Soul Stories

The Soul That Saved Me…

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“These are BABY records”

So declared my 11-year-old stepbrother to my 10-year-old self as he thumbed through my meagre record collection in my blue shag-carpeted bedroom many years ago. And he had a point I suppose. My favorite albums at the time were most certainly the soundtracks to Disney’s Bedknobs & Broomsticks and The Aristocats with Free to be You and Me running a close third. I was instantly humiliated but I had to attempt some kind of defense. And so I fired back with “Well what records do YOU have ?”, trying to take the focus off me, now officially the baby. “Chicago and Elton John…” he smugly declared.  I ingeniously/pathetically followed up with “Oh…so uh what’s your favorite song? “. He sneered and said “Butterflies are Free“. Okay. What he’d meant to say was “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” (Elton John). That “butterflies” line is just a repeated refrain in the song that even with my limited knowledge of pop music at the time, was well known to me, since it was always on the radio…but I didn’t have the guts to correct him since I’d already lost the larger battle ( I will now: it’s called “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” asshole, duh). He then laugh snorted defiantly as he spotted my worn and obviously played to death Sesame Street “Original Cast” lp. Great.

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“This is the greatest album of all-time” – direct quote from a 10 year baby

That little interaction made a huge impression on me (in a bad way) but it changed nothing. I liked what I liked and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t fight it. While I listened to the radio and was aware of pop music names and songs ( see Elton reference above !), my knowledge was gleaned solely from being a passenger in my Mom’s car and just being captive to whatever she had on. And sadly I gravitated toward the questionable : Sammy Davis Jr.’s “The Candy Man” is the first song I ever remember loving and…I still love it. Leave me alone.

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I swear this record was sprinkled with love and made the world taste good…

To the modern youth of today it would appear I was in a state of arrested development, 10-years-old and the top records in my rotation and consciousness were, okay one more time, baby records. That was true…but the tide was about to turn. There was something stirring in my blood just waiting to be woken up. And it did suddenly and unexpectedly in the aforementioned back seat of the car on the way to the supermarket which is when I first heard “Nothing From Nothing” by Billy Preston. Billy Preston was a child piano prodigy, whose skills and reputation grew as he did, to the point where he was backing everyone from Little Richard to Sam Cooke, and led to his becoming, literally, the fifth Beatle during their tumultuous latter years of existence ( that’s him on the organ in “Let It Be” and the electric keys on “Get Back”). I knew none of this at the time and it wouldn’t have meant a damn thing to me even if I had. All I knew was “Nothing from Nothing” ruled. I liked the banging piano riff, the chorus, the bounce of the whole thing. Here’s Billy faking it (lip-synching) and shaking it on Soul Train:


And so began my first step into musical adulthood : “Mom, can you get me the Billy Preston album with “Nothing From Nothing” on it “? And so on my birthday, she did ( you rule too Mom), and I finally came of musical age.

First impressions of The Kids & Me album, home to my beloved “Nothing…”  : That cover ( see at top ). Billy’s laughing face. His glowing ring. The mysterious paper he’s looking at. The peace loving kids. Honestly it’s still one of my favorite sleeves of all-time. As for the record itself well,uh… it was slick and funky and fun but if I’m being honest it was really home to only one killer (“Nothing”) and a whole lotta filler. Plus there was one song on it that gave me the genuine creeps. It was called “John the Baptist” and joyfully mentioned Jesus and baptism which I sensed as a Jewish kid (albeit an “un-practicing” one) that I probably shouldn’t be bending an ear to. See, religious things scared me and this John the Baptist guy seemed like some kind of boogeyman who was trying to get me and if I played the song, he ultimately would. I would run to the turntable to skip it every time it came on. I wish I could explain this, but like some imaginary monster in the closet, there was no logical reasoning that could be applied.

Still, once Billy entered my life, the ‘baby record years’ ended. Billy had thrown a ladder down to me and I climbed up and never looked back (well mostly, like I mentioned, I still love “Candy Man” and it’s something I just have to live with). AM radio, Soul Train, Creem Magazine, Casey Kasem’s Top 40 and The Beatles, well Billy kind of took my hand and led me down that thrilling pop hallway.

