This Week in the Shack

This week's program is mostly acoustic blues, with some bluegrass and old-time country. As always, I hope you dig it.

1. Chris Thomas King - Flooded In The Delta (4:10)
2. Sarah Jarosz - Come On Up To The House (4:27)
3. Rising Sons - By and by (Poor Me) [#] (3:33)
4. Eden Brent - Trouble in Mind (5:52)
5. Jim Cullum, Jr. - St. Louis Blues (7:59)
6. Eric Bibb - No More Cane On The Brazos (5:01)
7. Cephas and Wiggins - No Ice in My Bourbon (3:20)
8. Satan and Adam - Down Home Blues (5:44)
9. Brother Yusef - Back At The Crossroads (3:45)
10. porterdavis - Jaynie (4:18)
11. Guy Forsyth - Midnight Train (4:41)
12. Crooked Still - Little Sadie (2:35)
13. Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee - Rock Island Line (3:18)
14. Old Crow Medicine Show - Cocaine Habit (2:42)
15. Robinella and the CC Stringband - Tennessee Saturday Nite (2:57)
16. Hot Club of Cowtown - I Can't Tame Wild Women (2:28)
17. Guy Forsyth - Jerry The Junker (3:38)
18. Satan and Adam - No More Doggin' (4:09)
19. Chris Thomas King - Watermelon Man (6:08)
20. Taj Mahal - Cluck Old Hen (2:32)
21. Crooked Still - Undone In Sorrow (3:04)
22. The Be Good Tanyas - Rowdy Blues (3:32)
23. Brother Yusef - Ife's Blues (2:38)
24. Muddy Waters - Mean Red Spider (2:23)
25. Robert Lockwood, Jr. - Stop Breakin' Down Blues (3:36)
26. Skip James - Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues (3:27)
27. Robert Johnson - Sweet Home Chicago (3:04)
28. Blind Willie Johnson - If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down (3:09)
29. Rory Block - Shetland Pony Blues (3:36)
30. Asylum Street Spankers - If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day (5:13)
31. White Ghost Shivers - My Land (3:05)
32. Old Crow Medicine Show - Can't Get Right Blues (3:43)
33. Shorty Long - Richland Woman (2:52)
34. Chris Thomas King - John Law Burned Down The Liquor Sto' (4:01)
35. Maria Muldaur - Put It Right Here (3:19)
36. Madeleine Peyroux - Weary Blues (3:40)
37. Billie Holiday - Moanin' Low (3:07)
38. Eden Brent - Fried Chicken (3:55)
39. Son House - Death Letter (4:21)
40. Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee - Walk On (3:29)
41. Asylum Street Spankers - Rumble With Madcat (3:55)
42. Alvin Youngblood Hart - Them Fair Weather Friends (5:08)
43. Maria Muldaur - Grasshoppers In My Pillow (3:24)
44. Porterdavis - Come On In My Kitchen (5:53)
45. Donna Lynn Kay - Goin' Down To The River / Two Trains Running (7:32)
46. Buddy Guy - Crawlin' Kingsnake (5:16)

(Blues 29)

Soul Nights at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz tomorrow and Monday

From the Alamo Drafthouse newsletter:

Do you like music, dancing, entertainment and/or fun? Well, GOOD NEWS! Soul Music Maniac #1 Peter Lucas will be flying in from Seattle for two very special shows at The Ritz!

First up is Sunday's SOUL ON SCREEN!:

There's nothing quite like the moves, grooves, fashions and passions of '60s Soul music. By popular demand, guest curator Peter Lucas returns to host an all-star Soul celebration featuring the best of his classic and rare performance footage. James Brown, Joe Tex, Lee Dorsey, Etta James, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, and Ike & Tina Turner will all be doing their thing up on the big screen. Of course, clapping, singing and dancing are encouraged. If you've missed any of our previous Soul Nites, or if you've been jonesin' to see some gems again, then this special screening is a must!

Tickets HERE: http://www.originalalamo.com/Show.aspx?id=7069

Next, on Music Monday, we'll be seeing the ALL NEW collection SOUL NITE 3:

It's an all-new selection of vintage footage! This time, host Peter Lucas focuses on performances of the late-'60s and early-'70s, when music was merging and new forms of funky were born. Don't miss Sly & The Family Stone, Ike & Tina Turner, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder and many others up on the big screen and cranked up loud. You know the deal: it's the funkiest good time you'll have in a movie theater, and that is a stone cold guarantee!

Tickets are only 2 BUCKS!: http://www.originalalamo.com/Show.aspx?id=7021

See you there, unless you're a joyless John Denver fan!!

