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Today's
Stories
November 18,
2005
Trish Schuh
Faking
the Case Against Syria
November 17,
2005
John Walsh
A
Fractured Anti-War Movement
Rep. John Murtha
Iraq Must Be Freed from the US
Occupation
Brian J. Foley
We Are All In GITMO Now
CounterPunch
News Service
Guardian
Apologizes to Chomsky; Publishes Total Retraction of Brockes'
Slurs
Dave Lindorff
In Post-Saddam Iraq, There are No Civilians
Mark T. Harris
Coming Out in an Up-and-Coming Sport
Cockburn /
St. Clair
From
Reporter to Courtier: the Decline of Bob Woodward
November 16,
2005
John F. Sugg
Al-Arian
Speaks: In His First Interview Since the Trial Began, Al-Arian
Talks About What the Jury Didn't Hear
Noam Chomsky
Putting Out the Englightenment
Dave Lindorff
Shake
and Bake: Pentagon Admits Using Phosphorous Bombs on Fallujah
Evelyn Pringle
Laurie Mylroie's War
Sam Husseini
Trying to Look a Female Suicide Bomber in the Eye
Pierre Tristam
Toturers' Theater
Greg Bates
Waffling Alito Charms DiFi
Farrah Hassen
Moustapha
AkkadDavid Lean of the Middle East Killed in Amman Blast
Bill Christison
Evidence
Mounts That Bush Wants New Wars
Website of
the Day
Violent Oscillations
November 15,
2005
Todd Chretien
My
Evening in the No Spin Zone; Or Why Bill O'Reilly Hates San Francisco
Leah Caldwell
Death
of the Jailhouse Press
Frederick Hudson
Rosa's Wreath: Miss Parks and Robert Williams
Harry Browne
Bush-Linked Judge Bows Out: Another Mistrial in Irish Ploughshares
Case
Jason Leopold
Secret CIA Testimony: Iraq Posed No Threat
Ingmar Lee
Logging Lackies vs. Canada's Most Endangered Species
Diana Barahona
Showdown on the Silver Coast
Tom Andre
New Orleans, Two Months Later
Website of the Weekend
Ernest Crichlow: 1914-2005
November 14,
2005
Diana Johnstone
The
Origins of the Guardian's Attack on Chomsky
Paul Craig Roberts
Power Over All: Unlimited Detentions and the End of Habeas Corpus
Conn Hallinan
Provoking
Syria: Cambodia All Over Again?
Joshua Frank
Off She Goes: Hillary in Israel
Christopher
Reed
The
Persistence of Racism in Koizumi's Japan
November 11
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
First
the Lying, Then the Pardons
Gwyneth Leech
Cross Connections: a Painter Reimagines the Passion of Christ
in the Wake of Abu Ghraib
Elmas Mallo
Chillin' in the Blazin' Texas Sun: Inside the Texas Prison System
Michael Neumann
The Rebel King of Bluegrass: Jimmy Martin, an Appreciation
Saul Landau
Leakgate: the Screenplay
Sam Husseini
Bush and Zarqawi Bomb Because We Let Them
Brian Cloughley
Sleaze, Deceit and Torture
Ron Jacobs
Rep. McGovern's Withdrawal Resolution: a Step in the Right Direction?
Lila Rajiva
Dover Bitch: the Curses of Pat Robertson
Michael Donnelly
Hypocrisy Watch
Joe Allen
Murder in El Salvador: Who Killed Gilberto Soto?
Roland Sheppard
Lessons from the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Justin E.H.
Smith
Another Monkey Trial?
Ben Tripp
The Cost of War
St. Clair /
Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Jones, Louise, Ford, Smith, Albert and Engel
Website of
the Weekend
Iraq Vets and Against the War Need Your Help!
November 10,
2005
Peterside,
Ogon, Watts and Zalik
Delta
Blues Again: Ken Saro-Wiwa, 10 Years Gone
Pat Williams
Will Alito Cost the Republicans the Senate?
Steve Higgs
Bush Crony Targets Indiana's Forests: 400% Hike in Logging
Jimmy Massey
Is Ron Harris Telling the Truth?
Lucson Pierre-Charles
Haiti: Insanity Takes Over
Anthony Newkirk
Syria in the Crosshairs
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Why Did Libby Lie?
