Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Kindle Fire Giveaway!

WIN A KINDLE FIRE IN THE BIG KINDLE BOOGIE

Kindle Fire JA Konrath10 Free Kindle Fires, 75 free ebooks, $300 in gift cards, a $500 library donation! Entries for 10 free Kindle Fires are already underway at http://bigkindleboogie.blogspot.com and gift cards are bing randomly awarded on Twitter for those who tweet about the Big Kindle Boogie.

 

On Feb. 1-2, bestselling thriller authors J.A. Konrath, Blake Crouch, Scott Nicholson, Lee Goldberg, and Scott Nicholson are making 75 Kindle books free on Amazon. They are also making a $500 donation to the local library of one Kindle Fire winner. They are also releasing the five-book Ultimate Thriller Box Set for free during the event. Contest is international, no purchase necessary. You can also join the Facebook party at http://www.facebook.com/BigKindleBoogie.

Three easy ways to enter:

  • Use the entry counters at http://bigkindleboogie.blogspot.com
  • You can also enter manually by tweeting to be eligible for Kindle Fires and Amazon gift cards: 10 free Kindle Fires. 75 free ebooks. http://bit.ly/xWOoKN #bigkindleboogie RT to enter for a Fire!
  • You can email bigkindleboogie@yahoo.com ONCE PER DAY with "Boogie entry" as subject line

Everything free, everything fun. Good luck!

CD Review: “Born To Be Blue” by Ed Reed

Ed Reed

Born to Be Blue

Sometimes life can beat you down. Some times it can beat you up. Life can say to a young man, “Step back into this alley, I got somethin’ for ya.” And sometimes we are just dumb enough to do it. That was Ed Reed’s life through a good part of the ‘50s and ‘60s.

Born in Cleveland and raised in L.A., he fell in love with jazz he heard on the radio. He started singing with the teenage brother of his neighbor, Vivian. That brother was Charlie Mingus, the legendary bass player. Drafted into the army, he developed a heroin habit that got him discharged. Returning to L.A., where he tried to cleanup his act and develop a singing career. But the heroin had other ideas. Ideas that saw him spend three sentences in San Quentin throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s.

Despite that, he managed to hold on to singing jazz. While in prison, he played for the Warden’s Band and met jazz giant Art Pepper. By ‘86 he was clean, and by the ‘90s he finally started that career. Finally, at the age of 78, just four years ago, he recorded his first album. That album, The Song Is You was critically acclaimed and garnered comparisons to Nat King Cole, Bill Henderson, and the ethereal tenderness of Jimmy Scott mixed with the savoir faire of Bobby Short.

Ed Reed “(Old Man From) The Old Country”

That lead to touring opportunities which landed him in Bern, Switzerland in 2009 with a five night run at Marians Jazzroom where for the first time he played with pianist Randy Porter, bassist Robb Fisher and drummer, Akira Tana all at one time. But it didn’t sound like it. Together they were tight. There was a symbiosis that lead them to make this album. They added saxophonist Anton Schwartz for the California Bay Area sessions, and a masterpiece of jazz vocals was born with the blues.

As Reed says, “I believe that everybody is born to be blue. So many of us hold onto our sadness, but we need to shout about it, sing about it, so that we can let go of it.”

The album is full of sad songs or songs with a blue bent. In addition to the opening tune, Old Country (checkout the video) which along with track ten, Never Kiss and Run are most associated with Bill Henderson, there’s the title track, made famous by “The Velvet Fog” Mel Torme. There is also Monk’s Dream, which Jon Henderson wrote with Monk. Then, there is the Sinatra tunes, End Of A Love Affair and How Am I To Know.Ed Reed photo

One of my favorites is Abby Lincoln’s Throw Away. Bobby Troup’s Your Looking At Me and Blossom Dearie’s Inside A Tear.

A true jazz singer, with a strong voice, despite the years. You’ll find that Reed uses the space in the arrangements like another instrument. His phrasing is impeccable. he takes a simple narrative lyric and turns it into a journey through a life that was Born to Be Blue.