New music

One of my resolutions for 2010 was to get my obsessive music collecting under a little bit tighter control. The universe, in response, has decided to taunt me with a multitude of goodies, and it's only January.

Rhino Handmade will release Funky Midnight Mover: The Studio Recordings (1962-1978) next week, a limited edition, six-disc, 154-track collection containing all of Wilson Pickett's sides for Atlantic, some of his early pre-Atlantic sides, the 1978 album Pickett recorded for Big Tree, and an entire disc of unreleased songs and rarities.

Music archaeologists The Numero Group moved into new media with their 33rd release at the end of last year, Light: On The South SidePepper's Jukebox, a two-lp collection of Chicago blues from the 1970s paired for the first time for Numero with a book of over 100 of Michael Abramson's photos taken on the south side of Chicago in the same period. Oliver Wang's review of the set can be found on NPR's website here. It makes so much sense for Numero to release a photography collection, and I hope this will be just the first one they do. (Sadly, I don't have a working table, and as a laptop dj, can only hope that Numero will release an edition of the book paired with CDs, or release CDs and book separately. As much as I'm looking forward to the music, however, I really, really would like the book - I'm a sucker for good period photos of music scenes.)

Next up is local newgrass musician Sarah Jarosz, who recorded Song Up In Her Head, her debut album, last year at the tender age of 17. I picked this up today, and it's really a lovely album, very much in the vein of the much-missed Nickel Creek. You can look for tracks from it (particularly her reading of Tom Waits' "Come Up to the House") to start showing up on sets here in the Shack very soon.

Patty Griffin's new gospel album, Downtown Church, is slated to hit stores next week, as is Corinne Bailey Rae's new disc, The Sea. I've heard clips from a couple of the songs on Downtown Church (they're up on Amazon) and I'm really excited about the album.

Meanwhile, Hip-O Select has added a Verve Select imprint to go with their Motown and Chess ones. Among the first set of releases is Twelve Nights In Hollywood, a four-disc Ella Fitzgerald box of entirely unreleased live material from 1961.

T-Bird & The Breaks have begun releasing digital singles on their website, which can be found on the sidebar of links on this page.

And then there's that whole thing with eMusic inking a deal with Warner Music Group and adding over 10,000 albums to their library...

So. Getting my music collecting under control. Probably not going to happen.

Haiti Benefit at the Austin Music Club - Jan. 24

This Sunday the Austin Music Hall and Direct Events are holding a benefit for the people of Haiti. The lineup includes Asleep at the Wheel, Band of Heathens, Bruce Robison, Charlie Sexton, The Flatlanders, The Gourds, Guy Forsyth, Jack Ingram, Joe Ely, Kelly Willis, Kinky Friedman, Patricia Vaughn, Paula Nelson, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Reckless Kelly, Robert Earl Keen, and Shawn Colvin. Check the Austin Music Hall's website for further details.

Calendar updated

No, really. The calendar of local soul, blues, and some Americana shows is updated now. Check out the bottom of the page.

This Week in the Shack

For those who might be reading this from outside the United States, today is a holiday in the US honouring the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the great civil rights leader who was murdered in 1968. Given the recent comments of filth like Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh - spokesmen for a significant portion of America, proudly and profoundly ignorant and xenophobic, justifying their bigotry with a nauseating form of Christian extremism that bears only cosmetic differences from the Islamic extremists over whom they froth at the mouth - I think it's more important than ever to take notice of this great spokesman for tolerance and equality. This week's program, then, is interspersed with a collection of speeches - two from Dr. King, the one given by Bobby Kennedy after King's assassination, and one given by Rev. Jesse Jackson several years later at the Wattstax concert.

