Happy 80th Birthday Willie Nelson! (April 30)

Willie Nelson - "Stardust" (1978) - Columbia

Hello Friends,

Tonight we're celebrating the 80th Birthday of one of America's greatest singer/songwriters, Mr. Willie Nelson.  

With a career that has spanned over 50 years (and still going strong), Nelson is the elder statesman of American music.  In addition to being a legendary songwriter, slick Willie is also an underrated fingerpicker, marijuana enthusiast, author, actor & activist.  Basically, an American icon up there with the likes of Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Johnny Cash & Elvis!

Known primarily as a country artist, Nelson has helped bridge the gap between Country Western music, jazz, folk, gospel and rock.  Along with Cash, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and others he helped define the subgenre of Outlaw Country in order to counteract the more polished "Nashville sound" that permeated mainstream Country music in the late 60's and 70's.

In 1978-- in full outlaw mode-- he released an album of American Standards entitled, Stardust.  Produced by his friend (and neighbor), Booker T. Jones (Booker T. and the MG's), the LP consists of 10 songs done in Nelson's inimitable style.  With his trademark laid back, slightly-behind-the-beat vocals and arrangements that ooze country-soul, Nelson   brings his "A" game to classics like "Stardust", "Blue Skies", "All of Me", "Unchained Melody", "September Song" and "Someone to Watch Over Me". 

"Georgia On My Mind" peaked at #1 on the Country Charts and won Nelson a Grammy.  It doesn't quite surpass Ray Charles's rendition, but it comes close!

With Nelson's quivering vocals, delicately picked acoustic guitar with Booker T.'s quiet rumbling organ, "Moonlight in Vermont" is pretty stunning. 

As Tiki T. says about Nelson's calming and reassuring voice, "They should play this album before people go into surgery to calm them down!"  No doubt with a bourbon-chaser, Tiki!

Happy Birthday Willie!

RATING: 5 Red Headed Strangers out of 5 

The Rum Diaries: Bacardi Gold

Hello friends,

Going back and forth from the tiki bar to the turntable all night long really makes you work up a mean, mean thirst!  

Tonight we're taking a break from record reviews and instead we're focusing our attention on one of the world's most delicious (and misunderstood) libations-- RUM.

Described by Marco Polo in the 14th Century as "very good wine made of sugar", the history of rum is as interesting and complex as the drink itself.  The story of Rum is the story of slavery, of pirates, of Navies, of the New World, of exploration, colonization, capitalism, rebellion and of course, hot, drunk college girls on Spring Break!  

YO HO HO, indeed!

BACARDI GOLD

Distiller: Bacardi
Country: Puerto Rico

Cost: $11.00 
Proof: 80
Size: 750 ml

Description: Light brown Puerto Rican Rum from fermented molasses. 

Ned Tugent says: "Overly sweet, smoky vanilla, hint of tobacco.  Not to be drunk straight, but would make a fine, unassuming mixer. Probably packs a mean hangover. Grade: B-"

Tiki T says: "Oh! I like it!  It almost has a dry sherry quality to it! Grade: B+"

We always prefer small batch rums as opposed to the big, mass-marketed brands.  And it doesn't get much bigger than Bacardi.  Still, its not a terrible rum.  Would obviously work much better as a mixer than as a sipper, plus the good price point would make it an ideal candidate for daiquiris and rum punches. 

RIP Richie Havens

Richie Havens - "Alarm Clock" (1971) - Stormy Forest

Hello Friends,

Richie Havens-- aka the crazy looking black guy with the big stompin' feet that opened the Woodstock music festival-- died this week at age 72.

A folk singer from Brooklyn, NY who emerged in the Greenwich Village 1960's folk revival movement, Richie Havens with his deep, distinctive voice and mad man open strumming style of guitar playing, carved out a nice little niche for himself with fans of soulful folk music.  However, he was most famous for his opening act improvisations at the 1969 Woodstock music festival.

Legend has it that Richie Havens was scheduled to open the festival with a short opening set.  However, due to traffic tie-ups and general disorganization, promoters told Havens to stretch his set out so the audience wouldn't have to sit too long between performers.  Havens then improvised a foot-stompin' tune based on the old spiritual, "Motherless Child" which became one of the festival's most memorable moments and helped put Havens on the map!

Released post-Woodstock, Alarm Clock remains one of the most successful LP's of Havens's five decade career.  Released on his own record label, Stormy Forest, the album consists mostly of Haven guitar-based originals like "To Give Your Love Away", "Younger Men Grow Older", "Girls Don't Run Away", "Some Will Wait" and the title track.  Lots of songs about the passage of time which seemed an appropriate listen after the hearing the news of his passing.  The album will be most remembered for his soulful cover of George Harrison's hit, "Here Comes the Sun" (video after the jump.)  

RIP Richie Havens!

RATING: 4 Younger Men Grow Older Everyday out of 5

Happy Anniversary!

VINYL IN THE VALLEY is celebrating its first birthday today!  

Stay tuned for another year of drunkenness, debauchery and decadence!

And some records!

Record Store Day (April 20, 2013)

Hey kids,

Tomorrow is record store day... get outside and go buy some records!

Jack white said in a press release for RSD, "There's no romance in a mouse click..."

Nicely put!

USA!  USA!  USA!

The One With Kid

The Pretenders - "The Pretenders" (1980) - Sire

Hello Friends,

For some reason, Spring seems to put us in a Pretenders kind of mood and tonight we've got their debut record on the turntable.

Featuring their first single, a cover of the Kinks' song "Stop Your Sobbing" and their first chart-topper, "Brass In Pocket", The Pretenders eponymous record is the perfect balance of punk rock 'tude with big arena rock sounds and production. Raven-haired hottie Chrissie Hynde writes and sings songs with a sneering sexuality that are both radio-friendly and subversive.  Punk rock for the yet-to-be-named MTV Generation.

The manic-sounding "Precious" gets things off to a fast start.  With Hynde's sultry vocals front and center and James Honeyman-Scott's noodling lead guitar providing a gritty counterpoint, the stage is set for one of the defining rock sounds of the 1980's.

"Up the Neck" is a New Wave ballad that sounds like early R.E.M. covering Blondie!

There's a definite Clash influence on "The Wait".

At six and half minutes, "Private Life" is a little meandering.

The heartbreaking ballad, "Lovers of Today" has a nice Beatles/McCartney-esque feel to it (think: "Maybe I'm Amazed").

"Mystery Achievement" sounds like it was a big influence on early U2.

And then there's "Kid"...

Perhaps our all-time favorite Pretenders song!   Its one of those perfect songs... sad & hopeful, nostalgic & haunting.. is it about a prostitute?  Infidelity? A break-up?  All of the above?  Who cares, its awesome, has a great riff and you can dance to it!  Full of grace, you cover your face...  

RATING: 4 Tattooed Love Boys out of 5

Who Sell Out

The Who - "The Who Sell Out" (1967) - Track Records

Hello Friends,

Who doesn't love the Who Sell Out?

Its The Who's third full length record and first attempt at a concept album.   Its not as well known as the trilogy of hugely successful albums that would follow (Tommy, Who's Next & Quadrophenia) but it holds up today as one of their best! 

It follows a very British concept of a fictional off-shore pirate radio station with jingles and commercials inserted between songs.  Such radio stations were all the rage in England in the mid to late 60's and were responsible for the corruption of innumerable youths!

Side One of the record is absolute classic: from the opening epic, "Armenia City in the Sky" to the fierce power chords of the albums only single, "I Can See for Miles."  

Other standout tracks include "Tattoo", "Our Love Was" and "I Can't Reach You".  After this album, the band would turn quite the corner and never look back becoming one of the most popular bands in the world.  

We also love the album cover as well.  If you look closely at Pete Townshend's right hand in the "Odorono" ad, you can see the cuts and scrapes from his constant guitar windmilling!

FUN FACT: Hey kids, did you know the song "Mary Anne With the Shaky Hand" is about a girl who gives great handjobs?  Neat-o!

RATING: 5 Heinz Baked Beans out of 5

Pretenders Deux

The Pretenders - "The Pretenders II" (1981) - Sire

Hello Friends,

We're listening to some early 1980's New Wave courtesy of the Pretenders tonight.  Notable because (a) its the second LP by the Pretenders and (b) the last Pretenders record to feature the original line up of Chrissie Hynde, Pete Farndon (bass), James Honeyman-Scott (guitar) and Martin Chambers (drums).  (By the time Learning To Crawl would be released in 1984, both Farndon and Honeyman-Scott would die of drug overdoses!  Just say No, kids!)

A great album overall, although Tiki T. and I both prefer Learning to Crawl.  

The album's opener-- "The Adultress"-- is one of those Chrissie Hynde as homewrecker/femme fatale songs.  This idea is taken to its extreme on the very next song, "Bad Boys Get Spanked" complete with sneers, grunts and whipping sounds.  Whats not to love about a sexy brunette rock star who likes to get into some rough stuff?

Side One also includes the singles "Message of Love" (like Brigitte Bardot!) and "Talk of the Town", as well as a second great Ray Davies/Kinks cover in as many albums with the lucid "I Go To Sleep"  (Hynde and Davies would have a baby girl together in 1983... Scandalous!)

Also on Side One is the sad and mysterious ballad, "Birds of Paradise" about a childhood romance with jangly, argpeggio guitars and the great lyric:

When I was a little girl

With clay horses and lambs on the shelf

I caught frogs in ditches, listened for elves

Side Two doesn't quite live up to Side One.

"Pack it Up" is a decent punk song; "Waste Not Want Not" is a forgettable reggae-ish tune.  

"Day After Day" is some good pop and if you listen with just the right ears you can hear a little bit of early R.E.M. in there.   

"Jealous Dogs" kind of sucks, however "The English Roses" is pretty amazing.  Some great lyrics and some shredding guitar solos.

"Louie Louie" closes out the album (not the famous Richard Berry/Kingsmen song)-- a horn-laden, dance number with some guitar fills reminiscent of "London Calling".  

Because of the deaths of Farndon and Honeyman-Scott, in retrospect, Pretenders II is a melancholy affair.  Listening to some of the guitar work on the album its really sad to think about what James Honeyman-Scott might have accomplished either in this band or some other one if he just took it easy with the booger sugar!    
  
RATING: 4.5 skies closing on the English roses out of 5