Let Me Ride

Yup, we here at the Mountain will be taking a little trip to our old college stomping grounds in Columbus, Ohio at the end of June for a little concert by Mr. Tom Waits. Yup, we managed to score tickets, so no whining on this end. 'Course this'll be our third time seeing the man in the last 10 years. Is there no length we'll go to for Mr. Waits? We think not. We're a little special that way. Anybody in/going to Columbus?

Anyhow, today we're gonna take a little trip down Delta way.

Little Axe is, essentially, a feller you might have heard about what goes by the name of Skip McDonald. If that name doesn't ring any bells, McDonald has been, and in some cases continues to be, a member of Tackhead and the On U Sound collective with Adrian Sherwood. Oh, and he also figured as a house musician in the Sugar Hill Records label, playing on such platters as "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash.

A pretty heady resume, sure, but what does that have to do with this little site?

Before y'all go wanderin' elsewhere, let me say that Mr. McDonald has got quite a bit of the Mississippi Blues inside of him, and as Little Axe, he takes us straight to the jukejoints, revival meetings, back porches, bbq's, and plowed acres of the deep South.

It's hypnotic, old-as-the-Mississippi hills music, with dub rhythms slinking about like sweaty, dirt-floor dancers, samples of preachers and vagrant farmers fading in and out with a heavenly southern gospel choir. Charred t-bone bass and deep rusted guitar drone ground the proceedings in the river-washed dirt, while McDonald's voice, and those of his guest vocalists, swirl around, stained but triumphant, vice and god meeting at the crossroads.

"Let Me Ride", in particular, is a culmination of McDonald's aesthetic. A perfect 3-minute slice of glory that'll swirl through your head like a dream, pushing you to the end of days.

The following songs were taken from the albums "Stone Cold Ohio", "Hard Grind", and "Champagne and Grits".

Little Axe: Let Me Ride (mp3)

Little Axe: Pray (mp3)

Little Axe: Tight Like That (mp3)

Little Axe: All In The Same Boat (mp3)

Little Axe: All Night Party (mp3)

Please support your local, independent rekkid stores. Buy vinyl if at all possible.

American Hearts

Barstool Mountain is back up and running, with two posts already this week! Check it out, my friends.

We're a couple of hours away from Tom Waits tickets going on sale. Wish us luck. If we fail to procure our tix, you're gonna have to put with a bit of whining and begging in our next post (whenever that is).

Now that that's out of the way, I'd like to tug on yr coat a bit about another new record that we think is pretty darn swell. I know it's unusual for us to cover newer records in any extended capacity, and we'll return you to yr regularly scheduled "old-timey" stuff shortly. But with the positive reaction we got from the Hayes Carll post recently, we figgered y'all might be able to tolerate another new feller we think is pretty keen.

A.A. Bondy used to be in a grungy kinda band call Verbena which, frankly I never had much use for. So, imagine my surprise when I picked up Bondy's solo record, "American Hearts" and found a classic back porch record that reminds me, eerily, of Townes Van Zandt's early records.

The first thing you notice about the record is its intimacy. The recording is barely, production-wise, a step above Palace's "Days In The Wake", and you keep expecting to hear a passing car or crickets in the background. That's a good thing. Sure, it's filled with snare, piano/organ, and pedal steel, but done in such an understated way as to render the proceedings close. You are there, sitting on the steps to the porch, lit by fireflies, watching with wonder. It's an album rooted in an older, forgotten time.

Bondy's voice has a weariness, a whiskey and nicotine timbre, that pulls you in, invites you to stay the night and dance the slow waltz of the moonlight.

"There's A Reason" is a moment of pure beauty and loss...beauty in the heart of sadness. A lament of of hope and remembrance, a sepia-toned ode to the beating of the heart, a valedictory on the space between the possible and the dreamt.

Another "must-have" album this year, so far as we at the Mountain are concerned. Have I ever led you astray?

Enjoy. Mp3 files at the bottom.

