Albums We Keep Coming Back To

Subject: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 09:49 AM

I am almost certain that this has been covered in previous threads, but what the search terms would be I have no idea - so I'm starting a new one.

There are some recordings that simply stand the test of time. The songs and performances are excellent, the sequencing and mix are just right and the arrangements are timeless and tasteful. As I write I'm listening to Jean Ritchie's High Hills and Mountains - what a brilliant piece of work. Listening to it brings me joy each time.

It isn't the only such album. Jonathan Eberhart's Life's Trolley Ride is another. More modern equivalents include Nanci Griffith's Last of the True Believers album and Ralph McTell's Live at the Royal Albert Hall in London and The Sydney Opera House. And then thre's out of print treasures, like Gamble Rogers's The Warm Way Home.

What albums do you keep coming back to through the years?

Dan

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: Art Thieme
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 10:22 AM

Good idea, Dan. I'll follow your lead with Jean Ritchie---Carols Of All Seasons.

Dalgleish and Larson--Banish Misfortune

Lefty Frizzell--Sings Songs Of Jimmie Rogers.

Paul Clayton--TIMBER-R-R-R-R-R --songs of the lumber camps on Riverside Records.

Lightnin' Hopkins, Big Joe Williams, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee--a blues jam record improvised by these greats.

Lightning Hopkins--Autobiography In Blues (and several others)

Josh White--his blues records much more than the cabaret songs.

Blind Willie Johnson--Folkways Records

Blind Lemon Jefferson--some great LPs on Riverside Records

Jim Ringer and Bruce Utah Phillips--just about anything.

Off the top, these are a few favorites that I seem to never tire of.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 12:43 PM

I guess I have 'come back to' Burl Ives "Wayfarin' Stranger" so often that it is now mostly in my head.
(you know that is the case when you hear one song, and as it ends, the next song from the album pops into your head)

The early Richard Dyer-Bennett albums are that way also...and "The Weavers at Carnegie Hall"

Bruce Phillips' "Good Though" & "El Capitan"

4-5 Jean Redpath albums....especially "Scottish Ballad Book"

and that durned album of 3 guys from the Red Clay Ramblers that almost everyone I know does 3-4 songs from.....

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: Will Fly
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 12:56 PM

Old and often-played favourites include:

"Folk Roots, New Routes" - Shirley Collins & Davy Graham
"The Rout Of The Blues" - Robin & Barry Dransfield
"The Guitar Player" - Davy Graham
"Key To The Highway" - Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee
"Nonesuch For Dulcimer" - Roger Nicholson, with Robert Johnson

and many others...

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: Brian Peters
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 01:19 PM

Well, here goes (in descending order of folkiness)...

Copper Family: A Song for Every Season
Phil Tanner: Gower Nightingale
Nic Jones: Noah's Ark Trap / Penguin Eggs
Peter Bellamy: Both Sides Then
Watersons: For Pence and Spicy Ale
Incredible String Band: Best of... (the only one I have on CD)
Susan Songer et al: Music from the Portland Collection vol 1
Steve Riley & The Mamou Playboys: Bon Reve
Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin: Our Town
Steve Earle: everything, but especially El Corazon, The Mountain and Angry Young Man (best of the old stuff)
Kevin Ayers: Bananamour
Rolling Stones: Get Yer Ya-Yas Out

Just a few of them!

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 02:14 PM

Death Certificate - Ice Cube
CSN - Crosby Stills & Nash
Naturally - J.J. Cale
I Could Have Been a Contender - Jah Wobble (well it's a compilation, but hey..)
Back to Basics - Billy Bragg
Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub) - Groove Armada
Bongo Fury - Frank Zappa
Timeless Flight - Steve Harley
Nursery Cryme - Nursery Cryme
Bring it On - Gomez

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 02:15 PM

Oops.. Nursery Cryme by Genesis

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 02:40 PM

When I hear it nowadays, I'm always amazed how good Bert Jansch's first album is. In many ways, he never bettered it; OK, I wouldn't want to be without the Jack Orion album but the performances on that first album are so good, so well crafted and put together. If we think of John Martyn's first album, it really is a record of someone trying to find a style. But, Bert! On that first album, he has it all.

