as we head towards the midpoint of the summer, here are a few things that i have been listening to that may potentially be suitable to sonically adorn any post solstice activities you may be contemplating.

ray lamontagne – ‘monovision

his best release in years, this one takes him back to the strengths that drew me to him in the first place – organic, soulful songs that pay homage to some artists we like in common. ‘misty morning rain’ has an ‘astral weeks’ feel to it, and the opening to ‘rocky mountain healin’ will remind listeners of neil young’s ‘long may you run’. ray produced, engineered, wrote and played everything. at first i felt it might have limited the spontaneity of it, but repeated listenings have changed my mind.

 

blackberry smoke – ‘live from capricorn studios’

the legendary capricorn studios in macon georgia were recently totally restored to it’s original configuration. at one point in the mid seventies nearly every important southern rock band laid some tracks down there, including a local band that made it big, the allman brothers. here blackberry smoke pays tribute to some of them by covering six tracks with some guests. also comes with a dvd. all proceeds go to a covid fund that benefits musicians and venues. here is a classic from wet willie, with jimmie hall on lead vocals:

 

corb lund – ‘agricultural tragic’

i first heard of this guy when hayes carll played one of their cowritten songs at the last show i saw of him. outstanding songwriter – clever, authentic,  and often quite humorous.

 

sarah jarosz – ‘world on the ground’

if you follow modern bluegrass at all, you likely know of sarah. she is an extremely talented multi instrumentalist, one of the best clawhammer banjo players on the planet. she also happens to be an extremely good songwriter, and it is the latter that is on display here. legendary producer and musician jon leventhal collaborates with her on this one, and what we get is a ten song cycle of character sketches, most of them slower paced. this goes well with a glass of wine at the end of a quiet evening.

 

neil young – ‘homegrown’

another one of neil’s ‘lost’ albums, this one was mostly recorded in 1974, and was supposed to follow ‘on the beach’. but much of the material was about his relationship with actress carrie snodgrass, and that was deteriorating at the time. neil reportedly found it too painful to finish the project and released ‘tonight’s the night’ instead. neil fans will recognize ‘love is a rose’ and ‘star of bethlehem’, which were eventually issued on his ‘decades’ greatest hits album. they may also recognize ‘white line’ by the crazy horse version off of ‘ragged glory’. here it is presented as a duet with robbie robertson.  there are a couple of clunkers in here, but the serious neil fan will want to check this out.

 

jerry garcia band – ‘garcialive volume 13’

when the e street band wasn’t touring, clarence clemons would often hang out on the west coast and jam around. he played a few times with the dead, and he and jerry struck up a friendship, not only musically but personally. in 1989 jerry convinced him to tour with his band, and here we have a complete sample of that tour. the unlikely pairing clearly enjoy the format, and they push each other to the limit. i can’t point to a song from this show that approaches mediocrity. the soloing gets a little over the top sometimes as the try to outdo each other. but most of the time there is magic, and the interplay near the end of ‘dear prudence’ is just simply beautiful. a good choice for the saturday afternoon cornhole session.

what are you listening to?