And I gave my hand to the Fates
And they took me around
They showed me the Seven Wonders
The sights and the sounds

There was a man with cinders for eyes
There was a girl with a dress made of flies
And there's a reason
There's a reason

And it's love that's tearing them down
And it's love that turns them around
Say it is so

And the barroom is filled with the joy
Of making old friends
And jukebox girls trip the light
They wiggle and they bend

Blind Joe, he's feeling no pain
Sweet Georgia, she dreams of the rain
And there's a reason
There's a reason

And it's love that's tearing them down
And it's love that will turn them around
Say it is so

When the moon follows you where you go
And you cannot hide
And when voices of doom ring your ears
And horsemen do ride

May tomorrow the land be anew
May every bird sing unto you
That's the reason
That's the reason

That the love that's tearing you down
Is the love that will turn you around
That the love that's tearing you down
Is the love that will turn you around

Say it is so

A.A. Bondy: There's A Reason (mp3)

A.A. Bondy: Vice Rag (mp3)

A.A. Bondy: Rapture (Sweet Rapture) (mp3)

Please support your local, independent record stores. Fuck the Big Box stores.

Trouble In Mind

Tom Waits is touring!!!

Actual post about one of favorite records of the year to follow the following rant.

But first, we're gonna start off today's post with a word of caution...which will lead, roundabout, into today's musical guest.

'Spect some of y'all have heard the long-simmering news that formerly interesting actress Scarlett Johansson was making an album of Tom Waits songs. Yep, hard to believe, I know. Well, the album is scheduled to drop next month. And lucky for us, they've begun streaming a few of the tunes 'round about the Internet (do a Google search, I'm not going to link it here). And the full album has leaked and fallen into the hands of this here intrepid blogger-person. We listened to it so you don't have to. Seriously.

Ms. Johansson's record, which I believe is called "Anywhere I Lay My Head", is one the vilest steaming piles of horseshit we have ever heard. Granted, covering Mr. Waits has to be a difficult chore for even the most gifted of musicians. Some have failed miserably (The Eagles, Rod Stewart, Norah Jones, and Diana Krall leap to mind immediately as artists who have stripped his music of any soul). Some have actually taken Waits' songs and made then transcendent (Springsteen can claim, fairly, "Jersey Girl" as his own and The Ramones did very well by grabbing "I Don't Want To Grow Up" and transforming it into a 3-chord punk wonder). But what Johansson does to the Waits library is beyond the pale. Imagine, if you will, the lead "singer" of The Shaggs running headlong into Nico at her most smacked-up, and then imagine something worse. Johansson has about a 1-2 note range and "sings" precisely on the beat. The musical backing is the equivalent of Yani's band meeting up with some teenage goth group. David Bowie shows up a few times on backing vocals and adds nothing but more misery to the proceedings (Tin Machine, anyone?). Pick on Waits all you want about his vocal stylings, but you'd have to admit the man adds an emotional and soulful complexity to his delivery, with an ear for sound that outstrips the casual commercial act looking to score a pop hit. Ms. Johansson and her collaborators possess none of these qualities. One would be hard-pressed to find anything remotely approaching musicianship or interpretive skill whatsoever on this forthcoming "tribute" album. The biggest sin of the record, to be honest, is that it is bland. Horribly, indescribably...bland. And considering the subject being covered, that may be the worst sin of all.


And, seriously, I don't know who the audience for this is. Even if you're not a Tom Waits fan, this is not a good record. I can't imagine the TRL crowd suddenly being converted. Can you imagine a 14-year old Justin Timberlake fan going out and picking up a Waits album based on this? The results would be hilarious to witness. And Waits fans would...well...look at my reaction. Worst album, not of the year, but of the decade. Do not buy this. You've been warned. Vile tripe.

End of Rant.

Now then, I feel bad for Hayes Carll for having to follow that rant. Cuz Carll has released one of the best albums of the year, and I'm calling it early. Oh, and he covers a Tom Waits song. Correctly.

On his record "Trouble In Mind", Carll has dropped the best modern Country album we've heard since James Hand's "The Truth Will Set You Free". Yep.

Carll's voice is the even ground between early Steve Earle nasality and James McMurtry's desert-scorched ramble, drunkenly close to alt-country affectation, but he's a Texas boy, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. There's something in the water in Texas (oil?) that produces brilliant songwriters with a back-porch pick and an everyman drawl. Carll is the next in line.

