Samstag, 30. Januar 2021

Townes Van Zandt - Live In Berlin (1991)

Townes Van Zandt's music doesn't jump up and down, wear fancy clothes, or beat around the bush. Whether he was singing a quiet, introspective country-folk song or a driving, hungry blues, Van Zandt's lyrics and melodies were filled with the kind of haunting truth and beauty that you knew instinctively. His music came straight from his soul by way of a kind heart, an honest mind, and a keen ear for the gentle blend of words and melody. He could bring you down to a place so sad that you felt like you were scraping bottom, but just as quickly he could lift your spirits and make you smile at the sparkle of a summer morning or a loved one's eyes — or raise a chuckle with a quick and funny talking blues. The magic of his songs is that they never leave you alone.

This album is a wonderful recording from Townes Van Zandt´s gig at the Berlin Independence Days, way back in October 1990. 

Thanks to Hellmut, who was a part of the enthusiastic audience on this shiny evening, for sharing this album with us. Rest in peace, old friend!

Tracklist:

1 Mr. Mudd And Mr. Gold 2:56
2 If I Needed You 2:51
3 Buckskin Stallion Blues 3:15
4 Short-haired Woman Blues 3:10
5 Ain't Leavin' Your Love 2:30
6 Pancho & Lefty 8:11
7 Dollar Bill Blues 2:54
8 Fraulein 3:13
9 Shrimp Song 2:03
10 Blaze's Blues 3:19
11 No Place To Fall 3:19
12 To Live's To Fly 3:28
13 Lungs 2:50
14 Nothin' 3:33
15 Tecumseh Valley 4:28
16 Dead Flowers 2:57
17 White Freightliner Blues 3:47
18 Catfish Song 4:02

Townes Van Zandt - Live In Berlin (1991)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Mittwoch, 27. Januar 2021

Thomas Friz - Lomir ale singen - Jiddische Lieder (1987)

Today is the 76th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by the Soviet Army in 1945. The "Holocaust Memorial Day" is dedicated to the remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust. 

Thomas Friz is a German musician, born 5 March 1950 in Stuttgart. He was a member of the German folk duo Zupfgeigenhansel, one of the most successful groups to emerge on the German folk scene in the 1970s. It consisted of Erich Schmeckenbecher and Thomas Friz. The group was named after the collection of folk songs of the same name, which was published in 1909.

The group started playing in folk-clubs, mainly in southern Germany, in 1974. They then started appearing on the radio programme Liederladen of the Südwestfunk broadcasting station. They released their first album, Volkslieder I for the Pläne record company in 1976, and later in the year their second album, Volkslieder II. In 1978 they received the award of "Artists of the Year" in one of the categories of the German Phonoakademie. They disbanded in 1985.

Together with the guitaris Gerhard Graf, Thomas Friz brought a program with jewish songs and poems on stage in 1986. This programm is featured on the 1987 release "Jiddische Lieder", re-released in 1998 as "Lomir ale singen - Jiddische Lieder".


Tracklist:
1. Schpil-Sche Mir A Lidele In Jiddisch 2:45
2. Lomir Ale Singen 3:25
3. Amol Is Gewen A Majsse 3:56
4. A Chassn Oif Schabbes 3:17
5. Kinderjorn 3:25
6. Awreml 4:52
7. Beltz 3:55
8. Achtzik Er Un Sibetzik Si 3:46
9. 's Brennt 1:56
10. Mojde Ani 2:05
11. Slof, Majn Kind, Majn Trejst 5:04
12. Der Becher 3:09

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Montag, 25. Januar 2021

Arik Brauer - Liederbuch (1973) - Rest in peace!


The Austrian artist and Holocaust survivor Arik Brauer died yesterday at 92. Rest in peace!

Arik Brauer (4 January 1929 – 24 January 2021) was an Austrian painter, printmaker, poet, dancer, singer, and stage designer. He resided in Vienna and Ein Hod, Israel. Brauer was a co-founder of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, together with Ernst Fuchs, Rudolf Hausner, Fritz Janschka, Wolfgang Hutter and Anton Lehmden.

Born Erich Brauer in 1929 to a Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia to Vienna, he experienced the rise of National Socialism as a child. His father died in a concentration camp while Brauer himself survived the Holocaust by going into hiding.

After the war, Brauer studied art and music, dual passions he would pursue throughout his life. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna before moving to Paris with his wife, Naomi, where the pair made a living as singers.

Returning to Vienna in the mid-1960s, he became a prominent representative of the city's Fantastic Realism art movement. Despite the prevailing art-world taste for abstraction in the 1950s and early 1960s, Brauer's work successfully blended high craftsmanship and surrealism in ways that gained him international attention. In 1982, he had breakthrough solo shows in the United States.
While Brauer’s colorful art enjoyed international success, at home he was also widely known for his Austrian-German songwriting.



