Hi everyone, here are our five musical recommendations of the week!
This week our five music recommendation are:
Green Onions by Booker T. Jones & The MG’s (Format: Music CD):
There’s not a note or a nuance out of place anywhere on this record, which featured 35 of the most exciting minutes of instrumental music in any category that one could purchase in 1962 (and it’s no slouch multiple decades out, either). “I Got a Woman” is the single best indicator of how superb this record is and this band was — listening to this track, it’s easy to forget that the song ever had lyrics or ever needed them, Booker T. Jones’ organ and Steve Cropper’s guitar serving as more-than-adequate substitutes for any singer. Their version of “Twist and Shout” is every bit as satisfying. Even “Mo’ Onions,” an effort to repeat the success of “Green Onions,” doesn’t repeat anything from the earlier track except the tempo, and Jones and Cropper both come up with fresh sounds within the same framework. “Behave Yourself” is a beautifully wrought piece of organ-based blues that gives Jones a chance to show off some surprisingly nimble-fingered playing, while “Stranger on the Shore” is transformed into a piece of prime soul music in the group’s hands. Just when it seems like the album has turned in all of the surprises in repertory that it could reasonably deliver, it ends with “Comin’ Home Baby,” a killer jazz piece on which Steve Cropper gets to shine, his guitar suddenly animated around Jones’ playing, his quietly trilled notes at the crescendo some of the most elegant guitar heard on an R&B record up to that time. Bruce Eder, AllMusic Review.
Song List:
1. Green Onions
2. Rinky-Dink
3. I Got a Woman
4. Mo’ Onions
5. Twist and Shout
6. Behave Yourself
7. Stranger on the Shore
8. Lonely Avenue
9. One Who really Loves You
10. Can’t Sit Down
11. A Woman, A Lover, A Friend
12. Comin’ Home Baby
13. Green Onions
14. Can’t Sit Down
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Keeping Score: Revolutions in Music: Copland And The American Sound (Format: DVD):
Dealing notes like cards in a game of poker, Aaron Copland gambled on a new American sound. His roots in Brooklyn’s Jewish community, shuffled with depression-era jazz, folk music, and hymns earned him a hand flush with relentless innovation. How such an unlikely outsider managed to capture the spirit of a nation to create classics like Billy the Kid and Appalachian Spring is a tale possible only in America. In this episode of Keeping Score, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony pare Copland and his music down to their essence, revealing the sound we now recognize as American. San Francisco Symphony Overview
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Ola Belle Reed and Southern Mountain Music on the Mason Dixon Line by Henry Glasssie, Clifford R. Murphy & Douglas Dowling Peach (Format: Print Book with 2 CDs):
Born to a musical family in the mountains of Ashe County, North Carolina in 1913, Ola Belle Reed became a prolific songwriter and performer. Known for her unique style of banjo playing and singing, she became a mainstay of traditional old-time music on the radio, and inspired generations of bluegrass and old-time players. She was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1986. Ola Belle Reed died in 2002, yet her influence is still reverberating throughout old time and traditional music.
In 1966, folklorist Henry Glassie traveled from Philadelphia to the town of Oxford, Pennsylvania to see Alex & Ola Belle and the New River Boys and Girls play their exciting brand of Southern mountain music live, on the air, in the back of the Campbell’s Corner general store. Over the next two years, Glassie would record the deep repertoire of Ola Belle Reed – folk ballads, minstrel songs, country standards, and originals like “I’ve Endured,” penned by Ola Belle herself. Glassie also chronicled the remarkable story of the migration of communities from the Blue Ridge Mountains toward the Mason-Dixon Line prior to World War II. Over four decades later, in 2009, Maryland state folklorist Clifford Murphy struck out to discover if this rich musical tradition still existed in the small Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania towns where it once flourished. Murphy, amazed by what he encountered, began making audio recordings to document the descendants of Ola Belle’s musical legacy. –from The American Folklore Center site
The book includes two CDs.
