I link to what I like, and I like to what I link. And my taste is decidedly catholic.
Billie Holliday, The Way You Looked Tonight. An uncommonly long intro. I first heard this old tune in the The Lettermen version in 1961. YouTuber comment:
Suzanne, the world did get cold after we parted. I got drafted to the other side of it and never could come home again. You eventually married a less adventuresome boy. I haven't seen you in over fifty years, and never will again, but I still feel a glow just thinking of you and the way you looked that night.Your laugh that wrinkles your nose still touches my foolish heart. I still love you, just the way you looked that night.
Mose Allison, The Song is Ended
Arlo Guthrie, Percy's Song
Ry Cooder, Christmas in Southgate
(Last night I had) A Wonderful Dream, The Majors. The trick is to find in the flesh one of those dream girls. Some of us got lucky.
Gary U. S. Bonds, From a Buick 6. Wow! Undoubtedly the best cover of the Dylan number. And better than the original. Sorry, Bob. Bonds had a number of hits in the early '60s such as Twist, Twist, Senora. Cute video. The girls look like they stepped out of the '40s. They remind me of my aunts.
Beach Boys, 409. With a four-speed manual tranny, dual quad carburetors (before fuel injection), positraction (limited slip differential), and 409 cubic inches of engine displacement. Gas was cheap in those days.
A U. K. reader/listener recommends Junior Brown's cover of 409 in which the aging Beach Boys sing backup. Brown wields a curious hybrid axe, half steel guitar and half 'regular' guitar. An amazing, and very satisfying shitkicker redneck version. Check it out! Amazing the stuff the Dark Ostrich digs up from the vasty deeps of the Internet.
Ludwig van Beethoven, Moonlight Sonata. A part of it anyway with scenes from the great Coen Bros. film, "The Man Who Wasn't There."
Tex Williams, Smoke, Smoke, Smoke that Cigarette, 1947
Joan Baez, Rock Salt and Nails. "If the ladies was squirrels with high bushy tails/I'd fill up my shotgun with rock salt and nails." This is undoubtedly (!) the best version of this great Utah Phillips song.
Doc and Merle Watson's version
Recent Comments