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Bands // p 12 of 34

Darren's favorite bands for his Song Of The Day choices.
502 Bands
George Baker

George Baker

George Baker (born Johannes "Hans" Bouwens, 8 December 1944) is a Dutch singer and songwriter who, with his band George Baker Selection, scored two international hits in the 1970s, "Paloma Blanca" and "Little Green Bag." He became a solo artist after 1989. "Little Green Bag" was used as the opening soundtrack for the movie Reservoir Dogs.

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 'Little Green Bag'

'Little Green Bag'
Saturday, May 4, 2019

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George Jackson

George Jackson

George Henry Jackson (March 12, 1945 – April 14, 2013) was an American blues, rhythm & blues, rock and soul songwriter and singer. His prominence was as a prolific and skilled songwriter; he wrote or co-wrote many hit songs for other musicians, including "Down Home Blues," "One Bad Apple", "Old Time Rock and Roll" and "The Only Way Is Up". As a southern soul singer he recorded fifteen singles between 1963 and 1985, with some success.

Biography

Jackson was born in Indianola, Mississippi, and moved with his family to Greenville at the age of five. He started writing songs while in his teens, and in 1963 introduced himself to Ike Turner. Turner took him to Cosimo Matassa's studios in New Orleans to record "Nobody Wants to Cha Cha With Me" for his Prann label, but it was not successful. Jackson then traveled to Memphis to promote his songs, but was rejected by Stax before helping to form vocal group The Ovations with Louis Williams at Goldwax Records. Jackson wrote and sang on their 1965 hit "It's Wonderful To Be in Love", which reached no.61 on the Billboard Hot 100 and no.22 on the R&B chart. He also wrote for other artists at Goldwax, including Spencer Wiggins and James Carr, and recorded with Dan Greer as the duo George and Greer. After the Ovations split up in 1968, he recorded briefly for Hi Records, and also for Decca using the pseudonym Bart Jackson. As a singer, he had a versatile tenor that was influenced by Sam Cooke, and released many records over the years, for a host of different labels, but his recordings never made him a star.

At the suggestion of record producer Billy Sherrill, Jackson moved to Rick Hall's FAME Studios at Muscle Shoals in the late 1960s, Alabama, where he wrote for leading singers including Clarence Carter – whose "Too Weak To Fight" reached no.13 on the pop chart and no.3 on the R&B chart in 1968 – Wilson Pickett, and Candi Staton. Some of Jackson's songs for Staton, including her first hit in 1969, "I'd Rather Be An Old Man's Sweetheart (Than A Young Man's Fool)", are "widely regarded as examples of some of the finest southern soul ever recorded by a female artist, with lyrics that were full of meaning and innuendo, a hallmark of Jackson's best work." Jackson also recorded for Fame Records, and had his first chart success as a singer in 1970 with "That's How Much You Mean To Me", which reached no. 48 on the R&B chart. The Osmonds visited the FAME studio in 1970, and heard and liked Jackson's song "One Bad Apple", which he had originally written with The Jackson 5 in mind. The Osmonds recorded the song, and it became the group's first hit, rising to the top of the Hot 100 in February 1971; it also reached no.6 on the R&B chart.

In 1972 he briefly rejoined the Hi label, and had his second and last solo recording success with "Aretha, Sing One For Me", an answer song to Aretha Franklin's "Don't Play That Song"; Jackson's song reached no.38 on the R&B chart. He then released several singles for MGM Records, while continuing to write for other artists. In the early 1970s he began working as a songwriter for the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio and, with Thomas Jones III, wrote "Old Time Rock and Roll" which Bob Seger recorded in 1978; Seger's version reached no.28 on the pop chart. While with Muscle Shoals Sound, he also wrote "Down Home Blues", recorded by Z.Z. Hill, which became a theme tune for Malaco Records in the 1980s; "Unlock Your Mind", recorded by the Staple Singers and a no.16 R&B hit in 1978; and "The Only Way Is Up", originally recorded by Otis Clay in 1980. A version of "The Only Way Is Up" by Yazz & The Plastic Population reached no.1 on the UK singles chart, and no.2 on the Billboard dance chart, in 1988.