The first thing you notice about Carll's songs on "Trouble In Mind" is their sense of place...the wide open spaces claustrophobied into those little towns you see on exit ramp signs. The places you'd never go, but someone comes from, with escape in mind. And heading for...the next exit ramp, maybe. Drunk and disorderly, with lost love in mind and fingers clutching the stick shift on a truck that aint been paid for yet. As a matter of fact, their whole lives are shot through with IOU's, desperate for the payoff at the end of the day, or the break of morning.

Carll delivers these Carver-esque slices through a Western veneer of fiddle, pedal steel, and grit, the long drive to the roadhouse carried bleary-eyed by the promise of a cold one, a hoedown, and a honky tonk woman.

The reason the Tom Waits cover ("I Don't Want To Grow Up", linked below) works so well in Carll's hands it that he transforms the song. Putting his own spin on the tune, Carll turns it into a hoedown, a defiant two-stepper, a smart spin on Waits' original rave-up, but infusing it with a lonesome defiance amidst the stomping boots. Well done, and a smart contrast to the soulless fare we've been inundated with in recent years.

"Trouble In Mind" is an early front runner in the contest for The Mountain's Best Album of the Year. It receives our highest accolades, and is highly recommended for all regular readers 'round these parts.

Hayes Carll: Beaumont (mp3)

Hayes Carll: Drunken Poet's Dream (mp3)

Hayes Carll: I Don't Want To Grow Up (mp3)

Record players are better than CD players. It's the way the good lord intended. Just sayin'.

Dick's Curlies

Just out of curiosity, do y'all prefer shorter, pithier posts that get you right to the mp3's, or does anyone out there actually read longer posts? Just tryin' to figger out if I'm wasting time agonizing over every sentence, resulting in longer spaces between posts, or if I should just throw out quickies with the resultant tunes attached, minus any real context as to why anyone should care about the featured artist. Not trying to be facile, just trying to judge the current state of Internet attention span in an increasingly attention deficit disorder accelerated culture world.

Let's try pithy(ish) today. And truck our blues away.

Man, nothing can set a Country boy's heart aflutter more than a man with an eye patch. Erm...I mean in a completely manly, pickup drivin', freight haulin' kind of way, of course. Please don't tell Mrs. Mountain.

Known variously as "The Rice Paddy Ranger", "The Baron", and "The Tumbleweed Kid", we prefer to refer to Dick Curless (he of the aforementioned eye patch) as one of the "Grand Dukes of The Truck Driving Song". Perhaps not as well known as Messrs. Dudley and Simpson, Curless cut a wide swath through the highways and byways of this great land, chronicling the lives and loves of the roadside jukebox Lothario, the long hauler, and the freight train boogie bopper.

A deep, rumbling, baritone semi-truck of a honky-tonker (hard honky tonk, that is) Curless could hold his own with any CB jockey out there, all boom chicka boom and pedal (steel) to the floor. And he could hold his own in any gul-durned tavern in town, too (see "Loser's Cocktail", which will be covered more in depth over at the Barstool Mountain at some point).

Dick Curless is Big Rock Candy Mountain Approved! One of our fave raves, no less!

Truck It!

Dick Curless: Drag 'Em Off The Interstate, Sock It To 'Em J.P. Blues (mp3)

Dick Curless: A Tombstone Every Mile (mp3)

Dick Curless: Hard Hard Traveling Man (mp3)

Dick Curless: Chick Inspector (That's Where My Money Goes) (mp3)

Dick Curless: Jukebox Man (mp3)

Dick Curless: Loser's Cocktail (mp3)

Please support your local, independent jukebox manufacturers and diesel mechanics.

Slainte

Hello.

Nothing to see here today. Just wanted to draw your attention to our sister site, Barstool Mountain, for our St. Patrick's Day Celebration. It's well worth your time. I promise.

See you in a couple of days back at this spot for a little bit of Dick's Curlies.

Now, off to the pub. Enjoy the day.

Some Depression

There's a swell drinking mix over at Barstool Mountain. We'd suggest checking it out. Your liver will thank you.