As for the man himself, after the Kids… album, he remained in demand as a session musician, most prominently with the Stones, while continuing to pursue a solo career. He went on to have a huge hit in 1979 with Syreeta called “With You I’m Born Again” which as love ballads go is oddly mournful but remains an unerringly lovely thing.

Sadly Billy passed away in 2006 at the too young age of 59 ( as did beautiful Syreeta, his duet partner on “Born” and a wonderful artist in her own right, in 2004 at 57). He had some well-documented troubles and personal challenges but I’m not going to recount all that here, just know the deeper story is out there if you are interested in knowing more about his life.

“Nothing from Nothing” is still a fun and funky song but I rarely put it on. And though I’d like to say Kids… is one of my favorite albums of all-time, it’s not….but then neither are The Aristocats or Bedknobs, or Free to Be. Still, Billy will always have a special place in my heart: he ushered me into the pop/soul/everything musical universe and yeah, truth be told, helped my ears to finally grow up….and so eternal thanks Billy, gonna end this with a little fire…

Soul Stories

Soul Unhinged : The Art of “Melisma”

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At some point in the very late ’80s, a vocal plague spread across R & B and pop music. The name of this affliction was “Melisma”. “Melisma” is of course defined as singing a single syllable of text while moving between several notes. And while Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, two outrageously gifted singers, were the initial purveyors, to these ears Boys II Men were the real starting point as far as spreading the plague, the true guilty party ( “Motownphilly” excepted, because shit, who doesn’t love “Motownphilly”). Anyway, they employed the technique on literally every track they released, and once they hit it big, that was it. It was the signal for every up and coming R & B group to feature ” the Melisma” on what felt like every single song on the radio. Screw economy and grace, gratuitous vocal runs became the norm. And people loved it. “I Will Always Love You”, “What A Girl Wants” and of course the Boyz/Mariah collaboration “One Sweet Day” ( and an interminable number of others) were all beyond massive hits. The standard was set forever. The pop delicacy of a Mary Wells vocal, like the kind you’d hear on “My Guy” was instantly an artifact from a bygone era.

The style reached it’s peak of manifestation on American Idol, and a little bit later, on The Voice, and continues to fester to this day, generally in the most predictable, immaculately produced, and technically manipulated ways. Now I know this all sounds very “get off my lawn” but I honestly don’t hate “Melisma”, it’s just that this slick, show-offy version of it feels like just that . The only thing I can liken it to is a painting that looks just like a photograph: it becomes all about technique and not so much about content, which makes the art feel kind of empty…the fact is “Melisma” coupled with unbridled, unrefined, imperfect emotion can make for some amazing, spiritual, mind blowing listening. Let’s go back in time for a minute….

Linda Jones was both Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight’s favorite singer. Linda’s recording career was short, running from 1964 to 1972, when she unexpectedly passed away at the far too young age of 27. Within that time, she achieved only middling success ( couple of hits on the R & B charts in the late sixties , the biggest being “Hypnotized”, which was also top 20 on the Billboard pop chart). While she never made what would be considered a classic album within that time, she did kick out some incredible singular songs that positively beggar belief. As in, the vocal performances were nuts. Listen to this insanity :

I know, that thing should come with a warning attached. In less than four minutes Linda has crushed the entire earth into a dust-like powder. I’ll be honest, the first time I heard this, it made me laugh because it was just soooo over the top…but I immediately loved it, because it felt lived. You believe Linda. That’s “Melisma” in the hands of a master. That’s technique and content in one giant heart-shaped mass.

Then there’s this. McKinley Mitchell’s vocal on “Town I Live in” starts oh so sweetly, full of longing, and lonely love…but then about halfway through it turns into this raw, raspy, desperate monster and obliterates everything in it’s path. It happens so suddenly, and jarringly it’s like being woken up from a deep sleep by someone throwing cold water on your face.  This song was recorded in freakin’ 1962, and still sounds weird and off kilter in 2018: a perfect marriage of rough and smooth that transcends time. Check it out:

I know. It’s nuts right? 19-freakin-62.

