- "The thrill is gone baby, the thrill is gone away, you know you done me wrong baby, and you'll be sorry someday." I'm not sure I can explain why, but there is something so cinematic about "The Thrill Is Gone". Maybe it's all the strings juxtaposed against B.B. King's guitar licks and howling vocals. In any case this is one of the crown jewels in B.B.'s catalogue and the blues genre in general. Like other King staples ("Sweet Little Angel, "How Blue Can You Get?", "Every Day I Have The Blues") we aren't talking about an original but by the time he's done with it the song is unmistakeably his. I won't try to measure King's importance to blues/American music other than to say it's monumental. His recording career started in 1949 and made such an impact that he received a Grammy lifetime achievement award 24 years ago. Remarkably King is still recording and touring as we speak. To help put that in perspective for me, the guy is older than Joe Paterno, which is to say he may have known Methuselah.
2. Avenues (Acoustic Version)- Whiskeytown
- "All the sweethearts of the world, are out dancing in the places, where me and all my friends go to hide our faces, yea avenues run one way, yea and streets they run the same." Before he became a solo artist Ryan Adams fronted the alt-country outfit Whiskeytown. 1997's "Strangers Almanac" is the album that probably best represents the band. If you have "A.M." or "Being There" by Wilco you have a good sense for the general sound on "Strangers Almanac". Whiskeytown's "Pneumonia" album may be their best, but it's more of an Adams solo project much like "All Shook Down" was more Paul Westerberg than Replacements. A few years back the fine people at Geffen Records released a Deluxe Edition of "Strangers Almanac" with a lot of extra goodies. The "acoustic" version of "Avenues" sounds like a slightly paired down demo of the original studio version (which is also acoustic). It's not Adams' best stuff but it's not bad either. One of the more intriguing inclusions on the Deluxe Edition of "Strangers Almanac" is a rather rough (but enjoyable) cover of Fleetwood Mac's classic "Dreams". Listening to Adams struggle with the vocal makes me feel better for not being able to sing it myself.
3. The Love You Save- The Jackson 5
- (J5) "S is for save it, T is for take is slow, O for is Oh no!, P is for please, please don't go!" (Jermaine) "The love you save may be your own" (Michael) "Some day you may be all alone" (Jermaine) "Stop it!" (Michael) "Save it girl!" (Jermaine) "Baby...ooooh." Last week I spun a yarn about how I acquired Better Than Ezra's "Deluxe" album while working as a painter. It's time I unfurl another tale from my painting days. Each day our painting crew listened to a pretty standard set of songs on our commute to and from our sites. We listened to these songs on cassettes (look it up). Those songs included "ABC", "I Want You Back", "The Love You Save" by the Jackson 5, "Copacabana" by Barry Manilow and last but certainly not least "If I Only Knew" by Tom Jones. Though I sadly can't remember the specific steps there was even a choreographed dance for "The Love You Save". What I do remember more vividly was that our undisputed theme song that summer was Eric Clapton's "Let it Rain". If if rained enough we all got a day off which was much better than the money we were making for work. I can remember my friend John doing a tribal rain dance on more than one occasion (in the yards of our customers) to help the skies open up in our favor.
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