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Bands // p 33 of 34

Darren's favorite bands for his Song Of The Day choices.
502 Bands
Van Morrison

Van Morrison

Sir George Ivan Morrison OBE (born 31 August 1945) is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter, instrumentalist and record producer. His professional career began as a teenager in the late 1950s playing a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone for various Irish showbands, covering the popular hits of that time. Van Morrison rose to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the Northern Irish R&B band Them, with whom he recorded the garage band classic "Gloria". His solo career began under the pop-hit oriented guidance of Bert Berns with the release of the hit single "Brown Eyed Girl" in 1967. After Berns's death, Warner Bros. Records bought out his contract and allowed him three sessions to record Astral Weeks (1968). Though this album gradually garnered high praise, it was initially a poor seller.

Moondance (1970) established Morrison as a major artist, and he built on his reputation throughout the 1970s with a series of acclaimed albums and live performances. He continues to record and tour, producing albums and live performances that sell well and are generally warmly received, sometimes collaborating with other artists, such as Georgie Fame and The Chieftains.

Much of Morrison's music is structured around the conventions of soul music and R&B, such as the popular singles "Brown Eyed Girl", "Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)", "Domino" and "Wild Night". An equal part of his catalogue consists of lengthy, loosely connected, spiritually inspired musical journeys that show the influence of Celtic tradition, jazz and stream-of-consciousness narrative, such as the album Astral Weeks and the lesser known Veedon Fleece and Common One. The two strains together are sometimes referred to as "Celtic soul". He has received two Grammy Awards, the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, the 2017 Americana Music Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting and has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2016, he was knighted for services to the music industry and to tourism in Northern Ireland. He is known by the nickname Van the Man to his fans.

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 'Beside You'

'Beside You'
Wednesday, July 21, 2021

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 'Into The Mystic'

'Into The Mystic'
Wednesday, June 26, 2019

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 'The Way Young Lovers Do'

'The Way Young Lovers Do'
Saturday, March 23, 2019

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 'Slim Slow Slider'

'Slim Slow Slider'
Thursday, January 3, 2019

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Vetiver

Vetiver

Vetiver is an American folk band headed by songwriter Andy Cabic.

History

Vetiver was formed in San Francisco in 2002. The band released their self-titled debut album in 2004 on the small indie folk label DiCristina. Since the album's release, Vetiver has toured extensively, opening for and collaborating with Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom. Vetiver released another album, To Find Me Gone, on DiCristina in 2006. Banhart and Cabic also launched their own label, Gnomonsong Recordings, releasing Jana Hunter's Blank Unstaring Heirs of Doom in 2005 and There's No Home in 2007. The label also released in 2008 Vetiver's Thing of the Past, a collection of cover songs that have influenced Cabic's aesthetic. Sub Pop Records (US) and Bella Union (UK) released Vetiver's Tight Knit (2009) The Errant Charm (2011), and Complete Strangers (2015).

The band shared the bill with Vashti Bunyan on her US tour in early 2007. Over the years, the band has toured with artists like Fleet Foxes, The Shins, Fruit Bats and Wilco.

Cabic's music has also been featured in numerous TV commercials, including an original song for Birds Eye. He also works as a composer, including the documentary The Family Jams and the film Smashed, which was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012.

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 'Up On High'

'Up On High'
Wednesday, August 19, 2020

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Vieux Diop

Vieux Diop

Vieux Diop (pronounced "Via Jo") is a master of the kora, a 21-stringed instrument indigenous to West Africa. A former member of Youssou N'Dour's band, Diop has toured with African percussionist Babatunde Olatunji and jazz musicians Jean Paul Borelli and Roy Brooks. Since emigrating to the U.S. in 1984, Diop has lectured and performed at colleges and universities including the Julliard School of Music in New York, which was the site of a weekly series, West African Journey, that he hosted in 1996. Diop serves as host of a biweekly radio show on world music, Musical Conversations, broadcast by New York radio station, WBAI-FM. While his music remains rooted in the traditions of West Africa, Diop has increasingly incorporated contemporary roots music influences. Cash Box observed that Diop "...serves up bobbing, weaving, grooves that are undeniable to the human pulse." In addition to creating heartfelt melodies on the kora, Diop plays the dissunguni (bass kora) and djembe, and sings in a mixture of traditional African languages (Wolof, Mandigo and Bambara), French and English. He has released albums to the US, starting with his self-titled 1995 debut and continuing into the next decade.