Screw the visuals. These were records. And yes, in some way the relics of a bygone era…but lord, aren’t they beautiful ? Has anything on The Voice/Idol ever come near these ? Okay “East Coast Family”, as you were….

Johann Johannsson

Johann Johannsson 1969-2018

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I discovered Johann Johannsson by complete accident. It was 2008, and I was working in the buying department at Virgin Megastore in New York City. We’d just gotten the usual box of promotional cds, and forthcoming releases. And I did the usual thing, putting them on one after the other, mechanically listening for anything with sales potential and all that. One of those cds was Johann’s Fordlandia. It blew my mind. It obliterated everything I’d played before it. It was classical, but it wasn’t classical music. It was as melodic as pop, but it wasn’t pop music. All I knew was that I couldn’t wait to get it home and hear it on headphones.

I excitedly told my co-worker Marvin about this new discovery and upon hearing it, he too became completely obsessed . We soon embarked on a mission to hear/own everything Johann had released; it was absolute love. And so when his first U.S. tour was announced in 2009, including a date at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC, we had no choice: we had to be there.

It was June 25, 2009, a gloomy, rain-sodden and humid evening. While standing in line to get in, to finally see Johann, the door guy offhandedly mentioned to me that Michael Jackson had died. This was staggering and shocking, and at that moment impossible to fully absorb. And now I was about to go into this dark room and hear Johann Johannsson play some of the saddest, most epic music on the planet. Music, that more often than not, I’d tended to use to soundtrack the darkest of times.

It was a pretty weird emotional experience. Thinking about Michael, and my own internal rubbish simultaneously while listening to this otherworldly sound.

The show was brilliant and just cemented how important Johann and his music were going to be to me, for what I knew would be a long time to come.

Marvin and I were now officially “fan girl & boy” keeping tabs on releases and collecting Johann catalogue in all formats. And in keeping with our mania, went to see him again at LPR in 2010. In the lobby was a small merch table. And in the empty lobby, behind the merch table was Johann himself. Looking shy and unassuming. There he was trying to make change for me after I’d bought a cd. “You know I’m going to ask you to sign this now”, I smiled at him, and again he shyly smiled back and obliged. And then he went onstage and conducted and played the most beautiful and heart-wrenching music you’re ever going to hear.

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I only realize now how fortunate we were to experience him at that time in such a small place.

And so Johann died today. Only 48 years old. And I’m writing this only having heard about it like 20 minutes ago. Just crying…because this guy was such a genius and so incredibly gifted, and created music that’ll be beautiful for as long as the earth is turning.

There’s so much to recommend but for the sake of brevity, wanted to share a little homemade “best of” playlist below to get you better acquainted if you haven’t explored his work. It’s pretty subjective of course, as in it doesn’t feature any of the mega film soundtracks Johann has done over the past few years, but I think it’s his best stuff; it will all take you somewhere far away. What a genius.

 

Soul Stories, When You Hear This Song: Love Letters to Special Songs by Special Guests

When You Hear This Song : “Hey There Lonely Girl”

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Andy Moreno talks on the song that saved her soul and everything else, Eddie Holman’s 1969 classic Hey There Lonely Girl.

As a pre-tween heading into what I could only imagine at the time as a very bleak future, I fantasized romantic notions of suicide or dying a tragic death.  Not all the time but too often, and these thoughts became an ongoing comfort food for my mind, to help me move through dim periods.  It doesn’t sound healthy now but I argue that in a sad way, it was a clever use of the tools in my box.  While I completely embraced the highs and beauty of most music, I probably stayed much too long swimming in darker sounds. Because of this though, I did gain a huge appreciation for the power of a single song, of how a chord change or vocal intonation could change the room, and thereby my entire world.

Before I became entrenched in the wailing rock guitars of the 70’s, I synched cosmically with the soul music that saturated Midwest radio. All their sad, orchestral chords and falsetto voices, where old souls like mine could find respite. The Chi-lites. The Delfonics. The Motown Sound. A playground for a young girl’s melancholy.  Love songs to my own already weakened spirit. And I distinctly remember listening to Eddie Holman’s “Hey There Lonely Girl”. Maybe that was the first time I fully understood the scope and depth of a song’s reach. It took me years to develop an intelligent understanding of lyrics and meanings of songs and at that age, honestly, I could only feel them as a whole, the mood a certain one could bring, how it could put a salve right on the wound or drive a dagger in it.

