I’m not sure where I first heard of Steve Goodman, but it was probably on WNEW-FM radio out of New York in the mid 70s, where he appeared live on the Vin Skelsa show yearly. I liked his original songs, which were folk with a country or blues flavor at times, and often a healthy helping of humor and satire. It wasn’t until he died in 1984 at the age of 36 that I learned of his long battle with leukemia, something that went on behind the scenes through his entire recording career. It’s a sad story, he went too soon. You can read more about it on his Wikipedia entry.

Goodman’s first break was when Arlo Guthrie had a hit with his song about a train, “City of New Orleans.” Goodman himself never had any big hits, but sold enough records to keep him going. There were two records for Buddah, cover of the first self-titled album from 1971 is above. There are a few songs on it I don’t care for, but also classics like “I Don’t Know Where I’m Goin’, But I’m Goin’ Nowhere In A Hurry Blues,” “Mind Your Own Business,” and the aforementioned “City of New Orleans.”

The second Buddah album from 1972 is probably my favorite Goodman record, with many great songs like “Chicken Cordon Bleus,” and “Lincoln Park Pirates,” as well as the title track. Love them all.

With “Jessie’s Jig and Other Favorites,” Goodman moved to the Asylum label for more fine work. I like all of it. Favorites include “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie,” “Lookin’ For Trouble,” and a great blues synopsis of the book Moby Dick, “Moby Book.”

“Words We Can Dance To” has more gems like “Old Fashioned,” “Between the Lines,” and “The Glory of Love.” Like all these, too.

“Say It In Private” has more great work, including “Video Tape,” “You’re the Girl I Love,” “The Twentieth Century is Almost Over” teamed with friend John Prine, and a moving tribute to his dad, “My Old Man.”

With “High and Outside” in 1979, Goodman seemed to be losing his edge, and there aren’t any songs on this album I love, and a few I don’t care for. Now I can guess that his illness might have been taking a higher toll on his ability to write songs. His 1980 album, “Hot Spot” was one I didn’t care for at all, and it ended his time on Asylum, but Goodman came back with his own label, Red Pyjamas, starting with a live concert release, “Artistic Hair” in 1983. I like it, but since I already have all the songs in studio versions, I don’t have it on my iPod.

“Affordable Art” from 1984 was Steve apparently back in fine form with some great new original songs including “Vegematic,” “Talk Backwards,” and “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request,” and I like most of the album. Sadly, it was the last to be released before his death.

“Santa Ana Winds” was released posthumously, and while I have it, I don’t like it enough to put it on my iPod. There are several later records released on the Red Pyjamas label I haven’t heard, including “Unfinished Business,” which sounds promising. I’ll have to get it one day. Meanwhile, I have 65 Steve Goodman songs to listen to and add to my iPod mix. If you haven’t heard any of Steve’s music, I suggest you give him a try.

When I started listening to and buying folk music albums in the 1960s, one of my favorites was this group, shown above on the cover of their first album. Unlike much of the folk music movement of the time, Kweskin’s group seemed to be having a lot of fun, and much of their music had a lively enthusiasm and a sense of humor that appealed to me. Even the instruments were entertaining. In addition to guitars and banjo, they used traditional homemade instruments like washtub base, jug, washboard and kazoos. The sound was inspired by the original jug bands recorded in the 1920s, I believe, on 78rpm records, though I have never had the chance to hear any of those. Kweskin also drew from other traditions: blues, ragtime, music hall favorites, popular songs of the 30s and 40s, even a few from the 50s. I’ll link below to an Amazon site where you can listen to samples. I’d recommend “Crazy Words, Crazy Tune” as a good example of what the group was all about: fun, irreverent, funny, but excellent musically.

Kweskin was originally playing solo in the Boston area folk clubs and coffee houses, often partnered with Fritz Richmond, who became a virtuoso on the washtub bass and jug, with other players joining in randomly. Someone from Vanguard Records heard them at a club and asked Kweskin to sign his “group” to a record contract. Kweskin replied that there was no group, but give him a few months and there’d be one. Kweskin gathered Geoff Muldaur, a fine blues singer with a clear, high tenor voice, and banjo player Bill Keith. Other early members were Mel Lyman, usually on harmonica, Bruno Wolfe and Bob Siggins. They dropped out and were replaced by Maria D’Amato on vocals and fiddle—later Maria Muldaur, shown on their second album cover above. With this second album the group got tighter, and the vocals became even better. Kweskin’s own voice was perfect for the uptempo numbers: loud and emphatic with a cutting edge that stood out well over loud instruments, while the Muldaurs were both fine blues singers, great on ballads and blues. Maria also had a clear, high soprano when needed, and was good on the kazoo.