Source allmusic.com

 'Mom’s Jam'

'Mom’s Jam'
Thursday, December 16, 2021

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 'Sutu Kun'

'Sutu Kun'
Saturday, March 21, 2020

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 'Jali'

'Jali'
Monday, November 26, 2018

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Vieux Farka Touré

Vieux Farka Touré

Often referred to as “The Hendrix of the Sahara”, Vieux Farka Touré was born in Niafunké, Mali in 1981. He is the son of legendary Malian guitar player Ali Farka Touré, who died in 2006. Ali Farka Touré came from a historical tribe of soldiers, and defied his parents in becoming a musician. When Vieux was in his teens, he declared that he also wanted to be a musician. His father disapproved due to the pressures he had experienced being a musician. Rather, he wanted Vieux to become a soldier. But with help from family friend the kora maestro Toumani Diabaté, Vieux eventually convinced his father to give him his blessing to become a musician shortly before Ali passed.

Vieux was initially a drummer / calabash player at Mali’s Institut National des Arts, but secretly began playing guitar in 2001. Ali Farka Touré was weakened with cancer when Vieux announced that he was going to record an album. Ali recorded a couple of tracks with him, and these recordings, which can be heard on Vieux’s debut CD, were amongst his final ones. It has been said that the senior Touré played rough mixes of these songs when people visited him in his final days, at peace with, and proud of, his son’s talent as a musician.

In 2005, Eric Herman (still Vieux’s manager today) of Modiba Productions expressed an interest in producing an album for Vieux; this led to Vieux’s self-titled debut album, released by World Village in 2007. Ali Farka Touré’s work to tackle the problem of malaria is continued as 10% of proceeds are donated to Modiba’s “Fight Malaria” campaign in Niafunké through which over 3000 mosquito nets have been delivered to children and pregnant women in the Timbuktu region of Mali. On this first album, Vieux pays homage to his father and follows Ali’s musical tradition, giving new versions of the West African music that is echoed in the American blues. The album features Toumani Diabaté, as well as his late father. One of the tracks, ‘Courage’, is on the soundtrack of the film The First Grader (2010).

On his second record, Fondo on Six Degrees (2009), Vieux branched out and presented his own sound: while remaining true to the roots of his father’s music he uses elements of rock, Latin music, and other African influences. The album received a great deal of critical acclaim from across the globe, and Vieux was clearly moving out of his father’s shadow.

By June 2010, Vieux was performing at the opening concert for the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. That month Vieux also released his first live album, LIVE. His live performances are highly energized and Vieux is known for dazzling crowds with his speed and dexterity on the guitar, as well as his palpable charisma and luminous smile, both of which captivate audiences from all audiences in spite of any language barriers (though Vieux does speak 8 languages).

In 2011 Vieux released his 3rd studio album, The Secret, so named because the listener will hear the secret of the blues with a blend of generations from father to son. It was produced by guitarist Eric Krasno (of the Soulive trio) and features South African-born vocalist Dave Matthews, Derek Trucks on electric slide guitar and jazz guitarist John Scofield. The title track is the last collaboration between Vieux and his late father. With the heralded release of The Secret, Vieux Farka Touré has clearly established himself as one of the world’s rare musical talents and guitar virtuosos with a distinct style that always pays homage to the past while looking towards the future.

Vieux released The Tel Aviv Session (Cumbancha) in April 2012, a collaborative project with Israeli superstar Idan Raichel dubbed ‘The Touré-Raichel Collective’ that has been hailed by fans and critics alike as a masterpiece and one of the best collaborative albums in the history of international music, drawing comparisons to Ali Farka Touré and Ry Cooder’s legendary Talking Timbuktu album.

In 2013, Vieux Farka Touré’s beautiful and critically acclaimed latest album Mon Pays was released as an homage to his homeland. Being that his native Mali had recently been splintered by territorial fighting between Tuareg and Islamic rebels since January 2012, Mon Pays was devoted to reminding the world about the beauty and culture of his native Mali. Translated as ‘My Country,’ this predominantly acoustic undertaking transformed into an artifact of cultural preservation. Two songs on the project -Future’ and ‘Peace’ feature Sidiki Diabate’s kora leading an emotional charge complemented by Touré’s spectacular guitar work. Both tracks represent an important generational “passing of the torch” as Sidiki’s father, Toumani is considered one of the greatest living kora masters and was a close friend of Vieux’s father Ali. Mon Pays has been widely hailed as the most mature and lovely record yet from one of this generation’s most exciting artists to come out of Mali and one of world music’s true rising stars.