Song List:
Disc 1
Title/Composer Performer
1 Uncloudy Day by Ola Belle Reed
2 My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountain by Alex Campbell / John Miller / Ola Belle Reed
3 Bringing in the Georgia Mail by Alex Campbell / Burl Kilby / Ola Belle Reed
4 Train 45 by Ola Belle Reed
5 The Worried Man Blues by Ola Belle Reed
6 Worried Man Blues by Burl Kilby / Ola Belle Reed
7 The Ranger’s Command by Burl Kilby / John Miller / Ola Belle Reed
8 Big Kid’s Barroom by Burl Kilby / John Miller / Ola Belle Reed
9 The Miller’s by Will Burl Kilby / Ola Belle Reed
10 Black Jack Davy by Burl Kilby / Ola Belle Reed
11 John Hardy by Alex Campbell / John Miller / Ola Belle Reed
12 Single Girl by Burl Kilby / John Miller / Ola Belle Reed
13 Kitty Wells by Burl Kilby / Ola Belle Reed
14 The Orphan Girl by Burl Kilby / John Miller / Ola Belle Reed
15 I’ve Always Been a Rambler by Burl Kilby / Ola Belle Reed
16 Undone in Sorrow by Ola Belle Reed
17 You Led Me to the Wrong by Burl Kilby / John Miller / Ola Belle Reed
18 Absalom My Son, My Son by Ola Belle Reed
19 Amazing Grace by John Miller / Ola Belle Reed
20 Six Feet of Earth by Burl Kilby / John Miller / Ola Belle Reed
21 All the Dark Places by Ola Belle Reed
22 I’m Going Through by Burl Kilby / John Miller / Ola Belle Reed
23 I’ve Endured by Burl Kilby / John Miller / Ola Belle Reed
24 I’ve Endured by Burl Kilby / John Miller / Ola Belle Reed
Disc 2
Title/Composer Performer
1 Undone in Sorrow by Hugh Campbell
2 Plucking the Strings by Dave Reed
3 Cherokee Shuffle by T.J. Lundy / Danny Paisley / Ryan Paisley
4 I’m Longing for a Love I’ll Never Know by T.J. Lundy / Danny Paisley / Ryan Paisley
5 Sally Goodin by Burl Kilby
6 Story of Tom Moore, the Gravedigger by Hugh Campbell
7 Footprints Left Below by Hugh Campbell
8 Leave It There by DeBusk-Weaver Family
9 Six Hours on the Cross by DeBusk-Weaver Family
10 John Hardy by Dave Reed
11 Cherokee Eyes by Zane Campbell
12 High on a Mountain by Burl Kilby
13 Fiddle on the Wall by Hugh Campbell
14 Rachel by T.J. Lundy / Danny Paisley / Ryan Paisley
15 The Old Swinging Bridge by T.J. Lundy / Danny Paisley / Ryan Paisley
16 John Hardy by John Henry/Dave Reed
17 Stolen Love by Hugh Campbell / Zane Campbell
18 The Buzzard and the Monkey by Burton DeBusk
19 The Pussycat and the Bulldog by Burton DeBusk
20 Preacher and the Bear by Dave Reed
21 Turkey in the Straw by Burl Kilby
22 Ryestraw by T.J. Lundy / Danny Paisley / Ryan Paisley
23 The Butcher Boy by Hugh Campbell / Dave Reed
24 Simple Man by Dave Reed
25 1,000 Light Years Away by Dave Reed
26 I Feel Like Traveling On by DeBusk-Weaver Family
27 New River Train by T.J. Lundy / Danny Paisley / Ryan Paisley
28 Salt Creek by T.J. Lundy / Danny Paisley / Ryan Paisley
29 Cumberland Gap by Burl Kilby
30 Boxes Full of Memories by Hugh Campbell
31 Father, Listen by Hugh Campbell
32 My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains by T.J. Lundy / Danny Paisley / Ryan Paisley
33 Family Graveyard by Zane Campbell
34 Over in the Gloryland by Hugh Campbell / Zane Campbell / DeBusk-Weaver Family / Dave Reed
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Respect Yourself: Stax Records And The Soul Explosion by Robert Gordon with a foreword by Booker T. Jones (Format: Print Book):
The story of Stax Records unfolds like a Greek tragedy. A white brother and sister build a monument to racial harmony in blighted south Memphis during the civil rights movement. Their success soon pits the siblings against each other, and the brother abandons his sister for a visionary African-American partner. Under integrated leadership, Stax explodes as a national player until, Icarus-like, the heights they achieve result in their tragic demise. They fall, losing everything, and the sanctuary they created is torn to the ground. A generation later, Stax is rebuilt brick by brick and is once again transforming disenfranchised youth into stellar young musicians.