Website of the Day
Imperial Margarine
November 9,
2005
Gary Leupp
The
Niger Deception / Plame Affair: an Incomplete Chronology
Tariq Ali
Blair Defeated on Terror Laws
Chris Floyd
The
Philosopher's Stone
Elaine Cassel
The
Shocking Trial of an American Citizen: the Case of Ahmed Abu
Ali
Joshua Frank
Sen. Max Baucus's NASCAR Pay Day
Alison Weir
Memo to Jon Stewart: Glad You're Against Torture, So Why'd You
Give Israel a Pass?
Diana Johnstone
Rage
in the Banlieue
November 8, 2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Still
No Jobs
Roger Burbach
Bush
v. Chavez: the Imperial President Meets the Bolivarian Democrat
Ron Jacobs
An Interview with Behzad Yaghmaian on the Paris Uprising
Ralph Nader
"The Worst Marketed Disease on the Planet"
Jim McGrath
Voter Beware: a Cautionary Tale for Election Day
David Bloom
McCain, Israel and Torture: Setting the Record Straight
Stan Goff
Jimmy Massey, Ron Harris, and Ambush Journalism
November 7,
2005
Dick Reavis
The
Origins of Mr. Danger
Jason Leopold
Cheney and the Cover Up: the Vice President Lied
Dave Lindorff
What Country was Bush Talking About?
Eli Stephens
A Tale of Two Generals: the Lies of Colin Powell
David Swanson
The Bush-Cheney Ethics Refresher Course: a Syllabus
M. Junaid Alam
An Interview Stan Goff
Matt Reichel
Paris Uprising: a Rebellion in Real Time
Naima Bouteldja
Paris is Burning
Jeff Halper
Israel
as an Extension of American Empire
Website of the Day
Dispatches from Paris
November 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Storm
Over Brockes' Fakery: Guardian Fabricates Chomsky Quotes
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Lying,
Law Schools and Executive Power: What Senators Should Ask Alito
Diana Johnstone
Srebrenica: a Response to Certain Criticisms of My Essay
Roosa / Nevins
The
Mass Killlings in Indonesia, 40 Years Later
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Missing
the Bus: When Conscience Bows to Calculation
John Ross
The Zapatistas' Otra Campaign for Mexico's Presidential Elections
Mike Whitney
Globalizing Sadism: the United States of Torture
Mark Engler
Will Big Business Turn On Bush?: the Economic Nightmare Unfolds
Juliano Mer-Khamis
They Shoot at Children, Too
Ron Jacobs
When Gen. Westmoreland Visited
Jill S. Farrell
Bird Flu and the Posse Comitatus Act
Missy Comley
Beattie
Trent Lott's Untroubled Sleep
Mitchel Cohen
People of the Dome, Revisited
Evelyn J. Pringle
Bush-Cheney and Big Oil's Big Summer
Reza Fiyouzat
Signs of Life or Last Gasp? Structural Problems in the Democratic
Party
Charles Sullivan
When Courage Fails: a White Southerner on Rosa Parks
Zachary Richard
Return to Louisiana
Ben Tripp
Beginning of the End? Don't Start Cheering Just Yet
St. Clair / Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
November 4,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Blood
on the Tundra, Betrayal in the Rotunda: Losing ANWR
Dave Lindorff
A Majority Now Favors Impeachment: If He Lied, He Must Be Tried
Phillip Cryan
Crackdown
in Colombia
Christopher Brauchli
Katrina and Tax Breaks for the Very Rich
William S.
Lind
Exit Strategy: You Can't Stay the Course in a Lost War
Daryl G. Kimball
Of Madmen and Nukes
George Beres
Laurels for Negroponte?
Peter Montague
Why We Can't Prevent Cancer
November 3,
2005
James Petras
The
Libby Affair and the Internal War
Saul Landau
Torn
Families and Shot Down Planes: a Cuba Story
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
An Occurrence at Gretna Bridge
Michael Dickinson
Bang! Bang! You're Deaf! Sonic Weapons Over Palestine
Joshua Frank
Sham Behind Closed Doors
Remi Kanazi
Dancing with Perseverance
Reza Fiyouzat
Taxation or Racketeering?