Vieux reunited with Idan Raichel in Paris to record, release and subsequently tour their 2nd collaborative album as The Touré-Raichel Collective in 2014. The result was yet another musical and critical triumph, titled 'The Paris Session' (Cumbancha) revered by many as not just a musical gem for the ages but a powerful testimonial to the power of art and fraternity to transcend vast cultural and political divides. In 2015, Vieux released another unexpected, genre-bending collaborative album, this time with New York-based singer Julia Easterlin, aptly titled 'Touristes'. The album shot to the top of the iTunes World chart and earned critical acclaim, including that of John Schaefer (NPR) who called it "brilliant." On April 7, 2017, Vieux released his latest album 'Samba', recorded live in front of a small audience at Applehead Studio in Woodstock, NY. The album was being hailed by critics as Vieux's finest, most well-rounded and mature album to date. With each new project, Vieux expands his horizons, embraces new challenges and further entrenches his reputation as one of the world’s most talented and innovative musicians.

Source VieuxFarkaToure.com

 'Lobbo'

'Lobbo'
Monday, April 24, 2023

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 'Fafa (Reprise)'

'Fafa (Reprise)'
Thursday, November 26, 2020

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 'Maya'

'Maya'
Friday, December 27, 2019

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War

War

War (originally called Eric Burdon and War) is an American funk/rock/soul band from Long Beach, California, known for several hit songs (including "Spill the Wine", "The World Is a Ghetto", "The Cisco Kid", "Why Can't We Be Friends?", "Low Rider", and "Summer"). Formed in 1969, War is a musical crossover band that fuses elements of rock, funk, jazz, Latin, rhythm and blues, psychedelia, and reggae. According to music writer Colin Larkin, their "potent fusion of funk, R&B, rock and Latin styles produced a progressive soul sound", while Martin C. Strong calls them "one of the fiercest progressive soul combos of the '70s". Their album The World Is a Ghetto was Billboard's best-selling album of 1973. The band transcended racial and cultural barriers with a multi-ethnic line-up. War was subject to many line-up changes over the course of its existence, leaving member Leroy "Lonnie" Jordan as the only original member in the current line-up; four other members created a new group called the Lowrider Band.

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 'Four Cornered Room'

'Four Cornered Room'
Sunday, September 5, 2021

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Warhaus

Warhaus

Maarten Devoldere (born in 1988) is a Belgian singer-songwriter and music producer. He began his career as a 22-year-old in the band Balthazar. In 2016, he started his solo project Warhaus.

The music he played with Balthazar band he described as simply pop music. They had recorded three albums and one single and after the break they took, they intended to come back and record the fourth album to be released in early 2018.

Maarten Devoldere took up on the solo project - Warhaus. His style there is described as a continuation of Leonard Cohen style but more dense with influences of Tom Waits' style and Serge Gainsbourg ballad songs. Some of the Warhaus-period songs and albums had been recorded with Devoldere's girlfriend Sylvie Kreusch, a Belgian musician who released her solo debut in 2018.

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 'Time and Again'

'Time and Again'
Sunday, July 28, 2019

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Wax Machine

Wax Machine

Surfing on a sun-drenched wave of psychedelia comes Brighton’s very own Merry Pranksters, Wax Machine. Primarily recorded and mixed in a closet room directly above a mortuary, their self-produced album Hermit’s Grove is a heady trip through progressive psychedelia, kitsch Italian library music and Brazilian tropicalia. Led off by the single Guardians of Eden, the album is set for release on 1st July via Batov Records (Şatellites, Sababa 5).

Wax Machine is the project of Brazilian-born, Italian/English-raised Lau Ro, who takes a deep dive into their Brazilian heritage on this LP, taking inspiration from 60s tropicalia music and movement and the likes of Os Mutantes, Caetano Veloso and Gal Costa.

“Brazil is where I was born and grew up until I was 8 years old, and it's where my family is from. We then immigrated to Europe and I was never able to visit Brazil after that as it's a very expensive flight. Instead I've opted for the next best thing which is connecting with the spirit and culture of Brazil via the medium of music.”