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 03:30 PM

Miles Davis' Kind of Blue

Gob Iron's Death Songs for the Living

Whiskeytown's Stranger's Almanac

Van Morrison's Period of Transition

Townes Van Zandt's Rearview Mirror

Son Volt's Straightaways

Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow

The Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 05:52 PM

Man - Back into the Future

Third Ear Band - Alchemy

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

Hesperion XXI - Ostinato

Gong - Live at Bataclan

Peter Maxwell Davies / Fires of London - Eight Songs for a Mad King

New Order - Republic

Jim Eldon - I wish there Was no Prisons

Saint Etienne - So Tough

Scott Walker - Tilt

Cemencic Consort - Roman de Fauvel

Rahsaan Roland Kirk - Prepare Thyself To Deal With A Miracle

De La Soul - Three Feet High & Rising

Duke Ellington / Max Roach / Charles Mingus - Money Jungle

Johnny Dyani - Witchdoctor's Son

Daevid Allen - N'existe Pas

Seamus Ennis - Bonny Bunch of Roses

Yes - Tales from Topographic Oceans

The Fall - Live at the Witch Trials

Hatfield and the North - The Rotters Club

Magma - Inedits

Rene Zosso & Anne Osnowycz - Musique a Bourdon

Ken Hyder's Talisker - Dreaming of Glenisla

Sun Ra - Mayan Temples

Peter Bellamy - The Fox Jumps Over the Parson's Gate

Zappa / Mothers - Uncle Meat

Back Door - Back Door

Ivor Cutler - Jammy Sears

Dr Strangely Strange - Kip of the Serenes

Sedayne - Hinterlands

Incredible String Band - Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

Vivian Stanshall - Sir Henry at Rawlinson End

Can - Future Days

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 07:04 PM

Just a few:

Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley's
The Anthology of American Folk Music
Brazilliance - Bud Shank and Laurindo Almeida
Bortherhood of Man - Gener Harris
Something Cool - June Christy

Jerry

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 07:22 PM

To Art Thieme:

One of the sad ironies of seeing Jim Ringer's name come up time and again, as in your post, is that I went to school at Clovis High, near Fresno, CA with his brother Jesse and never knew there was a musical family behind him. Jim began to be known some time after I had gone into the service in 1961, before the "Sweets Mill era" really began.

I knew the family had come out to California as part of "Steinbeck's Legions," as some knew them. "Okies" was the familiar term. I knew many of them well. Too many died too young. Some got into trouble. In most cases, every sibling worked as soon as they were able; chopping cotton, picking berries, cutting peaches or whatever else was available. There was a lot of pain, little money and a lot of ironic humor - and great cold sweet tea on the porch in the summertime. Jim lived all of it.

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: GUEST,Joe G
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 07:39 PM

Home Service - Alright Jack - always cheers me up on the walk into work!

More recently Brother Crow - Hollow Hills

Also most of Robb Johnson, Tom Bliss & Jez Lowes CDs!

For quick walking Tickled Pink's two CDs

I'm sure there are lots more!

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: Smokey.
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 07:48 PM

Several of mine have already been mentioned -

Third Ear Band - Alchemy
Vivian Stanshall - Sir Henry at Rawlinson End
Genesis - Nursery Cryme

to which I'd add -

Genesis - Foxtrot
Amazing Blondel - Fantasia Lindum
Al Stewart - Past, Present and Future

And probably more..

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: Janie
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 08:41 PM

Trapezoid - "Three Forks of the Cheat"

John Stewart - "California Bloodlines"

Robert Palmer - "Some People Can Do What They Like"

Lowell George - "Thanks, I'll Eat It Here"

Little Feat - "Waiting for Columbus" "Feats Don't Fail Me Now"

Frank Zappa - "Hot Rats"

Bonnie Raitt -"Sweet Forgiveness", "Streetlights", "Longing in Their Hearts"

Maria Muldaur - "Sweet Harmony"

David Bowie - "Ziggy Stardust" , " Space Oddity"

Norman Blake- "Fields of November"

Utah Phillips tribute- "Singing Through the Hard Times"

Not much folk on my list. To me, back in the days I was routinely buying music, folk was what we played or sang live, listened, and danced to in living rooms, backyards, and front porches at music parties and small local festivals nearly every weekend, mostly old-time stringband, some bluegrass, and some ballads. While I bought a fair number of locally produced cassettes, they are all worn out now, and no longer available as CD's. I still have a barely playable cassette of the Bing Brothers that I love, and would buy the CD, but can not find it with a Google Search.

