New Books!

So I took back books to the library that were overdue, some that I had finished and should have been back  on time and some that I didn’t read but should have! Anyway I picked up two new ones that I am excited about reading.  The first is the new C.J.Box Joe Pickett book Nowhere to Run and the other is the latest Lincoln Perry book by Michael Koryta The Silent Hour can’t wait to start them both! The Pickett book has to go first because it’s only a two week loan! Oh, by the way I’m only 51 pages away from the end of Dead Man’s Share and the book is a lot better over the second half!  I’m also a third of the way through Linwood Barclay”s Fear the Worst, which is very good and I probably should finish before I start the Box book but I will probably read them together until I get to the point where I just have to finish one of them! Too many books, too little time! Read More

New Friend – Pat Wictor

So a couple of weeks ago as I was looking for new music, I saw the name Pat Wictor on the Folk-DJ list and I listened briefly to some of his music and liked what I heard . Well, today I went to emusic and downloaded his new CD Living Ever-Lovin’ LIVE and I have a new artist to listen to! His Myspace page says that he is from Brooklyn, NY and his biography on the website site says he was raised outside of the United States until his teenage years, living in Venezuela, Holland, Norway, and England.  Pat playing guitar and lap steel guitar plays an acoustic blues, Americana, roots mix and it sounds great to me and others too. Some quotes from his website: Read More

Mixed Up Day – Part 1- Peter Cooper

Ok so today started the same way as the last two as the remodeling at 7-Eleven was not complete resulting in no coffee again, but musically it was a good day! In the morning I decided to listen to an album that has become a favorite of mine over the last year Peter Cooper’s Mission Door. I came across this album one day when I was looking for new music and came across the album You Don’t Have to Like Them Both by Eric Brace and Peter Cooper. I knew Eric Brace’s music from his band Last Train Home and I really liked their album! As I look at the tracks while I’m writing I remember that I liked just about all of them! The one that I always end up singing though after I hear it though  is “Denali, Not McKinley”  a song about the real name for Mount McKinley. Anyway I digress, after listening to this album, I found Peter’s solo album which is the subject of this post. As soon as I turned it on this morning and heard the first track “Boy Genius” I started to remember how much I liked the album. There really is not a bad track on the album. Stand out tracks for me include “Couple of Lies”, the Eric Taylor penned “Mission Door”, “715 (for Hank Aaron)” a great baseball song, that was included on Juli Thanki’s list of five best baseball songs on www.the9513.com, along with tunes from Steve Goodman, Todd Snider, The Gibson Brothers and Alabama, and this track probably my favorite “Sheboygan” Read More

Blues Wednesday – Joe Bonamassa

So today started out a lot like yesterday, still no coffee at the 7-Eleven due to remodeling! Then I listened to tracks from several different blues albums and again nothing caught my attention. So at lunch I checked out the Billboard Blues charts and there are number one sat Joe Bonamassa’s new album Black Rock and at Number 9 Derek Trucks new album Already Free so I loaded both on the mp3 player and set out for a site to do some testing and listening on the way! Now Bonamassa was a name I’d always heard (seems like I say this a lot!) but never listened to, my mistake! Anyway since I heard one of his albums about a year ago his music gets steady play. So I anticipated that I would enjoy Bonamassa’s great playing and good vocals and all around strong sound. The first two tracks did not disappoint me and on the third track “When the Fire Hits the Sea” I caught myself saying is he playing slide guitar on this track – yep – and it was good! Then came “Quarryman’s Lament” which opened with a different sounding instrument, which I have since learned was a clarino (a Greek type clarinet) and I said this is a great album. Read More