It took awhile, but Ed Reed made it out of that alley and in four short years has caught the attention of the jazz world.

 

The Dirty Lowdown

Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Book Review: “The Original Sam McCain Mysteries” by Ed Gorman

120110-Ed-Covers

The Original Sam McCain Mysteries (The Sam McCain Mysteries)

Perhaps no other author today has done so much to keep alive the “Pulp Fiction” genre than Ed Gorman. Not only as an award winning author ( Spur Award for Best Short Fiction, "The Face" in 1992. His fiction collection Cages was nominated for the 1995 Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection. His collection The Dark Fantastic was nominated for the same award in 2001.) but as archivist, historian and commentator. He has written in the fields of terror/horror, speculative fiction and of course hardboiled/crime fiction.

His Sam McCain novels are perhaps my favorites…but I have not only a soft spot for crime fiction but also a nostalgic bent for the ‘50s. McCain embodies all the traits we love of the hardboiled detective; he’s smart, quick with a quip, educated, but struggling for a buck, honest and honorable (at least to his own personal code), he’s personally brave, almost chivalrous, and like a bull dog at unraveling a mystery. 

But, he is also dichotomous in that he is a little guy at just over five and a half feet,and, thus, not one to quickly get in a fight. He was never a cop or a soldier, doesn’t “really” hate authority,  has dinner at least once a week with mom and dad, loves rock and roll, not jazz, isn’t a big drinker. Instead of that ‘30s – ‘40s fedora wearing, zoot suited PI, driving a Model ‘A’ or some other piece of Detroit iron with running boards, McCain loves ‘50s hotrods. McCain is a recent law school grad who gets his PI license to make ends meet and broaden his prospects.

Also, to break the mold of most pulp/hardboiled crime fiction, his mysteries don’t take place in a large city (L.A., Chicago, N.Y. or their fictionally renamed likenesses). Instead, the stories take place, mainly, in a small Iowa town where McCain grew up. And to further break the mold, the crimes McCain ends up investigating aren’t stolen pearls or bank robberies, or the theft of historical artifacts. They are crimes to take the sheen off of the nostalgia shown in the popular media for the ‘50s. This isn’t Happy Days. This isn’t American Graffiti. This is not the ‘50s of Ozzie & Harriet and Father Knows Best.

Instead, Gorman takes for his themes the real crimes of the fifties. Gorman writes about the social ills of the decade, some of which are still with us today. Racial inequality and bigotry, male chauvinism and the lack of women’s rights, union busting, red baiting and McCarthyism and the large parts of the country that were still in the grips of poverty.

Yes, boys and girls, our country had bigger problems than Elvis getting drafted, the Edsel, and getting a date for the sock hop on Saturday night.

edgormanHere’s Gorman’s words: “Part of the reason I started writing the Sam McCain novels was because I was sick of hearing about how wonderful the decade of the Fifties was. …. By then even the Republicans knew better. If you were white, Christian, middle-class, straight and white collar the decade was probably more decent to you than not. But given the racism, sexism, Communist witch hunts, union-busting and large pockets of poverty, not even Ozzie’s dopey smile could make the excluded Happy.”

Now don’t get the idea these stories are sermons. They aren’t. They just deal with ‘the real picture’ of the decade that is often painted as the American Ideal. The books, while remaining great mysteries and giving a long over do update to the genre, are humorous and Sam’s dialogue  is as sharp an cynical as Phillip Marlowe’s. The mysteries are as puzzling as anything in the genre, the characters are very real and very true to their time and place, and he manages to expose social ills as well as Dashiell Hammett. In short, Ed Gorman is one of the gems in these fictional fields.

120110GPCoverswLogoIn this edition, Genius Book Publishing has made available the first two  Sam McCain Novels in one Special Kindle Edition.