I actually don't listen to much recorded music anymore unless I find a song I want to learn and make the time to sit down and really focus so that I can learn it.   Music as background doesn't work for me in my late middle age. If music is playing, I want to listen to it and not multitask to it.

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 10:16 PM

Still can't get too much of Peter Bellamy's Mainly Norfolk & The Transports. Or of Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick's Byker Hill and & Two Passed By. Or of The Magic Of The Andrews Sisters or The Best Of The Carter Family. Or The Ditto of Cole Porter & of Irving Berlin. Or of Nic Jones's & Tony Rose's first Trailer albums. Or The Dransfields' Rout Of The Blues. Or of Shirley Collins+ Death & The Lady. Or of June Tabor's Airs & Graces. Or any of my Seamus Ennis. Or of Leader's big boxed The Copper Family. Or of Topic's Harry Cox The Bonny Labouring Boy. Or of Michael Grosvenor Myer's Butter&Cheese&All [Brewhouse 1989] (well, why not!?)...

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 10:52 PM

Ernie Carpenter's "Elk River Blues" always puts a big smile on my face.



Russ Hatton (Permanent GUEST)

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 10:56 PM

I've been listening to "The Edden Hammons Collection" for years.

Russ (Permanent GUEST)

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 10:58 PM

Fiddling by a true genius, Up In Chapman's Hollow (Snake Chapman)

Russ (Permanent GUEST)

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 11:08 PM

,,, Or of whichever of the Clancys' old LPs that Tommy sings Dick Darby on. Or of The Brandenburg Concertos. Or of Vivaldi's Flute Concerti. Or of the boxed Complete Symphonies Of Beethoven cassette set Valerie & I once picked up in a sale at Millers of Cambridge at some absurd giveaway price. Or... Or... Or...

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: Art Thieme
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 04:28 PM

TJ in San Diego,

Thanks for those insights into the background of a great singer. His style, especially when it was just him (or him and Mary) with their guitars--was my idea of what a folksinger ought to sound like and be like. He always sang for the song.

I did a workshop at a festival with Jim Ringer and Robin Williams---all story songs of trains and hobos etc. Jim started by talking about his time riding freights--and then it was my turn. I mentioned that in 1962 me and Mike Sideman were going to hitchhike out of Chicago heading for California. As the date got closer, we lost more and more of our nerve. Eventually, we just opted to take Mike's Porsche. When I said that, Jim just ERUPTED!! He thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. All the way through my songs that day I'd hear Jim trying to control himself, but it usually turned into quit chortles in the background. After that I just told jokes so whenever Jim would be laughing it fit with what I was doing. It was a great workshop--or so it turned out.

When it was time for a song from Jim, he chose to tell about a time he and some guys were going out to catch one on the fly, and a buddy of theirs decided to go along as he was on vacation from one corporate job or another. About a day east of where the had caught the train, that fellow decided he wasn't enjoying himself at all. So he jumped off in the next larger town they went through.

Later, Jim saw the guy on the street somewhere and asked him about how the rest of his trip was going!?    The fellow told Jim that it had gone just fine!! He caught a cab to the airport---where he used his CREDIT CARD to fly home...

Jim saw a quite hilarious parallel between Mike and me taking the Porsche and the guy using his credit card.-----I figured I'd better get on board and enjoy the jokes too!

A fine time was had by all!

Jim Ringer's Folk Legacy LP for Sandy was the best album Mr. Ringer ever made I think.

And his doing of CALIFORNIA JOE is just about my all time favorite song ever--anywhere---any time!

And Mike Sideman, who I mentioned earlier in this post, became a lawyer (one of the decent ones) right there in your own city of San Diego for several decades -- until he retired a few years back. --- Mike and I had a good adventure that 1962 summer---discovering Steinbeck country---Big Sur -- and eventually we took a bus 2,400 miles from El Paso-Juarez to Mexico City and back.

