Shopping List: The New and the Notable
James Brown, The Singles Volume Two: 1960-1963 (Hip-O Select)
James Brown is a work in progress on this double-disc collection of singles recorded for the King label. Hear Brown casting off his r&b roots for a stronger, screamier, and increasingly idiosyncratic soul style. And for a great time, compare the relatively restrained studio version of "Lost Someone" heard here with the monumental eleven-minute version at the center of Brown's historic 1962 show captured on Live at the Apollo.
Best of the Flatt & Scruggs TV Show, Vols. 1&2 (Shanachie DVDs)
"Flatt & Scruggs Grand Ole Opry" aired from 1955 until 1969, when, coincidentally or not, Roy Clark and Buck Owens' "Hee-Haw" made its debut. Each of this pair of DVDs contains two programs (sponsored by Martha White's Hot Rize biscuit flour, as pedaled in several thoroughly entertaining commercials) from 1961 and 1962, when Flatt and Scruggs' Foggy Mountain Boys were at their bluegrass best. Don't miss Mama Maybelle Carter's "Wildwood Flower" and "The Liberty Dance," on volume two, for unadorned examples of American music at its finest.
Peggy Seeger, Three Score and Ten (Appleseed); If You Ain't Got the Do-Re-Mi: Songs of Rags and Riches (Smithsonian Folkways)
Hard to believe that folk-activist siblings Peggy, Mike, and Pete Seeger had never appeared on record together prior to this two-CD set capturing Peggy's 2005 celebration of her seventieth birthday. The Seegers assemble amid an evening-long hootenanny embracing everything from traditional folk tunes (like "Hangman" and "Fiddling Soldier"); songs commemorating Seeger's late husband, Ewan MacColl (his "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" was written in her honor), and current partner, Irene Pyper-Scott ("So Long Since I Been Home"); and good old-fashioned sociopolitical rabble-rousing (Pete's "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," Peggy's "Sing About These Hard Times"). Pete and Mike Seeger's original contributions to the social-injustice canon are in evidence on If You Ain't Got the Do-Re-Mi, a tough-times compendium marking the opening of Wall Street's Museum of American Finance. Highlights include Mike Seeger and the New Lost City Ramblers' "If I Lose, I Don't Care," Josh White's "One Meat Ball," Pete Seeger's "Empty Pocket Blues," and Woody Guthrie's title track.
Turtle Island Quartet, A Love Supreme: The Legacy of John Coltrane (Telarc)
A rare and beautiful translation of some of the saxophonist's richest and best-known jazz writing into the classical realm via the Islanders' perceptive arrangements and elegant soloing. In addition to the daunting yet beautiful title work, which includes transcriptions of memorable improvisations from the Coltrane quartet's original 1964 recording, A Love Supreme includes string arrangements of Coltrane's famous soprano-sax interpretation of "My Favorite Things" and "Naima" (performed by Coltrane here) guitarist John McLaughlin and violinist L. Shankar's India-tinged "La Danse de Bonheur," and Stanley Clark and Chick Corea's "Song to John."