Only Once

These days a song by Lone Justice shuffled up on my mobil phone on the way to work. Listening to their songs after a longer time made me smile again. Later this day I looked in my records for more songs by Maria McKee and found her album from 1983 'You Gotta Sin To Get Saved' again. Lone Justice was a band that was maybe the missing link between country and punk. Played with a lot of verve, enthusiasm and fun. Some of their songs are classics in this genre and absolutely timeless. With her second album she impressed me much. It was the time you could stand to country and traditional country at all. The years before the rock and new wave inspired ears wouldn't give a listen to this kind of music. Maria McKee transported the best of country (songs about the classic themes like loneliness, separation and lost chances mostly sung with a very somber tone) into nowadays music. I like her voice much because I feel that she stands behind every word she sings and she sings the songs with a lot of emotions. Maybe it's sentimental - but sometimes it should be this way.

Maria McKee - Only Once

Maria McKee - I Can't Make It Alone

Maria McKee - My Lonely Sad Eyes

Drinking In My Sunday Dress

I'm not a huge fan of country music but I always loved good voices and great songs in this genre. Although I'm not a great expert in this genre there some artists and songs that are very close to me. One of them is Maria McKee. I noticed her back in the early 80s when she came around with her band Lone Justice and gave us that pure and raw cow-punk sound. Since then I followed her career and was surprised many times about her ability to write great songs. So she wrote 'A good heart', a smash hit by Feargal Sharkey, and 'Show me heaven' that was a hit from the movie 'Days of Thunder'. I love her for the ballads she wrote and sung but today I want to introduce you a song that's got more power in it. It's an uptempo song in which she tells us about the time she has to spent until her love comes around. NME has written once about her: Their voice can take up it with the breakable passion of Patsy Cline, the glowing soul of Aretha Franklin and powerful blues of Janis Joplin, No more words to add.

Maria McKee - Drinking In My Sunday Dress

Recreation: The Singha style

Recreation for working people means getting a couple of days off from work. Here it is normally that you work for six days to have one day free to do things of your own pleasure. Also a lot of people work in places that was located a long distance from their hometown. So it could happen that one friend you know from former days appears suddenly to your place and you decide to spent some time with him talking, drinking and eating. Whilst they talk and drink they decide to phone to some other friends to join them.

That's what happend to us last sunday. I got a call from a good friend to join their party a we went off to get a TukTuk to ride us to the next town to join them. As we arrived, allready six people where sitting on the porch - each of them a glass of arrack with lime infront. Arrack is a local liqour and you can compare it to a brandy. It's very tasty and you won't have headache the next day.

If one bottle is empty they call a TukTuk-driver to get the next bottle, some cigaretts and some litte food (grilled fish, coconut-pieces and some sweet stuff). Sometimes it takes a longer time untill the driver brings the next round because he hadn't so much money with, so that he just had to find someone who borrows him some money. And this game goes on and on and on until they decide that it's time to finish.

We had a very funny afternoon there. We were treated like we know them all for a long time. It's still amazing to have people around who are allways open hearted. Sure: they are also proud to have us around. By the way I recognized, that this men's thing - all femals were in the background, telling no words until the party is over. I guess this will never happen in western hemisphere.

This one is from the lovely Maria McKee.In the eighties she did the lead vocals in a band called The Lone Justice. They did a raw mixture of Country, Rock and Punk called CowPunk. It was an american band, but her roots are irish and at the age of 19 she wrote the song Feargal Sharkey made famous - a good heart.

Enjoy and have a good time


Maria McKee - Drinking In My Sunday Dress