Pick one of your songs. Sing it's praises.

[Ranking Ted]

Much as I enjoy the bitter recrims, the snarkiness and the general rancour that comes with the cup, it is about celebrating the music after all. So you're out and you feel aggrieved. Pick a track from your list, post up the YouTube link, tell us why it's great. Not every link gets clicked on after all.

Of course, I can't promise this may save you from further opprobrium. But you might change a couple of minds.

[Loki]

Good idea, RB.

[T. Willy Rye]

My list got a lot of heat for being obscure. I wasn't selecting songs solely for the sake of being obscure. I genuinely love the baritone sax here. The instrument doesn't have a lot of range, but it's a nice alternative to a bass or even guitar in establishing tempo-- used here with the great breaks just creates such wonderful tension. You can just pick up a hint of (strings?) in the background providing even more anxiety. The drums come in really strong. And the vocals. I don't think I know any other Carl Lester songs which is a shame because he's one of those histrionic hollerers of early R&B which I adore. The horns give it just the right push and the backing vocals are nicely restrained- no need to steal Lester's thunder. And it's all over too fast. There's just real excitement for me and if you don't hear it then I feel sorry for you. Really

[Chris P Bacon]

Top stuff T. Willy.

[fange]

Yep, bad luck, T - some really fine stuff there.

[Nick Danger]

Great track!

[Ranking Ted]

I enjoyed that, T Willy. Exactly the kind of missed gem I was hoping we'd get from this thread.

[Samoan]

I actually came across this song and the artist Sammy Salvo, who's real name is George Anselmo born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1937, when I was watching a TV episode of Masters Of Sex a while back now.

I really feel it must have nailed with great accuracy the fear and dread hanging over the US at that time with the ever present threat of nuclear strikes and the possible annihilation of America, and indeed her European allies by the USSR.
Of course, the video is highly evocative as an accompaniment to the song.
The backing vocalists play a huge part and together with the cymbals quietly sounding at regular intervals convey an all-encompassing sense of doom, uncertainty and suspense.



CND, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, was just getting going in the UK around the time the song came out in the US in 1961.
A few decades later and I can well remember British government literature packages dropping through our letterboxes about how to prepare for "Nuclear Winter". The Cold War was on.
Myself and most of my peer group were active in CND and often partook in rallies and marches in London and the southeast. I used to visit the Greenham Common* Women's Peace Camp quite often and there were a surprising number of American women permanently camped there over the years. Greenham Common* USAF Airbase in Berkshire, England had 96 cruise missiles sited there.
Now it's 2014 and I've almost forgotten what a genuinely scary, anxious time it was and how it felt to have that ever present threat in the back of my mind.

I think this is why the song resonated so powerfully with me.

Anyhow, hatz and pcqgod liked it!

Postby toomanyhatz Tue Jan 21, 2014 11:33 pm
That Sammy Salvo track is wonderful- I almost want to give it to A just for that.

pcqgod » Wed Jan 22, 2014 5:13 am
That "Mushroom Cloud" song is pretty neat!

[The Modernist]

I'm about to be knocked out so I may as well fall on my sword now.

I'm going to pick Fantasy by P-i-R Squared, a jazz collective from the Bay Area, this came out in the early seventies.
Probably one of my most obscure and esoteric picks, which is why I removed it from my second round, although it is almost certainly one of my favourites. I guess many would have skipped over it as I sometimes do when I see something I don't know anything about. But you're not voting now, so give it a listen!

This takes you on a real trip from its dreamily constructed beginning like an opium reverie to its hard rhythms and crucial drive as the record explodes into life. Combining ambient jazz with hard r n' b who could ask for more? This is cooking on 11, love it.

[T. Willy Rye]

That was a ballsy pick, G. Track doesn't really kick in for a little while and I'm not sure who has 9 minutes for this sort of thing, but I could see myself coming around to this.