We're gonna get ourselves back in line shortly with a post about a grand honky-tonking trucker named Dick. But first, today, we want to offer up an obituary of sorts. With musical accompaniment, of course.


Venerable music mag No Depression is closing up shop, at least in it's print version. I've got mixed feelings about this. Except for the first couple of copies, I've purchased every issue of No Depression since it's inception back in 1995. I never subscribed, since I wasn't initially sure if it would last, and then, as it marched, seemingly successfully, forward, I wasn't sure about what point the other shoe would drop and I'd lose interest. The magazine always seemed to have a tenuous grasp, at best, on what I was interested in, so far as "Americana", "Alt Country (whatever that is)" or downright just Country music went. But I kept picking it up, every two months, at my local record store. An impulse purchase, maybe?

For a good portion of it's existence No Depression functioned well as a great resource for newer roots or Country inspired acts. What it lacked in historical overview (it covered the "obvious" old-timey artists, but skimmed or overlooked, for the most part, some of the more seminal or forgotten artists of yesteryear.), it made up for in it's extensive coverage of up-and-coming acts (it's "Town and Country" section, particularly). It took us through Bloodshot Record's glory years, North Carolina's (via Chapel Hill) alt-country "scene", and rambled the world for regional acts. It's coverage of the new burgeoning Country and roots scene was, for the most part, exemplary. I wish they had managed to make their way to Denver, Colorado to investigate the nascent Country scene happening round those parts, but that's neither here nor there at this point.

As I write this, I'm listening to The Derailers, a band introduced to me via No Depression, way back when. For the majority of it's lifespan, No Depression was responsible for lightening my wallet and bank account. There was a time when the magazine forced me, forced I tell you, into committing to 5-10 records per issue. Yep, they held a gun to my head. But, and there's always a but, the last time No Depression was responsible in leading me toward picking up a record was a short review of James Hand, buried in the middle-to-back of their reviews section ("Waxed"). Long-time readers at this site will recognize how well that purchase worked out (our Best Album of 2006). That record came out almost two years ago. I don't recollect (and I could be wrong) hearing another peep out of No Depression about Mr. Hand.

And that seemed to be a bit of a trend with the mag. I'm not sure what their target audience turned out to be. Certainly not the James Hand fans. Nor the Johnny Bond, Hank Thompson, Stonewall Jackson, Dave Dudley, Lefty Frizzell, etc. crowd, either. It's hardly a revelation, and I'm sure many have already pointed this out, but it seemed like No Depression really did jump the proverbial shark when they changed their tag line from "The Alternative Country (Whatever That Is) Bi-Monthly something or another" (paraphrased) to the even more unwieldy "Surveying the Past, Present, and Future of American Music". What that tag line suggested was a shift in focus, of sorts, a re-imagining of what No Depression's mission was (whatever that is). A bold new direction. They tried to explain the decision in an editorial, but I don't think they were ever able to properly identify what direction they wanted to go. The focus shifted to cover artists like The Shins (because god knows they weren't getting any kind of coverage in more mainstream magazines like, oh I dunno...Spin, Rolling Stone, Magnet, Entertainment Weekly...) and Miranda Lambert (the Alanis Morrisette of modern Country, a cynical, label-created, "safe enough" version of "outlaw country" as the suits can properly market.). Again, No Depression went to great lengths to justify these covers, and some of their revenue-based justification were fair, but what many long-time readers took away from these flirtations with the mainstream was a sense that the magazine was dropping it's base in favor of a broader and more bland sense of music "reporting". So, by abandoning it's base and courting a readership that didn't really exist, or got it's music coverage elsewhere, No Depression seemed to have dug itself into a bit of a quandry as to who they wanted to read their magazine.

I have no scientific data, or financial information to back up my opinion. It could very well be that the magazine has seen an upward surge in readership that ad revenue simply hadn't caught up with. They address some of the financials in their statement about the end of the print version of the magazine. They say the have not suffered a significant decline in readership. It's a well thought out statement, but doesn't seem to strongly address the intangibles in the way they now cover music, and the manner in which they do so. Of course, they don't owe me an explanation of any sort. I'm just a lone blogger with a very specified readership. We're probably not considered their demographic any longer, anyway. Who knows? I could be wrong.