The first novel is titled, The Day The Music Died, and is set against the backdrop of the tragic plane crash in Iowa that took the lives of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper. The story opens with McCain and his high school sweat heart,Pamela Forrest, leaving The Surf Ballroom, having just witnessed Holly’s last show. They get in McCain’s ‘51 Ford convertible with the custom skirts, louvered hood and special weave top. With that description, Gorman take’s the genre out of the jazz age and into the world of rock and roll.

On the trip home to Black River Falls through the same snow storm that would kill the legends, McCain and Pamela argue over the radio station, she wants to listen to Perry Como, and McCain loves Buddy Holly. Pamela is also in love with someone else, but McCain will carry his flame for her through the snow storm and through the series, just like he has since the 4th grade.

The next morning about 5 a.m McCain gets woken up by his employer, Judge Esme Anne Whitney, a wealth scion of the small town. Her nephew is hold up on his estate, drunk and threatening suicide. McCain is to keep it quiet since the local Chief of Police is the new money in the town and the enemy socially and politically of the judge. When McCain arrives and makes his way inside, he discovers that Kenny’s wife is dead, shot, and Kenny admits to shooting her, then promptly kills himself.

Before putting the gun to his head, Kenny admits to the murder. He tells McCain that Susan was running around on him and wanted a divorce, he got drunk and must have shot her. But after Kenny kills himself, the story and the evidence don’t add up for McCain even though the local chief, the “hillbilly’ Sykes, wants to gloat over a Whitney being a wife murderer and a suicide.

McCain starts to investigate and along the way to solving the mystery he uncovers the prevalent racist attitudes of the town, tries to discover an unsafe abortionist who just may be involved, a cultish artistic couple and their “open marriage” all the while pursuing Pamela while being pursued by a girl who has loved him just as long as he has loved Pamela.

The plot is beautiful, and introduces the reader to McCain, an honest voice of the ‘50s and one of the smartest and most likable PIs you’ll ever meet. Gorman’s writing style will trap you, even if you don’t want to be trapped. The Day The Music Died is both dark poetry and a great, engrossing read.

The second book included in this bundle is Wake Up Little Susie, and is really a prequel, taking place 2 years earlier, in 1957 on the day that Ford Introduced its new "revolutionary" Edsel automobile. When the district attorneys wife is found in the trunk of a new Edsel in the local car lot, McCain follows the clues to uncover the real killer while the local police try to discourage him, and aim to ‘hang’ the obvious suspect which will feed their political needs as well as their cruelty and small mindedness.

If you are familiar with Gorman then you’ll want to get these two books in eBook form, and if you haven’t read him before, then this is the perfect opportunity to dive into one of the best crime writers working today.

 

The Dirty Lowdown

Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved

Article first published as Book Review: The Original Sam McCain Mysteries by Ed Gorman on Blogcritics.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Music Review: “Turn Signal” Mike Wofford/Holly Hofmann Quintet

hoffmanwofford_turnsignal_lt

Turn Signal

I have to admit, when I first looked at this CD, I was hooked. It opens with my favorite hard bop pianist, Horace Silver’s “The Dipper”, a tune I always loved. Then, just to set the hook, the fourth track also caught my eye, one I remember from an Oliver Nelson album, “Soul Street”. It wasn’t on the iconic The Blues and the Abstract Truth, which probably hepped me to Nelson, but it was an album I remember falling in love with and a tune that stuck.

I knew of Mike Wofford from his days as an accompanist with the likes of ‘The Velvet Fog’, Mel Tormé, Joe Pass, Shelley Mann, Benny Carter’s orchestra, etcetera. Probably the most memorable album I remember was the Duke Ellington Song Book, which he did with “Sassy” Sarah Vaughn back in the ‘80s and I remember him accompanying Sarah at the Playboy Jazz Festival back then too . But I couldn’t recall him fronting his own group. I just knew he must be good from the cats he played with and for.Mike Wofford

On the other hand, I was more than familiar with Holly Hofmann, who, perhaps single handedly has destroyed the stereotype of the “be-quite-it’s-the female-flutist”. Hofmann swings. Hofmann bops. Hofmann will rock your ears and make your soul give standing ovations. 

