Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1003 in the Series) is Todd Rundgren, The Hermit of Mink Hollow. If I ever opened a pub, I always had in mind to call it the Mink Hollow. And there alongside music and sports memorabilia would be some kind of musical device that would be able to play Todd Rundgren and Utopia songs. Especially from this particular masterpiece.  Kind of in the same way it is hard to name a favorite Beatles song or album, it can be of equal challenge for me to name my favorite Todd work. But really this has always been my personal favorite, maybe because it was released just before I turned 16 and was in the...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1002 in the series) is the self-titled debut from Randy Hansen. 1980 was a bit of a hazy year for me. Turning twenty-one will do that! Looking back, there are definitely many question marks. However, Randy Hansen’s debut that year was an exclamation point in my life for several reasons. I previously had heard of Hansen as yet another in an endless line of Jimi Hendrix impersonators. No offense, but… yawn. On a lark, I bought his debut, and continue to play it, 34 years later. Side note- you probably have already heard him- his guitar histrionics are on the Apocalypse Now soundtrack. Side one opens with the energetic “Champagne And Cocaine,”...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1001 in the Series) is Willis Alan Ramsey, Willis Alan Ramsey Willis Alan Ramsey is the Harper Lee of the Americana, Alternative Country scene of the 1970’s and his eponymous album is his To Kill a Mockingbird. Released on New Year’s Day 1972 Willis Alan Ramsey was the first, last, and only album to be released by an artist that many consider to be one of the forefathers of the Outlaw sound who heavily influenced such Cosmic Cowboys as Townes Van Zandt, Lyle Lovett, Jerry Jeff Walker and Ray Wylie Hubbard. With a Texas Troubadour sound that is more Steve Earle, Guy Clark, and Joe Ely than Willie Nelson, Willis Alan quickly...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#998 in the series) Chic, C’est Chic (Atlantic) I have a feeling that this post might take a few people by surprise. What’s he doing here, isn’t this disco? Well, yeah, Chic indeed did have some disco hits, some huge disco hits. Who can forgot “Good Times” or “Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah? Or from this album, “Le Freak?” The reason I bring a Chic album to this party is for one reason, talent. Not long ago I mentioned that Fleetwood Mac had a great rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie.  I do think that was one of the best for pop and of course for blues as well. However, if you want...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#997 in the Series) is Leo Kottke, Time Step Leo Kottke is one of my favorite fingerstyle guitar players. He is one of those players that the music reveals its complexity slowly. It often takes me multiple listens just to realize the intricacies and subtleness of a song. I realized how great his playing was while listening to a live performance and discovering that there was only one guitar being played. His ability to play multiple melody lines at once was just unbelievable to me. Slap on top of that his quirky sense of humor, he keeps me coming back for more. My discovery of Leo Kottke happened when I was thumbing through...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#995 in the Series) is The Small Faces, First Step Being married to, or even dating a super model may give you a lot of bragging rights with the boys down at the local watering hole, and it certainly gives you a “checkmate” in the game of one-upmanship when you and your buddies are on your fifth pint and trading war stories about the hottest girlfriend you ever dated.  But if you are a rock star, and history tells us anything, it’s that that Super Models are responsible for ruining more careers than drugs, alcohol and Yoko combined, and that maintaining a relationship with one or more of these long legged vixens may be...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#994 in the Series) is Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy Most music fans will know the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (if they know them at all) as the makers of “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”, a superb album which has become semi-legendary in certain circles, with good cause. It was an essential purchase when it came out in 1972, a wondrous 3 LP set within which tribute was paid by a younger generation to some of the most revered performers of traditional Country music. The likes of Mother Maybelle Carter, Earl Scruggs and Roy Acuff were on board for a seminal release on which both sides of...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#992 in the Series) is The Waterboys, This is the Sea. Hands up all those who remember “The Big Music?” Don’t worry, you could easily be forgiven if you don’t! You’ll know the bands associated with it though. The Big Music was a description thrown about in the early 80’s (here in the UK at least) and it was applied, mostly, to a small grouping of bands who were just starting to make an impression on the music buying public and who were all deemed to be making a similar grandiose, epic, “reaching for the sky” type music. You or I would probably just have settled for the term Stadium Rock to be...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#990 in the Series) is Boo Hewerdine and Darden Smith, Evidence It was 65 degrees here in Chicago a couple of short days ago. Within 10 hours it was down to 32. Yes, it was freezing.  I tell you that weather tale as I lead into a piece on this great album by Boo Hewerdine and Darden Smith titled Evidence.  Why you might have asked? I mention that because I’ve always had certain albums that I associate with the different seasons or even sometime more specifically a certain time of that season. I could never listen to Frank Zappa’s Apostrophe in the dead of summer because no one “trudges across the tundra” in...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#989 in the Series) is George Winston, December.  There’s really not a ton more that you can say about this album that hasn’t been said previously?  It’s an all-time Hall of Fame Christmas season album, how’s that. I read a few reviews on this album while looking for information on it. They all basically said the same thing, how this album set the tone for a whole new genre, and how for years and years others would try and recreate what George Winston created in 1983.  It’s just a man and his piano and that’s it. One of the most difficult things in all of music has been to record a new...