Website of the Day
CIA Leak Investigation: Bigger Fish, Deeper Water?
November 2,
2005
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Holy
Alito!: Not as Crazy as Scalia, But Just as Bad
Robert Oscar Lopez
Saving Rosa Parks from American Hypocrisy
John Walsh
The Philosophy of Mendacity: From Leo Strauss to Scooter Libby
Brian J. Foley
Why Most Americans Don't Care About Gitmo (and Why They Should)
Ramzy Baroud
Rolling Back Syria
M. Junaid Alam
What Moral Values?
Todd Chretien
Judgment Day for the Governator
Bruce K. Gagnon
The Democrats' Slap Happy Day
Website of the Day
Hands Off Dave!
November 1,
2005
Ron Jacobs
An
Interview with Kent State's Dave Airhart
Gary Leupp
The Plame Affair Leads to Rome
John Ross
Days
of the Dead on the Border
Bill Quigley
Why
Are They Making New Orleans a Ghost Town?
Joseph Nevins
From a Boundary of Death to One of Life
Dave Lindorff
Thinking About Impeachment
Linda S. Heard
Bashing Syria: Another Trojan Horse from the UN?
Heather Gray
Thank You, Mrs. Parks
Michael Dickinson
To Di For: Charlie and Camilla Cross the Pond
Jeffrey St. Clair
Kent State: Wise Up and Back Off
October 31,
2005
Elaine Cassel
Libby's
Lies
Mark Weisbrot
Pop Goes the Bubble: Bernancke and the Fed
Mike Whitney
Carry On, Patrick Fitzgerald
Norman Solomon
After the Libby Indictment, the Press Acquits Itself
Farooq Sulehria
Trading Weapons While Kashmir Burns
Nicole Colson
Scapegoating Immigrants
Madis Senner
Dhafir Sentenced to 22 Years: Another Erosion of Civil Rights
Paul Craig
Roberts
Scooter
and the Neocons
October 29 / 30, 2005
Cockburn /
St. Clair
The
Libby Indictment: Gotterdammerung for the Bushies?
Peter Linebaugh
The
Wedges of Hephaestus
Tim Wise
Framing the Poor: Katrina, Conservative Myth-Making and the Media
John Chuckman
Bushspeak: Dark and Garbled Words
Steven Higgs
Green Hoosiers: Forging a New Democracy in the Heartland
Brian Cloughley
The Fifth Afghan War
M. Shahid Alam
Israel and the Consequences of Uniqueness
Nikki Robinson
Crack Down at Kent State
Ralph Nader
Let the PIRGs Begin!: Student Activism Thrives
Joe DeRaymond
Requiem for Bethlehem Steel?
Joshua Frank
Karl's Great Escape: Did Rove Rat on Scooter?
Laura Santina
Tongue-Tied on Iraq: Why Aren't the Dems Screaming Bloody Murder?
Fred Gardner
Death of an Organizer
Michael Dickinson
Insult Your Country
Ron Jacobs
Autumn in America
Dr. Susan Block
Fear and Sex: a Halloween Greeting
Vanessa S. Jones
Self-Portrait, 1994. Bronte Beach
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Marbet, Gardner, Ford, Albert, Engel, Krieger & St. Clair
Website of
the Weekend
Red State Update
October 28,
2005
Jared Bernstein
Inflation
Up; Wages Down: Fastest Decline in Wages on Record
Virginia Tilley
Embracing
the Anti-Aparthied Movement in Israel/Palestine
Phil Gasper
The
Race to Execute Tookie Williams
Jennifer Matsui
It's Mardi Graft Time!
Manual Garcia,
Jr.
Is the US Really Against Torture?
Monica Benderman
In the Name of Justice
Jason Leopold
Fitzgerald
Focuses on the Forgeries
Dave Lindorff
Suddenly, Bush Endorses Right of Fair Trials
Otober 27, 2005
Saul Landau
The
Scandal Isn't the Leak, But the Illegal War
Stuart Hodkinson
Bono
and Geldoff: "We Saved Africa" Oh No, They Didn't!
