Leon Russell - Delta Lady

The "Delta Lady" is Rita Coolidge, who was born in Tennessee and moved to Memphis in 1967, where she met Leon Russell. They started dating, and in 1969 Russell wrote this song about her. He was doing arrangements and playing keyboards on Joe Cocker's second album at the time, so he contributed this song, which Cocker released as the first single from the set. Russell included the song on his first solo album the following year.
This song's muse Rita Coolidge is one of the backing vocalists on the track. In her autobiography, she recalls Cocker recording the song at Russell's studio on Skyhill Drive in Los Angeles, where she served tea to the musicians and crew. She didn't know at the time that the song would become her calling card: She named that autobiography Delta Lady.
Leon Russell and Rita Coolidge joined Joe Cocker on his Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, where she would sing "Superstar," a song written by Russell and Bonnie Bramlett. "Here she is, our own Delta Lady," Cocker would announce when introducing her, imprinting that appellation.
Russell wrote another song about Rita Coolidge, "A Song For You," which also appeared on his debut album. The couple split soon after, just as their careers started taking off.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/joe-cocker/delta-lady

Colouring Rainbows - Theorem

Started as modern metal, nowadays genre-bending somewhere between jazz, prog, electro, art pop and post-rock. Composed, arranged, played, sung, mixed and mastered by Jessica Müller a.k.a. Colouring Rainbows.  From: https://colouringrainbows.bandcamp.com/community  

Atom Juice - Dead Hookers

There’s something about hearing a band record straight from their rehearsal space that either exposes the cracks or lights the fuse. Atom Juice chose the fuse. You can hear the four walls breathing in the room – that wood-panel warmth, the hiss of amps pushed past polite conversation, cymbals that bloom out into the ether like sun halos. It’s messy in all the right ways, a record that doesn’t hide behind polish because it doesn’t need to.
Warsaw’s Atom Juice – alumni of Weedpecker, Makiwara, Clockmaid – aren’t reinventing the cosmic wheel, but they’ve managed to spin it in a way that feels both familiar and oddly intimate. You catch shards of Floyd’s Meddle era dreamscapes, Allman-esque twin guitar sunrises, even a bit of that kaleidoscopic whimsy The Beatles accidentally left behind when they packed away the sitars. But it never slouches into costume rock. The band siphons the past through their own bloodstream – the result is velvet-edged, sprawling psychedelic rock that feels lived in, not borrowed.
There’s a looseness here, but also intent. You can almost imagine the quintet playing in a circle, tossing ideas back and forth, seeing who will grab the comet tail first. One moment you’re wrapped in a lull of drifting harmonies and organ mist, the next you’re slammed into a riff that opens like a trap door beneath you. It’s that interplay – dreamy patience and sudden propulsion – that gives the album its addictive quality.
If the psych underground has been flooded lately with too many bands confusing delay pedals for transcendence, Atom Juice remind us it’s about texture, space, and timing. They know when to hang in the groove, when to fracture it, when to let silence and shimmer do the work. There’s craft here, and there’s heart, and those two don’t always meet.
The self-titled debut is less a collection of songs than a weather system. Put it on headphones and you’re drifting downriver through technicolor fog; crank it in a room and the walls flex with it. It’s not a record that demands attention by force – it seduces you, minute by minute, until you realize you’ve already slipped out of the room you started in.  From: https://www.witchingbuzz.ovh/witching-chronicles-exploring-the-atom-juices-atom-juice/

