I Ain't Gonna Worry My Life Away...

Of all the urban legends in music, probably my favourite is the one about Merry Clayton. As the story goes, her incredibly incendiary performance of 'Gimme Shelter' during the Let it Bleed sessions induced a miscarriage. The funny thing about urban legends is they always seem particularly unbelievable, Rod Stewart's semen story notwithstanding, but listening to her on that song, frankly, it doesn't seem that out there. Her vocals are quite literally hair-raising, particularly the 'raaaaape, muuuurdddder' part. In addition to that notorious song, she also backed another ridiculously famous tune, 'Sweet Home Alabama'. On her solo debut Gimme Shelter she never quite burns down the house, but it's fantastic to have an entire album of her voice. In addition to her own cover on the title track, which while no way as intense as the original, there is a wholly unnecessary cover of 'Bridge Over Troubled Waters'. I fucking hate that song, so it's my problem. Others may find it lovely. Her cover of The Doors' 'Tell All the People' is, however, really good. But some of the more powerful, and near hair-raising moments are on the slower numbers like 'Here Comes Those Heartaches Again' and 'I Ain't Gonna Worry My Life Away'. I don't exactly know why Merry never took off as a major artist. It's weird how things work out.

You Can't Get There From Here

I don't know if these guys really looked like this, but I hope they did. Wrapped in bullets and carrying guns. This was the only picture I could find of the band, so I assume they're all dead. I actually first found a mention of this band on Skynfan's Guide to Rock 'n Roll and while the songs were good, the actual listening experience was terrible because it was an awful rip. However, Usenet pays off again with four of their albums. If you like, for lack of a better term, 'southern rock', then you will almost certainly dig Potliquor. They don't have the epic southern mystique of the Drive-By Truckers or Lynyrd Skynyrd. They're more along the lines of Marshall Tucker Band or early ZZ Top with a bit more dixie swing. They also remind me a bit of Lucero. Anyway, this album, Louisiana Rock & Roll, has been a favourite of mine this week. Great rock & roll music, done right and clocking in around 40 min. They probably should have been bigger than they were, aside from an interesting curio from a bygone era.

How Does Your Light Shine?

Full Disclosure part 1: I really only wanted to hear this band because of 'Mama Told Me (Not to Come), which was featured prominently in the film Boogie Nights. And it took a lot of effort to start exploring this band because I honestly associate it with another, considerably more horrible film, The Big Chill which featured 'Joy to the World'. Anyway, I could never find any proper albums of Three Dog Night and they basically fell off my radar. Which brings us to Full Disclosure part 2: The only reason I reignited my search for more Three Dog Night was the television series Lost, which featured their song 'Shambala' in an episode from their third season. Ridiculously catchy, I went on looking and sure enough, found a whole whack of their records on Usenet, including Cyan, their 1973 album on which you will find that tune. Imagine my surprise that while 'Shambala' is the catchiest song on the record, it's actually chock full of great songs, despite having uniformly disastrous song titles ('Happy Song', 'Play Children Play' etc.) I literally ended up playing the album all day long. In contrast to the Boz Scaggs album from last week, this music is VERY dated, and is undeniably from the year 1973 which was a great year, in my opinion. Anyway, give this record a shot.

Another Day, Another Letter

So a month goes by without a post. As far as resolutions for the new year go, this one clearly got blown to hell. I promised myself if I started doing this I'd be regular about it, and a goddamn month has gone by. My reader must be terribly disappointed. So to make up for that, a BOZ SCAGGS ALBUM! Obviously a joke, right? Not at all, a super album that should be heard by all. When I think Boz Scaggs, I think 70s AM radio and not the good 'Nights Went Out in Georgia' kind either. However, I was surprised to see that one of the degenerates from the Obner board put a Boz song on one of his monger mixes ('Loan Me a Dime' with Duane Allman, which is not making its first appearance here, appearing on Duane's Anthology). It was a fine bit of music that had me seeking out more. First thing, is how out of time this probably sounded in 1969. Country-soul, bloozy rock, it's surprisingly not-dated. In fact, it might sound like someone current trying to sound like a throwback. Except again, it was ahead of its time in 1969. The closest cousin to this would probably be the the stuff on Let it Bleed that's not 'Gimme Shelter' or 'Monkey Man'. His following albums had their Moments, haha, but nothing as great as this simple record.