Ingmar Lee
Stop
the Troops!: No Glory or Honor in Iraq
Lila Rajiva
License
to Bill: Gates Does India
Ilan Pappe
The
Last Moment of Hope
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Waiting for Fitzgerald
Michael Donnelly
Look Who's Talking Now: the GOP on Perjury
Ron Jacobs
Escape the Weight of Your Corporate Logo
Cockburn / St. Clair
White House in Meltdown
October 26,
2005
Kathy Kelly
For
Whom They Toll
Gary Leupp
Dialectics
of the Plame Affair
Mike Marqusee
Empire of Denial
Eric Ruder
War Crimes in Afghanistan
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq: a Constitutionally Divided Nation
Joshua Frank
Fitzgerald v. the Bushies: Hold Your Elation in Check
J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
The Legacy of Rosa Parks
Website of
the Day
Decent Work in America: the 2005 Work Environment Index
October 25,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Condi
and Syrian Regime Change: Could Somebody Recommend a President?
Ken Sengupta / Patrick Cockburn
Attack on the Palestine Hotel
Conn Hallinan
Sleight of Hand: Iran, India and the US
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Pulling the Court Strings
Jackie Corr
Barbara Bush: Poster Gorgon of the Houston Astros
Robert Day
Talk to Strangers
John Sugg
Judith
Miller and Me
October 24,
2005
Dave Lindorff
Revoke
Judy Miller's Pulitzer
Michael Donnelly
Shades of Iran/contra
Patrick Cockburn
A Nation Stands on Trial
Mike Whitney
Apres Rove
Norman Solomon
Iraq is Not Vietnam, But...
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
US
Foreign Policy and Palestine
October 22
/ 23, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
When
Divas Collide: Maureen Dowd v. Judy Miller
Billy Sothern
Letter
from the Circle Bar, New Orleans
Saul Landau
Bush, an Assessment
Ralph Nader
An
Open Letter to Bush on Harriet Miers
Behrooz Ghamari
Whose Justice Does Saddam's Trial Serve?
Brian Cloughley
Bush the Strategist: Pyrrhus Without a Victory?
Diana Barahona
Venezuela's National Workers' Union
Fred Gardner
Dershowitzed!
Lee Sustar
What the War on Terror is Really About
Patrick Cockburn
Murder of Saddam Trial Defense Lawyer
Laura Carlsen
Mexico City Seamstresses Recall 1985 Quake
James Petras
China Bashing and the Loss of US Competitiveness
Joshua Frank
Invading Iran: Who is to Stop Them?
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
Disasters are Us
Michelle Bollinger
When Abortion Was Illegal
Missy Comley
Beattie
CSI: Iraq
Kona Lowell
Intelligent Design: Making High School Fun
Ben Tripp
Tanks for the Memories
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening To This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert and Engel
Website of
the Day
Indictment Watch
October 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
The
Democrats' Abortion Hypocrisy
Winslow T. Wheeler
Paying for Their Mistakes: Incompetence, Deception and the Defense
Budget
Col. Dan Smith
The Destruction of the National Guard
Norman Solomon
Media at Crossroads: 25 Years After Reagan's Triumph
Madis Senner
Abusing Katrina
Michael Donnelly
Richard
Pombo: DeLay in Cowboy Boots
October 20, 2005
Dave Lindorff
Impeachment
Comes to NYC
Ray McGovern
16
Fatal Words: Cheney's Chickens Come Home to Roost
Jeremy Brecher
/
Brendan Smith
Attack Syria? Invade Iran?: By What Constitutional Right?
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam Refuses to Recognize Court
Kevin Zeese
Was the Iraqi Constitution Vote Fixed?