Set in the world of 1960s and ’70s soul music, Respect Yourself is a character-driven story of racial integration, and then of black power and economic independence. It’s about music and musicians—Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, the Staple Singers, and Booker T. and the M.G.’s, Stax’s interracial house band. It’s about a small independent company’s struggle to survive in an increasingly conglomerate-oriented world. And always at the center of the story is Memphis, Tennessee, an explosive city struggling through volatile years. Told by one of our leading music chroniclers, Respect Yourself is the book to own about one of our most treasured cultural institutions and the city that created it.
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So Much In Love! (1962) by Ray Conniff Singers (Format: Music CD):
So Much in Love, like the earlier albums It’s the Talk of the Town and Young at Heart, shifts the emphasis away from Ray Conniff’s trademark blend of voices and instruments to concentrate on the vocal chorus. One of Conniff’s favorite tricks is to split the chorus and give the men and women contrasting vocal lines, and that technique is used throughout the album. “Autumn Leaves” and “Chances Are” turn the spotlight on the women, “Just Walking in the Rain” is handled mostly by the men, and the combined chorus brings a majestic lushness to “I Wish I Didn’t Love You So.” So Much in Love made the Top Five on the album charts in 1962, showing what a huge adult audience still existed for traditional pop music in the rock & roll era. There are no snappy rhythms or “tic tac” electric basslines on So Much in Love — it is a straight choral pop album with orchestral accompaniment and classic songs. Greg Adams, AllMusic Review.
Song List:
1. Autumn Leaves/Just Walking In The Rain
2. I Fall In Love Woo Easily/My Heart Stood Still
3. Dancing On The Ceiling/Dancing In The Dark Timing
4. I Wish I Didn’t Love You So/Bewitched
5. Whatever Will Be, Will Be/True Love
6. Chances Are/It’s Not For Me To Say
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Videos of the Week:
Gee Whiz by Carla Thomas
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Green Onions by Booker T & The MG’s
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Time Is Tight by Booker T & The MG’s
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Tiny Desk Concert by Booker T Jones
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Appalachian Spring (Orchestral suite) composed by Aaron Copland, performed by the Ulster Orchestra, Thierry Fischer conducting
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Fanfare for the Common Man composed by Aaron Copland, performed by the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein conducting
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Morning On the Ranch composed by Aaron Copland, performed by The Saint Louis Symphony, Leonard Slatkin conducting
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Gonna Write Me A Letter by Ola Belle Reed
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I’ve Endured by Ola Belle Reed
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Undone in Sorrow by Ola Belle Reed
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In The Midnight Hour by Wilson Pickett
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Knock On Wood by Eddie Floyd
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Last Night by Mar-Keys
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Sookie Sookie by Don Covay
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Soul Man by Sam & Dave
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Autumn Leaves/Just Walking In The Rain by the Ray Conniff Singers
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Dancing On The Ceiling/Dancing In The Dark Timing by the Ray Conniff Singers
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Jackie Gleason Music For Lovers Only The Jackie Gleason Orchestra
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Have a great weekend!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
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REFERENCES:
Print References
The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits by Joel Whitburn
Online References
AllMusic: https://www.allmusic.com/
The American Folk Life Center.
Copland And The American Sound. PBS Online. http://www.pbs.org/keepingscore/copland-american-sound.html
Keeping Score: Aaron Copland And The American Sound. The San Francisco Symphony, https://www.keepingscore.org/content/aaron-coplands-appalachian-spring
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Online Catalog Links:
StarCat
The catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD, etc.
The Digital Catalog (OverDrive)
The catalog of e-books, downloadable audiobooks and a handful of streaming videos.
ABOUT LIBRARY APPS: OverDrive & RBDigital:
You can access digital library content on PCs, Macs and mobile devices. For mobile devices simply download the OverDrive and/or the RBDigital app, to check out eBooks, downloadable audiobooks and on-demand magazines, from your app store to get started. If you have questions call the library at 607-936-3713 and one of our tech coaches will be happy to assist you.
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