What did you listen to today?

Random album listen of the yesterday 

Grateful Dead of the Day 10/9/1989 - night 2 Mothership 

Regarding Marshall Tucker--yes, they were a front-runner in forming "Southern Rock" but as noted in the commentary about the flute, they separated themselves from that simple genre, as did the Allman Brothers, to be so much more. The flute/sax/horns was not hook or gimmick, but transported them to the higher level of jazz, soon to be called jam. Sure, Skynnard had the three-guitar attack for distinction but it didn't change the sound.

Were they not an early version of our favorite, Tedeschi Trucks, especially with Kofi over there blowing magic through all kinds of instruments not found on Skynard's or ZZ Top's stage? Even the basic songs like Fire on the Mountain move the pedal steel closer to Lionel Hampton's vibes.

Give a listen here to one of the best jams ever. Charlie Daniels is on the fiddle. Early, they throw in a round of Mexican horns like Johnny Cash in Ring of Fire or what Jen Hartswig brings to TAB.

BTW Marcus King is from MTB's home 20, and his dad is a musician, so you know the house had plenty of Caldwell influence when he was growing up.

And they could cowboy, as needed:



This speaks of Bob Wills and Gene Autry.  The format is also like big band swing, and later combo jazz, with the whole band opening and then each instrument section get a solo slot or two, and all together at the end. Jam.

Random would have been his 80th birthday album listen of the day

One of my Best Nights Ever was when Grinderswitch, Marshall Tucker and Charlie Daniels all played a concert together; Charlie played with MTB and Caldwell played with CDB and they all played "Will the Circle" for the encore. A megajam.

When I was in school in the Virginia mountains I sat my Milwaukee roommate down and put on "Bob Away My Blues". He looked at me and said, "Outlaw, you are going to die a happy man."

Random album listen of the day 

Paste Magazine Top 50 Southern Rock Albums 

9. Jason Isbell: Southeastern (2013) - The first few years of Jason Isbell’s solo career, late of Drive-By Truckers, were beset with personal problems, including a well-publicized struggle with alcohol abuse, and his first three outings often played like too much of the same thing. But with Southeastern, Isbell broke his hard-luck streak, crafting an album worthy of his considerable talents. Each of the songs is a stunner. “Cover Me Up” is on the one hand a gentle, insistent love song, and on the other a moving testament to personal redemption that never turns a blind eye to past indiscretions. It sets the tone for the remainder of the album, which is given equally to the promise of romance and the ever-looming possibility of suffering, both self-induced and arbitrary. As good as the songs are, Isbell’s singing may be even better. His baritone, always rich, is deepened here by a grittiness that lends Southeastern a real soulful quality. By any reasonable aesthetic criteria, Southeastern is a triumph, among the most potent expressions of Isbell’s songwriting and arranging skills (including his Drive-By Truckers output).

Paste Magazine Top 50 Southern Rock Albums 


8. ZZ Top: Tres Hombres (1973) - While Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Duane Allman-less Allman Brothers were busy gussying up their Florida boogie with country ballads and jazz inflections, ZZ Top were over in Texas scraping the varnish off and leaving only the essential ingredients. On their third album, the trio more or less perfected the formula that would keep them in beard oil for the next four decades: take the roadhouse rhythms of blues masters John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Reed and play them way faster, tighter and with the gain turned to 10 for the ‘70s hard-rock crowd. The opening riff on “Waitin’ for the Bus” slithers right out of whatever Houston swamp Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard were hanging out in before 1973, all humid and sleazy. With the trio in perfect lockstep. Tres Hombres moves forward from there with breakneck momentum: “Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers” is basically a ‘73 Camaro with a kickass guitar solo in the middle; “Precious and Grace” wriggles along on razor blades; and “La Grange,” the band’s crowning achievement, is a fiendish blues stomp about a Texas whorehouse, stripped back to a skeleton riff with a barking Gibbons vocal and a Southern groove so pure they got sued for it. And won.

I recall a review of ZZ Top back then when it was described as "music for people who have fun by rolling out of moving pick up trucks" and noted "one of the few bands to have a top hit about a whorehouse."

I'm so glad to see Edward finally got his scissor hands fixed!

Grateful Dead of the Day - 10/11/1980 - SF, CA