Once in awhile, with family friends or fellow patrons at the pub, I get asked, “What got you into music?” My first deep dive into music started after I quit basketball in High School. It accompanied my deep dive into faith. The band I started with was the one who kept being played every thirty […]
Soul
[Review] “Feelin’ Good.” David Ruffin’s Second Solo Album. Released November 1969
Shortcut: Link to Feelin’ Good on Spotify David Ruffin’s second solo album, Feelin’ Good, was released in November 1969, 6 months after the first album, My Whole World Ended. Feelin’ Good has some serious gems in it, but at times it also feels hastily slapped together to leverage the fans’ desire to see a Ruffin […]
The best cover of Feelin’ Alright? might belong to David Ruffin (Sorry, Joe Cocker & Traffic).
Monday afternoon I was driving down I-5 South towards Bakersfield. Just me, the hills, the fields, the cattle, the tundra and desert…I was gonna stay there the night and then head down to LA on Tuesday for 2016 NLCS Game 3. Dodgers vs. Cubs. #FlytheW. On the way down I was listening to David Ruffin’s […]
[Review] Amos Lee’s “Spirit” was more soul than I was expecting. That wasn’t a bad thing.
I wanted Amos Lee’s album Spirit to be a continuation of acoustic roots that could be traced back to his first album. His depth has only grown since Mission Bell. After the As the Crow Flies EP and Mountain of Sorrows, Rivers of Song, I was expecting coronation into acoustic roots musical legacy with Spirit. […]
“My Whole World Ended.” David Ruffin’s First Solo Album.
“My Whole World Ended,” is the first solo album David Ruffin performed after he got fired from left The Temps. The album as a whole is one of those you can play over and over again, especially the back-half of the album, which sounds like the classic “B-sides” back side that’s stripped down (and, therefore, […]
10 Otis Redding live cuts, B-sides, and rare songs way too good for pop & oldies radio.
1 – Nobody’s Fault But Mine Year: 1967 Written by: Otis Redding Album: The Immortal Otis Redding Label: Atco Records I first went to hear this song because I thought it was somehow related to the same lyrical tree as Led Zeppelin’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine. Zep’s song is a derivative / adaptation of the […]
The Camptown Winterbound Confessional
We had a conversation tonight at the hot tub with a (multi-directional pun alert) pretty cool atmospheric scientist from North Carolina. We told him how we felt that our productivity went up by leaps and bounds when we left the -19 degree winter mornings of Northwest Indiana for the 62 degree afternoons of East Bay. […]
Time to Finish the House That Jack Built, Y’all (Doc Says I Gots the Blues).
4 years ago, I dove deep into The Blues in order to write a book of blues, or two. And about on a third. But life has been changing rapidly. And a trip to the doctor’s indicated I got the blues. Stretched too thin. Not takin’ good enough care of myself Not exercising enough Adjusting […]