12 Dec 2018
Evening all, another trio of tunes for you to try on. I am aware that it is ‘beginning to look a lot like Christmas’, (Buble, 2011) so next week will be some of my favourite Christmas songs mixed in with another trio of new music to get us all in the spirit. In the meantime the following are my songs of choice for this week!
First up and a band from Kettering called Temples. I was on a bit of a Doors/Jim Morrison binge at the start of the week and decided I’d like to explore some more contemporary stuff and found a song called ‘Shelter Song’. Initially thinking it was of the time of The Doors in that psychedelic rock genre I soon found it to be slightly more recent than that, 2012 in fact! The band have released two albums to date, and whilst I’m sharing the first song from their 2012 debut album ‘Sun Structures’, it is their second album ‘Volcano’ which I have really enjoyed over the last week. The opening song ‘Certainty’ falls right in the ‘neo-psychedelic’ genre of music which I had been craving having spent an afternoon listening to The Doors. The band have a wonderful melodic form with echoed vocals which give them that psychedelic edge, even the video for the song I’ve chosen belongs back in the Sixties!
Temples - Shelter Song - https://youtu.be/vs4i41cOv0s
Secondly this week and a singer who was 63 when he released his first album, Charles Bradley. Born in Gainesville, Florida in 1948 he spent his early years in between homeless shelters and eventually trained as a chef. Whilst working as a chef a colleague likened his look to that of James Brown and so Bradley spent time as a James Brown-styled impersonator and played to only a handful of people for over 20 years. However in the early 2000′s he was discovered by Bosco Mann who was the co-founder of Daptone Records and I for one am glad he was. From there Bradley was asked to record a number of tracks with the backing of a funk and soul band named the Menahan Street Band. Bradley’s debut album released in 2011 was made up of a number of these recordings and was a reasonable success. His third album ‘Changes’ was ranked by Mojo as one of the top 50 albums released in 2016 but unfortunately was the last released by Bradley before his untimely death from cancer in 2017. A fourth album was released comprising material of recordings not used on the previous three albums. He dubbed himself ‘the screaming eagle of soul’ and I wish the world had more of his music to enjoy! I can’t help feel the opening lyric from the song I’ve chosen is meant in someway as a sign of relief that Bradley has been given his chance to perform, ‘Its my turn to love and be loved, Its my turn to get out in the world and let my spirit speak’. The album Changes is outstanding, the song below is taken from it.
Charles Bradley - Ain’t It A Sin - https://youtu.be/UD1eaRDY-q4
Finally this week and a little known blues rock band from Durham called ‘Circa 69′. So little known in fact I’m struggling for things to say about them! I heard a song at the beginning of the snooker coverage last Sunday night of all places and after a quick Shazam I found it to be Circa 69 with a song called ‘Sonder’. A quick check on Spotify found one other song of theirs so very little to go on! How they managed to have their music played at the beginning of the snooker will remain one of life’s little mysteries but I am glad to have heard it. I will say that the streaming figures have increased steadily over the last week so there must be some avid music followers who are also snooker fans! The other song on Spotify to the one I’m sharing entitled ‘Open Seas’ has been likened to a Pink Floyd song and I can see what they mean. It is a gentle rock song very much in the manner of a ‘Comfortably Numb’ type track. I will be following them on Spotify and keeping tabs on any future releases but the two available at present are both very enjoyable.
Circa 69 - Sonder - https://youtu.be/BXPUAcmFWN8
.......and there we have it. Another posting done. Watch out for my bumper Christmas posting next week, I’ll be throwing in some Christmas songs along with a few more songs from bands already visited during the course of the blog! In the meantime, have a superb week!
