Music Diary, Vol. -36
For the rationale behind this mad effort, explanations here. The full series of Music Diary posts are here. The full playlist is above, also here.
Week of May 1-7, 2023
LYRICS: Jacob Jeffries, "How Much Do You Love Me?"
SONG: There are throwbacks, and then there is a miracle like this Richard Swift tune, which takes two chords and a perfect soul groove out of time altogether. By the time his falsetto turns into a Dylan growl, I don’t even know where I am anymore.
ALBUM: I didn’t know musician-journalist Jac Zinder, East Hollywood legend and LA Weekly eminence, who died in a car crash in 1995, but via this diverting posthumous collection of his music, I feel like I do know him a little, and I think I like him.
LYRICS: Talking Heads, "Air"
SONG: I have lots of favorite Faye Webster songs, but this sweet, yearning plea from one point in a love triangle to another, with its weeping steel guitar and smudgy major 7 chords, is a track I’m always happily sad to hear again.
ALBUM: This great 1989 record features just Håkan Hardenberger on trumpet and Roland Pöntinen on keys, but the orchestral sound they make, and the range they cover—from neoclassical to modernist to freak stunt—is breathtaking.
LYRICS: Leonard Cohen, "Dance Me to the End of Love"
SONG: David Ellis on guitar, yours truly on baritone uke and vocal, and the honey-voiced John Eberhardt, who passed in his sleep the other night, on harmony vocals. Flights of angels, old pal.
ALBUM: 30 years later, this unlikely yet inspired collaboration between Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet still sounds like an artistic breakthrough and a unique compositional achievement. The birds are still singing.
LYRICS: Gilbert & Sullivan, "With Cat-Like Tread, Upon Our Prey We Steal"
SONG: This tender waltz by The Civil Wars blooms at the intersection of Edith Piaf and Gillian Welch.
ALBUM: I hear the obvious traces of Linda and Emmylou in Courtney Marie Jenkins’s soulful country-adjacent sound, but I’m reminded even more strongly of the phrasing and timbre of early Maria McKee. This record makes a great intro.
LYRICS: Bob Dylan, "Abandoned Love"
SONG: Always had a soft spot for this U2 deep cut, not only for the naked vulnerability of its lyrics but for its stirring arrangement, which alternates sparse, playful verses with thrumming, off-accented choruses. The music alone tells a story.
ALBUM: The jazzy, reed-heavy tone poems of British pianist Reginald Foresythe are eccentric and surpassingly lovely, as if Raymond Scott led a café orchestra.
LYRICS: Elvis Costello, "Little Palaces"
SONG: The climb from despondent verse to overpowering chorus on this Lorraine Ellison all-timer is an irresistible ride, an opera in 3 1/2 minutes
ALBUM: This Stone Poneys classic, with its very 1967 blend of earnest chamber folk and relaxed roots rock, is a perfect Saturday record. If you’ve ever thought, “I love Linda Ronstadt, but what would she sound like with a harpsichord?” it’s for you.
LYRICS: Mose Allison, "Everybody Cryin' Mercy"
ALBUM: I expected this collection of old-time gospel standards by Iris DeMent to be good—her warbly brand of folk goes down easy with me—but was not prepared for how deep she digs into this material. Extremely moving and, yes, spirit-lifting.
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