The double album "Liederbuch" was released in 1973 and combines his first two releases,  "Arik Brauer" (1971) and "Alles was Flügel hat, fliegt" (1974).

Tracklist:

A1 Oho Halalali
A2 Die Jause
A3 Sie hab'n a Haus baut
A4 Wie a Hund
A5 Warum ist er so Dumm
A6 Sein Köpferl im Sand
B1 Reise nach Afrika
B2 Der Surmi Sui
B3 Der Spiritus
B4 Rostiger die Feuerwehr kommt
B5 Serenade
B6 Dschiribim - Dschiribam
C1 Platz da Pest
C2 Der Lindenbaum
C3 Der Buba
C4 Alles, was Flügel hat, fliegt
C5 Wiegenlied für Erwachsene
C6 Die Spinnerin
D1 Auto unser, das du bist
D2 Froschermandl
D3 Salomon, der Weise, spricht
D4 Metamorfosalasumbalalei
D5 Schwarz und weiß
D6 Ja, ja, die Freiheit


Arik Brauer - Liederbuch (1973)
(ca. 192 kbps, cover art included)

Samstag, 23. Januar 2021

Richie Havens - The Great Blind Degree (1971)

Richie Havens' career benefited enormously from his appearance at the Woodstock festival in 1969 and his subsequent featured role in the movie and album made from the concert in 1970. His first album after that exposure, "Alarm Clock", made the Top 30 and produced a Top 20 single in "Here Comes the Sun." These recordings were Havens' commercial high-water mark, but by this time he had become an international touring success. By the end of the '70s, he had abandoned recording and turned entirely to live work. Havens came back to records with a flurry of releases in 1987: a new album, "Simple Things"; an album of Bob Dylan and Beatles covers; and a compilation. In 1991, Havens signed his first major-label deal in 15 years when he moved to Sony Music and released "Now". "Nobody Left to Crown" was issued by Verve Forecast in 2008. Havens died of a heart attack at his home in Jersey City, New Jersey in April 2013; he was 72 years old.

A key strength of Havens, despite having emerged from the 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene, is that his oeuvre -- covers and all -- transcends the broadside tradition of forebears like Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs to arrive at something infinitely more personal and soulful.

Tracklist:

What About Me 6:11
Fire & Rain 6:23
Tommy 1:28
In These Flames 3:52
Think About The Children 4:20
Fathers & Sons 6:45
Teach Your Children 3:45
What Have We Done 4:26

(192 kbps, cover art included)

Donnerstag, 21. Januar 2021

Floh de Cologne - Rotkäppchen (1977, vinyl rip)

Floh de Cologne were formed in 1966 as a political and anarchic collective of students from the University of Cologne.
"Rotkäppchen" is a fairy-Tale by Jewgenij Schwarz, a Soviet writer and playwright, with a lot of rock and pop music "for young and old people".

Floh de Cologne collaboreted on this album with some folks being part of the german subcultre scene of these days, for example Christiane Knauf, Fredrik Vahle, Franz Josef Degenhardt, Fasia Jansen, Perry Friedman, Hanns Dieter Hüsch, Dieter Süverkrüp and Hannes Wader.
"Rotkäppchen" was released in 1977 on the Pläne label.

Tracks:
A1 Rotkäppchen-Lied (Guten Tag, auf Wiedersehn)
A2 Halt, Rotkäppchen, halt!
A3 Fuchs-Lied (Durch das Dickicht schleiche ich)
A4 Lied Vvom Naschen (Selber naschen, das macht fett)
A5 Hasen-Lied (Ach, ich kann es gar nicht fassen) 21:25
B1 Wolfs-Lied (Bin der Wolf und habe Pläne)
B2 Lied vom weissen Hündchen
B3 Hasen-Marsch (Hoch die Löffel, Brüder Hasen!)
B4 Fuchs-Lied (Ríeche ich den Braten, muß ich ihn verraten)
B5 Omas Tango (Da muß man doch, eins, zwei, drei)
B6 Förster-Lied (Ich Sitz' Auf Meinem Hochstand)
B7 Hasen-Marsch (Dem Förster wird der Marsch geblasen)
B8 Lied von der Freundschaft (Fuchs und Wolf sind nun besiegt)

Floh de Cologne - Rotkäppchen (1977, vinyl rip)
(224 kbps, cover art inlcuded)

Mittwoch, 20. Januar 2021

Maria Muldaur - Waitress In A Donut Shop (1974)

Maria Muldaur (born September 12, 1943) is an American folk and blues singer who was part of the American folk music revival in the early 1960s. She recorded the 1973 hit song "Midnight at the Oasis" and continues to record albums in the folk traditions.

She was the wife of musician Geoff Muldaur and is the mother of singer-songwriter Jenni Muldaur.

