Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#967 in the Series) is Traffic, The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys. Back in 1986, my friend Bruce Embree and I went to see Steve Winwood in concert. He was touring in support of his Back In The High Life album.  We had second row-center seats.  That was a treat considering I nabbed them via phone order!!   On the way to the show we had discussed ‘what were our chances to hear any Traffic tunes?’ This was one of the first solo Winwood tours that I had remembered. We certainly had not seen him before.  So we weren’t sure what to expect. Some artists will play quite a number of songs from...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#966 in the Series) is My Morning Jacket, Circuital A Review of Circuital ….With a Slight History and Very Public Secret Crush Thrown in. When I first heard of My Morning Jacket, their genre was described as “Southern Rock”, which instantly made me turn my head and say bleh. Then, shortly thereafter,  WXRT in Chicago played a song from their 2001 Release, At Dawn. (Bermuda Highway). I remember being in the car, pausing, thinking, then saying to myself. “Who the hell was that?” You see, that was long before I could look anything up in the car, , and I certainly didn’t have the internet at my fingertips, otherwise known as the Pre-...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#965 in the Series) is Tim Finn, Escapade By the time 1982 ended, the Split Enz where a hot band.  Their album Time and Tide had done quite well for them, thank you.   Neil Finn was looking forward to getting a follow up on the street. His brother Tim had other ideas. Tim wanted to get a solo release into the market.  Both things ended up happening. In later 1983, the Split Enz would release Conflicting Emotions, while Tim released, Escapade.  Both fine albums.  As it turned out, Tim did spend much of his time completing this album. This left Neil to pretty much completely compose Conflicting Emotions. I’ve always loved this Escapade. I...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#964 in the Series) is The Kenn Morr Band “Along the Way.” The Cool Album of the Day site went dormant for way too long.  At times life interferes with life. One thing I’ve missed is finding cool little surprises in my mailbox. Yet once in a while I would still find a nice bubble wrapped package separating bills, coupon packets and info from the latest candidate that promises to make my life better. However, every so often I’d still get one of those care packages. Every so often the content in said package is also a darn good listen. Can you believe that not every gift isn’t always good. Tru dat....

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#963 in the Series) is the 10,000 Maniacs, The Wishing Chair. I actually remember when I first purchased this album. I was looking for something different. Local radio played a few tunes off this and I loved the sound.  I distinctly remember making the trip to trusty ole’ Hegewisch Records to see if they had it. It was good news/bad news when I got to the store. It was a little more popular than I expected. The vinyl was sold out so I had to buy it on cassette. Okay, I didn’t have to but I did. Say what you want about those old cassettes, but there was actually something good about...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#962 in the Series) is Dave Edmunds, D.E. 7th Welsh rocker, Dave Edmunds released the fabulously rich album, “D.E. 7th,,” in the spring of 1982 after the turmoil of seeing the band he had been with for most of the past decade dissolve and changing record labels. It was his first project for the Columbia label after spending five creatively productive years with Led Zeppelin’s “Swan Song” label and the first in nearly a decade without his old Rockpile cohorts, with whom he recorded and produced as a solo artist, band and on Nick Lowe’s solo projects. Being the talent magnet that he is, he never missed a step by reuniting with...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#961 in the Series) is The  DB’s,  Falling Off the Sky The most difficult thing about listening to this brilliant “must-hear” album is to realize it has been 30 years since their last record together with this, their original line-up. Since then they’ve had a bunch of incredibly listenable songs in their heads and hearts. We are the beneficiaries of their immense talent to produce what really sounds like songs you have heard before even after just one listen. Pop hooks abound, you wonder why radio isn’t listening, but eventually you don’t care, you are just lucky enough to know about it, and now you do, go get it! Inevitably you have to...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#960) is Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Live Rust If I read it one more time I’m going to hurl.  Now what would that be? Well that would be that Live Rust was recorded on Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s tour supporting Rust Never Sleeps. No, No a million times no! Most of Live Rust was recorded at the Cow Palace in San Francisco on October 22, 1978.  Rust Never Sleeps was released,  June, July  1979. Live Rust was released on Nov., 1979.  How wrong is the statement that Live Rust was recorded to support Rust Never Sleeps? Well, some of Rust Never Sleeps was recorded during the Live Rust tour. Live Rust was...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#959 in the Series) is Sebastian Cabot, actor; Bob Dylan, poet. A Dramatic Reading with Music.  ..Like one of our favorite comedy troupes once proclaimed…”And Now For Something Completely Different.” You’d be hard pressed to find something as different as this. What I like about this album is the fact that it’s of course a novelty album, a “what the heck, why not album” yet it has a redeeming quality that makes me actually like it on a non-novelty level. It is just what the title says it is. It’s the late actor Sebastian Cabot giving a dramatic reading to Bob Dylan’s lyrics. Mr Cabot is probably best known at least here...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1000 in the Series and then re-posted in 2011) is a Charlie Brown Christmas, music by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. We all remember the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. Because of that special, we were first introduced to one of the bestselling Christmas albums of all time. The Charlie Brown Christmas with music by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. It was recorded way back in 1965. It made it to CD in 1986. Many Decembers, if you don’t grab it in the first few weeks, you can’t find it. It seems like there is always shortage of these produced. Downloading has taken care of that issue. A Charlie Brown Christmas was the first animated television...