Americana Music Dominates Friday’s Morning Commute Soundtrack
This week has been an Americana music week! The three albums that have gotten a lot of play this week were The Mulligan Brothers’ Via Portland which was the soundtrack of a run earlier this week and then Wednesday’s soundtracks to and from Paulsboro to babysit Oliver were, first Pacific Surf Line by GospelbeacH, and second, Trout Steak Revival’s Brighter Every Day. I will be writing about each of them sometime over the weekend!
Anyway, since it was an Americana music week it was only fitting that the majority of songs that came up on a random shuffle of the iPod this morning had a lot of twang to them!! Here are the songs that made up the soundtrack of this morning’s commute to Paulsboro
- “Pretty Birdy” – Kenny Baker – Cotton Baggin’ 2000. Kenny Baker for those of you who are unfamiliar with the name was a bluegrass fiddler best known for the 25 years he played with Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys.
- “Nightmare” – Pat Green – Live at Billy Bob’s Texas Roadhouse – This album was my introduction to the music of Pat Green and although there are several Pat Green albums now in my collection it is still probably my favorite. Any artist who grew up listening to Jerry Jeff and Townes Van Zandt is okay in my book!
- “Safe Haven” – Claire Lynch Silver and Gold – another bluegrass artist and a very good album!
- “Air” – now for switch to a little less traditional Americana with a song from J J Grey and Mofro>
- “Turkey Bird” – Haywood Banks – Haywood Banks Live! – a little Americana humor in Banks’ music particularly “The Taser Song!”
- “Open Country” – The Steep Canyon Rangers – Nobody Knows You – certainly the Steep Canyon Rangers have come a long way since I picked up their first couple of albums in the bargain bins at Tunes Used CDs
- “Satori” – Rodrigo Y Gabriela – Rodrigo y Gabriela – the first non-Americana song of the morning. I love these two dynamite guitarists!
- “Scat” – Blind Corn Liquor Pickers – The Blind Corn Liquor Pickers – now here’s a band that I haven’t heard for a while and it’s a great instrumental to boot!! Just checked their music at Spotify and it seems they have several newer albums than this 2004 debut CD! I think I need to check them out again!
- “It’s Been So Long” – Randy Kohrs – Quicksand – Another straight up traditional bluegrass album. Kohrs is a fine stringed instrumentalist mainly dobro!
- “Come on in This House” – Elvin Bishop – The Blues Rolls On – This album features a of great blues artists like James Cotton and Kim Wilson. This track features The Homemade Jamz Band!
- “Nothing to Lose” – Eric Gales – The Eric Gales Band – another blues album from a fine blues guitarist Eric Gales!
The shuffle turned out to be a pretty good start to my day and a fitting way to end a week in which listened to a lot of Americana music. Earlier in the week I gave a quick listen to several more Americana albums and found several that I liked. I still haven’t listened to them completely but if I can find the list, I will be listening to some Americana next week, too. Anyway, check out any of the above artists. They are all pretty damn good!!