Maria Muldaur's follow-up to her gold-selling debut album includes her second (and final) hit single "I'm a Woman" and presents a pleasant folk-blues mixture of material including everything from contemporary songs by Wendy Waldman and Anna McGarrigle to Skip James blues tunes and Fats Waller's "Squeeze Me," all given Muldaur's earthy, enthusiastic treatment.


Tracklist:

A1 Squeeze Me
A2 Gringo En Mexico
A3 Cool River
A4 I'm A Woman
A5 Sweetheart
B1 Honey Babe Blues
B2 If You Haven't Any Hay
B3 Oh Papa
B4 It Ain't The Meat It's The Motion
B5 Brickyard Blues
B6 Travelin' Shoes

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Floh De Cologne - Lieder aus der Rock-Oper Koslowsky (Amiga, 1982)


Floh de Cologne’s anarchic politics and free-form musical experimentations evoke The Fugs, Beefheart, Lothar And The Hand People and Frank Zappa, while visually resembling something concocted by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Krautrock meets political theater in Floh de Cologne’s anti-capitalist rock n’ roll.

The album "Lieder aus der Rock-Oper Koslowsky" ("Songs from the Rock Opera Koslowsky") was originally released on the Pläne label in 1980 in West Germany and re-released as a license on the Amiga label in the German Democratic Republic two years later.

Floh De Cologne - Lieder aus der Rock-Oper Koslowsky
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Sonntag, 17. Januar 2021

VA - Ska Ba Dip - The Essential King Edwards (1989)

More than a half century has gone by and there is still a steady stream of books, films, articles and even academic studies devoted to Jamaican music of the 60s. Some of these accounts touch briefly on the preceding decade, a crucial period when Jamaican music incubated and the sound systems arose. But it’s hard to find much detail. The reason is simply the passage of time. The original cohort of musical pioneers was small and the best known have passed on; even the youngest participants, were they still alive would now be well into their 80s. 

Vincent Edwards and his brother George operated King Edwards The Giant sound system, which in the late 50s ranked with Sir Coxsone’s Downbeat and Duke Reid The Trojan as the most popular sets in Jamaica. 

"Ska Ba Dip" is a compilation of killer original early ska from the likes of Roland Alphonso, Baba Brooks, Bobby Aitken, The Upsetters, Shenley Duffus and many more.


Tracklist:

1. Upsetters - Scandalizing
2. Baba Brooks - Musical Workshop
3. Bobby Aitken - Together
4. Shenley Duffus - Digging A Ditch
5. Higgs & Wilson - Gone Is Yesterday
6. Roland Alphonos - Shuffle Duck
7. Charmers - You Don't Know
8. Upcoming Willows - Red China
9. Shenley Duffus - Heariso
10. Lloyd Briscoe - Jonah (The Master)
11. Eric Morris - Ungodly People
12. Patrick & Edwards All Stars - Iron Curtain
13. Andy & Clyde - We Have To Part
14. Roy & Cornell - Salvation
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Samstag, 16. Januar 2021

Oktober-Klub Berlin - Unterm Arm die Gitarre (Amiga, 1968)


"Singe-Bewegung" and "Oktoberklub" in East Germany, part 4.

East Germans born between 1945 and 1960, who came into their teens between the erection of the Berlin wall and the mid-’70s, were known as the “integrated generation”, for they identified to a fairly high degree with the German Democratic Republic.

In the main, they regarded socialism as a matter of course, they undertook the “long march through the institutions” and pinned their hopes on a “changing party elite” (as it was called in the West). Some of the politically and culturally active young people sympathized strongly with the anti-capitalist, emancipatory protest of the left wing in the West and the international culture of protest music. This enthusiasm certainly had quixotic qualities, and the crisis-ridden trend of state socialism increasingly undermined its credibility.

But when Stefan Wolle in his book Die heile Welt der Diktatur (The Perfect World of Dictatorship) characterizes the Singing Movement and the Political Songfest as manifestations of an “officially tolerated ersatz protest culture” that availed itself of the “poses and accessories of Western protest movements”, he is oversimplifying the many different facets of this phenomenon.

"Unterm Arm die Gitarre" was the name of a Radio DDR programm produced in cooperation with the Oktober-Klub Berlin.  The album with the same name celebrates the first two years of the Oktober-Klub with a recording of a concert at the Kongresshalle Berlin, February 25s, 1968.

Oktober-Klub Berlin - Unterm Arm die Gitarre (Amiga, 1968)
(128 kbps, front & back cover included)

To be continued...

Freitag, 15. Januar 2021

Joan Baez - Live At Newport (1963 - 1965) - Happy 80th birthday!

This album draws tracks from Joan Baez’s appearances at the 1963, 1964, and 1965 Newport Folk Festivals, a time period in which she was the very epicenter of the folk scene.