1. Martin Luther King Jr. - I Have a Dream - Washington DC 8/28/63 (6:11)
2. Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes - Wake Up Everybody (7:32)
3. Sly & the Family Stone - Everyday People (2:22)
4. The Doobie Brothers - Takin' It To The Streets (3:51)
5. James Brown - Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud) (3:00)
6. Curtis Mayfield - Move on Up (8:54)
7. Fred Wesley & the J.B.'s - Damn Right I Am Somebody (6:26)
8. Martin Luther King Jr. - We Shall Overcome (3:42)
9. Donny Hathaway - Someday We'll All Be Free [#] (5:29)
10. Mavis Staples - We Shall Not Be Moved [Live] (7:46)
11. Aretha Franklin - People Get Ready (3:44)
12. The Blind Boys of Alabama - Many Rivers to Cross (3:56)
13. The Rance Allen Group - Up Above My Head (4:01)
14. The Staple Singers - I'll Take You There (4:46)
15. The Blind Boys of Alabama - You and Your Folks/23rd Psalm (5:41)
16. Robert F. Kennedy - The Death of Martin Luther King, Jr. - 4/4/1968 (5:22)
17. Tom Clay - What the World Needs Now/Abraham, Martin and John (6:20)
18. Marvin Gaye - What's Going On [Original Detroit Mix] (4:07)
19. Gil Scott-Heron - Winter In America (6:08)
20. The Lost Generation - This Is the Lost Generation (3:34)
21. The Temptations - Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today) (4:04)
22. Nina Simone - Mississippi Goddam [Live] (4:57)
23. Bobby Womack - Across 110th Street (3:48)
24. Edwin Starr - Stop the War Now (3:44)
25. Bill Withers - I Can't Write Left Handed (6:43)
26. Gil Scott-Heron - No Knock (2:10)
27. Isaac Hayes - Soulsville (4:37)
28. Curtis Mayfield - No Thing on Me (Cocaine Song) (4:57)
29. Buju Banton - Untold Stories (4:34)
30. Rev. Jesse Jackson - Introduction (5:50)
31. Willie Hutch - Brother's Gonna Work It Out (4:47)
32. Parliament - Chocolate City (5:37)
33. Mavis Staples - Eyes on the Prize [Live] (5:27)
34. The Blind Boys of Alabama - Free at Last (3:32)
35. Donny Hathaway - He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother [#] (7:48)
36. Otis Redding - Change Gonna Come [Stereo] (4:20)
37. Curtis Mayfield - I Plan to Stay a Believer (3:15)
(soul 24)

This Week in the Shack

More blues (with slight detours into alt-country, gospel, and folk-rock) for your listening pleasure this week. As always, I hope you dig it.


1. Tom Waits - Yesterday Is Here (2:31)
2. David Egan - Bourbon In My Cup (4:06)
3. Ian Siegal - Falling On Down Again (6:22)
4. T Bird and the Breaks - Blackberry Brandy (4:19)
5. Etta James - Driving Wheel (2:59)
6. Satan and Adam - Sanctified Blues (4:13)
7. Jackopierce - Late Shift (Acoustic Version) (3:39)
8. porterdavis - Strange Way to Grieve (3:55)
9. Guy Forsyth - Patient's Blues (4:55)
10. Brother Yusef - Blues Is My Story (4:35)
11. Rory Block - Hellhound on My Trail (2:36)
12. Cephas and Wiggins - Nine Pound Hammer (3:20)
13. Taj Mahal - Corrina (4:28)
14. The Derek Trucks Band - Volunteered Slavery (2:05)
15. Otis Taylor - Black's Mandolin Boogie (4:00)
16. Viktor Krauss - Big Log (5:07)
17. Greg Szlapczynski - Paris, Texas (3:51)
18. Gordon Webster - Mo' Better Blues (4:51)
19. Gene Harris - Summertime (8:34)
20. Jazz Me Blues Band / Yoko Noge - Rocks in My Bed (9:16)
21. Cowboy Junkies - Oregon Hill (4:53)
22. Old Crow Medicine Show - Tennessee Pusher (5:32)
23. The Persuasions - Little Red Rooster (4:51)
24. The Dixie Hummingbirds - Nobody's Fault (3:17)
25. Son Volt - Live Free (3:13)
26. Jon Dee Graham - The Restraining Order Song (4:05)
27. Guy Forsyth - Children of Jack (5:33)
28. Jud Newcomb - Midnight Hour Blues (5:38)
29. Darrell Nulisch - Going Back To Texas (5:20)
30. Nina Simone - I Put a Spell on You (2:36)
31. John Hammond, Jr. - Clap Hands (3:58)
32. Tom Waits - Gun Street Girl (4:37)
33. The Derek Trucks Band - Crow Jane (3:53)
34. Ian Siegal - I'll Fly Away (5:09)
35. Eric Clapton - Third Degree (5:08)
36. Memphis Slim - Pigalle Love [Live] (4:04)
37. Ray Charles - Night Time Is the Right Time (3:28)
38. Billy Boy Arnold - Blackjack (5:35)
39. Guy Forsyth - If I Was Sick (3:42)
40. Chris Thomas King - O Brother, Where Art Thou? [Acappella] (2:58)
41. Jesse Mae Hemphill - Standing in My Doorway Crying (4:39)
(Americana Blues 3)