The album features a version of Canto De Iemanja from Vinicius De Moraes and Baden Powell's seminal 1966 Brazilian album Os Afro sambas. Canto De Iemanja is about the goddess of the sea Iemanja, a chant Lau has often found themselves singing to the sea in their hometown of Brighton.

“The ocean is a muse of mine. I go to the sea whenever I can, her presence enlivens, refreshes and brings me deeper awareness. This version is a homage both to my motherland and the great big blue that separates us.”

The first single and album opener Guardians of Eden is carried in on a cloud of flutes and birdsong. The first half celebrates the light and beauty of this world, while the second half is a reflection on the shadow of our existence here. The three minute, psychedelic explosion of Springtime is a "meditation on the cycles of nature, the dance of duality, the swinging of the cosmic pendulum.”

Two EPs in 2018 preceded their debut album Earthsong of Silence in 2020, with Clash Magazine declaring that Wax Machine “occupy a space somewhere in the gaps where English psych-folk, sun drenched West Coast sounds, Brazilian Tropicália and spiritual jazz overlap.” That year they also had a track featured on the Mr. Bongo Record Club 4 compilation.

Although there is constantly evolving line up both in studio and on stage, long time collaborators Toma Sapir (drums, percussions, samples/synths), Isobel Jones (Flute/Vocals) and Ella Russell (vocals in Canto De lemanja) all appear on both albums.

A tour de force live, the group have shared the stage with the likes of the Babe Rainbow, Kikagaku Moyo and Vanishing Twin. The band are currently in the midst of a UK and European tour, ending with a homecoming show in Brighton on 27th May.

On the album Isobel Jones plays Flute/Vocals, Toma Sapir - drums, percussions and samples/synths, Freddie Willatt – sax, Ella Russell vocals in “Canto De lemanja”, Kate Mager - bass in “...Iemanja”, Adam Campbell - electric piano, Marja Burchard(from Embryo/Karl Hector) - vibraphones on “Gaian Dream”.

Source bandcamp.com

 'Canto de Lemanjá'

'Canto de Lemanjá'
Wednesday, February 21, 2024

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Wax Tailor

Wax Tailor

Jean-Christophe Le Saoût (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ kʁistɔf lə sut]; born July 19, 1975 in Vernon, Normandy), better known by the stage name Wax Tailor, is a French trip hop/hip hop producer. He has released six studio albums collaborating with a great number of artists.

After being a host on a French radio in the Paris suburb of Mantes-La-Jolie, Le Saoût started the French Rap band La Formule in the 1990s. He created his label Lab'Oratoire in 1998 and produced records from La Formule as well as Break Beat compilations and a collaboration with the Swedish band Looptroop. He began work on the Wax Tailor project in 2001, first appearing on a remix of Looptroop & La Formule's "Deep Under Water".

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 'Ungodly Fruit'

'Ungodly Fruit'
Thursday, December 26, 2019

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Wes Montgomery

Wes Montgomery

John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery (March 6, 1923 – June 15, 1968) was an American jazz guitarist. Montgomery was known for an unusual technique of plucking the strings with the side of his thumb which granted him a distinctive sound. He often worked with his brothers Buddy and Monk and with organist Jimmy Smith. Montgomery's recordings up to 1965 were oriented towards hard bop, soul jazz, and post bop, but around 1965 he began recording more pop-oriented instrumental albums that found mainstream success. His later guitar style influenced jazz fusion and smooth jazz.

His grandson is actor Anthony Montgomery, who was Travis Mayweather on Star Trek: Enterprise.

Montgomery was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. According to NPR, the nickname "Wes" was a child's abbreviation of his middle name, Leslie. The family was large, and the parents split up early in the lives of the children. Montgomery and his brothers moved to Columbus, Ohio, with their father and attended Champion High School. His older brother Monk dropped out of school to sell coal and ice, gradually saving enough money to buy his brother Wes a four-string tenor guitar from a pawn shop in 1935. Although Montgomery spent many hours with the guitar, he discounted this time later in life, saying he had to start over when he got his first six-string several years later.