Ross Eisenbrey
Millions Would Lose Pay and Protections Under Enzi Amendment
Randy Shields
James McMurtry Makes It in Dayton
Justine Davidson
Prosecuting Bush in Canada for Torture: a Small Victory
After Lucas
Cranach
Judy and Holofernes
Joe Allen
The
Scandalous History of the Red Cross
|
November 19 / 20, 2005
CounterPunch Playlists
What
We're Listening to This Week
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR, DAVID
VEST and JESSE WALKER
Jeffrey St. Clair
1. Miles Davis--Ascenseur
Pour l'Echafaud--Soundtrack (Polygram)
Louis Malle's first feature,
Ascenseur Pour l'Echafaud (Lift to the Scaffold), a tense
little film noir shot on a tight budget, has just been re-released
by Rialto in a gorgeous new print. A pouty-lipped Jeanne Moreau
is stunning in this nihilistic thriller involving arms dealers,
oil companies, adulterers and bored Parisian youth, but the real
star of the movie is the soundtrack by Miles Davis, recorded
one night in 1956 following an afternoon spent at a Left Bank
café with Jean-Paul Sartre talking about jazz, women and
philosophy in, as Miles put it in his autobiography, "broken
English, broken French and sign language." As Malle projected
the film on a scene in the studio, Miles improvised the haunting
score in a single, all night session. The end result ranks with
Sketches of Spain, In a Silent Way and Kind of Blue as one of
Davis's landmark achievements and perhaps the greatest soundtrack
ever--at least until 30 years later when Davis teamed up with
John Lee Hooker to score Dennis Hopper's The Hot Spot.
2. The Five Royales--The
Apollo Sessions (Collectibles)
With Lowman Pauling on a stinging
lead guitar and Johnny Tanner belting out the street-hardened
lead vocals, the Five Royales were the great black rock/R&B
band of the 1950s. Their harmonies are impeccable; their rock
numbers explode in a controlled frenzy. Nearly forgotten today,
the Five Royales influence can be heard from the young James
Brown to the Beatles and Sly Stone. But why waste time charting
their influences? Nothing tops the original sound.
3. Faron Young--Live
Fast Love Hard: the Capitol Recordings, 1952-1962 (Country
Music Foundation)
Shreveport's Faron Young idolized
Hank Williams. The legend goes that Young, a fixture on Louisiana
Hayride, took his fiance to meet Williams in a local bar, Williams
relieved Young of his girlfriend at the point of a gun. Young's
early records for Capitol are ferocious blend of Williams inspired
honky tonk and Cajun-country hillbilly swing. In the early 60s,
Willie Nelson convinced Young to record his song "Hello
Walls", which became a huge cross-over hit. After that hit,
Young's music gradually degenerated into the insipid country
pop that was then in vogue. The hits kept coming, but the music
never had the same zest. Still Faron Young remained one of the
godfathers of Nashville, publishing the influential Music City
News and, to his credit, he cultivated a stable of creative young
songwriters, including Nelson, Don Gibson, and Kris Kristofferson.
His career was sent into a minor tailspin after he yanked a talkative
young girl from the audience and spanking her onstage. Years
of drinking and smoking also caught up with him and he put a
bullet in his head in the summer of 1996. Back in the day, though,
Faron Young stormed across the stages of the Southland like the
Johnny Rotten of honky tonk.
4. Sonny Clark--Cool
Struttin': Remastered (Blue Note)
So many great young jazz players
of the late 1950s and 1960s died young, leaving a huge void --
Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Paul Chambers, Scott LaFaro, Eric
Dolphy, Lee Morgan--just to name a few of my favorites. Near
the top of this list is Sonny Clark, one of the most talented
of the hard bop piano players, who died of a heroin overdose
at 31. His playing here, backed by Miles Davis's rhythm section,
is bluesy, melodic and deeply grooved. Almost danceable, which
is saying a lot for post-bebop jazz. If Ray Charles had played
jazz full time, he might have sounded a lot like Sonny Clark
on this record, probably the greatest hard bop album. Like him,
but certainly not any better.
5. Rodney Crowell--Fate's
Right Hand (Sony)
The most gifted singer/songwriter
since Guy Clark delivers a knockout blow to the forces of darkness,
then dances on their remains. This one's for you Pat Robertson.
6. Skip James--Studio
Sessions: Rare and Unreleased. (Vanguard)
The Mississippi blues springs
from three great fountainheads: Charley Patton, Son House and
Skip James. And the greatest of these is Mr. James. He's also
the most underappreciated and has been slandered in a disgusting
biography by Stephen Calt. James excelled as a piano player,
guitarist and a songwriter. But it's his voice that haunts, a
high falsetto that's as sharp and deadly as concertina wire.
There's a lot of terrific gospel on this cd. Some of the songs
more frightening than any Cotton Mather sermon. An enterprising
hacker should find a way to download "Somebody Gonna Wish
They Had Religion" onto Dick Cheney's iPod.