Anyhow, we come not just to bury, but to praise, No Depression. Some have suggested that No Depression was easily replaced by magazines such as Harp and Paste. I strongly disagree. Harp and Paste read like glossy press bios disguised as magazines. Everything in those magazines feels like it's been test-marketed to death before reaching print, and the articles are poorly written, and without a love of the subjects they're covering, music being a day job and not a passion. And the layouts are atrocious. No Depression, on the other hand, and despite it's faults, was one of the best-written magazines on the stand. The journalists had a real affinity, for a good part of its existence, for what they were covering, and you felt as if they did what they did out of love for the genre (whatever that was), and a real concern for preserving a musical culture that was always teetering towards obscurity. And No Depression always looked great, particularly in the old "black and white only" days, utilizing a clean-style format and well-placed retro-ranch styles. It was influential in it's time. It certainly influenced me.

I have no idea if we'll ever have a print replacement for No Depression. There may not be a large enough audience to support one.

For a good while No Depression provided a respite from the usual tripe sitting on the newsstand. We certainly wish it well in it's online endeavor. More so, we wish it's writers and, particularly, it's founders, Mr. Peter Blackstock and Mr. Grant Alden, well. I'm not sure if we'll follow it further, but it's been a grand ride in the ole pickup truck, bumps on the dirt road notwithstanding.

The following tracks are sort of a nudge and a wink tribute to No Depression. If you've read the magazine, you'll probably get it immediately. If not, well, it never hurts to have some classic Carter Family, Uncle Tupelo, and Wilco songs on your hard drive.

R.I.P.

Uncle Tupelo: No Depression (mp3)

Uncle Tupelo: Slate (mp3)

The Carter Family: Hello Stranger (mp3)

Wilco: Box Full Of Letters (mp3)

Uncle Tupelo: The Long Cut (mp3)

Uncle Tupelo: Screen Door (mp3)


No Depression started as, essentially, an independent 'zine of sorts. Please consider supporting your local, independent journalists and Kinko's scribes. You never know where the next Lester Bangs will come from.

Happy Songs Sell Records

Today we're gonna go way, way back to 2007.

I'd been meaning to pick your ears about a couple of reissues from last year that I figgered deserved a little more attention than some other more highly profiled second acts. Thought I'd take the time now, before heading back to the hills for that old timey stuff we all love and cherish.

So, outside of the lavishly, and deservedly, discussed Miles Davis "The Complete On The Corner Sessions" Box Set, these are my fave rave reissues from 2007.

Betty Davis: "Betty Davis" and "They Say I'm Different"

Jim Ford: "The Sounds of Our Time"

Jim Ford died in November of last year. It's a damn shame, as Bear Family had just released the collection "The Sounds Of Our Time". The collection contains his lone, classic (perfect?) album "Harlan County" and a slew of previously uncollected singles and unreleased tunes. I wrote about "Harlan County" way back in the day here.

Ford was a master songwriter, and Country Soul vocalist. He counted Sly Stone among his closest friends, and influenced everyone from Nick Lowe and Dan Penn, to The Drive By Truckers.

Here's what the Bear Family website has to say about the record:

"'Harlan County' inhabits the same territory as 'From Elvis In Memphis' or Dan Penn's 'Nobody's Fool,' and his record was every bit their equal. It occupies the land where R&B meets country, Memphis and Nashville meet Louisiana, and the Mississippi Delta meets Appalachia. Jim Ford blended the ingredients in a way that had never, and would never, be done again."

Yep. All true. Country Soul at it's very finest. It's a lost classic that deserves much wider recognition.

The first two songs below are from "Harlan County" proper. The last two are from the "unreleased/uncollected singles" portion of the record. The song "Happy Songs Sell Records..." is hardly representative of Ford's sound or genius, but it makes us smile. If you download only four songs from The Mountain this year, make it these.