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 'People'

'People'
Friday, November 12, 2021

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 'In and Out'

'In and Out'
Thursday, May 2, 2019

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Weyes Blood

Weyes Blood

Natalie Laura Mering (born June 11, 1988), known professionally as Weyes Blood (pronounced /waɪzblʌd/), is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. She was primarily raised in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. She has been performing her own material under variations of the name Weyes Blood since 2003.

Her music has undergone significant changes throughout her career. She has been involved in the underground noise music scene and was briefly bassist of the Portland, Oregon-based group Jackie-O Motherfucker and was singer for the band Satanized. As Weyes Bluhd she made two self-released albums, changing to Weyes Blood to release The Outside Room (2011) on microlabel Not Not Fun Records. She then signed with independent label Mexican Summer, releasing The Innocents (2014) and Front Row Seat to Earth (2016). She released her latest studio album, Titanic Rising (2019) on Sub Pop, to critical acclaim.

Natalie Laura Mering was born on June 11, 1988 in Santa Monica, California, into a deeply religious born again Pentecostal Christian family. Commenting on her upbringing, Mering said: "I was raised in a real spiritual, Bible Belt household. So I developed my own cynicism because there are always things in the Bible that really bum me out.... I became really obsessed with the Kids in the Hall as a kid, and they had Scott Thompson, who's like the one gay member. I remember having this feeling that 'Oh, Scott Thompson isn't going to heaven? How could that be?' That was my first big tipoff that something wasn't quite right with dogmatic Christianity. And then I was just trying to undo it at the age of 12."

Mering's family moved several times throughout her childhood; she spent her early life in Scotts Valley, California before they settled in Doylestown, Pennsylvania in 1999, where she attended high school. Both her older brothers and parents are musicians and music played an important part in her upbringing. Her father, Sumner Mering, is a musician and guitarist who was in a Los Angeles new wave band entitled Sumner in the late 1970s.

Source Wikipedia

Whitney

Whitney

Whitney is an American band from Chicago, which formed in 2015 and is signed to Secretly Canadian. The band was formed shortly after the breakup of members Max Kakacek and Julien Ehrlich's band Smith Westerns in late 2014. They released their debut album, Light Upon the Lake, in June 2016 and have toured internationally.

Career
After the breakup of Smith Westerns in 2014, guitarist Kakacek joined with drummer Julien Ehrlich, who also played drums for Unknown Mortal Orchestra, to form Whitney. As roommates, the duo shared songwriting duties while Ehrlich became the main vocalist. Initially the band featured members of the Touching Voids, Ehrlich's previous band. In June 2015, the band made the song "No Matter Where We Go" available digitally through the Lead Riders label. It included former Smith Westerns member Ziyad Asrar on rhythm guitar, Malcolm Brown on keyboards, bassist Josiah Marshall and brass player Will Miller.

During 2015, the band played around thirty shows, mostly in support of other artists. This included Tobias Jesso Jr. who got the band in contact with Jonathan Rado, the producer of the album. In September of that year, they joined Rado at his Los Angeles home studio to record. In January 2016 the band released the single "No Woman" supported by a video and toured Europe in anticipation of the new album. They also featured on the 2016 edition of the SXSW festival.

On June 3, 2016 the album Light Upon the Lake was released. In support they embarked on their first headlining European tour.

In 2017, the band announced a new demos album with a previously unreleased song, "You and Me".

In March 2017 Whitney released two new songs, "You've Got a Woman" and "Gonna Hurry (As Slow as I Can)". Both are covers.

In an interview published in April 2019 the band mentioned their second album, due in 2019, will deal with "fear, confusion, and substance abuse". They shared a song titled "FTA" from the album in June 2019 and released the lead single “Giving Up” on June 6.

The album "Forever Turned Around" was released on August 30, 2019.

Style
Ehrlich outlined the approach to songwriting as "when we were writing for Whitney, we were doing what we wanted to do, the music was really freeing". Paul Lester in the Guardian described the band as "think Bon Iver, with elements of folk and country, only given a Chicago soul makeover". They cite Levon Helm and Allen Toussaint as inspiration.

Source Wikipedia

 'No Woman'

'No Woman'
Monday, May 18, 2020

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Wild Child

Wild Child

Wild Child is an American indie pop band from Austin, Texas formed in 2010. The band consists of Kelsey Wilson (lead vocals and violin), Alexander Beggins (lead vocals and baritone ukulele), Sadie Wolfe (cello), Tyler Osmond (bass), Matt Bradshaw (keyboard and trumpet), Cody Ackors (guitar and trombone), and Tom Myers (drums).