Twang Tuesday – Rhonda Vincent

So the day didn’t start of really great, when I pulled into the 7-Eleven  where I get coffee every morning the sign on the door said “No Coffee!!” oh no well it wasn’t the end of the world, it just made the day a little blah. So I went through the rest of the day just not really finding anything that I was listening very interesting, kinda’ like when you want to eat something and nothing really appeals to you! I had heard a song from Jim Lauderdale on the Bluegrass station on XM radio as I was driving to my second stop for coffee, so when I got to the office I downloaded Bluegrass Diaries onto the mp3 player and gave it a listen. Now the album won a Grammy and the songs were ok, but really couldn’t get into it, maybe another day. So the next thing I tried was Bela Fleck and the Flecktones Flight of the Cosmic Hippo but still not quite there. So it was onto The Grascals and their CD The Famous Lefty Fynn’s now this one was a little closer to what I was looking for and I really liked some of the tracks like “Blue Rock Slide”,”The Famous Lefty Flynn’s” and “My Baby’s Waiting on the Other Side” but other tracks just didn’t make it. So on the way back to the office after lunch I heard a good track by a dobro player names Randy Kohrs, so when I got back to the office I found him on Rhapsody and listened to the album “Old Photograph” while I working. Again while the music was good, the overall tone just wasn’t there. Read More

Roger Smith – Mixed Blood

Mixed Blood - Roger Smith

Mixed Blood is set in South Africa. This makes its setting the fourth country visited in my quest to read twelve books sent in different countries. So far I have read books set in Canada, Russia, and Australia and now Mixed Blood by Roger Smith set in South Africa. South Africa is by far my least favorite place to visit of the four!  Mixed Blood (book 13 of the year) is a gritty book filled with murder, drugs, crooked cops, poverty and despair! The story opens with Jack Burn his wife Susan and son Matt on the run in South Africa after Jack becomes involved in a bank robbery which goes bad leaving a policeman dead. One night two black gangstas climb into their rented home.  To save his family, Jack kills the two men and his life goes downhill from there. Read More

Folk Monday – Bettysoo

So yesterday, I was debating whether or not to run and the side that said no was winning! But I finally said, ok let’s go but first we’ll put Bettysoo’s CD Heat Sin Water Skin on the mp3 player. So I did and took off on my four mile run and Dave Terry’s drumming on the opening track “Never Know No Love” got me off to a good start and soon I settled into a great mix of well written and produced songs. As I ran I kept saying to myself that was a great line, like “Am I a dirt road you left behind? Leading to a place you don’t want to find Not paved and pretty but I took you through, Why did you decide to pick up and move, Am I a dirt road you left behind? from “Just Another Lover”  and then Blanket of night hides the ache in their souls ,Two bodies huddle with love that’s grown cold, That old twisted cedar taps, A familiar refrain on their window from “Forever” and I could go on and on so many great lines! Duh! That’s why she’s won some many awards like: Read More

Blues -The Common Ground-Tab Benoit

Last night I pulled out an old jazz album, as I prepared a forgotten music play list, Blues-The Common Ground by Kenny Burrell. When I picked up the album cover, I read the liner notes Burrell had  written and I thought about the question that was asked on No Depression the other week. Should they cover jazz and blues? Here’s what Burrell wrote: Read More

Old Friend – New Music – John Batdorf

I guess it all started about 40 some odd years ago. I was going through the Graham Area lobby at the University of Florida and  stopped when I heard two guys with guitars playing some incredible music. When they finished I asked them if the tunes were theirs. They said no they were from an album by Batdorf and Rodney! Well, the next day I headed to my favorite record store in Gainesville and picked up Off the Shelf and I’ve been listening and enjoying this album since then. So many great songs “Me and My Guitar”, “One Day”, “Can You See Him” and “Farm” what great acoustic guitar work. I was so happy when a few years ago when the album became available on CD. Well about a year ago, I was listening to XM Radio and heard a live performance of  Batdorf and Rodney, so I came home and discovered that sure enough they had gotten back together for a show at the XM Radio studios and in fact they had put out a new CD Still Burnin’. So I went to emusic.com for the album and soon I was enjoying Batdorf and Rodney again the album has many old favorites including the aforementioned “Me and My Guitar” and “One Day” but the CD also includes great songs from their Batdorf and Rodney album “By Today” and another of my all time favorites “All I Need” based on the book Johnny Got His Gun. So I was a happy camper but wait, John had released a solo album called Home Again. So I went back and downloaded that album and have enjoyed it since then. There are some great tracks on this CD like “Home Again”, I Don’t Always Win” and this one “Something is Slipping Away”. I had forgotten this song until I heard it last week and really listened to the great lyrics Read More