7. Dion--Yo
Frankie (Arista)
The career of Dion DiMucci
encapsulates the best of white rock and roll, from the Bronx
doo-wop of The Wanderer and Run Around Sue to protest songs,
such as Abraham, Martin and John. Dion, a grossly under-rated
songwriter and band leader, escaped the clutches of heroin and
a string of bad producers, ventured into folk and gospel and
emerged in 1993 with this stunning album of hard-driving rock,
backed by Lou Reed and Dave Edmunds. When he sings "King
of the New York Streets", you believe it.
8. Carol Fran and Clarence
Hollimon--See
There (Black Top)
Bourbon Street legends Carol
Fran and Clarence Hollimon are a husband and wife team who specialize
in high-powered Creole funk. Fran began her career in the late
1950s as the singer in Guitar Slim's band. Her deep powerful
voice was the perfect compliment to his delicate guitar playing.
Fran perfected a kind of swamp soul, a female Slim Harpo. She
spent most of the 60s and 70s without a recording contract, playing
In the eighties, she married Hollimon, one of New Orleans' top
session guitarists, they've produced four excellent albums, none
better than this one. Any time you feel the need to inject yourself
with the real spirit of New Orleans, put on this record and then
put on your dancing shoes.
9. Rufus featuring Chaka
Khan--Ask
Rufus (MCA)
As the 70s eroded into the
80s, there were two black women singers who towered above all
others: Donna Summer and Chaka Khan. Summer's voice, orgiastic,
airy and precise, was the perfect compliment to the disco beats
of Georgio Moroder. But Summer's sound, sexy as it was, seemed
to derive from Sunday nights in the gospel choirs. Khan's vocals
burst forth from more secular precincts. I can't speak for anyone
else, but for me, growing up in the sexually repressed suburbs
of the Corn Belt, Chaka Khan was the sine qua non of sex
appeal--the big, rough voice, the electrified hair, the infectious
personality. Here, fronting her great funk band Rufus, she is
at the height of her considerable powers. Listening to Chaka
Khan sing "At Midnight I Will Lift You Up" is like
spending 3:57 minutes in one of Wilhelm Reich's orgone boxes,
when it was working as advertised. Don't resist; just submit.
10. The Kinks--Low
Budget Remastered (Velvel)
The Kinks were always the Brit
band from the 60s I most wanted to like. Looking back, they never
quite lived up to my expectations. Perhaps it was that long string
of concept albums, from Village Green to Soap Opera, which come
off as being far too fey. Worse, they opened the door for the
dreadful tide of pwog rock in the 1970s. That said, the worst
of the Kinks' comic rock operas are so much better and more fun
than The Who's twin travesties, Tommy and Quadrophenia. Low Budget,
marketed in the 70s as a comeback album, strikes me as the Kinks'
best outing. It rocks hard; it's funny; and it's politically
charged without being dogmatic. And the songs National Health
and A Gallon of Gas haven't lost a fraction of relevance ...
natch.
By the time Jeffrey St. Clair
was 18, he'd been 86'd from more bands than Dickey Betts. Complaints
can be registered to: sitka@comcast.net.
David Vest
1. Nomadi -- 40
(Wea)
This week I checked out the
CD that ranked dead last (as of this past Monday) on Amazon's
sales charts, coming in at #719,724, and compared it to the top
twenty-five sellers. Guess who won. Nomadi, not altogether surprisingly,
sound far better than most of what the market would call the
"best." Amazon doesn't have sound samples posted, naturally,
but you can hear Nomadi on iTunes. I recommend "Le Strade"
for openers.
2. Liberace -- The
Golden Age of Television, (The Liberace Foundation)
A long-before-Las-Vegas reminder
that, once upon a time, the guy could play the piano. Check out
"Take me Out To The Ball Game" on vol. 5 (iTunes),
bearing in mind that expecting Lee to swing is like expecting
Kerry to fight back when Bush attacks him.
3. Charles Brown, Eddie
Bo, Willie Tee and Art Neville, Keys
to the Crescent City (Rounder)
Willie Tee's "In the Beginning"
and Art Neville's "My Children" are solo New Orleans
blues piano playing at its finest. Enough to give you religion.
And to make you wish Art would give us a new solo CD.