Jim Ford: Harlan County (mp3)

Jim Ford: Working My Way To LA (mp3)

Jim Ford: She Turns My Radio On (mp3)

Jim Ford: Happy Songs Sell Records, Sad Songs Sell Beer (mp3)




Betty Davis is nasty. Completely filthy. The former Mrs. Miles Davis (she kept his last name, though only married for a little over a year) made some of the sleaziest, greasiest soulfunk records of the early 70's, full of blatant, almost pornographic sexuality and a commanding feminism that surely shocked some listeners at the time of their release. Lucky for us, Light In The Attic Records has rescued those first two records ("Betty Davis" and "They Say I'm Different") from the dustbin of obscurity.

Featuring songs with titles like "If I'm In Luck I Might Get Picked Up", "He Was A Big Freak", and "Don't Call Her No Tramp", Davis purrs, hollers, and wails her way through rubber-banded wah-wah grooves, and slimy bass thump, making Grace Jones look and sound like a little kitten. They're records for a night on the town. The kind of night where you finally draw up the courage to walk into that club without a name, behind heavy doors. You're not sure what's behind those doors, but the people going in sure are interesting to look at, and a little bit scary. Once your inside, it's the best night of your life, but you'll never be able to talk about it in decent company.

Betty Davis: Don't Call Her No Tramp (mp3)

Betty Davis: Game Is My Middle Name (mp3)


Please support your local, independent jukejoints and dance clubs.

Mining For Gold

First, please accept our apologies for the random changes in the appearance of this site over the next few weeks. I'm trying to make it more interesting to look at, but since I am woefully ignorant of web design, things could get a little funky looking for awhile, while I tutorial myself through various issues. Any missing links will be shortly fixed, also.

Now.

I promised last week I wanted to pay tribute to what I consider one of the few "perfect" albums ever made. Everyone, of course, has an opinion on what makes a "perfect" album, and everyone, I'm sure, has at least one or two records that they consider essential, if not perfect. I wouldn't pretend to have the inside track on what constitutes a perfect album for all ears, but, you know, I know what I like. (Feel free to insert any other cliches that spring to mind). For me, I have a small handful of records, maybe 10, I'd consider perfect (Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" and Sinatra's "In The Wee Small Hours" to name but two), and about a thousand or so "essential" records that fall just short of perfect (REM's "Automatic For The People", for example, could have been perfect if not for the abysmal and abysmally placed "Ignoreland"). There's no point in boring all y'all with the specific criteria as to what I think constitutes a perfect album (filler ratio, sequencing, etc.), since we live in an individually subjective world, but I'll tell you why the following album is.

The Trinity Sessions by The Cowboy Junkies.

20 years ago, The Cowboy Junkies released "The Trinity Sessions", an album recorded into a single microphone at the Gothic Church Of The Holy Trinity, in Toronto. I was well into my punk and college rock years, scoffing at anything that sounded remotely country (with the exception of Hank Williams, 'cause he was, you know, kind of punk rock in his own way). But the reviews of the album were intriguing, there was a cover version of the holy "Sweet Jane", and their name had a certain cachet that interested my wannabe hipster high-school self. So, what the hell, right? I'd give it a try. In the space of a year I wore out three cassettes of the album before investing in a copy on that newfangled technology, the CD.

Most of the damage caused to those three cassettes was in the shitty tape deck of my '72 Chevy Nova, rambling aimlessly through the country roads of middle Ohio in the dead of night.

It's that kind of album. Spare and intimate, hushed and built for radio static, the angelic and sleepy voice of Margo Timmins. And I'm obsessed with voices, not the "perfect" voice, but the voice that sounds the most human, or contains the most humanity. Margo Timmins is both, and she melted my teenage heart, sad, sultry, and sublime. The band, and ancillaries, hovering around the mic, you can picture it, with the lonesome accordion, the muted, solitary harmonica, and the 2 A.M. canyon echo of pedal steel, breathing a heartbeat of enclosed space ("Mining For Gold") and the freedom of open roads ("200 More Miles"). Music to fall in love to and with ("Dreaming My Dreams With You"), and music to be alone to. And with.