With her clear, strong, and bell-like soprano, Baez brought together traditional-folk materials with some of the best songs of the then-emerging songwriters of the so-called folk revival (she was the introduction for many to the work of Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Richard Farina, and others), projecting a thematic unity between the old and the new that was instrumental in the success of the 1960s folk boom.

This collection isn’t quite as striking as her other live albums from this period, although only by degree, and there are several interesting tracks here, including the opener, a live version of Dylan’s beautiful “Farewell Angelina”. A duet with Mary Travers on “Lonesome Valley” is another highlight, as is an audience singalong on “Johnny Cuckoo”.

The final two tracks, “It Ain’t Me Babe” and “With God on Our Side,” are duets with Dylan, and while these performances may have strong historical value, the truth is that Baez and Dylan didn’t sing well together at this point in their association, with both singers dragging the song in two different directions at once, almost as if it were a battle for dominance, which, time suggests, it may well have been.

Track List:
01. Farewell Angelina – 3:41
02. Long Black Veil – 3:10
03. Wild Mountain Thyme – 4:48
04. Come All Ye Fair and Tender Maidens – 4:05
05. Lonesome Valley (Duet w/Mary Travers) – 3:38
06. Hush Little Baby (Duet w/Peter Yarrow) – 1:07
07. Te Ador/Te Manha – 3:57
08. All My Trials – 4:37
09. It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue – 3:54
10. The Unquiet Grave – 3:02
11. Oh, Freedom – 3:15
12. Satisfied Mind (Duet w/Lilly Brothers) – 3:12
13. Fennario – 3:47
14. Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright – 3:37
15. Johnny Cuckoo – 4:28
16. It Ain’t Me Babe (Duet w/Bob Dylan) – 4:45
17. With God On Our Side (Duet w/Bob Dylan) – 6:37

Joan Baez - Live At Newport
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Phil Ochs - Live At Newport

"Live at Newport" features a dozen songs from Phil Ochs' performances at the 1963, 1964, and 1966 Newport Folk Festival. Four of these cuts were previously available on the "Newport Broadside 1963" and "Evening Concerts, Vol. 1" anthologies, but the rest were previously unreleased. While all of these songs are available on his studio albums, Ochs was in good form for these shows, so these are good supplementary versions. 

Especially noteworthy are the 1966 tracks; four of the five songs would appear in far more elaborately produced arrangements on his "Pleasures of the Harbor" and "Tape from California" albums. These solo acoustic performances are interesting contrasts, putting the voice and the lyrics at the forefront, in the best unplugged tradition. Ochs' singing on "Cross My Heart" is painfully flat, but the sincerity of the words and their importance to him carry the performance. Additionally, the version of "Half a Century High" (sung as "Half a Century Wise") included here runs over seven minutes, and contains several verses that never made it into the official studio recording of this song. The differences point to the tragic side of Ochs' career, in that he sacrificed chunks of his message and his art, and one of his best and most personal songs, in pursuit of commercial success and stardom.


Tracklist:

1 Introduction Peter Yarrow 0:56
2 Ballad Of Medgar Evers 2:44
3 Talking Birmingham Jam 3:22
4 Power & The Glory 2:11
5 Draft Dodger Rag 2:23
6 I Ain't Marching Anymore 2:36
7 Links On The Chain 5:05
8 Talking Vietnam Blues 3:42
9 Cross My Heart 4:44
10 Half A Century High 7:06
11 Is There Anybody Here 3:11
12 The Party 8:11
13 Pleasures Of The Harbour 6:25

Phil Ochs - Live At Newport
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Joni Mitchell - Newport Folk Festival 1969

Here´s a recording from Joni Mitchells evening concert at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, July 19, 1969. Sounds like a good soundboard stereo recording, excerpt of track 9 which is of lesser quality from a different source.

Joni Mitchell also participated in an afternoon songwriters workshop at the Newport Festival,  along with Leonard Cohen, Judy Collins, Janis Ian, David Blue, Mike Settle, Tom Paxton, and Eric Andersen.


"THE LADY IN NEWPORT  By Lachlan MacLearn

In the summer of 1966 [sic, should be 1967] a relative unknown walked onto the stage at the Newport, Rhode Island Folk Festival, after being introduced by Judy Collins. It was a breezy summer's evening and the crowd was restless. I remember thinking that this newcomer, whoever she was, was stepping into some serious company. I can't recall the exact lineup. Probably Tim Hardin, Fred Neil, Odetta, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, and the like. As I said, `serious company...' She appeared to be carrying a tiny Martin Triple-0, but I couldn't be sure. She wore a long dress. I was too far back to decipher the face.