The introduction to that song was such a bare and gentle stage to place my emptiness.  And this kind stranger promising to make it all better.  It’s a little deep for a kid but goes to show just how resilient and rooted we are as humans.

The new feelings these sweet soul songs ignited made me feel so much more alive than I was able to muster on my own. “Lonely Girl” broke the numbness and from that point on I became addicted. This music was so powerful. It had the ability to move me up or down and I would never forget or ignore that.

I won’t say I came out the other end of a depressed youth. I reside more in a side door alcove.  The main thing is I stay among the living and no longer glamorize destruction of any sort. The good life that music feeds me is one of the main reasons I choose to keep on keepin’ on to this day.

Prince!, When You Hear This Song: Love Letters to Special Songs by Special Guests

When You Hear This Song: “I Would Die 4 U” by Prince (1984)

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“I’m not a woman, I’m not a man, I am something that you’ll never understand”

Okay, I think that’s one of the best opening lines of any pop song ever. Up until I heard Prince sing those words in 1984, I’d been convinced that Morrissey was the only person who really and truly understood me. I even wrote him and told him so ( still waiting for a response). This song changed all that.

I didn’t really get into Prince until the 1999 album came out which, as hardcore fans go, is kinda late. At the time I had a secret crush on this guy I went to school, a talented, pretty-eyed artist named Manuel. I would daydream about him for hours on the train every day while my 1999 cassette played in an endless loop on my Walkman…or at least I did for a little while, until I had my epiphany. Well, not a sudden one, maybe it was more of a realization over time, which was that my affection for him was solely based on his slight resemblance to Prince in the “Little Red Corvette” video. Why was I wasting time on the middle man (Manuel) when it was Prince I was actually in love with ?

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“You were only fooling yourself girl…”

 And so pretty soon, upon that inner acknowledgment, it was all about Prince and I wanted more. When the release of Purple Rain was announced a year later, both album and movie, I could, not, wait.

“When Doves Cry” was the first single released off the album and…I didn’t like it. I know, I know, I have no excuse for myself other than to say I’d grown up listening to ELO records and wasn’t “sophisticated” enough to appreciate its genius at the time. What I liked was big swooping synthesizers, a lot of big orchestral junk, and whale sized hooks and…that was it. ELO provided that plus cardboard spaceships inside the albums.

Of course as it turned out, Prince had something up his sleeve.

I bought the album the week it came out and for some inexplicable reason, never removed the shrink wrap, I just opened the slit to remove the record. And tragically there it remains to this day, hanging desperately off the sleeve, baggy, wrinkled and distended, being kept alive for no other reason than “well I’ve had it this long why get rid of it now”.

And yes, the record store was actually called “Slipped Disc”.

See Photo Exhibit A below :

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 Let go, and let God…no,no, I just can’t.

The Song: On side 2, right after Doves it appeared. Layers of big fat synth. A radiant hook. And the lyrics, oh man. “I Would Die 4 U” dammit. I loved everything about it. It did all those things a brilliant song is supposed to do, made you feel overwhelmed, exposed, sick and like you were starring in your own epic movie…and maybe made you feel like you were actually cool because it made all your desperate thoughts sound positively valiant and beautiful. It ticked all the boxes and I played it over and over and over again.

The Words: There are 2 ways you can interpret the lyrical content, as in it’s either Prince talking or it’s, well you know, “Him”, Jesus…of course with any genius pop song, it’s your voice too ( in this case it’s you at your most histrionic, self-important, and love consumed). I’d like to say something noble like I always hear it as Jesus’s voice, but no…It’s only ever Prince or uh, me.

The Movie: “Someone” was very excited to see Purple Rain, so much so that “someone” insisted on seeing it the day it was released at a theater some distance from their town. I went with a friend, and no expectations to that first afternoon showing and from the moment Prince mounted that motorcycle in his heels, I was with him. I felt an ecstatic energy in me every time a song started. When people laughed at some scenes that were clearly not meant to be funny, I took it personally, felt protective of him, thought “God, what is wrong with you people”. He wasn’t a joke, they just didn’t get it; “I am something that you’ll never comprehend”.

Yes. I really thought this. I know.

Anyway, how much did I love the movie ? Well I went to see it again the next day alone.

Our union was sealed ( Prince and me).

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April 2016: The first weekend after Prince died, screenings of Purple Rain were scheduled all over the U.S. I bought tickets thinking it would be the perfect way to mourn with other Prince fans. I pictured scenes akin to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with everyone singing, reciting dialogue affectionately back to the screen and spontaneously dancing in the aisles to “Let’s Go Crazy”…but it wasn’t like that. Not at all. Apart from some brief laughter during the early scene where Prince sidles up behind Apollonia, in his giant fly sunglasses and plays hard to get, it was a pretty somber event.

And 2 things were abundantly clear since I’d seen it years before in my initial fog of infatuation :

1. The acting was wooden and occasionally really terrible

2. It’s pretty misogynistic

That’s usually how it is when you see a movie you loved when you were young years later through more mature and maybe cynical eyes i.e. it’s never as good as you thought it was and maybe, not good at all.

…but despite all that, there was also a revelation, which was that the live performances were absolutely transcendent.

Up on a giant screen in the dark they were more beautiful and stirring than I ever remembered. As in you couldn’t believe what you were hearing or that this guy was ever real. And while Purple Rain, the song, triggered waves of tears and audible sniffles all over the theater from its opening notes, “I Would Die 4 U” was the one that I fell apart to.

When the song starts, we see him onstage, and after a minute cut to a scene where Prince is in the basement cleaning up the rage inspired mess he made, gathering strewn sheet music and all of sudden finds the earring he gave Apollonia, that she threw at him during an argument ( justifiably I might add) on the floor. He gently fondles it, smirks ( see lead photo above, that’s a freakin’ smirk) and tosses it backward with laser accuracy to Apollonia, who it turns out is actually there with him because they made up.

I cried through the whole song. Even that corny scene. Crying over his death but mostly thinking about how much this song meant to me as a teen/loser/geek who didn’t know who the fuck I was, if I mattered or if I was ever going to fit into this world or be understood. “I’m not human, I’m a dove, I’m your conscious, I am love”. Yeah.

And while there’d been no singing or aisle dancing, at the end of the movie, everyone applauded for several minutes for this miraculous guy we got to experience in real time.

Sometimes I can hear “I Would Die 4 U” and feel fine, wash dishes or whatever…but other times it’s tears. Still, to this day. It’s never been “Purple Rain”, it’s always been this.

Last year, I got on a ladder with a handful of crumbling colored chalk and wrote out the lyrics on a bumpy wall at Rough Trade in Brooklyn. A tribute to Prince of course, the one who created it, but also to the damn song itself…and for the infinite amounts of unconditional love it gave me when I needed it.

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Oh yeah, here’s the song in all it’s glory:

Best of the Year Playlists

PuR’s Top Songs of 2017 !

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I’m not going to rant about what a great/bad year it’s been in music because really every year, since lord knows when, there have been brilliantly, wonderful, and transcendent songs being born into the world, as well as, you know, less than transcendent ones, and to qualify a year as “unparalleled”, or “bad”, or “disappointing”, well, it’s all pretty subjective, and yes, I’ll save you a seat here on the fence next to me.

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” Round numbers are overrated…or I’ve decided they are for a minute”

Okay, there are an odd number of tracks because I opted for honesty over cleanliness but I aspire to like a perfectly round number of songs in 2018 ( editors note: good luck with that). And also these songs aren’t ranked in any particular order…and there aren’t a lot of mega-hits in the conventional sense ( except in some magnificent alternate universe light years away in which case all these songs were # 1, for a day each at least). And a bunch of these artists haven’t “blown up” quite yet so to speak, which makes it a real joy to exult them here, from amongst the millions of others. And hey, did also include a few standout tracks from some of the bigger names we already know, and maybe love, so it’s one big authentic “Rocks” overview of 2017.

