Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#434in the Series) is Carlene Carter, I Fell in Love Youngsters from musical families have a huge advantage over the majority of society.  Not only is music given to them via their genes, but having it in their ears from before birth is just a wonderful way to grow up. A dear friend of mine was from a musical family.  He’s a guitar player/singer/songwriter etc. etc. He married a singer/dancer and yes, their two children have grown up to be extremely musical in their own write.  In fact the daughter has been headlining places like the Rainbow Room and Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles all this summer. But what else makes...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#429 in the Series) is the debut from Texas Tornados If you don’t count Elvis, Sam Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash sitting around a piano at Sun Records, The Texas Tornados could be considered one the best Rock & Roll Super groups, sort of a Tex-Mex Travelling Wilburys. Formed in the 1990’s the group consisted of Freddie Fender, who already had released his monster hits “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” and “Before the Next Teardrop Falls”, Doug Sahm who is widely referred to as the father of the Tex-Mex music scene, Augie Meyers, a founding member of The Sir Douglas Quintet with Sahm, and Flaco Jiménez, a pioneer of the Mexican...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#392 in the Series) is Sinéad O’Connor, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got When I started doing this write-up I noticed one thing that I had pretty much forgotten. I really could have saved this album for a ‘Whale Wednesday.’ You know, on Wednesday’s we featured the big, big whale sellers. This album was a number seller on the Billboard Top 200 Album chart and sold more than 7 million units worldwide. That sounds pretty ‘blubbery” to me! This album featured her huge selling single, the Prince penned, “Nothing Compares 2 U.”  It also had a lesser hit with “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” As every reader hear knows however, that’s not what...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#389 in the Series) is Wayne Toups and Zydecajun, Blast From the Bayou This is one of the highlights about working for a music distributor. Having a label rep walk into your office and have him toss a little nugget like this on your desk. I was a fan of Cajun music for quite some time.  I had a few albums, Buckwheat Zydeco, etc., but not too many, definitely not enough.  Getting this helped my library. Wayne Toups and Zydecajun were a mainstay of the New Orleans music scene in the Eighties, in fact they still are. This was an interesting release. It contained some fantastic original tunes such as “Sweet Joline,” ”Two...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#361 in the Series) is Everything But the Girl, Walking Wounded. In 1996, Everything But The Girl released their 8th studio album and it boasted a completely different sound and feel to any of their earlier efforts. Casual observers may have been slightly surprised but for long – term admirers it was simply the next logical step. A Brief Historical Detour: Ben Watts and Tracey Thorn met each other in 1981 when both attended Hull University and, by strange coincidence, both had just signed as solo artists to Cherry Red Records. They teamed up, professionally and personally, and formed EBTG which was really a band in name only, it consisted primarily of those two...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#359 in the Series) is BoDeans, Joe Dirt Car. Today we once again take a look at a live album. As you probably know, we only do this on Saturdays.  This one is from the Waukesha, Wisconsin band the BoDeans. The BoDeans hit the scene in the mid-80s.  They’re still going strong today.  They are led by two front men, guitar vocalists Kurt Neumann and Sam Llanas.  After those two, it’s been a complete revolving door.  It didn’t start off that way. They were a pretty stable band from the start to the early-90s.  Bassist Bob Griffin was around for a long time as well. To me, The BoDeans started off strongly. I...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#332 in the Series, and #26 in the Live, Saturday Night Series) is New York Rock and Soul Review, Live at the Beacon. I remember when I first heard about this project back in 1991. I was thrilled. For one, I knew it would be great.  However, the main reason I was thrilled was because it had been forever since I had a Steely Dan or a Donald Fagen fix! Steely Dan’s Gaucho was released in 1980. Donald Fagen’s The Nightfly was released in 1982. When Live at the Beacon was released we had been on a nine year drought. I was so excited. I was even more excited to hear about the...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#312 in the Series) is The Jayhawks, Tomorrow the Green Grass. A lot of great music has come out of Minneapolis, but I think of the Replacements, Husker Du, or Prince as acts that are identified with the Twin City area. The Jayhawks have a much different feel, and their alt- country-rock sound is just the kind of music that made an impact in the 90’s. Tomorrow the Green Grass was their 4th album, and the final release with Mark Olson. The Jayhawks continued on with a more pop feel for three more albums, fronted by founding member Gary Louris. When the band formed in 1985, they were opening for Alex Chilton in...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#297 in the Series, and #21 in the Live, Saturday Night Series) is Steve Earle and the Dukes, Shut Up and Die Like an Aviator. Steve Earle kicked off his career with two “4-Star”- country-rock, Americana, singer-songwriter styled albums. Then he decided to change his band and resurfaced with a bit of a harder sound.  That sound was evident on Copperhead Road and also on The Hard Way.  This live album was released from recordings of that tour. I loved those first two albums and was quite glad that a good chunk of them are represented here. We needed some good live versions of “Guitar Town, Someday, Good Ol’ Boy (Gettin’ Tough), I Ain’t...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#274 in the Series) is Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville. Ah, Liz Phair, one of my favorite ‘Dirty Girls’ who’s also a proud member of the lucky, born on April 17th club.  You other 99.72 percent don’t know how cool that is! Exile in Guyville has long been considered her magnum opus. She recently has been touring playing the album in its entirety.  I really endorse that concert trend. I’m quite surprised it’s actually taken this long for it to catch on.  Hey, with-out it I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of seeing Cheap Trick perform their 1st album awhile back! In fact, NPR has a stream available of her doing one of...