Asynje - Skáll

It is night. In Denmark's National Museum, in the middle of old Copenhagen, the over two hundred year-old entrance hall is full of people listening to the Danish band Asynje, playing their debut concert on Copenhagen's Night of Culture. Asynje play a fascinating array of acoustic medieval instruments and modern electronic sound and rhythm apparatus, overlaid by a female voice singing alluring ballads about Vikings and their gods, from the period between the years 600 and 1050 A.D.
The band comprises four musicians who play all over Denmark and Europe, at music venues, festivals and Viking markets. They are: Nana Barslev (vocal, percussion), Martin Seeberg (violin, flute, lyre), Søren Hammarlund (hurdy-gurdy, keyed fiddle, electronics) and Troels Dueholm Nørgaard (whistles, hurdy-gurdy and octave mandolin).
Asynje are in close contact with a wide and noticeably youthful audience who are fascinated by ancient Nordic mythology and its universe of the gods and goddesses. I asked Søren Hammerlund how much we actually know about the music the Vikings played. “Nothing. Nothing whatsoever! But we have some instruments from that time, and we have various sources that describe the music, so we can build up a picture of how it may have sounded. But Asynje does not play the music the way it may have sounded back then, that is not our aim at all. It is more about connecting with our own culture and being inspired by it.”
Asynje started as a duo, but then the concept expanded when the National Museum in Copenhagen propose a special concert experience for the Museum's visitors. The Museum want a musical setting for Nordic history, in particular a modern take on the Viking era, in order to appeal to a broader audience. Since the concert at the National Museum, momentum has been gathering, with concerts in Denmark, Germany, Holland and Belgium.
Wherever the band play, critics and audience alike remark on Asynje's ability to give the Nordic scenery and mythology a setting in sound and pictures. “You are seized by the urge to grab crayons and draw waves, the sea, and steep mountainsides,” as one Belgian journalist writes, and that proves to be one of the aspects that makes Asynje's music special: their knack of letting the music paint pictures in their listeners' minds.
“What we are investigating with our music is the beautiful and dramatic Scandinavian countryside as a setting for new and ancient Nordic legends,” says Søren Hammerlund, and continues: “I think we find about half of our material in old books and manuscripts in the dustiest corners of old libraries, for instance Poetic Edda (Den Ældre Edda), and then we put it to music. The rest we write ourselves.”
The Poetic Edda Søren is talking about is a collection of poetry from Nordic mythology and the Nordic sagas. Written in Iceland in medieval times, the poems are several hundred years older, and were handed down since Viking times in an oral tradition. That is one of the texts that have inspired Asynje, and it influenced the band's first album, from 2012.
On Asynje's debut album we find songs and tunes like The Giants of Dovre Mountain, Viking Party Polka, Njord & Skade (two Nordic goddesses), and The Knife Polska. I asked Hammarlund how the band works with the songs.  “Any of us can propose a new number in Asynje, but when I am working on a new song, I might start with an old book, perhaps a fragment of song, and a scrap of a tune. But it is not complete yet, because there is no story, maybe just a picture or an idea. The bits of tunes have to be assembled, I have to see how I can develop them. Sometimes I compose something, or research old contemporary sources to find a piece I can add on to what I already have. It is the same with the words. I check on the historical period, to see what images I can use while converting the poem into a song. That is one method we use. Another is to begin with an electronic beat that Nanna sings to. That way, we find inspiration by using ancient frames from the Danish or Nordic traditions.  From: http://www.folkworld.eu/51/e/asynje.html

Amnesty - Free Your Mind

Fans of the exquisite, often never-before-released funk championed by Now Again Records are no stranger to Amnesty. Based in Indianapolis in the early 1970s, the group released only two obscure 45s in their recording career. Birthed from the same scene as the Ebony Rhythm Band, Amnesty had a poltical edge similar to LA Carnival and the hardest brass section since The Kashmere Stage Band.
In 1973 Amnesty recorded five hard, vocal funk numbers alongside some ballads and a handful of demos based around nothing more than guitar accompaniment. Only two songs were ever released; Amnesty’s biting, difficult-to-categorize prog/rock/soul/funk stretched far beyond Indianpolis’s bounds and the band didn’t have a label to take them to the next level. Finally made available thirty three years after they were recorded, these songs are funk arranged with dangerous complexity and performed with precision – arguably the most unique funk to originate from Naptown, and some of the best music of its kind.  From: https://amnestyfunk.bandcamp.com/album/free-your-mind-the-700-west-sessions

The Marshall Tucker Band / Poco - The Midnight Special 1975

 The Marshall Tucker Band / Poco - The Midnight Special 1975 - Part 1

 

 The Marshall Tucker Band / Poco - The Midnight Special 1975 - Part 2

 

The Marshall Tucker Band headlined The Midnight Special on January 24, 1975, delivering a standout performance that showcased their signature blend of Southern rock, country, and blues. The episode featured guest appearances by The Charlie Daniels Band, Olivia Newton-John, Poco, and Wolfman Jack. During their set, The Marshall Tucker Band performed "This Ol' Cowboy" and "24 Hours At A Time", highlighting their instrumental prowess and improvisational style. The band also took time to introduce its members, giving audiences a glimpse into their camaraderie and musical chemistry. This appearance was a defining moment for the band, helping to solidify their reputation as one of the leading acts in Southern rock during the 1970s.  From: https://www.facebook.com/americanamusicsociety/posts/the-marshall-tucker-band-headlined-the-midnight-special-on-january-24-1975-deliv/1007673191542122/