Wilson and Beggins met while touring as back-up musicians for a Danish indie act called The Migrant. They began writing songs together in the backseat of the tour van and found they worked very well as a songwriting team. Both had just been through the end of relationships, which provided both common ground and writing material. Beggins had brought a ukulele from his father's instrument collection simply because it was small enough to comfortably pass around in a van (Beggins played accordion with The Migrant). By the end of the tour the two had written several songs and began recording their first album upon their return to Austin. To complete the sound they were seeking, they called in other local musicians and friends to help record, which eventually became the full Wild Child band.

Their self-recorded first album, the 15-track Pillow Talk, was released on October 25, 2011 (with help from San Francisco producers Evan Magers and Alex Peterson, and mastered by Erik Wofford). The album was received positively on many blogs and yielded a number one single on the music promotion site The Hype Machine.

Their second album, The Runaround, was released on October 8, 2013 via The Noise Company and produced by Ben Kweller. Kweller liked the band's debut album and sought out the band seeking to produce their sophomore effort. The album was funded in part through a successful Kickstarter campaign which raised over $40,000. It was recorded in January 2013.

The first single from the album, "Crazy Bird", was received extremely positively, reaching number one on the music promotion site The Hype Machine, debuting number one the FMBQ SubModern/Specialty charts, and being featured on World Cafe. Reviews for the album were positive, including a rating of 8/10 from PopMatters. The song "Living Tree" was named in the 'Top Ten Songs of 2013' by NPR.

Source Wikipedia

 'Rillo Talk'

'Rillo Talk'
Monday, August 19, 2019

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William Tyler

William Tyler

William Armistead Tyler (born December 25, 1979, in Nashville, Tennessee) is an American musician and guitarist who plays folk, indie folk, and pop rock. His debut studio album, Behold the Spirit, was released on November 22, 2010. Adam Bednarik produced the album with Tyler on Tompkins Square Records. He has since released three additional solo albums.

Background

Tyler was born to Daniel E. "Dan" Tyler and Adele B. Tyler on December 25, 1979, in Nashville, Tennessee. His father is a noted songwriter in his own right who wrote "The Light in Your Eyes" by LeAnn Rimes, co-wrote "Baby's Got a New Baby" by S-K-O, and co-wrote "Modern Day Romance" by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band; in addition, both of his parents co-wrote "Bobbie Sue" by The Oak Ridge Boys. Tyler has a younger sister named Elise. William and Elise Tyler were the owners and founders of The Stone Fox in Nashville, Tennessee, which was a music restaurant/café/bar that opened on September 20, 2012 and held its final live show on January 31, 2016. William is a 1998 graduate and his sister Elise is a 2002 graduate of University School of Nashville.

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 'Hurricane Light'

'Hurricane Light'
Sunday, September 12, 2021

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 'Time Indefinite'

'Time Indefinite'
Saturday, September 12, 2020

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 'Gone Clear'

'Gone Clear'
Tuesday, February 18, 2020

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Willie Bobo

Willie Bobo

William Correa (February 28, 1934 – September 15, 1983), better known by his stage name Willie Bobo, a Latin and jazz percussionist of Puerto Rican ancestry.

Career

Correa became a noted timbales performer in Latin Jazz, specifically Afro-Cuban jazz, in the 1960s and 1970s. He met Mongo Santamaría shortly after his arrival in New York and studied with him while acting as his translator, and later at the age of 19 joined Tito Puente for four years.

The nickname Bobo is said to have been originated by the jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams in the early 1950s.

Correa joined George Shearing's band on the album The Shearing Spell. After leaving Shearing, Cal Tjader asked Bobo and Santamaría to become part of the Cal Tjader Modern Mambo Quintet, who released several albums as the mambo craze reached fever pitch in the late 1950s. Reuniting with his mentor Santamaría in 1960, the pair released the album Sabroso! for the Fantasy label. Bobo later formed his own group, releasing Do That Thing/Guajira with Tico and Bobo's Beat and Let's Go Bobo for Roulette, without achieving huge penetration.

After the success of Tjader's Soul Sauce, in which he was heavily involved, Correa formed a new band with the backing of Verve Records, releasing Spanish Grease, the title track being perhaps his most well known tune. Highly successful at this attempt, Correa released a further six albums with Verve.

