Recently Bought Singles

This goes back to these posts here, here and here as I finally spend blow what’s left of my £25 gift of singles.

Heartbeats – Jose Gonzales
I heard this used on a TV ad, then saw him in an AOL session. I love the gut strings on the guitar and the doubletracked vocals. The nylon makes a nice change from the “quack” of close-mic’ed steel strings and I like his accent. It’s nice and restrained, it has a hook in the melody of the chorus.

Islands In The Stream – Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton
I heard for the first time years the other day on a Bob Harris country documentary on Radio 2 late one night when I was driving to El’s and they were both saying how well their voices go together, and I thought, god they do, like I remembered since I was a kid. They really do, and that’s a great thing when you can find it. Mike Mills and Michael Stipe have it. The Bee Gees had it, Kenny and Dolly have it. Plus, you don’t get many songs with the same title as a Hemingway novel.*

You’re OK – k.d. lang
I love her voice in this song. It’s so controlled and confident and the dynamics of it carry the song, and the rise and fall of emotions. “It’s begun to frighten …me….”

Snake Eyes – Grover Washington Jr
Often overlooked as a jazz musician because of his soft dinner jazz 80’s cheeseball smoothies, this is funky as shit. Still smooth though and he’s a great soloist with a unique tone.

Now’s the Time/Ornithology – Charlie Parker
All but a fraction of the Charlie Parker recordings I own are on tape, so I treated myself to these songs, although it was a tough choice. Did I go for the tortured tenderness of The Gipsy or the notebinges of Scrapple From The Apple? Tough choice, so I went for these, great example of a genius at his finest.

Georgia On My Mind – Stanley Jordan
Take a great song, take it somewhere, make it your own and play your heart out. That ought to be the rule when it comes to doing someone else’s song. Bear in mind that Stanley Jordan was in his early twenties when he recorded this, and that it’s one guy on one guitar, recording this in one take and you have only awesome wonder on which to grasp. Most vertuouso performances are musical wank. There, I said it. But the inventiveness and technical jaw-droppery in this is carried along by soul and affection for the music in this five minute solo piece. And I don’t even like guitar solos. I’ll stop now. I sound like a idiot, but if you ever get a chance to listen to this and tell someone about it, you’ll sound like an idiot too. I’ve seen him live by himself a couple of times and I still don’t know how he does it. I mean, I GET it, in the way I get how a jumbo jet flies and how trees can be a thousand years old, but it’s still a beautiful mystery.

Down To Zero – Joan Armatrading
I used to own a few of Joan Armatrading records in my teens, but I don’t know what I did with them. So with about £3 left, it was hard to know which song to get. Me Myself I? Love And Affection? Weakness In Me? Drop The Pilot? Willow? Down To Zero is probably the best and it’s got that line: “Brand new dandy/first class seat-stealer/walks through the crowd and takes your man./Sends you rushing to the mirror/brush your eyebrows and say/”There’s more beauty in you than anyone.” It’s a beautiful, proud and womanly defiance that makes me understand people more.

* As far as I know there’s only this and For Whom The Bell Tolls by Metallica. Got any others? Did Jimmy Buffet do The Old Man And The Sea? Did Tom Petty sing Farewell to Arms? Let me know.