Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#979 in the Series) is Led Zeppelin, Presence.  If you’ve been with us for a while you’ll notice some common themes that I referred to on a regular basis. One of the more popular ones is my tendency to be a big fan of a band’s album from a tour that I happened to see. I don’t know why this is true, because often those aren’t anywhere near the band’s best piece of work, but for some reason those albums consistently have always stuck with me longer. One of my early great live rock ‘n roll experiences was seeing Led Zeppelin at the Chicago Stadium on the Presence tour. Back then I...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#978 in the series.) is  Old and In The Way. Five great musicians getting together for some great pickin’ and singin.’ I guess you could call it bluegrass but there’s more than a hint of old fashioned mountain music thrown in. For those of you not familiar with this project, Old and In the Way were Peter Rowan (guitar, vocals), David Grisman (mandolin, vocals), John Kahn (bass), Vassar Clements (fiddle) and Jerry Garcia (banjo, vocals.) Can I name a stand out cut? No, not really since EVERY track is a must listen. There’s no filler on this classic. This live album was recorded and released in October, 1973.  One you should be familiar...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#977 in the Series ) is Nanci Griffith, One Fair Summer Evening. “Variety; Learning about different types of music; bringing different genres to different people.”   These were just some of the objectives that we publically discussed when we started this project just about a year ago. We’re most definitely going to continue in that direction tonight.  This is one of those albums that requires you to “be in the proper” mood. However, when you are, this album is about as good as it gets. “What mood is that?” you ask?  Mostly a mellow feeling I’d say, interested in hearing some wonderfully written songs being sung by a woman with a marvelous voice that...

Today’s Cool Album Of the Day (#976 in the Series) is Genesis, Seconds Out. How much do I like this album? Well, if I could only take ten albums to a desert island, I might have to take two copies of this and then eight others. This was the album that made me fall in love with Genesis.  I don’t know why I didn’t get into them earlier. After this was released I did go back and loved all the Gabriel era works. For some reason I missed it when it was happening.  I remember seeing all those ads about them playing the Auditorium for three nights. I can kick myself now for not going. I guess I did...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#975 in the Series) is Warren Zevon, The Wind In the final episode of season 2 of the hit Showtime series Californication, down on his self-inflicted luck, writer Hank Moody has just finished a book project and is ready to begin his post-project ritual. “Every time I finish a book, It’s Whiskey, Weed and Warren Zevon, It’s the little things” he says, while ”Keep Me in your Heart” plays delicately in the background. “Keep Me In Your Heart” is the emotional core of The Wind, the last album that Warren Zevon made prior to his death of lung cancer in September of 2003. The album was already in the works in late August...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (# 974 in the Series) is Blood, Sweat and Tears, 3. In many ways, this album had more to do with long love affair with music, than any other album ever released. When I was a wee lad, my sister gave me copy of this. It was actually on cassette. It was right when those lovely pre-recorded cassettes first hit the market. I had a player and played it over and over and over. I even remember starting and stopping the songs over and over so I could write out the lyrics. I was hooked. I had to get more of these! Blood, Sweat and Tears 3 contained some of the bands...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#973 in the Series) is Justin Townes Earle, Nothing’s Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now (Bloodshot Records) When your father is one of the best singer-songwriters in the business and you are named after another about whom Steve Earle once said “Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world, and I’ll stand on Bob Dylan’s coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that”, the expectations are very high, and with his most recent release for Bloodshot records, Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now, Justin Townes Earle, the son of Steve Earle and the step-son of Allison Moorer, has emerged in his own...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#972 in the Series) is Richard & Linda Thompson, I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. This is an album I’ve went back to recently and it’s captivated me, full to the brim as it is with wonderfully bleak, world-weary and fascinating songs. I actually found my old cassette copy of it and realized that I hadn’t played the full album in years, most of my Richard Thompson stuff is on compilations. Well, I’m glad I put it on because this is one of the best adverts you could ever get for the Keep The Album Alive! campaign, it’s magnificent from start to finish. Thompson, one of the very best British...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#971 in the Series) is Hal Ketchum, Past the Point of Rescue. I don’t know what it is. I’ve always been a sucker for those songs when an artist takes a known track, their’s or possibly another artists, and recreates it using a slower tempo.   I’m thinking of tracks like Joe Jackson’s live version (played as part of the Big World tour) of “Steppin’ Out” or Loey Nelson’s take on “To Sir with Love” if you were lucky enough to hear that. Here, Hal Ketchum does a spectacular rendition of The Vogues, “Five O’Clock World.”  Please check it out below. That was the track that first exposed me to Hal Ketchum.  As I...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#970 in the Series) is Jellyfish, Bellybutton. My guess is that a good number of you don’t know this album or even this band. In one word, “you should!” They were one of the best power-pop bands of the early nineties, Jellyfish.  One of those bands that you ask yourself, Why wasn’t this all over radio, why were they not more popular? They definitely had some radio friendly songs, a good look a unique look and a major label.   So it’s hard to say what happened.  They should have had much more success. You can hear a little Squeeze in their sound, a little XTC and a little Beatles. The songs that did...