dr john

New Orleans may have been the birthplace of jazz and home to funky pianists (Professor Longhair, Allen Toussaint, Dr John), but in the 90s a new form of hip-hop (called bounce) came from the streets and incorporated punchy rhythms and second-line bass parts which drew from NO funeral marches. The bruising bounce movement -- the soundtrack...
> music/2913/galactic-ya-ka-may-anti/

The Dr John of today -- 70 in November 2010 -- is in many ways a very different musician to the one which emerged in the late Sixties, and that's probably a good thing. If he'd kept on styling himself as Dr John the Night Tripper and come on with his shaking stick, voodoo beads and crazy capes (in the manner of Screamin Jay Hawkins) he would...
> music/2919/the-bargain-buy-dr-john/

The fate of this reissue by a mid Seventies steel band from the UK (in disco-funk outfits) is probably going to be on one of those summertime radio programmes where wild'n'crazy hosts play odd versions of big hits. And this group can certainly oblige because here are steel band treatments of the theme to Shaft, Papa Was a Rolling Stone, a...
> music/2923/20th-century-steel-band-warm-heart-cold-steel-mr-bongo/

Long careers generally mean the raw and rough edges of the early days are smoothed out, and that audiences forget just how edgy and unusual the artist’s music actually was. So it is with Dr John whose career reaches way back to playing piano in bars as teenager in New Orleans during the 50s alongside legendary figures such as...
> essentialelsewhere/1680/dr-john-gris-gris-1968/

If you could distil the history of New Orleans down to a few litres of blood, they'd probably be pumping around John Boutte's body. Listen to this. "The European side of my family has been here since 1760. There were two brothers Boutte, Pierre and Hillary, who was an architect who built what is now the oldest theatre in New...
> absoluteelsewhere/2708/john-boutte-interviewed-2002-easy-out-of-the-big-easy/

The Smithsonian is one of those great American institutions which, if it says "we're here to help" actually is. In their Smithsonian Folkways collection they have short audio examples of 40,000 tracks and through their Global Sound website they are all available for download. And they have the original liner notes for the relevant...
> music/1712/various-albums-from-the-smithsonian-folkways-series-folkways-southbound/

Few statements about music can be delivered unequivocally, but here's one: Edward Kennedy Ellington was one of the greatest composers of last century. And of all time. And no discussion need be entered into. Other than to observe he didn't "compose" in the traditional sense: most of his best-known songs were written with...
> jazz/2366/duke-ellington-a-genius-but-not-that-great/

The good Doctor's voice can be an acquired taste and there is no doubt he lost many loyalists when he went schmaltzy and kinda boring in the late 80s/early 90s. It was almost as if he had run his course when he started doing live albums and standards.Now of course this son of New Orleans has plenty to write about post-Katrina, and this album...
> music/1713/dr-john-and-the-lower-911-city-that-care-forgot-shock/

Having once stood in torrential rain and mud up to my boot-tops at a New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival to watch guitarist Sonny Landreth, I have always felt a strange loyalty to him. I have faithfully reviewed his many albums but always came to the same conclusion. Gifted though he obviously is -- and conceding his career performing...
> music/1623/sonny-landreth-from-the-reach-shock/

The reissue label Vampi appeared on Elsewhere previously with the Mary "Queenie" Lyons and Quinteplus albums from the cusp of the 70s -- and this r'n'b soul-funk singer from New Orleans comes from the same kind of obscurity to those outside an inner circle. According to the extensive liner notes on this 28 track collection of Bo...
> music/1599/eddie-bo-in-the-pocket-with-eddie-bo-vampi-through-southbound/

Queenie Lyons was one of the many soul singers from the late 60s/early 70s whose career was as short as it was impressive: one album, this one, and gone. The little that is known about her is this: she came out of Louisiana on the chitlin' circuit, sang with King Curtis' band, and opened for the likes of Jackie Wilson, Fats Domino and James...
> music/1588/marie-queenie-lyons-soul-fever-vampi-southbound/

Blues singer/guitarist Benoit recorded this album live in Nashville in 2006 with his band Louisiana Leroux the night before he picked up the BB King award for entertainer of the year and best contemporary performer. Guests on stage included Jim Lauderdale, Kim Wilson of the fabulous Thunderbirds and Jimmy Hall of West Willie. Benoit can play...
> music/1577/tab-benoit-with-louisiana-leroux-night-train-to-nashville-elite/

On paper this may look like just another celebrity collision around an old bluesman -- and singer/pianist Pinetop is a very old bluesman. He's 95. And yes, of course Eric Clapton and BB King are here, but outside of those two (both on excellent form) the blues players who line up for this thoroughly enjoyable outing aren't really big name...
> music/1565/pinetop-perkins-pinetop-perkins-and-friends-elite/

In music, titles are bestowed by The People rather than being handed down from above -- and they are so singular and specific that there can only be pretenders but no replacements figures. So there is only one King of Rock'n'Roll and that's Elvis, only one Queen of Soul and that will always be Aretha, and only James Brown will ever be...
> essentialelsewhere/810/irma-thomas-the-irma-thomas-collection-1996/

By the time he came to releasing albums under his own name in the early 90s, Paul Weller had already had two separate careers: first in the Jam and then the Style Council. If the Jam had been quintessentially English and took its references from the Who, the Small Faces and Ray Davies as much as Mod culture and the rage of the punk years,...
> essentialelsewhere/798/paul-weller-wild-wood-1994/

In a cover which looks like it was thought up by a couple of drug-addled on-line kids -- and with a title from a B-grade movie -- comes the latest album by one of the great ignored/overlooked/wayward talents from the South. This is a man for whom a never-recorded, whiskey-soaked Sun session overseen by a voodoo priestess with Mick'n'Keith (c...
> music/1388/james-luther-dickinson-killers-from-space-memphis-elite-best-of-elsewhere-2007/

In the days after Hurricane Katrina it was believed that this great New Orleans r'n'b singer had been washed away. Fortunately he had been rescued although his home, like much of that wonderful city, had suffered extreme damage. The interesting thing about the rumours of his death was the sudden recognition of his talent in the wider...
> music/1353/various-a-tribute-to-fats-domino-tipitinas-shock/

Bluesman Benoit teams up again with Lousiana's LeRoux, the rockin' outfit he worked with on his swamp-lightnin' album Brother to the Blues of last year which was nominated for a Grammy. This is more of the same, but better: Benoit's guitar has a sharp and stinging quality, he digs into some Cajun-flavoured blues, and on the title track...
> music/1235/tab-benoit-power-of-the-pontchartrain-elite/

Of course there is white country soul -- and here is the evidence, a voice from the white trash ghetto which aches like a Southern soul singer. There is a backwoods quality here -- real steamy Georgia funk -- but it is offset by the spirit of Memphis soul, the Allman Brothers, James Brown and the blues. Quite a meltdown and if it isn't...
> music/1197/jj-grey-and-mofro-country-ghetto-southbound-best-of-elsewhere-2007/

Some people are more rewarded for what they don't achieve rather than what they do. There are politicians whose gift is to keep their heads down, make no mistakes but do nothing of consequence, and wait for a position on a board.  That's in the nature of self-serving politics, perhaps. However it's more unusual for musicians who are...
> music/2339/chuck-e-weiss-old-souls-and-wolf-tickets-ryko/