100 Mile House – From Fall To Fall
100 Mile House – Hollow Ponds
Chagall Guevara – Chagall Guevara
FM- Surveillance
Various – Folkways, A Vision Shared
Tom Waits – Rain Dogs
Four Seasons- -The Four Seasons Story
America – The Complete Greatest Hits
Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill
Peter Framptom – Frampton Comes Alive

It has been an interesting week musically. I didn’t stream much, just Chagall Guevara and Ignore Alien Orders, the third album from Sweden’s The Holy Ghost. I had good intentions of writing a blog about this album, but as usual, I go to the well, but the buckets dry. I will do a shout-out about this album. It is excellent. Sweden has been a hotbed of music recently, and Ignore Alien Orders keeps that trend going, and they do it in a refined style. The Holy Ghost doesn’t have a sound that fits easily in any genre hole. They made their genre, and it works smooth as silk. Ignore Alien Orders” was recorded in The Dustward, Stockholm, Sweden, by Stefan Brändström, who also mastered the album.

Chagall Guevar are like an old friend that I hadn’t sat down and had a coffee with for ages. I gave away the CD copy of Chagall Guevara that I had, and copies online are pricey so I’ll be content to stream it. Chagall Guevara were an American rock band formed in 1989 by solo artist Steve Taylor, guitarists Dave Perkins and Lynn Nichols (from the 1970s Phil Keaggy band), bassist Wade Jaynes, and drummer Mike Mead.

Steve Taylor needed no introduction for me. I have most of his catalogue and have listened to his music for ages. Dave Perkins is a great session player who has played for an impressive list of musicians. Bluegrass and swing with fiddle-maestro Vassar Clements, Texas renegade-country with Jerry Jeff Walker, singer-songwriter pop with Carole King, alternative rock with Chagall Guevara, Americana with Guy Clark, blues and jazz with violinist Papa John Creach, reggae with Mystic Meditations, and industrial hard-core with Passafist. And more:

bio:

Lynn Nichols has an impressive list of people that he has played with, Phil Keaggy being the big one for me.

Tom Waits is one of my favourite and underrated artists. Alphabetically he is in the last row of CDs against the wall and above a stack of cassette cases, yes, I still listen to tapes occassionally. Anyhow, Tom Waits may not get played a lot, but when it is, it is a pleasure.

The Four Seasons, wow, I hadn’t dusted this slab of vinyl off for ages. It had me smiling at songs that I remembered, places that I had been and people that I had known. Good music is timeless. I also don’t know how they became a super group with Frankie Valli’s voice. I love it and apparently a lot of other folks do as well. It is so distinct and singular, no one else sounds like Frankie Valli.

The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill is an album that garnered a boatload of positive reviews and was a good seller, those two don’t always dance with each other. I totally get the significance of this album and how it came to be an album of considerable importance in the history of rap and rock. I know that, but it took me several listening sessions before the music and lyrics began to attach themselves to me on a personal level. The education of Norman towards this album has moved from elementary school to junior high. A move that came with good marks.

Yeah, so that’s about it for this week, a short list with many respins on a few of them. Hear y’all next week, and may your listening be happy.