Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#890 in the Series) is the self-titled debut by The Ria Reece Band With the amount of musical talent Montreal is churning out, it just might be that there’s a new Motown north of the border. The latest off the conveyor belt is a four-piece band hell-bent on instilling in us a reverence for the roots of rhythm and blues. The Ria Reece Band doesn’t do half-baked and there is a richness in their instruments and in Ria’s gravy-sweet vocals that will appease the staunchest of soul purists. Their mastery of the intricacies of the raw, passionate melodies of the sixties and seventies belies the fact that The Ria Reece Band was...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#889 in the Series) is Diana Krall, Live in Paris Diana Krall was another one of those artists that I knew more ‘of’ than actually knew.  I couldn’t tell you anything that she had done.  I’d see her listed as being on different shows etc.  I had a little interest. Some of it also generated from being familiar with her superstar husband, Elvis Costello.  I wonder if she’s ever worn his red shoes? So one day I’m surfing thru the television channels when I see her sitting at her piano singing this marvelous song. “OK’ I said, this sounds pretty good’ Maybe I’ll watch a song or two.” Well, about 80 minutes...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#888 in the Series) is The Power Station. Duran Duran, Robert Palmer, Duran Duran, Robert Palmer.  That’s what you heard countless times when Power Station was released.  This was indeed true, unfortunately, those members John Taylor, Andy Taylor along with Palmer, wasn’t what made Power Station hot.  What made Power Station a great band was its drummer, Tony Thompson. I miss hearing Thompson play. He was so darn good. He passed away from renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer) in 2003, just two months after Robert Palmer died from a heart attack. I’m surprised I don’t see Thompson’s name more when best drummers are discussed.  You’ve heard his work so many times. Thing of the...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#887 in the Series) is The Waterboys, Fisherman’s Box: The Complete Fisherman’s Blues Sessions 1986-1988 This may be one of the more interesting box sets of the year – a year that has already seen many. They have been some really great ones and some that I have to shake my head and wonder if there was really a need for that. They have come in all shapes and l sizes. There have been career spanning Boxes by Stephen Stills and Duane Allman, Re-releases of several artists entire discographies and a number of deluxe sets expanding albums of long ago such as Nirvana’s 20th anniversary release of In Utero, Van Morrison’s Deluxe...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#886 in the Series) is Sturgill Simpson, High Top Mountain High Top Mountain, the impressive new album by Country Singer Sturgill Simpson, is the best Outlaw Country throwback album released in years, and would have fit right in with Willie’s Red Headed Stranger, Waylon’s Dreaming My Dreams, and the Mighty Merle Classic, Back to the Barrooms.  This guy is that old school, that true, and that damn good. The opening track “Life Ain’t Fair and the World is Mean” sets the template for 12 tracks of superb playing and true-life story lines, with Sturgill himself telling you what he thinks of all of the outlaw hoopla that is starting to envelop and mostly...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#885 in the Series) is Alice Cooper, Welcome to My Nightmare Part Psycho Circus, part Jerry Springer show, part Quentin Tarantino shock-fest, Alice Cooper’s Welcome to my Nightmare album and subsequent tour was, depending on your point of view, either ridiculous or brilliant. The ultimate answer is of course given the benefit of historical perspective, that the album is ridiculously brilliant. Released in 1975, the album was Alice Cooper’s first post band break-up outing and is by far the best solo record of his decades long career. Giving up the comfort of a consistent touring band and going to ax person by committee was certain to be a calculated risk. It was going...

Recently I had the privilege of seeing Haim live, at what has now become my all-time favorite music venue for national acts, The Crescent Ballroom in Phoenix.  Having already seen some great shows there, including The Psychedelic Furs a few months back, what was so amazing about this show was that it was sold out to a capacity crowd of 550 people. The reason this is so unbelievable is that I was easily able to get tickets for the show a month in advance and just over a week prior to the show Haim’s debut album had beat out Justin Timberlake’s new offering 20/20 for the number one album spot in the UK. This shows how fundamentally the music...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#883 in the Series) is Shooter Jennings, The Other Life Much like his old man, the venerable Waylon Jennings, Shooter Jennings wears the blaze your own trail outlaw crown to musical perfection on his latest release The Other Life. Showing a consistently cool and carefully crafted career path going back to his debut 2005 release, Put the O Back in Country, Shooter Jennings may lure you into the listening kiosk with his pedigree, and he does play the modern day outlaw role to perfection, it is actually his own unique blending of Country Roots Rock Americana with a peppering of good old fashioned Rock & Roll soul that brings you back to...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Soul Makossa” by Manu Dibango Hailing from Cameroon, Africa, Manu Dibango established himself as an in-demand saxophone player working with acts as diverse as Fela Kuti, Don Cherry, The Fania All-Stars and Sly and Robbie. “Soul Makossa,” Dibango’s signature disco smash, was originally released as the flip side to the 1972 single “Mouvement Ewondo” on the French independent Fiesta record label. The song probably would have sunk without a trace if it had not been for Manhattan socialite David Mancuso. Mancuso was known for throwing exclusive invitation-only loft parties in New York City that served as a precursor to the city’s thriving Disco scene of the 1970s. Mancuso found a copy...

London, UK – Much to the excitement of music fans worldwide, guitar legend Steve Hillage is releasing a new album in the US with Japanese progressive rock/jam band ROVO on October 8, 2013 on Cleopatra Records. Steve Hillage is widely considered a guitar innovator, and is associated with the Canterbury scene, working in experimental domains since the late 1960s. Besides his critically acclaimed solo recordings, Steve has been a member of the ensembles Khan and System 7. But, he first came to prominence as a member of the multi-national rock band Gong, and appearing on successful albums such as ‘Angels Egg’, ‘You’ and his final album with the band ‘Shamal’. Steve recorded his first solo album in 1975 entitled...