Songs For a Wintery Saturday

Lyrics from both of these songs were quoted today in Water Dissolves Water, the main blog. 

Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights?

Is January 30 (Structures of Earth, 30th Day of Childwinter) too early to proclaim an AOTY? Follow-up question: is the the greatest hurdy-gurdy album ever?   

Taper's Choice

Dilemma: Taper's Choice or Medeski, Martin, Metzger & Cline on the inaugural Thursday night of Big Ears 2026? Or try to squeeze in both by leaving one early and arriving at the other late? To make it even more complicated, there's also a Marc Ribot/Mary Halvorsen set on the same night.  

Red

What does it sound like when a classically trained bass clarinetist and a new classical ensemble collaborate to interpret the music of Robert Fripp? Here's Evan Ziporyn and ContaQt with the answer.

Natural Snow Buildings

Waves of the Random Sea (2011). Sounds of a random choice. 

Associative Dissonance

Yesterday, as you no doubt know, the New England Patriots defeated the Houston Texans in an AFC Divisional game. Fuck those guys, and by "those guys" I mean the Texans, C.J. (Oops, I Did It Again) Stroud, and their whole team.

But thinking about the game got me to thinking about Houston, and to wondering if there was any good music out of Houston other than the peckerwood, honky-tonk, urban cowboy country-and-western for which they're so famous. Being an older gentleman myself, that got me to remembering "Archie Bell & the Drells of Houston, Texas,"  who dance just as good as they walk and boasted that "in Houston, we've just started a new dance called the Tighten Up."

Upon closer listening, the song is actually better than I remembered, and I had forgotten the syncopated hand claps toward the end, 4/4 rhythm with the emphasis on the 2s and 4s. Which got me to wondering, were the claps in 1968's Tighten Up the inspiration for the handclaps in Miles Davis' 1972 Black Satin? Listening  to the two tracks 50 years later, although the songs are radically different, the hand claps certainly sound similar, and in 1972, Miles was trying to catch the interest of a younger audience. 

Anyhow, that's how my monkey mind words, swinging from one thought to the next, from sports to Texas cities to 60's soul and funk to Miles Davis.

Santana

Mr. Peabody, set the needle on the Way-Back Machine to 1969 for this performance of Soul Sacrifice by Santana. 

Random post, but the tune came up in my listening today, and just about screamed "post me today!" So I did. Hopeulikit, Georgia.