I really don't know what Richie Furay was looking for when he left Poco. Perhaps it was the commercial success that had eluded him with the band. Perhaps he wanted critical acclaim. Well, he had some of that with Poco, but maybe he wanted to be on the A list of musicians. If it can be said that he was burned out then how do you explain Rusty Young's desire to continue? After all, Rusty had been with Poco as long as Richie and was probably experiencing some of the same feelings of frustration, especially after the relative failure of the Good Feelin' To Know album.
And then there's Paul Cotton, who had been a working musician as long as Richie. Timothy B. Schmitt had been with Poco since their 2nd album, and was probably puzzled by the band's failure to get a big hit or a gold album. Concert attendance was always good, but that big hit was just out of reach. Then you have to consider George Grantham, the drummer who also sang and added so much to the Poco sound. Anyway, Furay quit and left Poco to the other four, and it can truly be said they carried on in an outstanding fashion. If anything, they got even tighter without him.
If you look at Poco's history, you'll see that they had their greatest commercial success without Furay, Grantham, or Schmitt with 1978's Legend album and the hit singles that album contained. But, getting back to Cantamos. It's an excellent album, with or without Richie Furay. The songs are overall consistently good. The album is more satisfying than Poco 7, the first album without Furay. Cantamos is where the four man Poco really began to shine. I suppose you can think of 7 as the foundation for this album. Anyhow, get Cantamos, give it a good listen, and watch the image of Richie Furay fade out of your mind. Richie was off trying to be a STAR when this album was released and was getting lost along the way. Poco stuck together and produced some really good albums and Cantamos is one of the best.  From: https://www.amazon.com/Cantamos-Poco/dp/B000093FKR

The Marshall Tucker Band arrived at a crossroads on it’s third album, Where We All Belong. With two successful LPs already under their belt, the Spartanburg, SC sextet was on the verge of even greater popularity. Marshall Tucker’’s eclectic brand of musical Americana had won them a fervent following as a touring act. Now, thanks to lead guitarist Toy Caldwell’’s knack for hook-laden songwriting, they were edging closer to breaking into Top 40 radio. Where We All Belong gives a taste of both ends of the Marshall Tucker spectrum: the expansive jam band and the more tightly-focused recording act. Released in 1974 as a two-record LP, the album found the band refining its own distinctive brand of country-rock on the studio cuts.
Anticipating the mass appeal of cowboy culture a few years later, Toy and his band adopted a bit of a Wild West attitude in their music. For all the prominence of pedal steel guitar and down-home lyric imagery in its tracks, though, Where We All Belong was far more adventuresome than most mainstream country music of its time. Balancing the well-honed studio cuts were the in-concert recordings that round out the album. The genre-spanning versatility and instrumental excellence of Marshall Tucker’’s membership is caught here in all its unfettered glory. As a live act, the band had the power to drive audiences delirious with their soaring jams, as these recordings demonstrate.  From: https://www.amazon.com/Where-Belong-Marshall-Tucker-Band/dp/B000139TGC

 

 

Sheryl Crow & Joan Osborne - Everyday is a Winding Road - Live Atlanta, GA 1998

Sheryl Crow demonstrated what a talent she is at Newcastle Arena here tonight. Her performance along with that of the rest of the band was excellent. I particularly liked her rendition of “Home” where Sheryl played the keyboard at the front of the stage and presented a haunting version of one of her more recent releases in England. Sheryl showed her versatility by not only playing the guitar but also the keyboard, accordion and harmonica. This, together with her obvious talent for song writing, once again proved my theory that the really good bands write and play their own music. The show lasted for about an hour and forty minutes and among the many songs played I was most impressed with “Leaving Las Vegas”, “If It Makes You Happy” and “Every Day Is A Winding Road”. Appropriately, whilst Sheryl was playing the accordion, the group included the Who’s “Squeeze Box” which went down very well. As you can tell, I was very impressed and would recommend any one to go see Sheryl and the rest of the band if they get the chance.  From: https://thecrowarchives.wordpress.com/category/1997-live-reviews/

Sheryl Crow, Joan Osborne, Fiona Apple, Sarah McLachlan