This is a Recording

I can't pinpoint my initial encounter with Neko Case's voice with any precision. It would have been between '02 and '05. Perhaps I'd heard her on The New Pornographers' song 'Mass Romantic'. Or maybe one of the tracks from Blacklisted ('02) was included on a promotional CD affixed to a music magazine. In any event, Blacklisted was certainly the first of her albums I bought. And it's turned out to be the only record of hers I've held on to. I eagerly ordered Fox Confessor Brings the Flood ('06) when it was first released, but never did warm to it. Much more recently I purchased Hell-on ('18) which hit me only just a little wide of the mark. Even this record, much as I love the tone & timbre of Case's voice, is one I revisit quite seldom - annually or so - but each new listen has been a fresh pleasure, so its place on the shelf is secure. The tunes are lovely. Case's lyrics are often interestingly oblique. Her singing is...

The Supersuckers took a sharp turn off the rock'n'roll highway in 1997 with their fourth album Must've Been High , which saw them travel for the first time "down that old dirt road to the country". I'd previously heard 'Born With a Tail' (from The Sacrilicious Sounds Of The Supersuckers : album #3) so had an inkling of where they'd driven from to get there, but this was my first proper introduction to their music. It's far from a perfect record, but twenty-five years on I still get a kick out of playing it. Mine is a German-made CD copy. The sleeve-notes promise "Simple [...] three-chord songs, sung from experience", and that's what we get. The subject matter encompasses the pleasures of recreational drug-use ('Non-Addictive Marijuana'); the end of a long night's revelry ('One Cigarette Away)'; the morning after the night before ('Hungover Together'); the hazards of being on stage ('Barricade') ...

'Midnight at the Oasis' was very often on the radio when I was five years old, and occasionally thereafter. I wasn't especially fond of it as a young child, though it has since grown on me. For a long time I wouldn't have been able to link that song with Maria Muldaur's name, and it was probably only within the last 5-10 years that the connection was established in my mind, a connection that chimed when I saw a copy of Waitress in a Donut Shop on sale locally last summer, I was happy to wager a few pounds on it (and another few on Barry White's Can't Get Enough ) in the hope I might like them. It proved a small risk well worth taking. Barry White, of course, is a genius, and Waitress in a Donut Shop, while not the sort of album that tends to feature on "Best Of" lists, is excellent entertainment, beautifully made. Having a supporting cast of such notable artistes as Ry Cooder, Jim Keltner, Linda Ronstadt, Spooner Oldham, Paul Butterfield, Klaus V...

About four years ago I was with my sister in the used record shop in Barry when she asked me who it was sang 'Ode to Billy Joe', was it Billie...? she couldn't recall. I felt fairly sure it wasn't sung by a Billie but nor could I bring the name Bobbie to mind. In due course it came back to me, and, that Christmas, I bought her a Very Best Of Bobbie Gentry LP. Not long after that I also found a copy of Way Down South , the budget UK re-issue of Gentry's second album The Delta Sweete , and gave that to my sister too. Before passing it on I play-tested it, and was surprised and delighted by how much I enjoyed it. As luck would have it, I found another copy of Way Down South not long afterwards, picking that one up for myself. In January this year, while perusing the records at St. Mary's St. Collectables in Chepstow, I found a copy of Touch 'Em With Love , and thought I'd try that for size too. It's another very good album, an harmonious blend of coun...

The Colorblind James Experience , that is, the debut album by the band of the same name, was the first record I bought via ebay. I'd resisted the allure of on-line auctions until about 2007, but afterwards became a frequent bidder and buyer. I ordered the record as I really wanted to hear my favourite song from it again, namely 'A Different Bob', and, at that time, I couldn't find it anywhere on-line. I bought it on vinyl as that was all I could find for sale. This was plainly a low-budget production, as the LP cover and the quality of the recording both testify. According to Wikipedia "the band scraped together enough money to press 1000 copies of its debut self-titled LP in 1987 [and] sent one copy abroad, specifically to BBC Radio's John Peel." It was via Peel (or his colleague Andy Kershaw) that I first heard the song 'Considering a Move to Memphis', which delighted me, as it still does now. I bought a copy of the album on cassette the follow...