merl saunders and jerry garcia at the keystone july 10th and 11th, 1973

This is fast becoming one of my top solo Garcia recordings. Recorded over two nights at a dive bar in Frisco in July of 1973, it captures Jerry in what I consider to be the creative peak of his career. Taking a break from a tremendous run with the Dead and the release of the Europe 72 album, he was simultaneously playing with Merl at the bars, and also touring with the bluegrass band Old and In the Way (Grisman plays on a Dylan tune here). Merl takes Jerry on totally different tangents than most fans would expect at the time, introducing him to old standards like My Funny Valentine, Motown bits, a little Elvis, Jimmy Cliff reggae, and of course letting Jerry pay his homage to Dylan. The Bob has often stated that he thought Garcia was one of the best interpreters of his music, and there may be no better example of this than his version here below of Positively Fourth Street (Dawg on mandolin). There is a not a single a Grateful Dead song on all four discs. A handful of songs are duplicated in the two shows here, but it is a minor quibble. The playing is excellent and inspired, and it is clear they are there for the sheer joy of just letting it air out. Betty Cantor was at the recording helm, and it is evident. The sound is clean and crisp. Listen up.

Here they tear up Mystery Train:

You may never hear Jerry sing better than this;

Mark Knopfler – ‘Tracker’

If you have heard a Dire Straits song lately and wondered whatever happened to them, then you may not be aware that their songwriter and main musical driver was Mark Knopfler, and that he has been still making great music for the past three decades. If you want to get reintroduced to his career, this is a great place to start. He always was a great songwriter, but he gets better with age. A collection of songs of real and imagined characters, riding on top of a musical bed utilizing his old Dire Straits building blocks, infused with celtic influences. A fairly eclectic mix of approaches, this album is like a well fitting sweater from your closet that never really goes out of style, always feels comfortable when you slip it on, and makes you appreciate it’s composition and simplicity. This is a good pickup for your summer playlist.

Here is a long form video where he walks through the construction of most of the tracks:

tell me this couldn’t have been mistaken for a track on the straits’ first three albums:

big easy express

if you have any interest in mumford and sons, old crow medicine show, and/or edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros, then you must see this. very well done. i can’t stop finding it watchable.

old crow medicine show wagon wheel big easy express

official launch

welcome to my new website. i hope you enjoy it. my sole purpose for building this site is to share things from the music world that i have found to be worth a look. i will be reviewing and commenting on new releases, dvds, old classics, and other content. please consider following me and sharing with others if you like it.

in case you were wondering where the name comes from, here is a song that should provide a clue:

brown eyed women, dave’s picks vol. 9:

also see the bottom of the page for more information.

mark

Ryan Bingham Fear and Saturday Night

Newest release from a solid songwriter from Texas.

When Ryan Bingham released his first album, Mescalito, at the age of 26, he already sang with the grizzled grit of someone twice his age. He’d spent the previous decade living in his truck, competing in a string of southwestern rodeos to help pay for gas. His parents were alcoholics. His friends were bull-riders. The whole thing sounded like a country song, which was one of the reasons Bingham’s biographical songs — which hitched themselves to mid-tempo grooves on Mescalito, then rocketed their way toward roadhouse-worthy rock & roll territory on his second release, Roadhouse Sun — packed such a natural, nuanced punch. He wasn’t some suburban kid dressed up in outlaw threads. Dude was the real deal.

Years later, Bingham — now a Grammy and Oscar-winning, thirty-something adult, with four studio albums and the critically adored Crazy Heart soundtrack under his belt — is prepping another release. Fear and Saturday Night hits stores on January 20, 2015. Bingham wrote most of the album’s 12 tracks alone in an airstream trailer, parked in the mountains of California without electricity or cell phones. The seclusion gave him creative clarity that resulted in songs inspired by an unstable childhood, and by the deaths of his mother to alcoholism and father to suicide.

Bingham recorded most of the album live, with a brand new band whose lineup includes two members of the blues-rock outfit Rose Hill Drive. Jim Scott, who engineered Tom Petty’sWildflowers and co-produced Wilco’s Wilco (The Album), produced the sessions.