I was going to write a line about each song, but that seemed insane, and so I’ll just leave you with this : within this list are songs to enhance any daily activity including crying, staring out train windows, pondering existence, plotting a better 2018, performing manual labor, or screaming your head off.

Lastly want to say love to all these ridiculously wonderful bands for making these ridiculously wonderful songs: you all rule. And one more thing, thank YOU to anyone reading/listening, or in anyway acknowledging this very, very small blog. I’m gonna keep going even if there’s only one of you because dammit, it’s worth it. THANK YOU !

* The lists are slightly different as not all tracks are offered on both Soundcloud, and Spotify i.e. just a tiny handful of difference, mostly the fact that the established tend to be  only on the Spotify, while the up and coming tend to be mostly on the Soundcloud, so try ’em both. Okay, go turn it up !

Soundcloud: Best of 2017 ! Right Here !:

Spotify: Best of 2017 !: 

Valerie Carter

Valerie Carter is worth remembering…

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In the nascent days of cable tv in the ’70s, when it was known around these parts as “Cablevision,” acquiring content was a challenge. At least I assume it was, because to my kid eyes it seemed like they were showing the same cruddy movies every single day with little to no variation. As a result I thought this cable thing was overrated and just plain sucked. Then, out of the blue, something happened that radically altered my opinion. A movie came along that I loved so much that I wanted to see it all the time, and their inability to fill the air with massive amounts of new stuff meant I could. The movie in question: the now bonafide cult classic of suburban teen ennui and Matt Dillon’s film debut, 1979’s Over the Edge. It felt like an epiphany. It was the very first time I’d seen “myself” in an actual movie. The kids were the same age as me and my friends, they looked like us, talked like us and and got up to the same stupid, semi-illegal stuff we did to kill time (although we never went through with the plans to burn the school down like the kids in the movie did because we were all talk). Anyway, I loved it.

Over the course of the film, tension between the kids and the adult authority figures grows until it ultimately explodes into a violent and deadly confrontation.The closing scene shows the aftermath with the kids who were caught and arrested for their part in the mayhem being taken away on a school bus heading to “The Hill”, some juvie-reform school type place. The sun is going down, streaming through the bus’s windows onto the faces of the kids, and though it’s by no means a happy ending, the scene is imbued with hope. And that’s solely down to the song soundtracking it, Valerie Carter‘s languid, gorgeous cover of The Five Stairsteps’ “O-o-h Child.” The scene and the song literally meld together as one and the whole thing is kinda perfect.

The Five Stairsteps were a family group featuring five of the six kids in the Burke family, and they enjoyed great success in the R & B charts. They only ever managed to land one song in the pop Top 10, but oh man, was it a good one. Released in 1970, “O-o-h Child” was and is an incontrovertible classic (hear it here). With its urgently sunny horns and hopeful core message, it remains the perfect listening salve for anyone having a hard time. Yet somehow, in 1977, Valerie Carter made this seemingly perfect song even better.

While most of Valerie’s career was spent singing back-up for people like James Taylor, Jackson Browne and Christopher Cross throughout the ’70s and ’80s, she did record two promising solo albums during that time. Her first and best, Just a Stone’s Throw Away, featured her version of “O-o-h Child” as its lead track. Unlike the original, the mood on Valerie’s is not one of horn-fueled urgency but of tentative consolation. The song unfolds slowly as her warm and soaring voice gradually ascends, its full power unleashed in the climactic last verse. The whole thing exudes a soulful ’70s Southern California-sun-going-down vibe and features an especially handsome ‘n’ breezy guitar solo in the bridge. I hate the word sublime, but you know what, the whole thing is utterly sublime. And, true confession, it is not only my favorite cover version ever but one of my straight up favorite songs of all-time.

The best way to describe her career is as one of those woulda/coulda/shouda situations. After the aforementioned releases ( in 1977 and 1978), it was literally crickets in terms of her solo output; she didn’t release another album until 1996. Her time in between was spent touring with James and Jackson and singing on other people’s records, her most famous vocal turn appearing within soft rock flamingo Christopher Cross’s self-titled debut album (which sold 5 million copies and was the Grammy Album of the Year in 1980). While a lot of people were exposed to her beautiful, soaring, full of longing voice on the album’s duet “Spinning” they didn’t necessarily register that it was her, Valerie Carter, masterfully lifting it off the ground (and she totally does, listen below), they were just, you know, playing the Christopher Cross album and basking in its west coast sunset glow (by the way, it’s a pretty nice glow and no one should be embarrassed for liking it, so go on then, bask).


