The Drums Have Gone Silent

 

This morning, I received the sad news that Sly Dunbar has also passed away. This marks the end of the legendary rhythm section that played with almost every musician who needed a reggae rhythm in the 1980s. Both had enhanced numerous songs with their own drumming and bass playing. Here are a few examples of their work.

RIP Sly

Singles Released This Week Years Ago

 

Here is the second edition of a journey through former hits and some eclectic songs from the past this year.

1972: Little Feat

1964: The Searchers

1969: The Byrds

1983: Prince

1965: The Righteous Brothers

1965: The Shangri-Las

1968: Otis Redding

1971: Ike & Tina Turner

1990: Sinead O'Conner

1981: Ultravox

1969: Tommy James and the Shondells

1994: Tori Amos

1971: Janis Joplin

1974: The Allman Brothers Band

1974: Paper Lace

1974: Joni Mitchell

Houses

 

I took some time off over the last few days and went to a skat tournament in Ingolstadt with a friend. My father taught me this card game decades ago, and I played it often in my younger years. But it's a huge difference when I, as an amateur, want to compete with professionals. Fortunately, I hadn't forgotten everything, and the lessons I had to learn the hard way were kept to a minimum.

Back to blogging reality and a short series about songs that have houses in their titles. Let's start with X, a band from Los Angeles. They were filed under punk-rock but they included more stiles like rockabilly in their sound. In This House That I Call Home is from their second album and one of my favorites from 1981.

The House Of The Rising Sun is a classic recorded by innumerable artists. I prefer the version by Sinead O'Conner from 1995.

Let's finish today with a classic by Blur without any further words.

Red Hot And Blue

 

Red Hot + Blue is a compilation album from 1990, which was conceived as a tribute to Cole Porter and on which well-known musicians recorded contemporary cover versions of songs by the famous Broadway and film composer.

The album is the first in a series of benefit albums released by the Red Hot Organization in support of AIDS relief projects in various countries.

I also bought the album back then and was amazed at what great songs Cole Porter wrote and how they could be interpreted in a contemporary way. When I listened to the album again recently, I had the idea of creating a series of songs with red, hot and blue in the title. Stay tuned to see what comes in the next few weeks.

Visions Of You

 

30 years ago now Jah Wobble released Rising Above Bedlam, an album where he combined influences of world music with his experiences of post-punk and the collaboration with Holger Czukay. On this album he made a great step forward away from his former roots but still with a deep tempered bass and melody figures I seldom heard before. He also collaborated on this album with Brian Eno and for some songs with Sinéad O'Conner, a voice I always liked to listen to. Visions Of You was probably his biggest chart success but I almost forgot how great this song and his bass lines were. One of my finest founds in my collection during the last days.

Jah Wobble and the Invaders of the Heart - Visions Of You

Red Hot And Rhapsody

Strange sounds today - I know. Rummaging in my record collection brought me these days to a compilation by the Red Hot Organisation released almost 20 years ago. I bought a few of this records thinking it will be for the benefit of something worth to support. I liked this series because all artists get close to the main theme and give songs you might never heard on official records. This compilation is a tribute to George Gershwin, a piano player and orchestral composer from the early days of the last century. He wrote the music to a lots of musicals and got famous for the music to Porgy and Bess. This songs are not for listening during the daytime - they are something special for later at the evening. These songs are superb and if you're in for some great arrangements and voices it will be something for you.

Have a great weekend (I will go to watch the far-away game of my team early this evening in the pub next door, hoping that they will still be at the top of the table after they did their job).