Then, just to add the sinker to my fishin’ expedition, that swingin’ bluesy trumpet player, Terrell Stafford is a special guest. There are not too many trumpet players today that have the tone and the phrasing to touch Stafford.H2-serious

I continued to peruse the tracks and there, next to last on the CD was “Girl From Greenland”, by Dick Twardzik. For those not familiar with Twardzik, he was a brilliant, classically trained bebop pianist out of Boston in the ‘50s  who I remember most for his work with Charlie Parker. He was on tour with Chet Baker, in 1955 when he died of a heroin overdose during a tour of Europe at the tragic age of 24. Though he was very young, he left his mark on the bop era and serious jazz pianists still admire his work.

And, obviously one of those serious jazz pianists is Wofford. The tune really shows just how tight this rhythm section is (Mike is joined by Rob Thorsen on bass and drummer, Richard Sellers).

Holly Hofmann & Mike Wofford “Turn Signal”

Don’t get the idea that the album is a “nostalgia” album. There are some very nice pieces by contemporary cats; there’s “Esperanca” written by Vince Mendoza, “Karita” is a Bobby Watson tune that is very lyrical and very beautiful and shows off the wonderful unison phrasing that Hofmann and Wofford exhibit (they are married, after all). “Pure Imagination” is a shining interpretation of the Anthony Newly/Leslie Bricusse gem. Hofmann’s flute work here approaches genius as she plays the alto flute. And, then the album ends with a Hofmann composition, “M-Line”, a fearless swinging tune that will make you reach over and hit repeat on your player.

The album is an adventurous journey down memory lane but stopping to see some contemporary sites. Wofford really comes into his own as an arranger and leader. The harmonies are inventive, the melodies lush and the direction that is “signaled” for the husband and wife team is to explore new ground within main stream jazz.

 

The Dirty Lowdown

Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Book Review: “Collateral Damage” by H. Terrell Griffin

Collateral Damage

Collateral Damage (Matt Royal Mystery)

When it comes to wrapping a traditional mystery inside an international espionage thriller novel, there is none better than, author H. Terrell Griffin and no better character than retired Florida lawyer and professional beach bum, Matt Royal. In this, the sixth Matt Royal Mystery, the whole cast of unforgettable characters are present. Longboat Key detective, Jennifer Diane (J.D.) Duncan, who Matt is nursing a flame for, Jock Algren the mysterious “government agent” whose agency remains nameless, but Jock has the Presidents direct number. Then there is Logan Hamilton, a fellow Vietnam vet, and Matt’s old First Sergeant, Jimbo Merryman.

Life on Longboat Key, Florida is usually quiet. Fishing, happy hour, drinking and avoiding the mid-day sun in the heart of summer are the usual pass times. But when a young bride groom is shot dead on the beach the morning after his wedding, apparently by a sniper, the lazy days are interrupted. The local police, including J.D. Duncan are puzzled. But then when Matt and Logan are on an evening fishing trip and witness the grounding of a dinner cruise ship and several people are killed all involved wonder if the two events could be connected.

Then when Matt is contacted by an old army buddy, Charles “Chaz” Desmond. Desmond was a medic in Matt’s Ranger platoon, hence the nickname Doc. After Matt was severely wounded and Doc’s best friend was captured and tortured, Doc disappeared into a secret CIA special forces group. He’s now a wealthy business owner and the young groom that was shot on the beach was Doc’s son. Doc' wants to hire Matt to find the killer. when it turns out that two of the people on the cruise ship were knifed and not killed by being thrown overboard during the grounding, and that the Capt. of the ship, who died of a broken neck, was probably killed by a pro, the mystery deepens.

Matt and J.D. Duncan approach the investigation from separate angels, but share information and when an Asian assassin tries to knife Matt on the beach, and two Asian’s were seen on camera boarding the dinner cruise, Matt follows the lead along with his buddies, Logan and Jock, whose government contacts lead them to an aid group in Cambodia and a wealthy heroin exporter.

