Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#529 in the Series) is Laura Nyro,  Eli and the Thirteenth Confession Laura Nyro is Randy Newman without the Disney movie soundtracks. Known more for the songs she has written for other people that have gone on to become monster hits than her own releases, her musical output rivals only Carole King as one of the greatest singer song -writers of her generation and a hit-making machine.  A partial list of Laura Nyro penned hits includes “Stoney End” for Barbra Streisand, “Eli’s Coming” for Three Dog Night, “Wedding Bell Blues” for The Fifth Dimension, and the fantastic “And When I Die”, that became a monster hit for Blood Sweat and Tears. The real...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#522 in the Series) is Elliott Smith, Either/Or The one that almost got away. When I bought this album it was a new release and the critics were raving about it, the praise was effusive, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands (and ears!) on it. Turned out they were all wrong…………… This was the first I’d ever heard of Elliott Smith and he did absolutely nothing for me. After the first plays I just thought that it all sounded the same, nothing really stood out and it just sort of washed over me. I played it a few times but quickly lost interest. It slowly moved towards the back of the...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#508 in the Series) is the debut from John Prine It’s hard to believe it’s now been over 40 years since we first met Donald, Lydia, Sam Stone, the Angel and the Quite Man and all the great characters and interesting people that John told us about on his wonderful debut album. Yet again, the stories are so fresh that when we hear them again it’s almost like hearing them for the first time. Thirteen songs can be found here. I challenge you to find a debut album that has as strong a track listing as this album. It still amazes me that a songwriter could have this many pure and powerful numbers...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#505 in the Series) is Bill Withers, Just As I Am By all rights the Bill Withers album Just As I Am should never have been made. It’s not that the talent was not here, it certainly was, it’s just that it is not often that when a record company needs to take promotional pictures for an album that they have to work around the artist’s break times during his 8-5 job at a Boeing plant making airplane toilets. In 1967 Bill Withers, fresh from a discharge from the Navy and bolstered by his fellow sailor’s encouragement and recognition of his talent, moved to the west coast to make some demo records...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#493 in the Series) is Glen Campbell, Ghost on the Canvas (Surfdog Records) And then it comes to this… Glen Campbell heads into the studio to record one final album before Alzheimer’s disease strips him of his mind and yes, sadly enough, his final days.  Always one of the most under-appreciated musicians, he gives us this final record and it’s simply masterful. Would I feel differently about these songs if his circumstances were different? To be honest? Probably yeah, but that’s all part of the deal here. His illness led to many of these writings. His illness led to many of these words.  You can’t separate one from the other. It’s all part...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#491 in the series) is Simon and Garfunkel, The Concert in Central Park. Electric guitars played through a stack of Marshall amps.  Double bass drum sets.  Ten piece horn section. Taurus bass pedals.  Are those powerful? You bet they are.  However, as long as I’ve been going to concerts, I’ve always noticed that nothing is as powerful, nothing can make your spine tingle as much as the power of the human voice.  Nothing can give you a chill like a perfect note by one of those great voices. It still does it for me every time. Art Garfunkel has one of those sets of pipes.  His reading of  “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” is...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#485 in the Series) is Gordon Lightfoot, Sundown It’s really interesting to see what people think causes an album to be on their personal, “best of” list. In all actuality, if one hears about 10 percent of what’s released then they’re way ahead of the game.  If one hears 10 percent from even just the bands they love then they’re still probably way ahead of the game.  So why do we love some so, so much, and then there are others by the same artist, that we never even look into? For me, I’ve said many many times before, that I have a strong tendency to lean towards an artist’s albums that I...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#479 in the Series) is Roddy Frame, Surf I think it would be fair to say that Aztec Camera were one of the very best bands to ever come out of Scotland. Their first two singles were released on the tiny (and now legendary/very influential) independent label Postcard, swiftly followed by a move to Rough Trade. Debut album High Land , Hard Rain (1983)was an utter classic and possibly even the best debut album by a Scots act. That particular gem has already been featured on this site, so its merits need not detain us here. Suffice to say its well worth anyone’s time and attention. The second effort (1984’s “Knife”, produced by...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#474 in the Series and # 26 in the Whale Wednesday Series) is Billy Joel, The Stranger. We don’t feature greatest hits albums here on “Cool Album of the Day.” I swear we don’t! Yeah, I know this had about five of them on it, but it’s not a greatest hits album, I promise, it’s not! The Stranger was released in 1977 and houses some of Billy Joel’s most well-known songs. It just might have been the peak of his career.  It answers “yes” to the question about “Standing the test of time.”  Many of these tracks are part of his live shows to this day.  Many of these songs are still being...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#462 in the Series is John Hiatt, Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns Sometimes it amazes me how long I’ve been listening to music that John Hiatt either wrote for others, or for himself.  I think the first time I ever heard something written by John was when I would listen to my Three Dog Night, Hard Labor album back in 1974.  He was in good company there, ‘T.D.N.’ always chose some great songwriters, Hoyt Axton, Laura Nyro, Randy Newman etc. I also heard some of his songs when listening to my dear Rosanne Cash albums. Her covers of tunes like “Pink Bedroom” and “The Way We Make a Broken Heart” were two of...