Category: Uncategorized
Norway's Christina Skjolberg – Come and Get It
So right now Christina Skjolberg may be one of Norway’s best kept secrets, but after this years Blues Caravan Tour rolls across Europe and around the world she may not be. Skjolberg is a dynamite blues woman who Ruf Records has signed and released her début album Come and Get It!
The left-handed young female guitar wiz was born and raised on the island of Smøla outside Kristiansund on the northwest coat of Norway.She has been playing guitar since she was twelve and was inspired by fellow lefty Jimi Hendrix. Night after night Christina would wow them at clubs across Norway, where she caught the eye of Thomas Ruf Records who saw her talent signed her and paved the way to her début release and a spot on his Blues Caravan 2014. Accompanying he on the Caravan are fellow blues artists Albert Castiglia and Laurence Jones, and her band composed of Brynjulf Blix on Hammond B3 organ. Blix has been playing Blues, Jazz and Rock across Norway with various bands for the last 40 years!, and Tore Slåttsveen who plays rhythm guitar and provides background vocals. Like Blix, Tore has played across Norway with various bands like Little Andrew & the Blue Masters, Triple T and The Mojo Workers.
Come and Get It is a great album, Christina’s guitar is smoking when it needs to be and her vocals are hard-rocking or sultry when the song calls for it. Blix on organ really is an added bonus on several tracks!! All in All the album is a winner and I’m confident that you’ll be hearing a lot more from Ms. Skjolberg in the future!!
Links
Artist Website
Ruf Records
Facebook
MySpace
Here’s a performance by Christina on Blues Caravan 2014 at the Musiktheater Dortmund Germany
Life’s Soundtrack – A Not Good Day Brings Thoughts of “Send a Boat” and “I’m Busted”
Ok so it’s not exactly Noah’s flood, but when I went to the basement this morning to exercise I discovered that the hot water heater had sprung a leak! Which means moving boxes vacuuming up water,separating damaged from on damaged junk, and now I’m waiting on a friend to come look at it, to see what I need to do!
This Date in Music – Feb 17, 1971 – James Taylor debuts on TV on The Johnny Cash Show!
So on this date February 17, 1971, James Taylor made his television début on the Johnny Cash Show, appearing with Neil Young, Linda Ronstadt, and Tony Joe White.on the show Taylor sang his hit “Fire and Rain” and his cover version of Stephen Foster’s “Oh, Susanna” with Cash. Here’s a clip of the performance of “Oh,Susanna” from the show, followed by a 1970 performance of “Fire and Rain”. Man, I think it’s time to visit that great Fire and Rain album!
Book 4 of 2014 – Plainsong – Kent Haruf
2014 Blues from Damon Fowler – Sounds of Home!!
I first encountered Florida native Damon Fowler a few years ago when he released his second album on Blind Pig Records Devil Got His Way, now his third record on the label Sounds of Home sits at # 4 on the Roots Music Reports Blues Chart and it’s rising!! Now that was when I officially listened to Damon Fowler’s music but Damon Fowler the musician who plays not only a terrific guitar but also steel guitar, dobro and lab steel has played on albums from artists like Jeff Beck, Buddy Guy, Johnny Winter and Edgar Winter, Robin Trower, Gregg Allman, Jimmie Vaughan, Junior Brown, Rick Derringer, Delbert McClinton, and many others. so there’s a good chance that I have heard his playing somewhere along the way.
Americana Music from Texas’ Chis Beall – Gin Mill Hymns
Chris Beall.’s 2013 release is titled Gin Mill Hymns. Now if I see an album with a title like that, and read that the musician resides in Austin. Texas, I’m gonna give it a listen!! Visions of Ray Wylie Hubbard, Slaid Cleaves and a dozen others dance in my head. The only other thing that would make it a certainty that I would listen is if I saw that the album was produced by Lloyd Maines. What I got was an album that’s full of great songs some really personal like :”Dug Down Deep” about his father, a Texas motorcycle racer’s crash in Missouri and his miraculous recovery. coupled with blues classics like Mississippi John Hurt’s “Spike Driver Blues” Chris says his influences include David Grissom, Tom Petty, Will Hoge, Neil Young, John Mellencamp. But when I listen to the first and second tracks on the album “Half a World Away” and the aforementioned “Dug Down Deep” I hear a little Greg Trooper in his music. And I even think he stole his hat!
Today’s Reads – Feb 8, 2014 – The Bible and Camel Bones and the War on the Poor and Middle Class
Ok so it’s been a while since I posted some new reads but here are a few that caught my eye today. The first one is from Juan Cole and discusses the writing of the Bible based on Archeological studies. I think it shows that while maybe inspired by God, the Bible was written by people who wrote it based on THEIR frames of reference!!
Camel Bones and Jerusalem: Archeology Shows Bible Written Late, Full of Errors
from Truthdig,com and Informed Comment
A new paper by Israeli archeologists Lidar Sapir-Hen and Erez Ben-Yosef, [pdf] posted at the University of Tel Aviv web site, is bad news for biblical literalists and far right wing Israeli nationalists who use the Bible for support.
Today's Reads – Feb 8, 2014 – The Bible and Camel Bones and the War on the Poor and Middle Class
Ok so it’s been a while since I posted some new reads but here are a few that caught my eye today. The first one is from Juan Cole and discusses the writing of the Bible based on Archeological studies. I think it shows that while maybe inspired by God, the Bible was written by people who wrote it based on THEIR frames of reference!!
Camel Bones and Jerusalem: Archeology Shows Bible Written Late, Full of Errors
from Truthdig,com and Informed Comment
A new paper by Israeli archeologists Lidar Sapir-Hen and Erez Ben-Yosef, [pdf] posted at the University of Tel Aviv web site, is bad news for biblical literalists and far right wing Israeli nationalists who use the Bible for support.
The Hebrew Bible’s oldest chapters– Genesis, Exodus, and even Judges purport to discuss events thousands of years ago. The custom in Western biblical scholarship is to date Abraham to e.g. 2000 B.C. This dating is based on nothing more than counting generations (“begats”) backward and assigning an arbitrary number of years to each generation. In fact, Genesis is replete with myths and assertions of people living hundreds of years, and was only historicized in this way by 19th century positivists.
But here is proof that the Bible was written late and projects later developments into the distant past: it alleges that people had domesticated camels four millennia ago in what is now Israel. And that assertion, folks, is simply not true. That is the finding of Sapir-Hen and Ben-Yosef.
E.g. Genesis 24: 64 says, “Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she dismounted from the camel.” If this encounter happened circa 2026 BC, it was happening a thousand years before anyone was riding camels
Continue Reading at Truthdig.com or at Juan’s website Informed Comment