There is not a wasted note, breath, or vocal intonation on The Trinity Sessions. Every song belongs, and flows naturally into the next, even "Sweet Jane", reimagined as a lament ("heavenly wine and roses seem to whisper to me when you smile"). The acoustics of recording in a cathedral add to the late nite vibe, the (into the) mystic hovering like a sweet perfume over the proceedings, blessed and cursed by the things not seen, not known, and not explained.

What's striking is how well the album holds up 20 years later. It's timeless. It could have been produced by Owen Bradley in the 1950's, could have come down from the Appalachian Mountains in the 1920's, could have passed from generation to generation for hundreds of years from Europe to the Americas and back. It's still my go-to album in the still of night ("Blue Moon Revisited" indeed), whiskey in hand, the lights off, and only the sound of the crickets, the scattered cars on the street, and the Cowboy Junkies to keep me company. Perfection.

What's your perfect album?

I couldn't choose a favorite song from The Trinity Sessions. Below are three tunes that struck me most immediately at the moment I had to upload them onto my server. Five more minutes and I would have offered up three separate tunes. Do yourself a favor. If you don't already own the album, pick it up. If you already do, dust it off and give it another spin. You deserve it.

Cowboy Junkies: 200 More Miles (mp3)

Cowboy Junkies: Misguided Angel (mp3)

Cowboy Junkies: Dreaming My Dreams With You (mp3)

Thanks for stopping by. See y'all next time.

Super Tuesday

We interrupt our regularly scheduled posting for a quick reminder. Half of all y'all out there in the U.S. of A get to vote today, on Super Duper Monster Tsunami Tuesday. So get up off yer asses already!

See you at the polls.

Vic Chesnutt: Super Tuesday (mp3)

The Staple Singers: Long Walk To D.C. (mp3)

Being in Chicago, I plan on voting at least 4 or 5 times.

Sin and Salvation

Almost missed January. Call it recovery time from the Holidays. Damn, I'm always making excuses for late posting.

Couple of quick hits before the music:

Over at Barstool Mountain, we're back up with a whole vat-full of Wynonie Harris! Grab 'em with a cold one.

Rev Frost is back! Hallelujah!

Special treat for all y'all today, then, in honor of Rev. Frost.

It's often said that all art is the search for god. While that may be true for some forms of artistry, we'd like to think that the good ole devil maintains a stake in the proceedings too. Without sin, where would the salvation be, after all? It's the classic conflict, innit?

Well, we're not exactly theologians here at the Mountain, but we know what we like. A little vice, a little sex, a little sip, a little glory hallelujah. And all shall be well.

So please enjoy the following mix (the first of many?) made especially for...you, sinner and saint.

Next post will a tribute to one of the few perfect albums ever made.

Mp3 link follows track listing.

The Big Rock Candy Mountain Sin and Salvation Show Vol. 1

1. Aunt Molly (Billy Emerson)
2. Live The Life (Oblivians w/ Mr. Quintron)
3. Get Behind Me Satan and Push (Bille Jo Spears)
4. Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind On Jesus) (Blind Roosevelt Graves)
5. Who Threw The Whiskey In The Well (Wynonie Harris)
6. When The Saints Go Marching In (Papa Lightfoot)
7. Whiskey Heaven (Fats Domino)
8. Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On (Leonard Cohen w/ Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg)
9. Take The Devil Out Of Me (George Jones)
10. Slipping and Drinking (Tom House)
11. The Lord Knows I'm Drinking (Cal Smith)
12. Beer Drinking Christians (Bobby Bare and Lacy Dalton)
13. Didn't It Rain (Evelyn Freeman)
14. Down To The River To Pray (BigRock mix) (Alison Krauss)
15. Tight Like That (Little Axe)
16. It Must Have Been The Devil (Otis Spann)
17. Devil Do (Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs)
18. Wrestling With Satan (Lightning Beat-Man)
19. The Devil Gets His Due (Loretta Lynn)
20. Date To Church (Replacements w/ Tom Waits)
21. I'm Gonna Move In The Room Upstairs (Rev. Louis Overstreet)
22. Oh Happy Day (The Edwin Hawkins Singers)

The Big Rock Candy Mountain Sin and Salvation Show (mp3)

Please support your local den of iniquity on Saturday and your local house of holiness on Sunday.