In 1983, Jackson formed his own publishing company, Happy Hooker Music, before joining Malaco Records as a staff songwriter. There he wrote hits for Johnnie Taylor, Bobby Bland, Latimore, Denise LaSalle, and Z.Z. Hill. He recorded an album of his own songs, Heart To Heart Collect, in 1991 for Hep' Me Records. In 2011, a compilation CD of his FAME recordings, Don't Count Me Out, was released.

Jackson died on April 14, 2013, at his home in Ridgeland, Mississippi, from cancer at the age of 68. He left a son and two grandchildren.

Source Wikipedia

 'Aretha, Sing One For Me'

'Aretha, Sing One For Me'
Tuesday, August 18, 2020

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Giant Sand

Giant Sand

Giant Sand (also currently recording as Giant Giant Sand) is an American band from Tucson, Arizona. Its most constant member is singer-songwriter Howe Gelb.

Members have included keyboardist Chris Cacavas (of Green on Red), bassist Paula Jean Brown (who was briefly a member of The Go-Go's and was married to Gelb at the time), Mark Walton (of The Dream Syndicate and Continental Drifters), drummer Tom Larkins (later to become a Jonathan Richman sideman). and Iain Shedden, drummer with Australian band The Saints. For a long while the band's rhythm section consisted of John Convertino and Joey Burns (of Calexico fame). In the early 2000s Howe Gelb reinvented the band again - this time with players from Denmark.

Guest artists over the last 3 decades have included Victoria Williams, Neko Case, Juliana Hatfield, PJ Harvey, Vic Chesnutt, Steve Wynn, Vicki Peterson, Rainer Ptacek, M. Ward, Isobel Campbell, nearly all members of the band Poi Dog Pondering, and Indiosa Patsy Jean (Gelb and Brown's daughter).

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 'Lost Love'

'Lost Love'
Thursday, March 21, 2019

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 'Carinito'

'Carinito'
Tuesday, September 18, 2018

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 'Love Comes Over You'

'Love Comes Over You'
Saturday, August 25, 2018

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Gillian Welch

Gillian Welch

Gillian Howard Welch (/ˈɡɪliən ˈwɛltʃ/; born October 2, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter. She performs with her musical partner, guitarist David Rawlings. Their sparse and dark musical style, which combines elements of Appalachian music, bluegrass, country and Americana, is described by The New Yorker as "at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms."

Welch and Rawlings have collaborated on seven critically acclaimed albums, five released under her name, and two released under the name Dave Rawlings Machine. Her 1996 debut, Revival, and the 2001 release Time (The Revelator), received nominations for the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Her 2003 album, Soul Journey, introduced electric guitar, drums, and a more upbeat sound to their body of work. After a gap of eight years, she released a fifth studio album, The Harrow & The Harvest, in 2011, which was also nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album.

Welch was an associate producer and performed on two songs of the soundtrack of the Coen brothers 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a platinum album that won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002. She also appeared in the film attempting to buy a Soggy Bottom Boys record. Welch, while not one of the principal actors, did sing and provide additional lyrics to the Sirens song "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby." In 2018 she and Rawlings wrote the song "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings" for the Coens' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, for which they received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Welch has collaborated and recorded with Alison Krauss, Ryan Adams, Jay Farrar, Emmylou Harris, the Decemberists, Sam Phillips, Conor Oberst, and Ani DiFranco.

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 'The Way It Goes'

'The Way It Goes'
Thursday, April 23, 2020

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Gipsy Kings

Gipsy Kings

The Gipsy Kings are a group of flamenco, salsa and pop musicians from Arles and Montpellier in the south of France, who perform in Andalusian Spanish. Although group members were born in France, their parents were mostly gitanos, Spanish gypsies who fled Catalonia during the 1930s Spanish Civil War. They are known for bringing Catalan rumba, a pop-oriented music distantly derived from traditional flamenco music, to worldwide audiences. The group originally called itself Los Reyes.

Their music has a particular rumba flamenca style, with pop influences; many songs of the Gipsy Kings fit social dances, such as salsa and rumba. Their music has been described as a place where "Spanish flamenco and gypsy rhapsody meet salsa funk".

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 'No Volvere'

'No Volvere'
Tuesday, July 30, 2019

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Goat

Goat

Goat is a Swedish alternative and experimental fusion music group. The band originates—according to its own publicity—from Korpilombolo, Norrbotten County. Their first album World Music, was released on 20 August 2012 by Rocket Recordings, and in North America on the Sub Pop label. The group released their third studio album, Requiem, in October 2016.