If you were to compare Griffin’s prose style to a runner, he’d be a marathon runner. The pace is steady and built for the long run. The “course” on the plot leads many places that may or may not lead to the finish line, but logic dictates that each step be explored. Along the way, the reader will have a hard time putting the book down. The dialog is relentless and hardboiled and to the point, the scenery of south Florida comes to life and even if you are reading in Alaska in the dead of winter you’ll find yourself unbuttoning your shirt.

A cross between Jimmy Buffett, John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee, and Tom Clancy, the characters are funky, but dangerous. The bad guys are a collection of characters that Griffin brings to life in a very real and evil way. And throw in the budding romance between Matt and JD Duncan, and you have all of the elements for a fantastic read and a romp through sandy beaches, funky bars and shady motives.

There is not anything missing in this story, it’s all here and will nail you to your chair and have you ordering margaritas and planning a trip to the Keys.

H. Terrell Griffin is another winner for Oceanview Publishing that readers will not want to miss. I want to thank Oceanview and NetGalley for providing the review copy.

NetGalley_Logo

The Dirty Lowdown

Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved

Oceanview

 

 

 

Article first published as Book Review: Collateral Damage by H. Terrell Griffin on Blogcritics.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Music Review: “The Hit Men Live”

Hit men 2

A little piece of rock n roll trivia? Name the only group to have an American Hot 100 #1 hit before, during and after Beatlemania? I would have guessed, maybe, The Beach Boys but in fact it was Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. That fact is important because half of the musicians that comprise the “pop super-group” The Hit Men were all major performers with The Four Seasons.

4seasons

Other pop/rock icon represented here are seasoned music pros representing groups and solo artists such as The Critters, the American pop group that had several successful hits in the mid ‘60s, such as Younger Girl (penned by John Sebastian), Don Ciccone’s (a founding member of The Critters and also a member of The Four Seasons) Mr. Dieingly Sad (#17 on the charts in ‘66), and ‘67s Don't Let The Rain Fall Down On Me which was to be the bands last chart success before breaking up due to the fact that three founding members joined the military to beat the Vietnam draft build up. The Critters - Younger Girl F

After their military obligation was fulfilled, Don Ciccone and Jimmy Ryan re-entered the music business, Ciccone with The Four Seasons and one of the other groups represented here, Tommy James and The Shondells. Ryan went on to guitar/arranger/songwriter duties with pop giants, Carly Simon, Cat Stevens, Jim Croce, Rod Steward, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Elton John and  Kiki Dee.

Speaking of Tommy James and the Shondells, they almost, but not quite, could have been the answer to the trivia question. In 1964, the newly renamed Shondells recorded an obscure ‘B’ side tune by The Raindrops and written by the groups mainstays, Jeff Berry and Ellie Greenwich, who along with producer Phil Spector went on to define the mid ‘60s “girl group” sound. The song was Hanky-Panky. Tommy%20James%20GER

The song was a regional hit in the midwest, but was never released nationally until 1966 when a Pittsburgh radio station unearthed the forgotten single and touted it as an "exclusive". The band had broken up by then and when James discovered the tune climbing the charts nationally, he had to assemble a new group to tour.

From ‘66 until ‘68, Tommy James and the Shondells were a mainstay of the “bubblegum rock” scene. From 1968, the group began writing their own songs and embraced the sounds of psychedelia. They are maybe most semi famous for having turned down an invitation to play at Woodstock.

The Hit Men consist of Lee Shapiro (Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, Barry Manilow, Bob Gaudio,  Jimmy & Jerry Vivino, Paul Schaffer),Don Ciccone (The Critters, Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, Tommy James and the Shondells), Larry Gates ( Desmond Child, Larry Hochman, Izzy James, Daniel Freiberg, Janis Ian, Rick Derringer),  Gerry Polci ( Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, Barry Manilow),
Jimmy Ryan ( The Critters, Carly Simon, Cat Stevens, Jim Croce, Rod Steward, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Elton John, Kiki Dee) and Russ Velazquez ( Sting, Carol King, the Ramones, LL Cool J, Luther Vandross, Korn, Paula Abdul).