The group’s third rcord, “See Reverse Side for Title,” is to me their best, taking all they’d accomplished so far and kicking it up a notch. I beleive that’s Richard Greene in front, followed by Geoff Muldaur, Fritz Richmond, Maria Muldaur and Jim Kweskin. As you can see, they were becoming influenced by the times, with colorful attire and on this record some hippy-sounding arrangements and songs. The group was playing larger venues like the Fillmore West in San Francisco now, and doing quite well.

For their fourth album the group signed to a new label, Reprise, part of the Warner Brothers family, and seemed poised for even bigger things when Kweskin decided to disband the group. The album is uneven, with many good songs, but also a few that miss the mark for me. It became their last as a group, though Reprise kept both Muldaurs on the label, and they both went on to long solo careers, each having one big hit. Maria’s was “Midnight at the Oasis,” and Geoff’s was “Brazil” from the soundtrack of the film by Terry Gilliam. Both continue to record today, and Geoff in particular has made some fine music. Kweskin resurfaced in the late 1970s as a solo artist on small labels, continuing to record occasionally. His solo records are pretty good, but never reaching the heights attained in the group. Fritz Richmond played in small bands and became a sound engineer, occasionally touring with John Sebastian and others. No one else ever came close to his abilities as a jug player. Sadly, he died a few years ago. Bill Keith continued to play banjo with bluegrass bands. Richard Greene joined the rock band Seatrain, and went on to be an in-demand player in a variety of styles, and is still playing today.

There are several other Kweskin albums on Vanguard that are worth listening to, like this one, from the pregroup club days…

…and this one with just Fritz and Mel Lyman. Both have quite a few songs I like, and a few I don’t care for.

Kweskin also did this album with the Neo Passé Jazz Band, and it’s quite a good listen, pairing Kweskin’s music hall style vocals with a larger band, including horns. I like it a lot.

I never got to hear the group perform in their heyday, but did hear all but Kweskin play together at this Carnegie Hall concert in 1986, with everyone sounding great and John Sebastian filling in for Kweskin, who apparently didn’t want to be part of it. I also saw Sebastian live with Fritz Richmond and Geoff Muldaur in the 90s, another fun show, when Sebastian was touring with his “J Band,” and doing a lot of jug band music and blues.

Nearly all the songs on these albums are on my iPod, except for a few on “Relax Your Mind” and “Club 47,” and one long shaggy-dog story on “Jump For Joy,” which isn’t really a song anyway. Ellen calls it “corny music,” but I love it.

Images © Joni Mitchell.

I’m not sure when I first heard Joni Mitchell’s songs, at least knowingly. By the end of the 1960s I was listening to WNEW-FM radio out of New York City, and I’m sure they played her music there, but I probably heard her songs “Both Sides Now” and “Urge for Going” performed first by Judy Collins and Tom Rush respectively. I think “Clouds” was the first Mitchell album I bought, and I loved it, so soon after bought her first album, “Song To A Seagull,” and loved that as well.

By the time her third album, “Ladies of the Canyon” came out in 1970, I have to admit I had a bit of a crush on Joni. Her voice was so clear and pure, almost piercing at times, but always with an emotional edge that moved me. I played her first three albums constantly in the early seventies, and I still love them, though maybe not quite as much. Back then the thread of sadness and melancholy that runs through her work appealed to me more than it does now (though there’s plenty of other aspects to it that I still like). More than a singer, Joni is an amazingly talented songwriter, and as I was trying to do that too, I was drawn to her poetic words and phrases as much as her tunes. All the songs from Joni’s first three are on my iPod.

In Joni’s fourth album, “Blue,” the dark, sad thread was stronger, and I didn’t like it as much, but still played it a lot, and it’s grown on me over time. “For the Roses,” her fifth album put Joni back in my favorite female singer/songwriter spot. Lots of great songs, including some rockers like “You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio,” and “Electricity.” Still some melancholy, but not as much as “Blue.” I have all the tracks from those albums on my iPod as well.

The sixth album, “Court and Spark” was another winner, with lots of great songs, in a variety of styles, including rock, folk and jazz. Joni was continuing to grow as a performer and a writer. All these are on my iPod, too.

After that, Joni and I began to part ways. I continued to buy her albums (still do) but found less on them that I loved. “The Hissing of Summer Lawns,” for instance, has not one song I wanted on my iPod, nor does “Hejira.” While I appreciate the art in those albums, the songs just don’t appeal to me that much. The dark thread is deeper, and the move further and further into jazz, and away from folk left me behind somewhat, not being a huge jazz fan myself.

Perhaps my least favorite album is “Mingus,” but I also have a reason to like it. Thanks to a radio contest, I won two tickets to see Joni live in Forest Hills, NY while on tour supporting this album, and she was wonderful. Even some of the songs from “Mingus” were much better live than on the album, and she did many of her past hits too.

Of Joni’s later work, I have four tracks from “Night Ride Home” and two from “Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm” on my iPod, and that’s all for now. I may reconsider some of the others and put them on later, but that brings the total to 72 tracks on my iPod. Joni’s earliest work is still my favorite, even some of the darker ones. If I’m not feeling too good myself, I tend to skip past those, though.

In addition to pop music of various kinds, I’m putting selected classical works on my iPod, and my first choice for this was some of the work of my favorite composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Incidentally, his first name is pronounced the old English way as “Rafe,” and both Vaughan and Williams are last names, he has two.

I’m not sure when I first became aware of the work of this quintessentially British composer, actively composing and presenting works from about 1900 to 1958. My high school choir did a few of his choral pieces, so that was probably it. I wasn’t in the choir in high school (something I now regret), but had several close friends who were, so I went to all their concerts and that fostered a lifelong love of choral music in general. RVW, as I’ll call him from now on, composed some fine choral music, but is better known for his orchestral works, including nine symphonies, and many concertos, songs, operas, and so on. His work is not often performed live, since it’s still copyrighted and requires royalty payments, but it’s well-recorded. I think I began exploring that in the early 70s, via library albums and purchases. My favorite versions of many of his works are the ones conducted by Sir Adrian Boult with English orchestras, though many other versions are also quite good.

Here’s a fine recording you can sample on iTunes or Amazon which includes two of his best shorter orchestral works: the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, and The Lark Ascending. Both are well worth a listen, I’ve linked to mp3s below. RVW’s music is lush, romantic, and often mystical. He drew inspiration from English hymns, from whence the Tallis comes, and English folk songs, many of which he heard personally sung by traditional singers in the countryside when he and his friends would go out with early recording devices to capture them, saving some songs from being lost forever, as those traditional songs were being replaced by the pop music of the time. “Dives and Lazarus” above is one of those, but they turn up throughout his work. Some of his works are more harsh and dissonant, inspired by the two world wars he lived through, but those are the minority.

So, while I own nearly everything RVW wrote that’s been recorded, these are the works I’ve put on my iPod for now, creating a solid body of eight hours of great listening:

This Chandos 2-disc set has lots of fine music, including favorite Flos Campi. I’ve used all of it.

Another Chandos 2-disc set contains many of his concertos, including great ones for string orchestra, for oboe, and for tuba. I’ve used all of it as well.

For the symphonies, I’ve used #2 “London,” #5 (no nickname) and #7 “Antarctica.” Those are my favorites, with #5 probably at the top.

For vocal/choral I’ll probably add more later, but for now I’ve loaded On Wenlock Edge, a song cycle and Five Mystical Songs for soloist and chorus. Then a few other short orchestral works: In The Fen Country, and Norfolk Rhapsody #1.

RVW’s music is perhaps an acquired taste, but if you have any interest in classical music and are not familiar with his work, give it a try. Especially if you’re an Anglophile like me. I once put together a slide show of my favorite photos taken in England, and the “Tallis” was the perfect soundtrack.

Here are some Amazon links:

I’ve always liked the music and the voice of James Taylor, though I’m not sure when I first became a fan. His initial album, above, was an Apple Records release in 1968, but all I remember from that is the single “Carolina On My Mind,” which I liked. Not sure I knew who James was yet then, though. I got the album quite a few years later.

His second album, Sweet Baby James, came out in 1970, and while I don’t think I bought it, I know I heard it all. I was living in Kansas City then, going to art school there, so someone I roomed with probably had it. I loved the single, “FIre and Rain,” liked all of it, really. I’m guessing that’s when I became a Taylor fan, and started following his work more. But as I poor student, probably not buying his albums yet.