4. Saul Williams -- Saul
Williams (Fader)
A trippy, anti-pop-hop album
by the guy who is to most top-40 rap what John Trudell is to
guys dressing up like 40s gangsters and calling themselves bluesmen.
5. John Trudell -- Bone
Days (Daemon)
Never mind those "country"
singers in cute black hats and Peterman coats. This is the antidote
to much of what passes for "singing" these days. Think
of it next time you hear Celine Dion yelling over the supermarket
speakers.
6. Leonard Peltier, Harvey
Arden, Rev. Goat Carson, New Orleans Light -- My
Life is My Sun Dance (CD Baby)
Harvey Arden speaks Peltier's
words, with music by the sublime Rev. Goat Carson and a band
of brothers from New Orleans.
7. Francis Cabrel -- Samedi
Soir Sur La Terre (Sony Intl)
Cabrel's 1994 masterpiece,
before he started dabbling in blues. As good-sounding a French
pop album as I've come across. The CD's digipack deserves some
sort of design award, too, for suggesting that making music could
be some kind of civilized activity or something.
8. Crescent City Gold --
The
Ultimate Session (Highstreet)
Allen Toussaint on piano, Dr.
John on guitar (mainly), Lee Allen and Alvin Tyler on sax, and
the great Earl Palmer on drums. All you need to know. Singing
"even the champs go down sometime, baby."
9. Ronnie Barron -- My
New Orleans Soul (Aim)
No disrespect at all to the
ubiquitous Jon Cleary, but THIS is the New Orleans piano player
people should have been listening to all these years. Barron
was originally slated to be "Doctor John" before deferring
to Mac Rebennack, who assumed the mantle and never looked back.
If you can find Barron's version of "Life Is Just A Struggle
Everyday," sadly not included here, by all means grab it.
10. Stompin' at the Savoy:
The
Original Indie-Label 1944-1961
They're all here: Sammy Price,
the Gay Poppers, Cousin Joe, Pete Johnson, the X-Rays, the Ravens
and many more. You even get a chance to hear Wilbert Harrison
sing something besides "Kansas City" for once. Can't
help mentioning that Amazon is selling this set for $36 ($31
used) while iTunes wants $83.16.
David Vest's newest CD is Serves
Me Right to Shuffle.
Jesse Walker
1. Louis Armstrong: The
Best of the Hot 5 & Hot 7 Recordings
I don't really buy that hooey
about playing classical music for your baby so she'll grow up
smart -- but just in case there's something to it, I figure my
daughter will really come out all right if I play her
a lot of Louis Armstrong.
2. Hank Penny: King
of Hillbilly Bebop
Western blues, Alabama swing,
and a little mountain bop.
3. Candi Staton: Candi
Staton
Staton was one of the best
southern soul singers of the '60s and early '70s, before veering
suddenly into disco and then returning to her gospel roots. This
disc is a terrific sampler of that first stage of her pop career.
Credit where it's due: It was Staton's then-husband, Clarence
Carter, who had the inspired idea to back up "Stand By Your
Man" with a riff from "Stand By Me."
4. Solomon Burke: Proud
Mary: the Bell Sessions.
Another great southern soul
album. Get the CD with the bonus tracks, so you can hear his
take on George Jones' "She Thinks I Still Care."
5. Merle Haggard: Haggard
Like Never Before
I like the new Chicago Wind
too, but this two-year-old disc is even better. The righteous
and paranoid "Lonesome Day" may be his best political
song ever.
6. The Ohio Players: Fire
The ballads are a mixed bag,
but the hard funk is sensational. Is it just me, or does one
of these guys sound like a muppet?
7. The Buzzrats: A
Tiny Speck In A Ruthless ...
A little bit folky, a little
bit punk. Like someone put Rust Never Sleeps in a blender
with Harvest.
8. Elvis Presley: From
Elvis in Memphis
His real comeback, and one
of the greatest country-soul albums ever recorded. His cover
of "I'm Movin' On" somehow manages to echo both Hank
Snow's and Ray Charles' versions of the song.
9. Van Dyke Parks: Song
Cycle.
"Nowadays them country
boys
don't cotton much to one two three four."
Jesse Walker is the managing editor of Reason
and runs the Perpetual
Three Dot website.
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