Bettye LaVette - Nights in White Satin
I have been enchanged by Bettye LaVette’s voice over the past couple of days, listinening to her new release Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook. Her transformation of rock songs into the R&B / Soul genre are masterful. Probably the strongest track on the record is “Nights in White Satin.” Wao, how deeply can this voice reach into our soul. Listen!
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Querschlaeger “Live is Lebendig”
A friend of mine sent me the live CD of the Austrian band “Querschlaeger.” Fritz Messner, the song writer, has a sharp eye for the comic aspects of life and is a born story teller. Every song is preceded by a little funny story. If you speak, German the CD is a real treat. To keep its artistic independence, the band refuses to sign a contract with a label. Good for them and even better for us. The band is superb. You can buy “Live is Lebendig” and other CDs directly from the band’s website.
Kanye West’s “Late Registration”
I bought my first hip hop CD, Kanye West’s Late Registration, a couple of months ago after hearing his soulful “Gold Digger.” I suspect that Mr. West does not play a single musical instrument. But this does not make him less a musical genius. West proves that most creativity lies in recombining existing material. He takes old music ideas, rearranges them in unheard ways, and lays on top lyrics that offer social criticism and breaks with the hip hop tradition of talking mainly about oneself. Late Registration is brilliant and a novel accoustic adventure not to be missed.
Listen to Sample of the CD
The Mysterious Voice of Anaïs Mitchell
All summer I listened to Anaïs Mitchell’s second record, Hymns for the Exiled, trying to figure out the mysterious quality in her singing and writing that is particularly noticeable in songs like Cosmic American and Two Kids. Her voice is not conventionally beautiful in the way people find Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston amazing vocal abilities pleasing. You cannot listen an entire summer to the same record of these two popular chart toppers, but I can attest that you can listen to Anaïs Mitchell. It is the somewhat rugged and vulnerable quality of her voice that keeps you interested in exploring the different regions charted by eleven songs on the record. Most records only have one or two good songs. This one has ten. The lyrics of Orion are so private that the song would have worked better if the melody had played a larger role in the listener’s experience and universalized the sense of loss touched upon in words about a complete stranger.
Listen to Samples from CD
Order CD at Amazon.com
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