Three words: Jenny Owen Youngs

According to my regular annual practice, in November I donated to Michele Rundgren's public radio pledge drive for her weekly show in Kauai, which I listen to over the Internet. They always send people "thank you" CDs when they pledge, and one of the CDs Michele sent me in December was "Batten the Hatches" by Jenny Owen Youngs (from New Jersey, 26 years old). I can't stop listening to it. I immediately downloaded her other available songs and remixes off of iTunes (mostly from one digital EP). Don't know if you'll like her music or not, but you'll surely admire her youthful pluck, aplomb and forthrightness.

Go to:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6. How's that for me really liking an artist. She'll be playing in Hullen Hall at Hendrix in Conway on Wednesday Jan. 16. I'll be the one there with bells on.

Seriously, if you check her out on YouTube for live performances, you'll see she does really great performances of her recorded tunes (occasionally sitting in the lap of an audience member).

Maybe it's the lyrics, maybe it's her voice, maybe it's the instrumentation, maybe it's the production, maybe it's my inability to categorize it, maybe you'll think I've lost my musical mind, but there it is.

Anyway, I've also been listening to various holiday favorites throughout the season, so have a Happy New Year folks!

Puppini's, Todd and Owsley

The Puppini Sister's new sophomore-effort CD (UK version -- US not out yet), The Rise and Fall of Ruby Woo, arrived and is quite enjoyable. They do a few great covers like the Classic IV's Spooky, the Bangles' Walk Like An Egyptian and the standards Old Cape Cod and It Don't Mean A Thing, but they also show some good songwriting, too. Here's a cool new video of Spooky.



As for live music, brother Vinnie and I drove down to the House of Blues in Dallas last Sunday to see Todd Rundgren and had a wonderful time, met some neat Todd fans and saw a great show (a no keyboards-hot guitars rock night).
Go here to see guitarist Jesse Gress do a blues harmonica solo on guitar! Here are some more bits of cuts from that night.

Finally, been listening a lot this week to Owsley, a power-pop young guy who is very good at the genre. See albums here and here. I think that my kids turned me on to him, but I can't remember which kid or when. Shows I'm getting old. But I really like this guy. Check him out.

Later!

Dang Me

Okay. So I've been taking all these old albums to digital. And I came across this "best of" Roger Miller album. And, looking at the titles, I thought, "WTF, some of these are good tunes; might as well port them over." And in listening to them in the process, all of this baggage from my childhood just got delivered without a note to my door. Gio, you probably have this happen when you're inadvertently exposed to Italian tenors; I don't know. But I grew up listening to KHOZ (mostly AM) radio in Harrison. In the morning, Upton Horn would play country music from sign-on (sunup) until about eight o'clock. Then another DJ, Mark Williams, would come on and play an eclectic mix of what, I suppose could have been jazz and adult contemporary--everything from Count Basie to Andy Williams--from 8 til 10. Then Mark would host an hour of "tradio,"--"My son has a '63 Fairlane with a blown engine for sale..." Then Uppie Horn would come back on and play country from 11 'til 3, when the kids got out of school. Then they'd have rock and roll 'till sign-off (sundown). Is it any wonder my musical tastes are so friggin' schizophrenic?

But I digress.

Uppie played most everything Roger Miller ever did. And I liked it. And I learned most of it on guitar.

Roger was a really good writer. If anyone who might chance upon this post can cite an influence from which he might have derived his style, I'd be interested in knowing it. Otherwise, I'll go on assuming he was a true original. And his voice...he did this scat singing thing that I never heard anyone do before or since.

If it's been a while since you've heard any Roger Miller, maybe you can go to Amazon and listen to the samples. But if you see any of his stuff in the bargain bin, check it out. Notable (well, they're all notable, but listen to): Can't Rollerskate in a Buffalo Herd. You Don't Want My Love. Dang Me.

Very interesting sidenote: This album was on the Smash label, same as the "All Mitch Ryder Hits" album I earlier reviewed.

The back of the album cover shows four snapshots of Roger. In two of them, he's smoking cigarettes. He died at 56 of lung cancer in '92. But he wrote some really good stuff while he was here.

Clinton for President

Has to be a step up from what we have now.