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By O-Dub 
It may not be obvious but I’m a big Rufus Wainwright fan. Mostly. I add that qualifier only because after obsessively listening to his first three albums in the early ’00s, I more or less lost tabs on him for the remainder of the decade, including at least 2-3 studio albums that – for reasons I can’t even explain – totally missed my radar.
So maybe it’s only appropriate that I’d be rediscovering him on his latest album, Out of the Game…given that this effort is produced by Mark Ronson and features many of the Daptone [...]
Continue reading RUFUS WAINWRIGHT: BACK IN HIS GAME
By O-Dub 
Part of the “cost” for having grown up as a hip-hop fiend of the ’80s and ’90s is that the line between hip-hop and pop was always clearly drawn in the sand. It didn’t mean you couldn’t enjoy both but they were just two different beasts.
Of course, by the end of the ’90s, rap artists threw that memo out, mostly because hip-hop had all but taken over pop music anyway and, for a good while, many a pop artist trying to stay relevant, would have to kiss the ring and try their [...]
Continue reading HAVING SOME FUN(.)
By O-Dub 
So…this meme was making the rounds (again) on Facebook in recent weeks and I went back to check what the #1 song was during my birth week in 1972 and it was Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Alone Again, Naturally.”
By sheer coincidence, I had just picked up a Spanish-language version of the song from Amoeba the other week (and believe me when I say: I very rarely find much by way of good used records from Amoeba). It’s on a 7″ EP of four songs, from a band that I think is Guatemalan in origin:
[...]
Continue reading OPUS 3: 72 TO 12
By O-Dub 
Sarah Vaughn: Bye Bye
From 7″ (Mercury, 1964)
James Royal: House of Jack
From 7″ (CBS Germany, 1969)
Mark Martin: In the Good Old Topless Time
From 7″ (TWR, 1968)
I previously wrote about “instrumentals-made-into-vocal” covers in 2010, and now have three more to add into the mix.
Sarah Vaughn’s “Bye Bye” obviously riffs on Mancini’s hugely famous “Peter Gunn Theme”. I’m on the fence with this one…you don’t really need to throw vocals on one of the best frickin’ t.v. themes of all time but then again: [...]
Continue reading VOCALIZED COVERS
By O-Dub 
Katunga: Oh Cherie
From Mira Para Arriba, Mira Para Abajo (RCA, 1973)
Katunga was a 1970s Latin funk/rock outfit out of either Peru or Argentina (I’m still not 100% certain if they were Peruvians who recorded/toured in Argentina or the other way around) with a few LPs to their name. “Oh Cherie” comes off of what is probably their “best-known” LP (to American heads), Mira Para Arriba, Mira Para Abajo (“look up, look down”) thanks to a number of b-boy break-type joints, especially “Palo Bonito.”
However, I keep coming back to “Oh [...]
Continue reading KATUNGA: OH CHERIE, AMOUR
By O-Dub 
It’s probably self-evident that people connect to songs on a personal basis (duh) but nowhere else are the stakes higher than choosing songs for a wedding. I don’t presume this is the case for every couple but for me, I know I’d probably agonize over what songs to choose for the processional, recessional, first dance, last dance, etc. 1
As such, I’m always curious to see what couples go with and very often, I learn something new along the way. For example, for DJ Phatrick’s wedding last summer, their processional was the “Suite for Ma Dukes” [...]
Continue reading LOVE, SONGS
By O-Dub 
Bob Azzam & The Great Expectations: Rain Rain Go Away
Berimbau
Tricky Soul
From S/T (Audio Fidelity, 1969)
Where in the world is Bob Azzam from? If you knew nothing about him and needle-dropped through the album, you could easily believe he’s from (take your pick): the U.S., the U.K., Brazil, or the Middle East. Azzam was actually born in MonacoCairo to a Lebanese family but his career really got started in France even though much of his best known work (to contemporary ears) was originally recorded in Sweden. You [...]
Continue reading AZZAM IS UNIVERSAL
By O-Dub 
Cold Duck: Cold Duck (On Ice)
Folk: A Helping Hand
L&M Jazz Quartet: Serenade to a Chicken Wing
The Profits: Fantasy of Love
All from Like People: The Sounds of Young Los Angeles (SOYLA, 197?)
I had been after this LP for a few years now, ever since first seeing at the Groove Merchant, back in the day. It was the cover art; there was something so enticing about how everyone was standing at the top of that canyon, combined with a flip on the old Motown slogan, “The [...]
Continue reading THE SOUNDS OF YOUNG LOS ANGELES
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