I haven’t taken this to the Blasting Room yet but my son Gene put it in his movie The Doctor’s Diary, so I’ll post it here. It’s a little different.

Figured you guys would feel left out if I didn’t post the latest hit song. The unbelievable Cecilia Webber, who is 13 years old, sings lead. Her sister Claire and friend Nikki on backups. I did the music.

https://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/26855542

Blonde on Blonde is so my favorite Dylan album, and it is one of those discs I have really been trying to tear apart lately, focusing on the instrumentation and production, particularly the rhythm section so I can think about how I approach playing the bass.

Dylan always had the killer side musicians for his recordings, which always seemed like fun experimentation in the evolution of the artist’s songs.

Al Kooper, Joe South, Robbie Robertson, and The Band–who at the time were still The Hawks–all played behind Dylan from Highway 61 and into Blonde on Blonde, so for the New York sessions of the album (Kenny Buttrey played for the Nashville sessions), Bobby Gregg took to the kit. Gregg had been a member of The Hawks during a time when Levon Helm was ex-expatriated from The Band.

Gregg is a killer, keeping time, popping his snare, and driving the whole affair and his work on the in your face Mostly You Go Your Way (and I’ll Go Mine) really shows just that. Not there are not other cuts on the disc that display that same elegant push within the pocket. This is just a lesser known cut.

It is really good, though. (BTW, this vid is a remix overseen by the great Mick Ronson).

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats are touring the US right now. You owe it to yourself to get out and see them. They’re very likely to be playing an easy driving distance from you very soon. The two opening bands look interesting as well. I will see them in Asbury Park at the Stone Pony on Friday, the 9th. Surely Bruce will be joining them onstage for an encore.

This is my kind of today’s music, meaning it’s not of today. There are no happy lyrics about dancing, no banjo or mandolin, no woahaaaooo’s.

This is their latest “single.” I dedicate it to Lawr because I know he was a big-time pusher before he got married and all domesticated.

Peter also once told me his dad was a drug dealer. Then he said he was a gym teacher. I don’t know what to believe from these guys.

When in doubt go to the roots.

IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

Retro soul man Charles Bradley released his third album, Changes, earlier this year and again, the 67 year old former James Brown impersonator does not disappoint. (Bradley saw Brown perform at the Apollo when he was just an early teen and his life was changed forever.)

Today’s SotW, “Ain’t it a Sin” is butt shakin’ funk that doesn’t belie Bradley’s revivalist approach.

On this one, the man christened “the screaming eagle of soul” lets us have it with the full throated refrain:

If you ain’t gonna do me right
I just might do you in
Ain’t it a sin

Asked about that lyric, Bradley responded “… I was saying, ‘Don’t do me wrong, I won’t do you wrong.’” Downright Trumpian!

Way to go Charles. You got me believing that “my mind is goin’ through them Changes.”

Enjoy… until next week.

Part of the fun and most of the drawback in writing about music is finding comps. Tracing the roots and the blending of styles is a great game, but it tends to rob the artists of their own identities. The more traditional the music the harder it is to escape the trap in print. The J. Geils Band, George Thorogood, ZZ Top – I mean, they were all really popular but not critically respected. Mink DeVille was another, not as successful but they could have been. The big critics hardly wrote about them. Christgau dismissed them with faint praise as genre-mongers, Greil Marcus never heard of them (or the Dolls or the Heartbreakers either, he probably hated Humble Pie and The Stooges too). I don’t think Lester Bangs said anything. Only Robert Palmer ever gave them their due: “Mr. DeVille is a magnetic performer, but his macho stage presence camouflages an acute musical intelligence; his songs and arrangements are rich in ethnic rhythms and blues echoes, the most disparate stylistic references, yet they flow seamlessly and hang together solidly. He embodies (New York’s) tangle of cultural contradictions while making music that’s both idiomatic, in the broadest sense, and utterly original.”

Something very few if any critics ever say: these guys rock. It’s the crucial datum scrupulously avoided.

Mink DeVille was one of the few real rocknroll bands in the early CB’s/Max’s scene. They opened for The Heartbreakers many times and always knocked us out.

As Palmer noted, they straddled genre lines. This song has John Lee Hooker and rockabilly and Aftermath but is a thing of its own. It’s not even their best song but I’ll hear it out every time.

This is Miles and his septet at their best defining jazz/rock fusion. With John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Billy Cobham, Sonny Sharock, and Michael Henderson, Davis and his band totally kick the shit out of this instrumental that was produced as the soundtrack for an animated film on the life of boxer Jack Johnson.

Perhaps this is why Miles is in the R’n’R HOF, although it is ridiculous to consider who is in and out of that stupid museum, although I actually I do want to go there: I just don’t care who is in much anymore.

To the point, Deep Purple is in on the strength of two hits and a so-so album. This cut from Miles, along with the back side (a track called “Yesternow”) is better than anything Deep Purple ever imagined.

Add in Bitches Brew to the cartel of fusion Miles did, not to mention his incredible albums, Kind of Blue, and In a Silent Way and it is pretty easy to see why Miles et al are so highly thought of by all who love brainy music.

My boys at the top of their game.