There was a round of light applause when she was introduced. A tentative strum rolled from the huge PA, then another, and she was beginning her opening number.
The song was 'Michael from Mountains'. And by the end of the first verse, the crowd had gone from bordering-rude to pin-drop silence. I was riveted.
When the song ended, the strangest thing occurred. For at least five seconds (look at your watch...try to imagine it) the place was dead-silent - ten or fifteen thousand people - dead silent - and then a huge release of cheers and applause.
The short set included `Chelsea Morning', and I think she played `The Circle Game' before leaving the stage to a tumultuous and prolonged standing ovation.
I remember feeling so grateful for this amazing new talent and feeling equally sorry for anyone unfortunate enough to be going onstage after her."


Tracklist:
01 Chelsea Morning
02 Cactus Tree
03 Night In The City
04 For Free
05 Willy
06 The Fiddle and the Drum
07 Both Sides Now
08 Get Together
09 The Circle Game

Joni Mitchell - Newport Folk Festival 1969
(256 kbps, front cover included)

Donnerstag, 14. Januar 2021

Pete Seeger - Clearwater Classics (1993)

Perhaps no single person in the 20th century did more to preserve, broadcast, and redistribute folk music than Pete Seeger, whose passion for politics, the environment, and humanity earned him both ardent fans and vocal enemies ever since he first began performing in the late '30s. His battle against injustice led to his being blacklisted during the McCarthy era, celebrated during the turbulent '60s, and welcomed at union rallies throughout his life. His tireless efforts regarding global concerns such as environmentalism, population growth, and racial equality earned him the respect and friendship of such political heroes as Martin Luther King, Jr., Woody Guthrie, and Cesar Chavez, and the generations of children who first learned to sing and clap to Seeger's Folkways recordings must number in the millions. Rising above all of Seeger's political ideals and his passion for authentic folk music was his clear voice and chiming banjo, both of which sang out with a clarity that rang true.

"Clearwater Classics" is an excellent pick-up for the casual Pete Seeger fan -- its 16 tracks assemble virtually all of the singer's most familiar recordings, including such perennials as "If I Had a Hammer," "Little Boxes," "Turn, Turn, Turn," "Guantanamera" and "We Shall Overcome."


Tracklist:
1 If I Had A Hammer 2:51
2 We Shall Overcome 4:40
3 Lolly-Too-Dum 3:29
4 Wimoweh (The Lion Sleeps Tonight) 1:45
5 John Henry 4:11
6 Barbara Allen 4:28
7 Little Boxes 1:52
8 Michael, Row The Boat Ashore 2:09
9 Where Have All The Flowers Gone 1:53
10 Turn, Turn, Turn (To Everything There Is A Season) 3:10
11 Darlin' Corey 2:45
12 Guantanamera 4:35
13 This Land Is Your Land 2:59
14 Hobo's Lullaby 4:12
15 The Erie Canal 1:40
16 Down By The Riverside 3:13

Pete Seeger - Clearwater Classics (1993)
(192 kbps, cover art included)

Dienstag, 12. Januar 2021

Willie Nelson - Red Headed Stranger - Happy 90th Birthday, Bobby Nelson!

Willie Nelson's "Red Headed Stranger" perhaps is the strangest blockbuster country produced, a concept album about a preacher on the run after murdering his departed wife and her new lover, told entirely with brief song-poems and utterly minimal backing. It's defiantly anticommercial and it demands intense concentration - all reasons why nobody thought it would be a hit, a story related in Chet Flippo's liner notes to the 2000 reissue. 

It was a phenomenal blockbuster, though, selling millions of copies, establishing Nelson as a superstar recording artist in its own right. For all its success, it still remains a prickly, difficult album, though, making the interspersed concept of "Phases and Stages" sound shiny in comparison. It's difficult because it's old-fashioned, sounding like a tale told around a cowboy campfire. Now, this all reads well on paper, and there's much to admire in Nelson's intimate gamble, but it's really elusive, as the themes get a little muddled and the tunes themselves are a bit bare. It's undoubtedly distinctive - and it sounds more distinctive with each passing year - but it's strictly an intellectual triumph and, after a pair of albums that were musically and intellectually sound, it's a bit of a letdown, no matter how successful it was.

Bobbie Lee Nelson (born January 1, 1931) is an American pianist and singer, the older sister of Willie Nelson and a member of his band, Willie Nelson and Family. She played piano on "Red Headed Stranger" - happy 90th birthday!






Tracklist:

Time Of The Preacher 2:24
I Couldn't Believe It Was True 1:32
Time Of The Preacher Theme 1:12
Medley: Blue Rock Montana/Red Headed Stranger 1:32
Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain 2:17
Red Headed Stranger 3:57
Time Of The Preacher Theme 0:25
Just As I Am 1:45
Denver 0:55
O'er The Waves 0:48
Down Yonder 1:53
Can I Sleep In Your Arms 5:22
Remember Me 2:50
Hands On The Wheel 4:20
Bandera 2:18

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Sonntag, 10. Januar 2021

Chico Buarque - Chico Canta (1973)

Francisco Buarque de Hollanda (born 1944), popularly known simply as Chico Buarque, is a Brazilian singer-songwriter, guitarist, composer, playwright, writer, and poet. He is best known for his music, which often includes social, economic, and cultural reflections on Brazil.