Some of these guys; the talented and seasoned pros that were, for the most part, not the head lining stars, but were the foundation behind some of rock and pops biggest hits and acts, have been friends for 50 years. On this album that familiarity shines through as they play together tightly and brilliantly as they perform their various catalog of hits that span early ‘60s rock n roll and pop, Motown, psychedia, disco and the singer/songwriter era of the ‘70s, and ‘80s pop and R&B.

You can download the album from iTunes and if you can you’ll want to catch them on tour, through June 2012. Some things get better with age, and The Hit men prove that in spades.


February 10 - Duncan Theater - Lake Worth,  FL
February 11 - The Phil - Naples, FL
February 12 - The  Phil - Naples, FL
February 19 - The Sunrise Theater - Fort  Pierce, FL
February 20 - Jonathan's Landing - Jupiter,  FL
February 24 - Ridgefield Playhouse - Ridgefield,  CT
February 25 - Broadway Theater - Pitman, NJ
March 30  - "Dosey Doe" - The Woodlands, TX
March 31 - Brauntex PAC -  New Braunfels, TX

April 20 – Harrington Raceway & Casino – Harrington, DE
April 21 - The Lehman Center - Bronx, NY
June 11 - Garde Arts Theater - New London, CT
June 12  - Garde Arts Theater - New London, CT

July 14 – Ft. Lee NJ Summer Concert Series – Fort Lee, NJ

 

The Dirty Lowdown

Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved

Friday, January 20, 2012

The Dirty Lowdown for January 2012

Lowdown

This year has not started out very well for me. To start with, I got a phone call on December 30th informing me that a very good friend had past away. Needless to say, that news took some of the Happy out of Happy New Years. Farewell Matthew, you’ll be missed.

Then on January 2nd during a routine doctors visit, my doctor du jour decided to remove what was thought to be a ganglion cyst in my right wrist. It turned out not to be so simple and for some undisclosed reason, my whole right arm swelled up to huge proportions before I even got out of the doctors office. I ended up admitted for 3 days while the doctors all stood around and scratched their heads and I kept the various labs busy running every test conceivable.

Eventually, it was decided that they didn’t need me to continue scratching their heads, and we had run out of labs and technicians to poke me and they sent me home with half the pharmacy. After another week in bed with morphine, blood thinners, steroids and weird dreams, I decided to rejoin the world.

So, here it is three weeks into the new year and I am starting to feel somewhat normal, or what passes for it in my world. I am shaking off the effects of the drugs and the major case of the blues and looking at my calendar for scheduled book reviews, music reviews and other commitments and wanting a Mulligan. I want to start over on 2012! It’ll take me until June to catch up. And I had such awesome plans for hitting the bricks running this year….

3-6-11_1419B-Edit Billy HuntFor instance, I am starting a new feature here on The Dirty Lowdown. A sort of celebrity book review feature. We are going to have Authors write a book review on any book of their choosing and publish it here. It started out to be a monthly feature, but I received such enthusiastic acceptance that we are going to be doing this at least twice per month. I have lined up such authors as Mark Terry, Jan Burke, LJ SellersEric Jerome Dickey, Ward Larsen, and Tom MacDonald and many more. This should be a very fun an informative feature. Look for the first review this weekend.

I’ve always thought that you have to look for the silver lining when things go wrong and the silver lining in my odyssey was that I caught up on some reading, even though I wasn’t able to stay awake long enough to write, or for that matter think about writing reviews. So, the silver lining is that in what is left of the month I’ll be reviewing H. Terrell Griffin’s Collateral Damage. Collateral Damage I loved this book, so look for the review in the next few days.

