Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Hit Or Miss” by Odetta Odetta! Voice of the Civil Rights Movement? Roots mama? Gospel great? Soul queen? Hip hop hottie? The answer, of course is yes! Actually, most people don’t remember who Odetta was. But if you are of a certain age (which is certainly older than I am) and was a fan of folk music, Odetta was your hero. She was an activist, actress and an influence on any folk singer worth his weight in salt…including Dylan, Baez, Belafonte, Ochs, Neil and numerous others. She was in the thick of things, right there at the March onWashingtonin 1963. Martin Luther King dubbed her “The queen of American...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#820 in the Series) is Doug Sahm, Doug Sahm and his Band Doug Sahm was Americana Roots Rock before the respective terms even existed.  A multi –instrumentalist child prodigy, his career going all the back to the Louisiana Hayride in the 50’s appearing with the likes of Hank Williams, Web Pierce, and Hank Thompson , Sahm was first and foremost a band leader. From his early days with The Pharaoh’s, his career defining stint with The Sir Douglas Quintet where they released the hit “She’s About a Mover” along with the California classic “Mendocino,” and the subsequent forming of the Tex –Mex Travelling Wiburys, The Texas Tornados that featured Flaco Jiminez, Augie...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” by The Seldom Scene They sure love their bluegrass in Virginia! I lived in Alexandria for five years, and during that time I was exposed lots of great bluegrass music via a weekly local Sunday morning radio show. As is still the case now, the best venue to go see live bluegrass music was at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia. And from the late ‘60s through the late ‘80s, The Seldom Scene played there every Thursday night to mostly sold out audiences with guest like Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, John Prine, Lowell George and Vince Gill sitting in. I was saddened to hear of...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Year Of The Cat” by Al Stewart So, 2013 is not the year of the cat…it’s the year of the snake, but that’s just the hook that led me to choose this fine tune as the first Song Of The Day of a new year. While most people are familiar with Al Stewart for a clutch of breezy easy listening tunes from the late 1970s like “Time Passages,” “On The Border” and this top-ten smash, by the time of this 1976 hit he had already recorded singles with members of The Yardbirds, appeared at the very first Glastonbury Festival in England (1970), and was already well known throughout Europe for...

      Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Easy Money” by King Crimson – Nothing can match the rush you get from hearing a newly remastered version of a record you’ve lived with for nearly 40 years, especially if the remastering job is done right. It’s all about the nuances you never knew were there that magically appear, making something that had been so ingrained in your memory sound brand new again. Such was the blissed out rush I experienced this morning on my way to work when I listened to the just re-released King Crimson album Lark’s Tongue In Aspic. In the ever changing world of Crimson lineups, this one came to be after the...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Sad Song” by Lou Reed When Lou Reed’s Berlin came out in 1973, it was met with a huge shrug. Hot off the heels of “Walk On The Wild Side” success and the Transformer album produced by David Bowie, Reed worked with producer Bob Ezrin who had a taste for the absurd and theatrical. Departure is an understatement describing what Reed and Ezrin delivered to the American public. A story about a suicidal mother who was a hooker and her boyfriend wasn’t exactly easy listening, although, nobody having any knowledge about Reed’s past with The Velvet Underground should have been surprised that he could, or would, deliver such a morbid,...

  We now have confirmed from two sources that drummer Ed Cassidy of Spirit has passed away this morning, December 6th from prostate cancer in Los Angeles. Mr. Cassidy formed the band Spirit in the late 60s with his stepson Randy California and others.  Mr. California preceded him in death in 1997. Here’s a piece we did on their great album Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus.  ———————————————————————- Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#132 in The Series) is Spirit, Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus. It’s a shame you don’t hear Spirit on the radio. They were an outstanding band in their time. Let by the late Randy California and his stepfather Ed Cassidy, Spirit released fourteen albums between 1968 and 1996. Twelve...

  Today’s Cool Album of The Day (#815 in the Series) is Thin Lizzy, UK Tour ’75 Everyone knows Thin Lizzy. The music world is awash with their albums, and there are enough bootlegs, greatest hits, extended versions, live albums, compilations, radio cuts, cover bands, and even versions of the band itself out there to choke the airwaves for the rest of time. Of course, almost every music lover is familiar their “big” rock albums Jailbreak, Johnny the Fox, Bad Reputation, and their touring masterpiece Live and Dangerous; all albums filled with rock radio staples we know and love. But to me, their finest and most interesting period was just before Jailbreak and all-conquering single “The Boys Are Back...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#813 in the Series) is  Bram Tchaikovsky, Strange Man Changed Man The legend says: ¨A long time ago, a bunch of bored cavemen, hungry of fun and sex, invented Rock´n´Roll…¨ It must be true, and we must be grateful:  they invented something of the same transcendence as the Ferris wheel; one of the most proteiform and free examples of contemporary art. Did I say art? Yes, maybe the 8th form! Along there with Music, but with its own singular status. Joyously alive, always changing, the perfect constant motion machine. This album is one of the finest examples of the genre. Sadly overlooked, it condensed in itself all of the stamina and the joie...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#810 in the Series) is Bobby Charles, Bobby Charles Bobby Charles is one of those artists that you know intimately, has been in your life for a long time, but you just can’t remember, or never really knew how the relationship got started. Born in 1938, a true Cajun by birth, Charles was one of the swamp rock founding fathers, a genre that deliciously combines zydeco, boogie rock, rockabilly, and old juke joint rhythm and blues.  A typical “he’s big overseas” artist, in his early days he was generally known as a songwriter penning “See You Later Alligator,” famously covered by Bill Haley and the Comments, and “Walking to New Orleans” for...