Struggling with the then reigning censorship in Brazil, Chico managed to release a true gem with the album "Chico Canta".  It was originally released as "Calabar" in 1973, before being banned by the Brazilian censors. Wicked album!

At this time his thinly veiled protest single "Apesar de Você" ("In spite of You" – in reference to the military dictatorship) was released. It was overlooked by the military censors, becoming an important anthem in the democratic movement. After selling over 100,000 copies, the single was eventually censored and removed from the market. At one point in 1974, the censors banned any song authored by Chico Buarque. Then, he created a pseudonym, naming himself "Julinho da Adelaide", complete with life history and interviews to newspapers.

During the 1970s and 1980s, he collaborated with filmmakers, playwrights, and musicians in further protest works against the dictatorship. Buarque approached the 1983 Concert for Peace in Nicaragua as a valid forum to vocalize his strong political views.






Tracklist:

A1 Prólogo 2:53
A2 Cala A Boca, Bárbara 4:18
A3 Tatuagem 2:50
A4 Anna De Amsterdam 2:32
A5 Bárbara 2:51
B1 Não Existe Pecado Ao Sul Do Equador / Boi Voador Não Pode 3:58
B2 Fado Topical 4:11
B3 Tira As Mãos De Mim 2:30
B4 Cobra De Vidro 1:31
B5 Vence Na Vida Quem Diz Sim 1:58
B6 Fortaleza 0:52


Chico Buarque - Chico Canta (1973)
(192 kbps, cover art included)

Samstag, 9. Januar 2021

Gary Clail - Half Cut For Confidence (1985)

Gary Clail, an English singer, MC, DJ and record producer, is a exceptional politically charged dub artist from Adrian Sherwood’s On U-Sound label. He worked originally as a roofer, but during the mid to late 1980s based in Bristol, he became a warm up act for On-U gigs.

"I am not sure how I ended up making records with him but I think it’s because I put together the Tack Head sound system. I used to record everything on cassettes, and had live sessions with Dub Syndicate African Charge Bim Sherman, Lee Scratch Perry and countless others. Adrian mixing everything on the mixing desk… and I spent hours trying to work out how I can put sound system together from cassette but I managed. Later it became known as the On U Sound System" (Gary Clail)

This 12" single was released in the UK in 1985 on On-U Sound. It was the first published Gary Clail record an produced by Adrian Sherwood.



Tracklist:


Half Cut For Confidence
Half A Gram A Shout!

(ca. 224 kbps, cover art included)

Donnerstag, 7. Januar 2021

Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Sister On Tour (1961)

Sister Rosetta Tharpe (March 20, 1915 – October 9, 1973) was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and recording artist. She attained popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with her gospel recordings, characterized by a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and rhythmic accompaniment that was a precursor of rock and roll. She was the first great recording star of gospel music and among the first gospel musicians to appeal to rhythm-and-blues and rock-and-roll audiences, later being referred to as "the original soul sister" and "the Godmother of rock and roll"

The hard-to-find 1961 album 'Sister On Tour'  sees Tharpe echoing the beefier R&B sound of the time via a number of full band live recordings that benefit from the kind of driving horn sections used by Fats Domino and Little Richard a few years earlier. Cementing her standing as an vibrant live performer, the likes of high octane numbers such as "Joy In This Land" and "God Is Wonderful" are truly infectious whilst biblical expositions such as "Woman" (referencing the story of the woman at the well) and the bubbly "As You Sow, So Shall You Reap" would have helped to deflect the ill-conceived criticism that Tharpe was moving away from the gospel message by embracing current musical trends


Tracklist:
Joy In This Land 3:05
God Is Wonderful 2:08
Just Keep Still 2:09
Everything To Me 2:22
Take A New Look (Into That Old Bible) 2:15
Look In The Good Book Brother 2:16
With His Great Love 2:40
As You Sow, So Shall You Reap 2:25
There's A Hand Leading Me 2:15
Faith In God 3:28
Woman 3:46
The Lonesome Road 2:20

Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Sister On Tour (1961)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Mittwoch, 6. Januar 2021

Jerry Jeff Walker - Ridin´ High (1975)

Jerry Jeff Walker (born Ronald Clyde Crosby; March 16, 1942) was an American country music singer and songwriter. He was a leading figure in the outlaw country music movement. Walker was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2017. He died of the disease on October 23, 2020, at a hospital in Austin, Texas.

