Today's shuffle ventures from the distant recesses of my former life to the near recent past while geographically traveling from one side of the Tennessee to the other and veering north, just across the border into Kentucky.
We begin just across the border in the college town of Bowling Green, Kentucky. Cage the Elephant released their self-titled debut album in June 2008 in Europe and then in May 2009 in the US. Ain't No Rest For the Wicked has a great hook and a cool groove.
These days, Will Rambeaux is a successful Nashville-based songwriter. Back in the mid 80s, he headed up a hot Nashville roots rock band called Will Rambeaux and the Delta Hurricanes. Baby, Put Your Gun Down is from a vinyl rip of a classic benefit album called Nashville Homegrown which also includes The White Animals, Jimmy Hall & the Prisoners of Love, Nashville Bluegrass Band, Tom Kimmel, & Mark Germino among others.
Will Rambeaux was also 1/2 of the Everready Brothers with Bill Lloyd. You can hear some Will Rambeaux and other Nashville 80s rock at Nashville80srock.net.
Moving back into the near past and driving west about as far you can go and still stay in the state, we move to Memphis ("Home of Elvis and the ancient greeks") with a song of the impending season - Memphis is also the album name, the debut by Magic Kids. Summer is sweet like melting ice cream and
And finally, we cross the state to the east and span the years back to my college days, and a song that dominated. Smokin' Dave & the Premo Dopes were one of the best Knoxville-based bands of all time. In the era of USA for Africa and Live Aid and concern about the desperate state of affairs in Ethiopia - disinterested and jaded rich kids liked to go to parties and tell stupid, sick jokes which referenced the crisis. The jokes were in poor taste especially as they underscored the differences between life "over there" and the life of relative ease and privilege. Ethiopian Jokes summarized that era perfectly. I grabbed the song off a rip of the vinyl 45 (Heart of Stone is the B-Side). You can find the song along with some other classic Smokin Dave and the Premo Dopes catalog. Over at Amazon.
I could not find a video of the song, but (HERE) is a link to the MP3.
______________________________________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment