Chevy - The Taker 1980

Although generally associated with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Warwickshire, England, bandChevy really had their roots in '70s hard rock and boogie. As for the players themselves, guitarists Paul Shanahan and Steve Walwyn, bassist Bob Poole, drummer Andy Chaplin, and particularly vocalist/guitarist Martin Cure were rumored to have been active with different bands as early as the late '60s, so that they were clearly veterans by the time their Lynyrd Skynyrd-like, eponymous track found its way into 1980's N.W.O.B.H.M.-derived Metal for Muthas, Vol. 2 compilation. An album calledThe Taker, recorded for the Avatar label, followed later that year, but after embarking on a short tour with Hawkwind and a featuring on BBC's In Concert series, Chevy began floundering. They experienced various internal personnel and external and business difficulties, eventually winding down their activities completely by 1983. AMG.

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Carmen Miranda - The Brazilian Bombshell Best of Carmen Miranda 1998

Sexualized as a caricatured commercial commodity yet also strangely neutered as an ethnic "other" in Technicolor motion pictures, Carmen Miranda did as much as Xavier Cugat to popularize Latin American music in the U.S.A. during the 1940s. Born in Portugal, raised in Rio de Janeiro, Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha became popular in Brazil during the 1930s as a cabaret singer, recording artist, and movie actress. This chronologically arranged Living Era sampler picks up her trail in 1939, when she began making records in the U.S. after successful work on Broadway and the beginnings of an eight-year involvement with 20th Century Fox in Hollywood. Usually accompanied by the Bando da Lua e Garoto, a small authentic Brazilian ensemble, she dishes out genuine Latin American songs, dallies with the occasional pop novelty, and sings "Chattanooga Choo Choo" in Portuguese. This compilation closes with two songs performed in collaboration with the Andrews Sisters in front of Vic Schoen & His Orchestra, a souvenir of Carmen Miranda's 1947 switch from Fox to MGM. She also made pictures with Paramount and was pursuing a career in television when suddenly, while rehearsing with Jimmy Durante on August 5, 1955, she died of a heart attack, an apparent victim of massive and prolonged cocaine abuse. This pleasant retrospective is an excellent introduction to the music of Carmen Miranda. AMG.

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Holly Golightly & The Brokeoff - Dirt Don't Hurt 2008

Brokeoffs (who are actually just one guy named Lawyer Dave), and like the first it delves deep into the backwoods and back roads of American music. Golightly and Lawyer Dave again write most of the songs and draw from the wells of country ("Up Off the Floor" and "Accuse Me"), country blues ("My 45" and "Cluck Old Hen"), electric blues ("I Wanna Hug Ya, Kiss Ya, Squeeze Ya"), and their own unique mash-up of styles ("Three Times Under" and "For All This," the most Golightly-sounding song on the album). The duo has an authentic and tough sound, with Lawyer Dave making the most of a bunch of homemade-sounding percussion and both of them playing some gritty and no-nonsense guitar. They sound is suitably heartbroken and angry on the ballads, but the tracks that hit the hardest are the liveliest, like "Cluck Old Hen," "Gettin' High for Jesus," and "Bottom Below." They also sound better when Golightly is singing either alone or in duet. Lawyer Dave has the kind of gruff and manly voice you'd expect to be singing this kind of music, and it's much more interesting to hear Golightly tackle old-timey stuff with her precise and clear vocals. The duets work for that very reason, too, the uneasy blend of authenticity and outsider coming together to make magic. Dirt Don't Hurt isn't necessarily magical, but it is fun and breezy, as well as a nice addition to Golightly's impressive catalog. AMG.

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Chris Whitley - Rocket House 2001

Anyone who has the balls to combine turntable scratching and trip-hop beats with banjo playing on the same song -- and make it work -- as Chris Whitley does on the Middle Eastern-tinged "To Joy (Revolution of the Innocents)" deserves a collective bow-down to. This unorthodox, textured, and electronic-oriented album opener to Whitley's seventh studio effort, Rocket House, sets the stage for one of the best collections to drop in 2001. Whitley's husky, soulful voice smoothly roams through throaty lows and lofty falsettos in a single sweep and is captivating, to say the least. Meanwhile, all things synthesizer and programming -- keyboards, synth guitars, synth bass, electronic "abstractions" (according to the liner notes), jaw harp, drum machines, samples, and others -- coupled with "traditional" instruments -- guitars, drums, bass, and piano -- and some pretty avant-garde arrangements further launch Rocket House right into the sky. There is plenty to recommend on this impressive collection. "Say Goodbye" is an earnest and moving blues-rock number -- accented with turntable scratching and contemporary sound effects -- marked by Whitley's visceral vocal delivery and a haunting piano. Elsewhere, the title track is entirely infectious and mesmerizing. A simple breakbeat drives organic guitar parts and hypnotic vibe and piano lines. The song ends with a series of instrumental repetitions, which inspires a lingering effect. Some artists unsuccessfully try to do this -- repetition -- and their songs sound painfully boring. But this is not the case with Whitley; "Rocket House," with each closing verse that pulses on, captivates listeners even more; you're still "in" the song way after it's done. "Serve You," in its haunting simplicity, is one of the most seductive songs ever recorded. Whitley's husky voice is layered over moody, dark tones, strategically random (!) synth chords, and a lone rim-shot line. The chorus, "Some day I will serve you/some day," co-sung with daughter Trixie Whitley, repeats throughout, and the effect is simply hypnotic. This song -- much like the rest of the album -- is like a drug, mind-altering. An impressive roster of musicians -- producerTony Mangurian, DJ Logic, Dave Matthews, and Bruce Hornsby -- guest on Rocket House. For the uninitiated -- and if you are, you should change this status immediately -- Whitley's voice is reminiscent of Jeff Healy, Joe Cocker, and Shawn Mullins in its bluesy soul style. Rocket House is an out-of-body experience, and that just doesn't happen too often these days. Get this album and prepare for takeoff to a place that is like no other. AMG.

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Damaged Tape - Psychedelic Anthropology 2009

Reaching through the vapors of time, we at the Psychedelic Garage have attempted to electronically recreate the mysterious sounds of lost civilizations with the help of our cutting-edge technology. Listen to our quantum aural documents of the medieval European dream of Priester John, Plato's vision of the sunken Atlantis, and beyond the utopian veil of Xanadu. Let the music of prefabricated history wash over your mind.

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Cache Valley Drifters - Set Up to Big Pay 1980

An outgrowth of informal picking sessions, the Cache Valley Drifters continue to bring a modern outlook to bluegrass and country music. Although they disbanded for more than a decade, between 1979 and 1992, the group has been steadily making up for lost time. Their performances are as likely to include bluegrass-ized interpretations of songs by Paul Simon, Leon Russell, and Cream as they are to feature tunes by the late country folksinger Kate Wolf or traditional hill country material. TheCache Valley Drifters' association with Wolf is natural considering that the band's longest-standing member, Bill Griffin, toured with her backup band and produced her last recordings. Griffin had previously been a sideman on albums by Earl Robinson, Pete Seeger, and Odetta and a series of national radio spots with the late Burl Ives. Mike Mullins was added to the Cache Valley Drifters in 1992 and plays guitar and mandolin and sings with the group. The brother of banjo player Tim Mullins, who played with the band from 1972 to 1973, Mike has been active in acoustic music since the 1980s when he played guitar in the Phil Salazar Band. In 1990, Mullins joined with ex-Cache Valley Driftersmember Cyrus Clarke to form the Acousticats. Bassist/vocalist Wally Barnick, who played with theCache Valley Drifters from 1975 until 1979, has worked with the group since their re-formation. Building an early reputation for their rich vocal harmonies and virtuosic musicianship, the Cache Valley Drifters were encouraged by the support they received from bluegrass guitarist Dan Crary, who helped them secure their first recording contract. Their self-titled debut album was released in 1978. AMG.

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Grupo Fantasma - Movimiento Popular 2004

An Austin-based collective wholeheartedly devoted to the cumbia beat, Grupo Fantasma aren't nearly as retro-minded as one might expect. For one thing, any band with a full-time DJ and a Jamaican-style toaster is clearly not going the traditional Latin American route. However, the band introduce their stylistic changeups neatly within the context of fairly traditional Latin American dance music; as a result, the reggae-style toasting and ska horns of the opening track, "Peligrosa," don't sound as if they were stuck in willy-nilly, but instead integrate nearly into the music's sultry rhythmic throb. Rock, funk, Afro-Cuban, and straightforward pop influences also percolate through these tunes, and occasional guest appearances (most notably Ruben Ramos of fellow Austinites los Super Seven, who sings a commanding lead on the traditional "Oye Mi Cumbia") don't detract from the band's communal vibe.Movimiento Popular is likely going to be as appealing to jam band fans who like their music loose and groove-oriented enough to noodle-dance to as it is to fans of traditional Latin music, if not more so; however, it feels much more like an honest expansion of the style's parameters than a tacky sellout move. AMG.

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The War On Drugs - Slave Ambient 2011

On their third album, the War on Drugs essentially continue to stake out their own particular patch of ground in 21st century rock & roll with an indie bent, nodding in equal parts toward older traditions and newer ones with a difference of two decades in between them, captured right down to the cover art, which is pretty much a companion piece to the art on their second album Future Weather. On the one hand, there's still a sense of world-weary wisdom and lost Americana as such at work from the start, as the extended breakdown toward the end of "Best Night" demonstrates, all silvery guitar jamming and sparkling piano following from Adam Granduciel's reedy singing. At the same time the diffuse qualities of feedback, psychedelic glaze, and textural experimentation via everything that fed into what became shoegaze (not to mention shoegaze itself) remain key, audible in the opening chimes of "Brothers" and "It's Your Destiny"'s spaced-out and exultant flow, perhaps most notably on the short instrumentals "Original Slave" and "Come for It." If the basic balance remains unchanged, the result has been a sound just enough of the War on Drugs' own as a result, which gets stronger and even more droned out and powerful as the album continues. More than once they find just the right way to make it all click into something even more distinct, like the higher-pitched croon on "I Was There" slipping out over a gentle chug underpinned by darker feedback shadings or the Motorik-as-classic-rock-anthem "Come to the City," which practically begs a massive arena/light show performance (little surprise the later instrumental "City Reprise #12" takes that feeling and runs with it even more triumphantly). "Your Love Is Calling My Name" is the album's clearest barnburner, with a brisk, sharp pace and Granduciel riding-the-freeway-referencing lyrics with an appropriate easygoing elan, all while feeling warm and enveloping around the edges (and especially on the great instrumental break leading back into a wonderful, focused guitar part). AMG.

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Dr. John - Anutha Zone 1998

Dr. John has spent so much time turning out perfectly enjoyable but interchangeable records that it may be easy to forget the spooky voodoo vibes of his earliest, arguably best, records. He may have forgotten it himself, too, but there was a whole generation of British musicians, from Modfather Paul Weller to Spaceman Jason Pierce to the teenaged punks in Supergrass, who remembered the haunted vibe lurking in Gumbo and Gris-Gris. Citing his name in interviews, covering his songs, and enlisting him as a session musician (Mr. Rebennack played on Spiritualized's acclaimed 1997 album, Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space), they created a buzz around Dr. John and were more than willing to play on Anutha Zone, hopefully generating some sales for him in return. As should be expected from any project that is a marketer's dream, the collaborations occasionally seem awkward, but what is surprising is how often it works. Pierce helps Rebennack conjure the psychedelic R&B of his earlier albums, while Weller and Supergrass help keep things cooking; furthermore, members of Primal Scream and Portishead help make "Sweet Home New Orleans" a titanic workout. The Brits aren't as funky as the classic New Orleans musicians, but they are willing to push Dr. John into his best work in years. Anutha Zone isn't a perfect album by any means, but it'sRebennack's most ambitious and rewarding album in many a year. AMG.