All you kids listening in to this, get out there and do it when youth is on ya and you've got the drems, the romance and the energy. No matter how New Age you get, old age will kick your butt.

Love,

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: Dave Roberts
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 05:30 PM

Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: Bettynh
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 05:32 PM

It really depends on my mood, but…

Ewan MacColl: Black and White

Gordon Bok, Ann Mayo Muir, And Ed Trickett: Turning Toward The Morning

Tom Rush: Tom Rush and/or The Circle Game

Frank Zappa: Freak Out! (Motherly Love is a folk song, right?)

John McCutcheon: Water From Another Time

Paul Butterfield: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band

Doc & Merle Watson: Sittin' Here Pickin' The Blues

The Short Sisters: A Little Gracefulness

Gamble Rogers: The warm way home

BTW, I just bought the Gamble Rogers as a CD from his memorial foundation at http://www.gamblerogers.com/music/

We're heading to the National Storytelling Festival in a couple weeks and will have the Ipod loaded with Bill Harley, Donald Davis, Syd Lieberman, David Holt, and Jay O'Callahan to make our 16-hour drive bearable.

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: longboat (inactive)
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 05:36 PM

They ain't necessarily folk

Revolver - The Beatles

Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Sep 09 - 02:50 AM

... and how could I have forgotten those two wonderful 12-record collections, constantly returned to as indispensable reference tools: — Ewan & Peggy's British & American ballad variants The Long Harvest on the old Argo label; & Topic's Folksongs Of Britain set?

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 20 Sep 09 - 12:44 PM

Steeleye Span..Below The Salt, Martin Carthy..Shearwater, Nic Jones..The Noahas Ark Trap, June Tabor..Airs and Graces,Waterson Carthy..Common Tongue, Bruce Cockburn..Inner City Front, Loreena MacKennit..To Drive The Cold Winter Away, Maddy Prior..Carols and Capers,Jethro Tull..Heavy Horses, Frankie Armstrong..Tam Lin, The Waterson's..For Pence and Spicy Ale..oh lots more but these are played very often.

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 20 Sep 09 - 12:47 PM

And oh how could I forget the first album by Kate and Anna MacGarrigle

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: wysiwyg
Date: 20 Sep 09 - 12:59 PM

Paul Simon's "Graceland," mostly the Ladysmith Black Mambazo cuts. Countless blues albums, esp. Albert Collins and MJH. Shaker hymns. Podcasts from Sinner's Crossroads. Jackson Browne, "Running on Empty." YoYo Ma's "Obrigado Brazil." Rachmaninoff "Vespers." Seamus Kennedy "Favourite Selections." Stan Rogers. A Van Ronk one, "King of...[Whatsis-whazzit]"? (We'd actually missed Van Ronk till Olddude sent him along one day!!!) Robert Sims spirituals. Traveling Wilberrys. Some of the U2 stuff and Blues Travelers stuff. Barenaked Ladies. Nek. Eric Bibb.... Hopeful Gospel Quartet.... Doc Watson....

Must say the recent Beatles Anthology on TV might provoke some purchasing of the older stuff. Such fun, when they were boys. Before they got their man-bones. Like watching Sidney Crosby. Good tunes, too.

Aquatic workouts eat a LOT of music. Other stuff is good car music, but it is archived after it's no longer new. All the above though come back each year in the aquatics season's 9-month rotation.

~S~

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: pdq
Date: 20 Sep 09 - 01:13 PM

Doc Watson, especially "Southbound" because his guitar pickin' was never better.

Subject: RE: Albums We Keep Coming Back To
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 20 Sep 09 - 04:01 PM

A few to conjure with:

Beirut - the Flying Club Cup
the Beta Band - the Three EPs
Tony Capstick - Punch and Judy man
Johnny Collins - Free and easy
Eno - Taking Tiger Mountain by strategy
Faust - Tapes
Robyn Hitchcock - Luxor
Nic Jones - all the first four, but especially TNAT
John Kelly - Come all you wild young men
Pentangle - Basket of light
Tony Rose - first two
the Shins - Chutes too narrow
Underworld - dubnobasswithmyheadman
Scott Walker - Scott 3
ZNR - Barricades 3