In the early 1970s, he moved to Los Angeles. He again met up with his longtime friend Richard Sanchez Sr. and his son Richard Jr. and began recording in the studio. Bobo then worked as a session musician for Carlos Santana among others, as well as being a regular in the band for Bill Cosby's variety show Cos. Santana covered Willie Bobo's Latin song "Evil Ways" in 1969 on their debut album. In the late 1970s, Bobo recorded albums for Blue Note and Columbia Records.

Personal life

His youngest son, Eric Bobo (Eric Correa), is a percussionist with crew Cypress Hill. He also performed on the Beastie Boys' 1994 album Ill Communication,. His grandson, William Valen Correa, is co-founder of the music-based non-profit organization HNDP Los Angeles.

After a period of ill health, he died at the age of 49, succumbing to cancer.

Source Wikipedia

Willie Nelson

Willie Nelson

Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American musician, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger (1975) and Stardust (1978), made Nelson one of the most recognized artists in country music. He was one of the main figures of outlaw country, a subgenre of country music that developed in the late 1960s as a reaction to the conservative restrictions of the Nashville sound. Nelson has acted in over 30 films, co-authored several books, and has been involved in activism for the use of biofuels and the legalization of marijuana.

Born during the Great Depression and raised by his grandparents, Nelson wrote his first song at age seven and joined his first band at ten. During high school, he toured locally with the Bohemian Polka as their lead singer and guitar player. After graduating from high school in 1950, he joined the U.S. Air Force but was later discharged due to back problems. After his return, Nelson attended Baylor University for two years but dropped out because he was succeeding in music. During this time, he worked as a disc jockey in Texas radio stations and a singer in honky-tonks. Nelson moved to Vancouver, Washington, where he wrote "Family Bible" and recorded the song "Lumberjack" in 1956. He also worked as a disc jockey at various radio stations in Vancouver and nearby Portland, Oregon. In 1958, he moved to Houston, Texas, after signing a contract with D Records. He sang at the Esquire Ballroom weekly and he worked as a disk jockey. During that time, he wrote songs that would become country standards, including "Funny How Time Slips Away", "Hello Walls", "Pretty Paper", and "Crazy". In 1960 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and later signed a publishing contract with Pamper Music which allowed him to join Ray Price's band as a bassist. In 1962, he recorded his first album, ...And Then I Wrote. Due to this success, Nelson signed in 1964 with RCA Victor and joined the Grand Ole Opry the following year. After mid-chart hits in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Nelson retired in 1972 and moved to Austin, Texas. The ongoing music scene of Austin motivated Nelson to return from retirement, performing frequently at the Armadillo World Headquarters.

In 1973, after signing with Atlantic Records, Nelson turned to outlaw country, including albums such as Shotgun Willie and Phases and Stages. In 1975, he switched to Columbia Records, where he recorded the critically acclaimed album Red Headed Stranger. The same year, he recorded another outlaw country album, Wanted! The Outlaws, along with Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser. During the mid-1980s, while creating hit albums like Honeysuckle Rose and recording hit songs like "On the Road Again", "To All the Girls I've Loved Before", and "Pancho and Lefty", he joined the country supergroup The Highwaymen, along with fellow singers Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson.

In 1990, Nelson's assets were seized by the Internal Revenue Service, which claimed that he owed $32 million. The difficulty of paying his outstanding debt was aggravated by weak investments he had made during the 1980s. In 1992, Nelson released The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories?; the profits of the double album—destined to the IRS—and the auction of Nelson's assets cleared his debt. During the 1990s and 2000s, Nelson continued touring extensively, and released albums every year. Reviews ranged from positive to mixed. He explored genres such as reggae, blues, jazz, and folk.

Nelson made his first movie appearance in the 1979 film The Electric Horseman, followed by other appearances in movies and on television. Nelson is a major liberal activist and the co-chair of the advisory board of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), which is in favor of marijuana legalization. On the environmental front, Nelson owns the bio-diesel brand Willie Nelson Biodiesel, which is made from vegetable oil. Nelson is also the honorary chairman of the advisory board of the Texas Music Project, the official music charity of the state of Texas.

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 'Home Hotel'

'Home Hotel'
Monday, March 2, 2020

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