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 'Talk To God'

'Talk To God'
Monday, July 1, 2019

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Gold Celeste

Gold Celeste

Norwegian psych pop blending an animated sonic palate of refreshing guitars, nimble drums, frisky bass, bursting organs, and earnest, lyrical vocals.

 'The Dreamers'

'The Dreamers'
Tuesday, March 21, 2023

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Gonzalo Bergara

Gonzalo Bergara

Gonzalo Bergara has emerged a virtuoso composer and lead guitarist, mixing a cascade of arpeggios with the sounds of Paris and his native Argentina, to forge his own style of progressive Gypsy Jazz.

Gonzalo began playing professionally at age 16 in Buenos Aires. By 17 he was already fronting his own blues trio on National Television. In 2000, at age 19, he arrived in America. Just 30 years old, Gonzalo has toured worldwide with John Jorgenson Quintet, as well as performed and recorded with hundreds of artists including Tim Hausser from Manhattan Transfer, Sylvie Vartan, Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks, Howard Alden and more. His touring resume covers Croatia, Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Hungary, Argentina, Brazil, England, Scotland and the U.S. with notable appearances at Playboy Jazz Fest, Sweet and Hot Jazz Fest, The Montreal Jazz Fest, Django Reinhardt Fest (Germany), Suev Guitar Fest (Italy), Merle Fest, Strawberry Fest, most Django-style Fests in the US and countless more.

The Gonzalo Bergara Quartet (GBQ) explores a modern variant of the 1930s Django Reinhardt-inspired sound. The Quartet's first CD, Porteña Soledad, was Editor’s Pick in Guitar Player Magazine, and Vintage Guitar Magazine called it a "masterpiece." The music is heavily influenced by Django Reinhardt and the Hot Club of France, as well as the traditional jazz and music of Bergara's true home, Buenos Aires. "Gonzalo Bergara’s music exists in a way that very little music does. He has lavished such care on every phrase, built each arrangement with such lapidary precision and pared away anything extraneous, the music becomes sculpture. It has weight, density, gravity. This is serious….and deeply moving."

Source https://www.gonzalobergara.com

 'Agridulce'

'Agridulce'
Thursday, April 9, 2020

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 'Porteña Soledad'

'Porteña Soledad'
Sunday, November 18, 2018

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Grant Green

Grant Green

Grant Green (June 6, 1935 – January 31, 1979) was an American jazz guitarist and composer.

Recording prolifically and mainly for Blue Note Records as both leader and sideman, Green performed in the hard bop, soul jazz, bebop, and Latin-tinged idioms throughout his career. Critics Michael Erlewine and Ron Wynn write, "A severely underrated player during his lifetime, Grant Green is one of the great unsung heroes of jazz guitar ... Green's playing is immediately recognizable – perhaps more than any other guitarist." Critic Dave Hunter described his sound as "lithe, loose, slightly bluesy and righteously groovy". He often performed in an organ trio, a small group with an organ and drummer.

Apart from guitarist Charlie Christian, Green's primary influences were saxophonists, particularly Charlie Parker, and his approach was therefore almost exclusively linear rather than chordal. He thus rarely played rhythm guitar except as a sideman on albums led by other musicians. The simplicity and immediacy of Green's playing, which tended to avoid chromaticism, derived from his early work playing rhythm and blues and, although at his best he achieved a synthesis of this style with bop, he was essentially a blues guitarist and returned almost exclusively to this style in his later career.

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 'Farid'

'Farid'
Monday, August 30, 2021

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 'Walk On By'

'Walk On By'
Tuesday, August 27, 2019

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Green River Blues

Green River Blues

Over the last few years Green River Blues has been playing their hard hitting blues rock in the Salt Lake scene and through-out the west coast. With a sound that is reminiscent of Zeppelin, Sabbath, The Black Keys and more. Having a particular sound in mind for their debut record, the group recorded countless demo tracks in various studios throughout Salt Lake, California, and Nashville. It was in Coatati California, home to Prairie Sun Recording that the group stumbled upon the sound they had been looking for. The studio appears to be nothing more than a old barn tucked back in the middle of wine country, with a knack for attracting the strange. In the late 60’s Prairie Sun began turning out records by artists like The Grateful Dead, The Doobie Brothers, Van Morrison, and more. In October 2018 Green River Blues teamed up with grammy award winning producer Phil Joly of Electric Lady Studios (The Arcs, The Kills, The Strokes and more) and cut their debut record at Prairie Sun. The record was tracked in “The Waits Room”, a small corner storage room made famous by Tom Waits (Bone Machine). With old barn wood walls, and an aged water heater in the corner that can be heard rattling at the end of the titled track “LocoMotive”. The group settled into the small room and live tracked their debut release. The album was mastered by Pete Lyman at Infrasonic Sound (Tom Waits, Rival Sons, All them Witches, and more). Set to drop April 25th 2019, the release show will be held at Urban Lounge featuring the Lovely Noughts, and Crook and The Bluff and Sponsored by Coalatree.

Source greenriverblues.band

 'Velvet Moon'

'Velvet Moon'
Saturday, April 27, 2019

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Gregory Alan Isakov

Gregory Alan Isakov

Many musicians have day jobs to make ends meet. However, few artists maintain the lifestyle kept by Gregory Alan Isakov. The Colorado-based indie-folk artist is a full-time farmer who sells vegetable seeds and grows various market crops on his three-acre farm, while also tending to a thriving musical career.

“I switch gears a lot,” he says. “I wake up really early in the growing season, and then in the winters, I’m up all night. I’m constantly moving back and forth.”

Isakov had an easier time balancing his two passions while making his fourth full-length studio album, Evening Machines. In between farm duties, the multi-instrumentalist wrote and recorded in a studio housed in a barn on his property. Like the farm, this studio has a communal atmosphere, filled with instruments and gear stored there by musician friends—gear Isakov always leaves on, just in case inspiration strikes.

“Sometimes I couldn’t sleep, so I’d walk into the studio and work really hard into the night,” he says. “A lot of times I would find myself in the light of all these VU meters and the tape machine glow, so that’s where the title came from. I recorded mostly at night, when I wasn’t working in the gardens. It doesn’t matter if it’s summer or winter, morning or afternoon, this music always feels like evening to me.”

Source GregoryAlanIsakov.com

 'Master & a Hound'

'Master & a Hound'
Friday, May 24, 2019

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 'Berth'

'Berth'
Monday, November 5, 2018

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 'Chemicals'

'Chemicals'
Monday, July 16, 2018

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Gregory Isaacs

Gregory Isaacs

Gregory Anthony Isaacs OD (15 July 1951 – 25 October 2010) was a Jamaican reggae musician. Milo Miles, writing in The New York Times, described Isaacs as "the most exquisite vocalist in reggae".

In his teenage years, Isaacs became a veteran of the talent contests that regularly took place in Jamaica. In 1968, he made his recording debut as Winston Sinclair, with the single "Another Heartache", recorded for producer Byron Lee. The single sold poorly and Isaacs went on to team up with Errol Dunkley to start the African Museum record label and shop, and soon had a massive hit with "My Only Lover", credited as the first lovers rock record ever made. He recorded for other producers to finance further African Museum recordings, having a string of hits in the three years that followed, ranging from ballads to roots reggae, including "All I Have Is Love", "Lonely Soldier", "Black a Kill Black", "Extra Classic" and his cover version of Dobby Dobson's "Loving Pauper". In 1974, he began working with producer Alvin Ranglin, and that year he had his first Jamaican no. 1 single with "Love Is Overdue".

Isaacs recorded for many of Jamaica's top producers during the 1970s, including Winston "Niney" Holness, Gussie Clarke ("My Time"), Lloyd Campbell ("Slavemaster"), Glen Brown ("One One Cocoa Fill Basket"), Harry Mudie, Roy Cousins, Sydney Crooks and Lee "Scratch" Perry ("Mr. Cop"). By the late-1970s, Isaacs was one of the biggest reggae performers in the world, regularly touring the US and the UK, and only challenged by Dennis Brown and Bob Marley. Between 1977 and 1978, Isaacs again teamed up with Alvin Ranglin, recording a string of hits including "Border" and "Number One" for Ranglin's GG's label.

He opened the Cash and Carry shop at 118 Orange Street, later moving to no. 125, next door to Prince Buster's Record Shack, which was also the base for the Cash and Carry record label that he ran with Trevor "Leggo" Douglas.

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 'Willow Tree'

'Willow Tree'
Wednesday, October 13, 2021

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 'Loving Pauper'

'Loving Pauper'
Wednesday, January 6, 2021

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 'Special Guest'

'Special Guest'
Thursday, January 17, 2019

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Gregory Porter

Gregory Porter

Gregory Porter (born November 4, 1971) is an American singer, songwriter, and actor. He won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album in 2014 for Liquid Spirit and in 2017 for Take Me to the Alley.

Early life and education

Gregory Porter was born in Sacramento, California, and was raised in Bakersfield, California, where his mother Ruth was a minister. Porter has seven siblings. His mother was a large influence on his life, having encouraged him to sing in church at an early age. His father, Rufus, was largely absent from his life. Says Porter, "Everybody had some issues with their father, even if he was in the house. He may have been emotionally absent. My father was just straight-up absent. I hung out with him just a few days in my life. And it wasn't a long time. He just didn’t seem to be completely interested in being there. Maybe he was, I don't know."

A 1989 graduate of Highland High School, he received a full athletic scholarship as a football lineman to San Diego State University (SDSU Aztecs), but a shoulder injury during his junior year cut short his football career.

Porter's mother died from cancer when he was 21 years old. From her death bed, she entreated him: "Sing, baby, sing."

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 'Hey Laura'

'Hey Laura'
Wednesday, December 2, 2020

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H Hunt

H Hunt

Recorded in one comfortably-seated take at Studio Ferber, Paris, France in 2015 - h hunt’s ‘playing piano for dad’ was initially conceived as a Christmas gift to the composer’s father. Intimately recorded, ‘playing piano for dad’ is a heartbreakingly gorgeous & sincere work of eleven vignettes which capture even the most nuanced sounds of the recording session - the composer’s breath, the shifting sounds of the piano pedals, the ambient noise and conversation within the studio. With minimalist tendencies, h hunt’s compositions are earnest and heartfelt, evoking both the jazz sensibilities of Bill Evans as much as Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou’s classical piano works - with pieces from the album having even been championed by Ryuichi Sakamoto for his Kajitsu Restaurant playlist.

What is the story behind the title of h hunt’s album Playing Piano for Dad? Are these really songs he would play for his father?

Harry (tasty morsels co-founder, AKA artist h hunt) and I were in Studio Ferber (Paris) doing something, I can’t remember exactly what. He told me his dad played piano and is a fan of jazz, and he didn’t know Harry could play. So he wanted to record himself to give to his dad as a Christmas present. The piano in Ferber is probably my favorite piano, so I set up some mics and left him to record it.

He sent me it after he’d given it to his dad and it was very obvious to me we should release it. I love it and I know plenty of others who do too. It’s a bit like seeing a non-actor in a film, it’s so shocking because sometimes actually being normal and not “acting.” He really at no point in the process realized we were making an album, so it really is very sincerely not trying. That’s extremely rare, I think.

By Austin Kleon

 

Source tumblr.austinkleon.com

 'C U Soon'

'C U Soon'
Wednesday, October 12, 2022

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 'Having a Bath'

'Having a Bath'
Monday, February 15, 2021

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Habib Koité

Habib Koité

Habib Koité (Bambara: Habib Kuwate, born 1958 in Thiès, Senegal) is a Malian musician, singer, songwriter based in Mali. His band, Bamada, is a supergroup of West African musicians, which included Kélétigui Diabaté on balafon until his death in 2012.

Koité is known primarily for his unique approach to playing the guitar by tuning it on a pentatonic scale and playing on open strings as one would on a kamale n'goni. Other pieces of his music sound more like the blues or flamenco which are two styles he learned under Khalilou Traore.

Koité's vocal style is intimate and relaxed, emphasizing calm, moody singing rather than operatic technical prowess. Members of Bamada play talking drum, guitar, bass, drum set, harmonica, violin, calabash, and balafon. Koité composes and arranges all songs, singing in English, French, and Bambara.

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 'Den Ko'

'Den Ko'
Saturday, April 13, 2019

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Bands, p 12 of 34

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