Rainy Week Music
Woody, Willie, Love and Kishi Bashi are included in This Week's Spotify Soundtrack.
As New Orleans settles into a Hundred Years of Solitude-like endless drizzle, this week's soundtrack gets sympathetic.
This week's soundtrack:
1. "A Dollar Down and a Dollar a Week" - Woody Guthrie: From Woody at 100: A Guthrie Centennial Collection.
2. "Bloody Mary Morning" - Willie Nelson: I've seen intimate Willie shows that focus on his voice and guitar, and broad, celebratory shows that present him as the custodian of the American Folk Songbook. Both are great. He'll be at the House of Blues Wednesday.
3. "Cheek Mountain" - Cheek Mountain Thief: Mike Lindsay of British band Tunng went to Iceland in pursuit of a woman and ended up cutting an album there involving locals, their instruments and their setting.
3. "Sometimes the Act of Giving Love" - James Yorkston: The Scottish folkie plays more emotional hardball than the melodies would suggest on I Was a Cat from a Book.
4. "Bright Whites" - Kishi Bashi: The crew at NPR's All Songs Considered declared Room for Dream by Kishi Bashi among their favorites for the first half of 2012. He performs at the Circle Bar Friday.
5. "Au Cinema" - Lianne La Havas: The British La Havas' semi-acoustic soul has a light touch but with slyly effective beats and more gravity than you hear in the first verses and choruses.
6. "Life on Mars" - Sasha Masakowski: This Braziian take on the Bowie classic isn't quite playful in Sasha's hands, but it doesn't suffer when Bowie's glam drama's is replaced by Portuguese lyrics.
7. "Honey All Over" - Gruff Rhys: From Hotel Shampoo. Rhys from Super Furry Animals plays One Eyed Jacks Wednesday.
8. "Got Along" - Sun Hotel: The New Orleans indie rock band plays One Eyed Jacks Friday.
9. "The Back Seat of My Car" - Paul McCartney: From Ram, which holds up far better than I had expected.
10. "Elephant Space" - Mike Dillon: Dillon plays The Blue Nile Friday night.
11. "Feelin' Single" - R. Kelly: From the recent Write Me Back.
12. "Lonely Disco Dancer" - Dee Dee Bridgewater: From when she was a disco diva in 1977.
13. "Good Morning Heartache" - Dee Dee Bridgewater: From 2011. She'll be at Irvin Mayfield's I Club with Mayfield Saturday through Wednesday.
14. High Blood Pressure" - G.G. Shinn: Classic Louisiana R&B.
15. "Bloody Mary" - Barrence Whitfield and the Savages: While searching Spotify for Willie's "Bloody Mary Morning," I saw this and couldn't pass it up. Whitfield's a pretty out of control soul shouter to start with, but his first album gets additional grit from The Lyres' Peter Greenberg on guitar.
16. "Leader of the Pack" - Sleigh Bells: Last year, Sleigh Bells played The Varsity in Baton Rouge, where Derek Miller's metal guitar chording through a couple of Marshall stacks pretty much rendered the drum programming and vocalist Alexis Krauss barely audible. They play the House of Blues October 15.
17. "Seek it Out" - Fang Island: Tonight the rock trio plays the House of Blues.
18. "Yes Ma'am" - Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Band: Gal Holiday plays Tipitina's on Saturday night.
19. "Fire Once More" - Washboard Chaz Blues Trio: Chaz and the trio play Friday night at 6:30 at the Spotted Cat and Saturday at 7 at the the Blue Nile.
20. "Hoopin' and Hollerin'" - Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra: Mayfield will have a busy week, having nightly trumpet battles with Kermit Ruffins at Irvin Mayfield's Jazz Playhouse followed by the shows with Dee Dee Bridgewater at the I Club.
21. "Steal Shit and Quit" - Doug Stanhope: The comedian who has among his proud resume lines "the man who killed The Man Show" performs at One Eyed Jacks Thursday.
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