Terry Griffin's latest entry in the Matt Royal set-in-Florida mysteries is a perfect blend of old south, beach bum, funky character driven stories, the kind that made John D. MacDonald famous, only Griffin's tale tops the best with its unexpected blend of international intrigue. My hat is definitely off!

David Hagberg - New York Times bestselling author

 

 

I’ll also be reviewing the latest Charlie Hood Novel from T. Jefferson Parker, The Jaguar.

T. Jefferson Parker delivers a crime thriller that redefines the landscape of the cartel wars as an epic clash of good and evil!

Here’s the trailer:

“The Jaguar”

Also this month, I’ll be reviewing Ed Gorman’s great Sam McBain novels, The Day the Music Died and Wake Up Little Susie. Now available in one Kindle edition.These are set in a small Iowa town in the 50’s and are just marvelous. Sam McBain

I also have a lot of music I have to listen to and write about before the 1st of February when I go in the hospital for the scheduled Nerve Transposition Surgery, which will leave me left handed for a number of months. I have been learning Dragon Naturally Speaking, so that I can dictate blog entries and keep the book and music reviews coming….with any luck. It’s a very different thought process between writing and talking though, but we’ll see how it works.

Some of the music I hope to get to this month Bay Area Jazz Vocalist, Ed Reed’s Born To Be Blue, also on the jazz scene is the great Jack DeJohnette’s Sound Travels. We’ve also got  Mike Wofford & Holly Hofmann - Turn Signal, and on the pop/rock scene we have The Hit Men which is a group of musicians that played with Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, Tommy James and the Shondells, The Critters, Rod Stewart and others. It’s a fun nostalgic album, and you can read about it here.

We’ve also got new releases from Sax-y lady, CandyDulfer, of the long awaited MOLLO MARTIN new album entitled "The Third Cage" featuring Dario Mollo and Tony Martin who first got together when the Italian guitar player/producer and composer needed the right singer after he had put together a new set of songs in the late 90's. The former Black Sabbath singer came about on a suggestion from producer Kit Woolven. Also, we’ve got Elephant Micah, aka Joseph O’Connell, one of the most prolific and criminally overlooked songwriters of our generation. O’Connell is self-releasing the new Elephant Micah record, Louder Than Thou. I’ll be givin’ ya the Dirty Lowdown on these and much more so stay tuned.

That’s the lowdown for January.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

CD Review: “The Love Thief” Eddie Grey

EddieGrey_FinalInsertFront

Eclectic pop rock, indie funk, call it what you want but Eddie Grey delivers a good time on The Love Thief Sessions. It’s an intricate mix of musical know-how and diverse backgrounds filtered through some very good vision musically and compositionally.

The band is singer/songwriter/guitarist Eddie Grey, drummer/percussionist Patrick
Coggins, and bass player Kevin Comden. They've played alongside Plain White T's, stood in for Alien Ant Farm's drummer, and collaborated with Baby Bash, Paula D'Anda, Eddie Murphy, and Nicholas "RAS" Furlong.

Maybe you wouldn’t expect musical mastery to emanate from Compton, Calif. but that is exactly where Eddie Grey grew up. he chose to study music, all genre of music in order to escape the chaos of the city known more for it’s gangs than it bands. But, he also absorbed the hectic influences and they become a thing of beauty when they seep through into his music. Just take a listen:

Eddie Grey “The Love Thief”

You’ll hear jazz influences, neo-folk, indie rock, funk/r&b, and reggae. This album chronicles two people falling in love and dealing with modern life. What becomes clear from the first track is Eddie is a very good guitar player and the rest of the band are just as professional. What also becomes clear is that musical excess, extended solos, ego’s crashing about the score take a back seat to the song. Eddie set out to tell a story inside the song and that story is what is paramount.

The Love Thief Sessions, available on iTunes, and hopefully soon on CD from all the usual places, is and excellent EP and a great introduction to a band that should garner a lot of main stream attention without compromising that indie feel. I look forward to hearing more from Eddie Grey and the band check his website for show dates or booking info.

 

The Dirty Lowdown


Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved