Category Archives: Great albums

Country, Emmylou Harris, Great albums, Music Calendar

October 16: Emmylou Harris released Brand New Dance in 1990

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brand new dance

Brand New Dance was an album which Emmylou Harris released on October 16, 1990. Produced by Richard Bennett and Allan Reynolds, the album mixed a rather eclectic collection of covers, including Bruce Springsteen’s “Tougher Than the Rest”, and Dave Mallett’s “Red, Red Rose”. Though it sold reasonably well, it was Harris’ first studio album in fifteen years to yield no top forty country singles, and marked the beginning of a commercial decline for the singer, which would ultimately lead her to redirect her music away from mainstream country, a few years later.

It was one of my first conscious country music buys, with that I mean that before I had just listened to my fathers record collection when playing country (or radio). This was a big step for me, I had bought country-rock albums and rock albums with country elements, but this was pure country. I still love the album, it has a very special place in my musical upbringing.

…and I think it has one of the best covers of Springsteen’s Tougher than the rest (audio):

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Great albums, Music Calendar, The Who, The Who video

October 3: The Who released The Who By Numbers in 1975


The Who by numbers

The Who by Numbers pretends to be a series of ten unconnected songs, it’s really only a pose; there’s not a story line here, but there are more important unities — lyrical themes, musical and production style, a sense of time and place.
…
Townshend has now pulled the fastest one of all, disguising his best concept album as a mere ten-track throwaway.

– Dave March (Rolling Stone Magazine, 1975)

The Who by Numbers is the seventh studio album by The Who, released on 3 October 1975 in the United Kingdom through Polydor Records, and on 25 October 1975 in the United States by MCA Records.

“There’s no easy way to be free.”
– Pete Townshend (Slip Kid)

This is Pete Townshend’s journal, his confessions about drinking, women and his other ordeals in life (+ one great song from John Entwistle, Success Story).  I like this record a lot, it stands out as a bit different in The Who’s discography, but it has great tunes and an intimate quality. No anthems this time, but great anyway. Some critics saw it as Townshend’s “suicide note” at the time.

“It’s a song I made the night I stopped drinking” (Pete Townshend):

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Country, Dolly Parton, Great albums, Music Calendar, Singer Songwriter

October 2: Dolly Parton released Coat of Many Colors in 1971

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Coat of Many Colors_Dolly Parton

A new acquaintance in the night
You mean no more to her than all the others she’s held tight
But I know she’s convinced you it was love at first sight
But she’s never met a man she didn’t like

 

Coat of Many Colors is the eighth solo studio album by Dolly Parton, released in 1971 by RCA Records. The title song, which Parton has described as her favourite of all the songs she’s ever written, deals with the poverty of her childhood. It reached #4 on the U.S. country singles charts.

Dolly Parton – Coat of Many Colors (acoustic):

Over the years, Parton would re-record a number of the songs from the album. She redid “Traveling Man” (not to be confused with the Ricky Nelson song of the same name), a song that involved an unusual love triangle between a travelling salesman, a woman, and her mother, for inclusion on her 1973 album Bubbling Over. She would also re-record her composition “My Blue Tears”, an “old-timey” folk-influenced song, with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt in the mid-1970s, for an ill-fated Trio album project. (The recording would eventually surface on Ronstadt’s 1982 album Get Closer). Parton cut the song for a third time in 2001, including it on her Little Sparrow album. “Early Morning Breeze” later appeared on her 1974 Jolene album.

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Great albums, Tom Waits

September 30: Tom Waits – Rain Dogs was released in 1985

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tom-waits-rain-dogs

“We are all just monkeys with money and guns.”
~Tom Waits

If you get far enough away you’ll be on your way back home.
~Tom Waiys – “Blind Love”

Tango till they’re sore @ Letterman 1986 + interview:

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