The Harder They Come

The first time I got in contact to reggae music was around 1974 when I saw The Harder They Come in a late night special repetory cinema in my hometown. I have to admit that my English wasn't that well at this times and I sat there reading subtitles most of the time. But it wasn't necessary because you will understand the story anyway even if you don't understand every word. The story is simple and based on the life of rude boy Vincent 'Ivanhoe' Martin adapted into the 70's life in Kingston. The Jamaican singer Jimmy Cliff plays in it Ivanhoe Martin, a young man who comes from the country to the city of Kingston and dreams of a career as a singer. Finally, after different approach difficulties he finds a producer (who stands on behalf for the large part of the Jamaican producers at that time). After him this pays only extremely meagerly, Ivan starts to earn his money with trade of the marihuana which is also unlawful in Jamaica. Accordingly he gets during conflict with the system what makes to him the life difficult – he is shot in a battle with the police. A simple and credible story but what fascinated me most was the soundtrack to this movie. Me and me mates have heard that there was a very special music over in Jamaica but never listened to any song. Jimmy Cliff and this movie introduced me to reggae and made me investigate more of this. Still then from time to time a reggae or dub record will find the way to my turntable and I enjoy it.

Jimmy Cliff - Pressure Drop
Jimmy Cliff - Johnny Too Bad
Jimmy Cliff - The Harder They Come
Jimmy Cliff - You Can Get It If You Really Want

The Healer

John Lee Hooker appeared at the last days of his career with The Healer back in 1989 with a groundbreaking album that brought back classical Mississippi delta blues to a lot of people who forgot where many of popular music got its influence from. An album full with collaborations with a lot of different popular musicians made this album one of the best and well known records of this year. I didn't listen to this records for ages but it is still a record you ought to listen to from time to time even if you are not deeply into blues. The way he plays his guitar with a few licks is simply unbelievable and none could do it better than the master himself. What Hooker did in the late days of his musical career was that important for generations who didn't knew where many of the music came from.

John Lee Hooker - Rockin' Chair
John Lee Hooker with Bonnie Raitt - I'm In The Mood
John Lee Hooker with George Thorogood - Sally Mae

Monday's Long Song

Today's song is by Dr. John from his third album Remedies from 1970. Angola'Anthem takes the whole side two of the record and one that impressed me much the first time I listened to this song. It was in the mid 70's in a club in my hometown. This club was frequented by a lot of American GI's which was based a few miles away and the music that was played was straightened to them. You could hear a lot of black music that was all new to our ears. James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone were also played like Little Feat and Frank Zappa. But less songs were burnt more inside my mind like Angola Anthem. I was fascinated by this combination of wild Afro drumming, the voodoo-based voice of Dr. John and the superb guitar parts. And it lost nothing of its fascination to me after all these years.

Dr. John - Angola Anthem

Floating

Another new band came to my ears the recent days. I use to follow the charts of Austrian radio station fm4 because this station is far away from the mainstream in my country. This station has indebted them to be a platform for independent, electronic music and local artists as well. Not everything touches my musical taste but a lot of songs were played there for the first time. In their last chart the highest new entry were Slide, a Swedish indie-rock duo. For me this songs sounds like a mixture of their musical tastes jointed together in a pop song. They borrowed a chorus by Oasis to create a pop song like Beck would probably do and stealing the melody by Pixie's Where is my mind and you get a very nice pop song.

In the late afternoon I will go like all two weeks to the home match of my team to be able to be present after long time once again at a victory. Well knowing that it will be a hard work to beat Freiburg it might be one of the last chances to stay in contact to the teams that might think their save.

Closer

Every Friday Spotify offers me new tracks according to my musical taste. I have to admit that less tracks they offer makes me want to listen a second time - most of them I skip after a short while. But sometimes there were songs I listen a second time quickly. It happened when I listened to Kerala Dust's Closer yesterday on my way to work. As far as I know Kerala Dust is a music collective based in London and they released a few electronic dancefloor inspired tracks during the last year. They describe this song with these words Rickety blues guitars and softly spoken vocals are pinned down by a rolling, organic groove. And I can't add any more words

Blow Your Mind

A few days ago I took a walk back into the late 60's where popular songs were inspired by drug experiences and psychedelic sounds. Most of the songs I found were often played fifty years ago now. I ask myself if someone remembers these songs that educated me and many other of my age into the world of psychedelic and cosmic sounds and I was ready to explore the sound of Krautrock and other pioneers of this kind of music and I think it is more than fair to give these songs a feature because it is the point were many things started.

Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze
The Small Faces - Here Comes The Nice
Traffic - Hole In My Shoe
Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit
The Byrds - Eight Miles High
Donovan - Hurdy Gurdy Man