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Greg Lake - Manoeuvres 1983

Manouevres was released in 1983 as the follow-up to Greg Lake's 1981 self-titled debut album. His core group of musicians (Gary Moore, Tristam Margetts, Tommy Eyre, and Ted McKenna) is still present, but Manoeuvres is a different sort of album than the '81 effort. The heavy, gritty, guitar-driven feel of the previous record is not quite as evident and this seems a more restrained album. Many, Greg Lake included, tend to sell this album short and that is a mistake. Perhaps sales were discouraging, but this is a well-crafted, well-performed album on which Lake seems to rely more on melody than he did in 1981. A few of the heavier numbers, such as the title track, are reminiscent of '81, but it is on the ballads that the album goes its own way. Lake shows why, through all of powerful and complex music of the ELP years, it was the ballads which always seemed to fair best commercially. He writes a good song like very few can, and the fact that he delivers every song with such fantastic vocal ability makes this album succeed. Definitely worth a second listen, Manoeuvres is more than it seems on the surface. AMG.

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Graham Nash - Earth & Sky 1980

After a seven-year hiatus, Graham Nash returned to his solo career on Earth & Sky. While much of the material may have originated as an on-again/off-again collaboration with David Crosby (guitar/vocals), by the time the LP hit the racks in 1980 there were only traces of Crosby's input scattered throughout. One primary contribution highlighting the pair is the organic and acoustic "Out on the Island," and is likewise one of the best sides of the effort. In support of Nash is an all-star ensemble centering on the infamous "Mighty Jitters": Russ Kunkel (drums/percussion), Tim Drummond (bass), Danny "Kootch" Kortchmar (guitars), David Lindley (guitar/violin/vocals), and Craig Doerge (keyboards). The opening title cut, "Earth & Sky" has the earmark of a mid-tempo Jackson Browne rocker and boasts a tasty guitar lead from Joe Walsh. "Love Has Come" and the heartfelt "Magical Child" are among Nash's more poignant ballads and both seem to reflect the artist's personal contentment as a family man, which is a decidedly different vibe from his earlier works like "Strangers Room" or "Sleep Song." "Magical Child" also became one of Nash's performance staples in the early- to mid-'80s. Crosby, Stills & Nash similarly adopted the socially and politically topical "Barrel of Pain (Half-Life)" in concert. The tune is a brooding and foreboding rocker that speaks directly to the issue of nuclear waste being unceremoniously dumped right off the coast of the Bay Area near the Farallon Islands. Clocking in at under two minutes, "T.V. Guide" is a minor-chord classic tale of "Big Brother" paranoia, and features orchestration from co-author Joe Vitale. AMG.

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Bobby & The Midnites - Bobby & The Midnites 1981

Bobby & the Midnites seemed to offer Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir an opportunity to pursue the more conventionally accessible pop/rock style he had first demonstrated a taste for in his '70s solo albums Ace and especially Heaven Help the Fool. With the exception of a couple of reggae numbers,the Midnites' debut album found Weir playing straight-ahead guitar rock songs with mostly lovelorn lyrics, the only real ringer in the bunch being jazz drummer Billy Cobham, who seemed capable of hitting as many drums per bar as Keith Moon, and with far more control. But Weir's earnest, husky voice and off-center guitar playing did not make for a slick pop approach, and the album came off as a collection of half-baked wannabe-hits from someone who had spent his career finding success by avoiding just such a style. AMG.

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