge (Cause You Might Wanna Come Back Across) 4:28
02 I Believe To My Soul 4:56
03 For The Love Of A Woman 3:57
04 Blues At Sunrise 10:05
05 I'll Play The Blues For You 6:35
06 Little Brother (Make A Way) 5:44
07 Roadhouse Blues 10:04

Albert King - Blues At Sunrise (ogg 90mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

RhoDeo 1503 Goldy Rhox 193

Hello, today the 193th post of Goldy Rhox, classic pop rock. Todays artist in the blacklight is an American surf rock guitarist (born Richard Anthony Monsour on May 4, 1937) , known as The King of the Surf Guitar. He pioneered the surf music style, drawing on Eastern musical scales and experimenting with reverberation. He worked closely with Fender to produce custom made amplifiers, including the first-ever 100-watt guitar amplifier. He pushed the limits of electric amplification technology, helping to develop new equipment that was capable of producing distorted, "thick, clearly defined tones" at "previously undreamed-of volumes." The "breakneck speed of his single-note staccato picking technique" as well as his showmanship with the guitar is considered a precursor to heavy metal music, influencing guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen.

Today's mystery artist is of Lebanese, Polish and Belarusian descent. His father was born in Beirut, and his mother's parents came to the U.S. from Poland; they farmed in Whitman, Massachusetts. He learned to play music, starting with piano when he was nine he admired Hank Williams, and wanted to be a cowboy singer—so he bought a plastic ukelele for $6 and taught himself to play by reading an instruction book. He then learned to play guitar, using a combination style incorporating both lead and rhythm aspects, so that the guitar filled the place of drums.

His machinist father obtained a job in the Southern California aerospace industry. His parents drove the family across the country to live in El Segundo, California. Dale spent his senior year at and graduated from Washington Senior High School. It was in Southern California that he learned to surf at the age of 17. He soon learned to play the drums and the trumpet. Due to his Lebanese heritage, he also had a strong interest in Arabic music, which would later play a major role in his development of surf rock music.

Hiis uncle taught him how to play the tarabaki, as he watched him play the oud. His early tarabaki drumming would later have a major influence on his guitar playing, particularly his rapid alternating picking technique. According to our man, “It’s the pulsation,” stating that whether he is playing the guitar, trumpet, or piano, “they all have that drumming beat I learned by playing the tarabaki. Today's mystery artist is often credited as one of the first electric guitarists to employ fast scales in his playing. He himself was a surfer and wanted his music to reflect the sounds he heard in his mind while surfing. While he is primarily known for introducing the use of guitar reverb that would give the guitar a "wet" sound, which has since become a staple of surf music, it was his staccato picking that was his trademark. Since our man is left-handed, he was initially forced to play a right-handed model but then went to a left handed model. However, he did so without restringing the guitar, leading him to effectively play the guitar upside-down...

His desire to create a certain sound led him to push the limits of equipment. Leo Fender kept giving him amps and he kept blowing them up! Until they went to James B. Lansing loudspeaker company and explained that they wanted a fifteen inch loudspeaker built to their specifications. The unit became famous as the 15" JBL D130F model. It made the complete package for our man to play through and was named the Single Showman Amp. When he plugged his Fender Stratocaster guitar into the new Showman Amp and loudspeaker cabinet, he became the first person on earth to jump from the volume scale of a modest quiet guitar player (on a scale of 4) to blasting up through the volume scale to TEN! That is when our mystery man became the "Father of Heavy Metal" as quoted from Guitar Player magazine. He broke through the electronic barrier limitations of that era!

Surf rock's national popularity was somewhat brief, as the British Invasion began to overtake the American charts in 1964. Though he continued performing live, Dale was soon set back by rectal cancer. Though he recovered, he retired from music for several years. In 1979, he almost lost a leg after being injured while swimming and a pollution-related infection made the mild injury much worse. As a result, our man became an environmental activist and soon began performing again. He recorded a new album in 1986 and was nominated for a Grammy. In 1987 he appeared in the movie Back to the Beach, playing surf music and performing "Pipeline" with Stevie Ray Vaughan. In 1993 he recorded a guitar solo on the track "Should Have Known" by Southern California indie band The Pagodas which was released as a vinyl single. The use of "Misirlou" in the 1994 Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction gained him a new audience. "Miserlou" became synonymous with Pulp Fiction's ultra-hip sense of style, and was soon licensed in countless commercials (as were several other Dale tracks). As a result, Tribal Thunder and its 1994 follow-up Unknown Territory attracted lots of attention, earning positive reviews and surprisingly strong sales. In 1996, he supported the Beggars Banquet album Calling Up Spirits by joining the normally punk- and ska-oriented Warped Tour. Adding his wife and young drum-playing son to his band, our man refocused on touring over the next few years. He finally returned with a new CD in 2001, Spacial Disorientation, issued on the small Sin-Drome label. In 2009, he was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, TN . Our man continues to perform at venues across the U.S. into 2014 (age 77).

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Most of the albums i 'll post made many millions for the music industry and a lot of what i intend to post still gets repackaged and remastered decades later, squeezing the last drop of profit out of bands that for the most part have ceased to exist long ago, although sometimes they get lured out of the mothballs to do a big bucks gig or tour. Now i'm not as naive to post this kinda music for all to see and have deleted, these will be a black box posts, i'm sorry for those on limited bandwidth but for most of you a gamble will get you a quality rip don't like it, deleting is just 2 clicks...That said i will try to accommodate somewhat and produce some cryptic info on the artist and or album.


Today's mystery album is the definitive compilation of the father of surf-rock, containing 18 of his best-known songs, including all of his biggest hits ("Miserlou," "Let's Go Trippin'"), all presented in their original versions and in excellent audio. In addition to showcasing the roots of surf, today's mystery album demonstrates what a skilled and eclectic guitarist our mystery artist was. He was one of the first guitarists in rock & roll to rely on studio and guitar effects and fuse elements of world musics to his sound, and every one of his experiments is captured on this disc. It's a definitive retrospective, and it's all up for grabs here..N'Joy


Goldy Rhox 193 (flac 248mb)


Goldy Rhox 193 (ogg 97mb)

***** ***** ***** ***** *****