The mid- to late '70s were good to Jerry Jeff Walker. He recorded a string of absolutely endearing classics of the outlaw singer/songwriter genre of country music: "Viva Terlingua", "Walker's Collectibles", "Jerry Jeff Walker", "It's a Good Night for Singin'", the live "A Man Must Carry On", and this one, "Ridin' High" from 1975. 

Most Walker fans will argue like hell about which is best, but they are interchangeably great and stand the test of time in the same way Guy Clark's and Billy Joe Shaver's albums do. In any case, "Ridin' High" is pure Texas country drunk & roll with some Nash Vegas players added to the Lost Gonzo Band for some truly Cosmic Cowboy yammering. The material here is top-notch: Willie Nelson's "Pick Up the Tempo," Bob Livingston's "Public Domain," and Guy Clark's "Like a Coat from the Cold" -- and they're the first three tracks on the album! 

Walker has a way of delivering drunken anthems and tender ballads in his deep bass voice that brings you into the song so far you feel as if he's singing it just for you and your friends. He does this consistently on this album, backed by a star cast of players including not only the Gonzos but also Johnny Gimble, David Briggs, Norbert Putnam, and others. And the gorgeous horn touches added by Michael Brovsky are stunning. 

Two of Walker's own best songs are here, "I Love You," written for his then new wife Susan, and the rowdy man's good-time anthem "Pissin' in the Wind." The album is rounded out by Jesse Winchester's "Mississippi You're on My Mind," Mike Burton's oft-covered nugget "Night Rider's Lament," and a few others. 

The album feels like a solid stream of hippie cowboy music fed by cold Lone Star, lots of pot, and the occasional line. To listen closely is to miss the point. This is an album to be experienced with the senses, entering into the free flow of Walker's good-time world even for the 40 minutes it takes to listen to the album. But that's far better than nothin', ain't it?


Tracklist:

A1 Public Domain 3:29
A2 Pick Up The Tempo 3:48
A3 Like A Coat From The Cold 3:32
A4 I Love You 3:46
A5 Night Rider's Lament 4:55
B1 Goodbye Easy Street 3:10
B2 Pot Can't Call The Kettle Black 3:06
B3 Mississippi You're On My Mind 4:22
B4 Jaded Lover 3:58
B5 Pissin In The Wind 4:02


Jerry Jeff Walker - Ridin´ High (1975)
(320 kbps, cover art include)

Dienstag, 5. Januar 2021

TV Smith & Tom Robinson - Thin Green Line (1995)

Tom Robinson (b.1950) is a UK songwriter & broadcaster first known in the 70s as an anti-racist and LGBT campaigner.

Timothy "T. V." Smith (born 5 April 1956) is an English singer-songwriter, who was part of punk band The Adverts in the late 1970s. Since then he has fronted other bands, as well as pursuing a solo career.

Early TV Smith shows alongside Tom Robinson and a new album, "March of the Giants", were well received, with 1995's "The Immortal Rich" further upping his profile.

"Thin Green Line" is a four track CD single released in 1995 on Humbug Records by TV Smith and Tom Robinson. This single/EP is long deleted and currently unavailable. The lead track is a new studio recording of the song which originally appeared on "Immortal Rich" (Humbug Records).

"Lion and the lamb" and "Runaway train driver" were recorded live at Jackson's Lane, London, on 21st May 1995. These songs originally appeared on the TV Smith album "March Of The Giants" (Cooking Vinyl).

"Gary Gilmore´s Eyes" is a new studio recording of the famous Adverts single, originally released on Anchor Records in 1977.

TV Smith, Stuttgart, 2008
TV Smith, Stuttgart, 2008




Tracklist:
1 Thin Green Line 3:46
2 Lion And The Lamb 3:40
3 Runaway Train Driver 4:36
4 Gary Gilmore's Eyes 2:14

TV Smith & Tom Robinson - Thin Green Line (1995)
(ca. 192 kbps, cover art included)

Sonntag, 3. Januar 2021

King Tubby ‎– King Tubby's Dub Hits From Studio One And More

King Tubby is to this day synonymous with dub. He was a man who had a passion for fiddling with sound equipment, and turned that passion into a new musical genre and a veritable art form. He may have started his career as a repairman, but before he was done, his name was one of the most respected around the world. He worked with virtually every artist in Jamaica, and his name on a remix was like gold, a seal of quality that was never questioned.

The tracks on this album were recorded at Channel One Recording Studio, mixed by King Tubby and Noel Williams.