By 1977, when the album JT came out I bought it right away, and it’s still my favorite, with the song “Secret O’ Life” my all time favorite Taylor song. Also in 1977 I started working at DC Comics, a division of Warner Brothers, James’ label then, and as a Warner employee, I soon learned, I could order any Warner album (as well as sub-labels like Reprise, Elektra and Asylum) for one dollar! Needless to say I bought all James’ albums to date then, as well as lots of others.

Ellen and I saw James live twice, I think first in 1988 on tour to support this album, which as lots of great songs, and again a few years later, at the Garden State Arts Center and Atlantic City, respectively. Great shows, both. Unlike some performers, James only seems to get better with age.

October Road, released in 2002, was the last with mostly Taylor-penned songs, and it has some fine ones. More recently there was an album of covers in 2008, which I haven’t yet heard…

…and a Christmas release in 2006 that I absolutely love, it quickly became my favorite Christmas album.

New last year is a live concert album with old friend Carole King, haven’t heard that one yet, either. I’ll get to it one day soon, I imagine. Meanwhile, I’ve put nearly everything from the 16 Taylor albums I have on the iPod, 190 songs. James’ voice always makes me feel fine.

While my first entry in this series, The Beatles, is probably an easy sell, Donovan Leitch may well not be. I’ve always liked his voice, and many of his own songs, following his career through several distinct periods from the 60s to now, an enthusiastic fan through the 60s and 70s, less so after that, though finding some tracks I liked on most of his releases. I saw him live twice, once at Madison Square Garden around 1970 in front of a massive audience, once a few years later at a rock  concert theater venue on his way down in popularity, but still putting on a fine show. He largely disappeared in the 80s, but had a pretty good comeback release in 1996, “Sutras.” Since then he’s mainly redone some older tracks.

The first part of Donovan’s career he was a folksinger in small British venues, heavily influenced by Woody Guthrie and his peers, who also influence Bob Dylan, and Donovan was often called a Dylan clone, though he never actually performed any Dylan songs. His vocal style was similar at times, though Donovan’s vocal abilities were stronger and had much more range than Dylan. This period was captured in his early records for the Pye label in the U.K., released in the U.S. in a very annoying way on the Hickory label and later others. Each release had some of the same songs, usually the hits “Catch the Wind” and “Colours” with a few new tracks, so finding all the tracks became an expensive project that I gave up on after a few albums. When I was getting Donovan material together to put on my iPod, I found the “Summer Day Reflection Songs” collection online, which has all the Pye tracks plus about a dozen unreleased or alternate ones. I bought it as downloads, and loaded all but a few tracks on my iPod. Some favorites from this period, in addition to the hits, are “To Try For The Sun,” “Circus of Sour,” “Belated Forgiveness Plea,” the title track, and “Sunny Goodge Street.” The last one marked a transition to Donovan’s next period, with a smooth jazz arrangement.

Donovan next teamed with producer Mickie Most and arranger John Cameron to create some of my favorite tracks of his career. The arrangements were full of variety, some very jazz influenced, some more folky, a few rockers like “Season of the Witch,” with clever lyrics and great melodies. Donovan’s vocal style matured, often going for a breathy sound that some people don’t like but I do, while showing on other tracks that he had the pipes to rock out when needed, or the craft to make other styles work well for him too. The first album in this period was “Mellow Yellow,” then “Sunshine Superman,” the poorly titled “A Gift From a Flower to a Garden” (two discs, one aimed at children), “Hurdy Gurdy Man” and “Barabajagal.” Of these, the first two are my favorites, but I like all of them, and wanted nearly all the tracks on my iPod. Online I found that newly remastered versions of all but “Gift” were released a few years ago, and I decided to splurge and ordered the four CDs. I already had “Gift” on CD. All those original tracks went on the iPod, and some of the bonus tracks, which include singles not on the albums like “Lalena” and “Poor Cow,” and demos, some good some not.

Donovan’s first album after splitting with Mickie Most was “Open Road,” released around 1970, and at the time it became my favorite album. Some of the songs are a bit silly and self-indulgent, but I like them all, especially “Celtic Rock.” In fact, this was an attempt to create a Celtic Rock band, but it didn’t last long.

Donovan’s next effort was “HMS Donovan,” released only in the U.K., and because of that I didn’t find out about it until a few years ago, though I heard some of the songs on it from time to time, not knowing where they were from, like “Celia of the Seals” and “Lord of the Reedy River.” It’s a bit of an odd mixture of mostly children’s poems and songs with some originals, and I can’t say I love it, but I like it well enough to put most of the tracks on my iPod.

Donovan continued to record through the 70s, and I liked what he did then less and less as time went on. Donovan had embraced the flower child image in the 60s, and when that seemed no longer relevant he tried to become a more mainstream pop star, but it never worked well for me. Despite that, there are twelve tracks on the album “7-Tease” I like well enough to include, and eight on “Slow Down World,” with a few on each of the others that I picked up from the anthologies “Try for the Sun” and “Troubador” along with some unreleased tracks that are good.

“Sutras” from 1996, produced by Rick Rubin, was a new phase for Donovan, going back to his folk roots with very simple arrangements and sparse close-miked vocals. It’s kind of melancholy in parts, but in general I like it a lot, and included all the tracks. Some later releases I haven’t yet heard, but plan to listen to them online eventually.

So, 194 Donovan tracks on my iPod. Haven’t gotten tired of any of them yet!

I’m starting a new topic on the blog based on my current “free time” obsession: putting music on my new iPod. The first thing I put on was some Christmas music, since it was the season, but next was my favorite pop group, The Beatles.

The group hit the U.S. music scene when I was in grade school, and at first I was put off by rampant Beatlemania among the girls in our school. I watched their first performance on the Ed Sullivan Show early in 1964 and was more impressed by the screaming teenage girl audience than the music. I was 13, still not quite interested in girls romantically, and anything that attracted so many of them couldn’t be for boys like me.

A little later that year I visited my best friend Tim for a sleepover, and he had a Beatles record that he liked and played for me. Away from the screaming I gave it another chance, and was first drawn to “Do You Want To Know A Secret?” with vocals by George Harrison. Based on that, I’m guessing the record was “Introducing the Beatles” on the VeeJay label, a sort of pirate release before the first Capitol Records ones, unless it was the single version. Maybe Tim will remember and fill me in later…

My opinion of the group began to soften, though what really made me a fan was going to see their film “A Hard Day’s Night” in August of 1964, again with Tim and his sister. I loved it! Loved the music, loved the humor and the personalities of the fab four, loved the excitement of the performances and the madcap hustle created by their sudden fame, even if I realized some of it was staged. I enjoyed all the songs, and remember being particularly impressed with the close vocal harmonies of “This Boy.” I became a firm fan that day, and have been ever since. For the record, Paul was always my favorite, and I still follow his career and music with interest. I never saw The Beatles live, but watching them on Ed Sullivan and in their films was probably better anyway.

Incidentally, great lettering on the film poster, isn’t it?

So, getting the entire Beatles catalogue on my iPod was top priority, and it wasn’t too hard. I’ve had at least two versions of most of their songs, from albums to CDs. I was buying the U.S. albums at first, of course, but later I bought many of the U.K. releases as imports, too. For the iPod it’s much easier to load songs from a CD, and I was able to use them for nearly everything. For the early albums and singles I used the recent “Mono Masters” releases. I like the sound, it’s as they were originally mixed in the studio; the stereo versions were remixed later without the group’s direct involvement. For later albums I had almost everything on CD, needing to download only a few singles: “Hey Jude,” “Lady Madonna” and the single version of “Revolution.” (Had these on vinyl of course.) I also included the two singles from the Beatles Anthology: “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love.” “Let It Be,” their final studio album, was always a problem for me. I liked the songs, but not the heavy-handed Phil Spector overdubs, so I was delighted when “Let It Be…Naked” came out in 2003, with all the music as recorded by The Beatles without the Spector production, and I used that one.

The iPod gives you the option of choosing the tracks you want and removing those you don’t, but there were only four tracks among the Beatles studio releases that I dropped. “Mr. Moonlight” was a number I always disliked. Something about the rough vocals by John and the corny Latin arrangement. Then there are the two German language versions of “She Loves You” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” Interesting, but I’ve heard them enough, and prefer the English versions. Finally, “Revolution 9.” Again, an interesting audio collage, but I’ve heard it enough, and it’s not a song. So, with those four eliminated, I was left with a total of 210 Beatles tracks. Plenty!

Later I added more from the Beatles Anthology and BBC Live CDs, but I’ll cover that in another post. So, are The Beatles on your iPod or iPhone, or whatever? What are your favorite songs or albums?