Valerie Carter passed away on March 4th of 2017 at the too young age of 64. It appears the last years of her life were challenging as she battled substance abuse issues, got arrested twice as a result in 2009 and was ultimately sent to rehab.

She was an incredible singer, in possession of a truly transcendent voice, just a wondrous artist that never got the appropriate due in her lifetime, yup. Anyway, I wanted to acknowledge her upon her passing, to try and explain how f-ing awesome I think she was. Not sure if I’ve conveyed that convincingly or with the appropriate force. All I know is both “O-o-h Child” and “Wild Child”, the title track off her second album have acted as literal lighthouses in a storm for me during some absolute crap times. And when life feels like too much, I can’t think of another voice I’d rather hear.

Listen to “O-o-h Child” 

Listen to “Wild Child”


By the way, Jackson Browne wrote a song about Carter in 1980 which pretty much sums it up and says it all: it’s called “That Girl Could Sing.”

When You Hear This Song: Love Letters to Special Songs by Special Guests

War “City Country City” (1973)

Here’s a show of love from Guest Rediscover-er, Andy Moreno, of the Brooklyn Food Monkey blog. Take it away Andy….

Even though War’s “The World is a Ghetto”, was the #1 selling album in 1973, I don’t feel they’ve received their deserved accolades: they were, and are, a treasure. Recently I’ve been revisiting key albums from my brother’s 70’s record collection, ones that moved me enough to ultimately include them in my own pile.   He’s 68 now, and battling liver cancer. This ritual helps me to feel close to him while examining that time from an older perspective.

Musically, the 70’s had so many faces, emotions, and ways of mirroring the world.  Wherever you were in your life, there were bands to perfectly portray that place.  War’s instrumental track “City Country City” is an excellent example of their moody variety of musicianship.  Like a song recalling better days, Lonnie Jordan’s organ gives a gorgeous sundowning feel, before he lights it all on fire. That pairs just right with Lee Oskar’s slightly somber, and hypnotic, genius harmonica chorus.  A sax solo was never so cool, with conga drums guiding you through it.  In this song, you hear all the energy of youth, as reality and struggles pour in. For me, this multi-cultural blend of Latin, funk and jazz especially in both this album, and “All Day Music” (1971), perfectly echo the bleakness, and grace of my Midwest factory hometown.

An Introduction

Introduction: “You’re a disc 2 person”

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At some point, during my record buying life, I realized there was a significant short in my internal wiring, that resulted in my preferring the “wrong” album or song by a band. The critically panned one. The overly ambitious, artistic statement one. The drowned-in-strings one. The keeping-up-with-the-production- techniques-of-the-time one. When everyone and their mother started releasing multi-disc cd compilations in the ’90s, one of my record store co-workers derisively and geekily referred to me as a “disc 2 person”. Meaning, I didn’t like the youthful, vibrant perfection of the “early stuff”, but sadly preferred what was regarded as the sanitized, commercial, artistic void of the later stuff, when the fire had gone out, and the creativity had dried up. In other words, when the band supposedly sucked. And know what, it was true. I was a “disc 2 person”. It was something I had no control over.

Over the years though, I blessedly discovered that I was not alone, that there were a lot of disc 2’s out there, actual humans who preferred the “difficult” second album or the well-intentioned but failed attempt to “go back to our roots” album.

Picking Up Rocks is a home for just such beloved obsessions, where we’ll offer you amazing things that were maybe overlooked during their own era or have been forgotten over time or were written off for being uncool. Lost albums. Lost songs. Lost artists… but HEY, HEY, not only gonna be shining a spotlight on old stuff to reconsider, but offering up lots of new bands and songs that it would be worth meeting for the first time.

So yeah, c’mon and let’s (re)discover together …