Tracklist:

Dub From The Roots 4:51
Exclusiive Dub 3:50
Woman Love To Dub 2:25
Vibrating Dub 2:46
Human Rights Dub 3:33
Assassin Dub 2:46
A Firm Dub 3:40
A Mean Dub 2:37
Cut Through Dub 3:19
10 African Tribe Dub 3:50
11 Pretty Colour Dub 3:45
12 East Man Dub 2:09
13 A Murderous Dub 5:18
14 The Rule Book Of Dub 2:55
15 The Dub Book Of Rules 2:28
16 Stand Firm Dub 2:31
17 A Challenging Dub 3:07
18 The Mighty Conqueror Dub 3:33
19 Isolation Dub 3:27
20 King Tubby Dubs Studio One Rhythm 1:39


King Tubby ‎– King Tubby's Dub Hits From Studio One And More
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Samstag, 2. Januar 2021

Paul-Heinz Dittrich - Engführung nach Texten von Paul Celan (Nova, 1989) - Rest in peace!

The German composer Paul-Heinz Dittrich died in Berlin on December 28, 2020 at the age of 90. He died on Monday in Zeuthen near Berlin, the German Academy of the Arts announced two days ago. With his work he had a decisive influence on modern music history, it was said. He set literature by Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka and Paul Celan to music; the Akademie der Künste describes him as one of the most influential artistic personalities of the past decades

Dittrich studied composition from 1958 to 1960 as a master student with Rudolf Wagner-Regeny. Since 1983 he was a member of the Academy of Arts of the GDR and trained master class students until 1991. Dittrich was considered an important representative of advanced music in the GDR. He set literature by Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, James Joyce, Heiner Müller and especially Paul Celan to music.

He was visiting professor in Freiburg / Breisgau (1979), Los Angeles (1980) and Tel Aviv (1990) as well as at IRCAM Paris (1984). From 1990 to 2002 he was Professor of Composition at the Hanns Eisler Music Academy in Berlin. In 1991 he founded the Brandenburg Colloquium for New Music, which he directed until 2000.


Paul Celan’s parents, German Jews from Bukovina, died in concentration camps. Celan was forced to live in exile, first in a labour camp from which he escaped before finally ending up in Paris where he took his own life in 1970. His often inaccessible poems were inevitably influenced by his own experience during the Nazi era in Germany. As Frank Schneider remarks in his excellent notes, poems such as Todesfuge of 1945 and its companion Engführung of 1958 reflect the atrocities suffered by the Jews in the hells of Nazi concentration camps. Much the same could be said of most of Celan’s verse that has attracted much attention from several present-day composers. Wolfgang Rihm, Aribert Reimann, Paul-Heinz Dittrich and Harrison Birtwistle, to name but a few that come to mind, have set some of Celan’s poems. Dittrich’s Engführung is likely to be among the most substantial works inspired by Celan’s words.

Dittrich set parts of Engführung in his Kammermusik IV (1977). This setting prompted him to consider another setting, but the sheer size of the poem soon made it evident that this would be on a large scale. A commission from the Südwestfunk Orchestra gave him the opportunity to realise his project. Engführung was composed in 1980 and first performed during the Donaueschingen Music Days Festival in October 1981. Sigun von Osten was the soloist and the performance was conducted by Matthias Bamert.

The work is scored for soprano, vocal ensemble (2 sopranos, 1 alto, 1 tenor and 2 basses), instrumental ensemble (violin, cello, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, guitar and piano), orchestra, tape and live-electronics. This is undoubtedly an ambitious and substantial work of some considerable complexity; and it would be idle on my part to go into any details about it structure. Suffice it to say that Celan’s poem has some musical structure of its own (engführung means stretto) with refrains and verbal variations that greatly help maintaining some formal coherence to the whole. The work opens with a prologue sung by the vocal ensemble on words restated later, either literally or in variants, and concluding the poem, though not the work as will be seen later. The various stanzas follow, interspersed with orchestral interludes, most of which are quite short, though the third interlude, occurring halfway in the work and signalling its climax, is a rather weighty orchestral section. The whole setting alternates according to the words and is set to full orchestral accompaniment or to chamber-like ensembles. The vocal parts, generally set in a strongly expressionistic manner, sometimes relies on speech and on pre-recorded material. For the coda to the epilogue, Dittrich chose a late poem written in 1967 commemorating the pre-Fascist murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht heard mostly on tape and progressively silencing the singers and the orchestra. As Schneider again aptly remarks, "what finally comes into the picture is the continuity of active resistance against any form of barbarism, not least against its least conspicuous but most dangerous variant : indifference". Indeed, for all its complexity, Dittrich’s Engführung is a powerfully gripping work of protest. No light stuff, though, but well worth the effort.

Tracklist:
01. Nirgends fragt es nach dir
02. Verbracht ins Gelände
03. Zwischespiel
04. Der Ort, wo sie lagen
05. Jahre, Jahre
06. Zwischenspiel
07. Zum Aug geh
08. Orkane von je
09. Zwischenspiel
10. er, es fiel nicht ns Wort
11. Zwischenspiel
12. Schoß an
13. Zwischenspiel
14. In der Eulenflucht
15. Also stehen noch Tempel
16. Verbracht ins Gelände

(320 kbps, cover art included)