Double bad news: Snooks Eaglin is dead and so is Morning 40

I don't like doing obituary posts because there's always somebody that does them better. I had never listened to Snooks Eaglin until word came about of his failing health. WWOZ put on a pretty good campaign for him, suggesting that you donate blood and put the proceeds in his name and celebrating his birthday with at least one Snooks-themed show that helped me realize what a great asset he was to this city and music in general. He had a hand in all sorts of genres and from what I've heard, it's all been excellent. I hate catching up with an artist's work when they die, but I'm certainly going to be doing that these coming weeks.

I'm sure some great tributes are going to show up on my blogroll in time, but for now here's Nola.com's write-up which is certainly pretty lengthy and if you want to hear some songs, last.fm has some good ones.

Meanwhile, Morning 40 Federation announced that they will be playing their final show on Friday. I became a fan of theirs when I was interning at Piety St. recording studio where they were recording their last album. It was at least a year between that and its release and I couldn't wait for it to hit. Despite a pretty accessible alternative rock sound, they were distinctly New Orleans and extremely fun. I remember convincing my high school friends to check out their CD release party and for the first time not only saw one of them dance, but all of them dance. 

Though you could check out the link on Youtube, I'll direct you to NolaFunk NYC who reminded me about this and alerted me to Snooks' death

What the hell sort of Mardi Gras is this?

Chalklit Milk Revue - Forever Bliss \ some willy nelson cover

EDIT: These downloads work now. Jeez, you guys need to tell me about these things

I know nothing about this 45, its artist or even its label. I've seen it on people's playlists, I've seen people selling it even describing it as "unknown". I know that it's good and that it was essentially donated by Marty over in Metairie, who so graciously fed my record addiction the other day.

Commence bullshitting: As much as they would like to, not many soul bands can call themselves Chocolate Milk, and since our fair city had already claimed the title, these guys had to resort to an awkard pun, as if chalk had incandescent properties. That was error number one for this band, error #2 was choosing a soulful cover of Willy Nelson's "Funny How Time Slips Away" as your A-Side.

Funny How Time Slips Away

I mean, it's not poorly executed or anything but "Forever Bliss" is a much more fun organ-fueled stomper, much more so than the name would suggest.

Forever Bliss

Storm Surge of Reverb Tonight

ARRRRG No more messin' around, it can't be stopped. I'm going to march into the studio with some surf music tonight and play it, hopefully you might join me over the internet waves. And look, I've got a fancy new poster to tell you everything

Sandy Nelson - Drums A Go Go

We've seen Sandy Nelson on this blog before and due to how prolific he is and how few of his albums are reissued, I wouldn't be surprised if we see him again. I don't think these albums are particularly rare, but for the type of artist that was shitting out covers of whatever's hip, as seen here, he's consistently pretty great, as seen here. Only two of these songs give writing credit to Sandy, but there's a real good vibe going on throughout, and none of them are phoned in.

For me, the highlight is his cover of Casbah, which is about as fun as any version I can readily think of. Great driving guitar coupled, of course, with Sandy's prided drums. Really he's not Buddy Rich or anything, so I don't know why he loves doing show-off songs like Soul Drums, but then again that's one of the songs off this album that made it onto some greatest hits album of his. Speaking of which, this is NOT the greatest hits album of his that has a similar cover

Here's a short review: I like this better than my afore-posted Walking Beat, I like this better than most Ventures filler albums, and his new album mentioned on the Walking Beat page is pretty fun but ultimately not completely attention grabbing.

This rip skips a few times but is otherwise pretty clean and definitely keeps a good punch intact. It's a wonder because the LP itself looks like murder. Also, check the words from Sandy on the back cover. Classy.

Here's Sandy

Side A

1. Drums A Go-Go (Paul Buff)
2. (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (Jagger - Richard)
3. I Like It Like That (C. Kenner - A. Toussaint (represent))
   
4. Casbah (R. Podolor)
5. Boot-Leg (Axton-Dunn-Hayes-Jackson)
6. Wooly Bully (Samudio)

Side B

1. You Turn Me On (Ian Whitcomb)
2. Whittier Blvd. (Thee Midnighters)
3. Do The Boomerang (Cosby-DeWalt-Woods)
4. Kitty's Theme (Nelson)
5. The Clapping Song (L. Chase)
6. Soul Drums (Nelson)

Slooooow postin'

There are a few reasons this blog is going slowly

a) I have a sorta jobish thing and will for about a month

b) I have a whoooole lot of music to listen to. You'd think this would mean MORE blog posting, but instead you get REALLY frustrated finding these hot singles, googling them and finding that they're either still in print or that somebody's beat you to the punch. Then you forget which ones HAVEN'T had that happen yet. And I'm unorganized. So I'm probably going to just plow through these things, get my collection back in order, THEN start getting these gears grinding again.

How much music you ask? I haven't listened to any of this

That's roughly 200 45s and 50 LPs. A lot of this isn't really within the scope of this blog (yes that is a 45 of TLC's Waterfalls). BUT I don't want to miss anything so I gotta listen to it ALL. And I'm still organizing the 45s from the last time I posted a bunch of records I got

c) MARDI GRAS

d) I've got BIG PLANS I've been working on, one sort of blog related one not at all.

REGARDLESS OUT OF SHEER GUILT I HAVE SOME THINGS I'LL PUT UP. It's really sad to watch your hits fizzle out when you're on top of your game, so I've probably got another Sandy Nelson coming and a couple of other little tricks.

Wiggles and Waggles - Hey! Mr. Hoolihan \ Rock and Roll Session

Wiggles and Waggles are a joke band as far as I can tell, though I'm not able to find anything more than this single. The songwriting credits go to Roy Bennet and Sid Tepper, who have written tons of songs for Elvis, Dean Martin, Andy Williams, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Eartha Kitt, Frank Sinatra, Cliff Richard, just look up Roy Bennet on wikipedia. Given the nature of these songs, I would venture a guess that this is their own little project, since there doesn't seem to be any other star involved, at least in a prominent way.

I held off on posting this because if you'd take a gander up there, my copy of Rock and Roll Session is completely destroyed, but I knew I'd heard it somewhere. Sure enough, I turn to the Las Vegas Grind series of compilations, who have what sounds like the exact same thing (it's not exactly coverable) under the name Louie Overseas with the song title changed to "A Studio Session". Sure, sometimes compilations foul up the name in hopes to get away without paying royalties, but this doesn't even give a hint. So here's their copy, not in terrificly better shape than mine. I've renamed it to the real thang
Rock and Roll Session

Hey! Mr. Hoolihan is much more musical (I've played it on my surf show). It's a fun rock & roll instrumental with occaisional vocal bits contemplating the vaguely scandalous thing affecting their friend Mr. Hoolihan.
Hey! Mr. Hoolihan

H.B. Barnum - Tia Juana \ Blue Mood

Don't be dissuaded if the name reminds you of PT Barnum and you're expecting some sort of circus music. Despite a less than eventful solo career, he was extremely successful as an arranger. To copy and paste from wikipedia, he has become most widely known as an arranger, for a very wide range of performers including Count Basie, O.C. Smith, Frank Sinatra, The Supremes, Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, Gladys Knight, Al Wilson, and the Pump Girls. This doesn't really sound like any of those, it's a straight up sax-fueled rock & roll instrumentals from (like most of these 45s) 1958.

Tia Juana (yeah, that's how it's spelled on the 45) is a blast. Raunchy, fast and crude. Tequila came out in the same year and I wouldn't be surprised if that had something to do with this track, but melody-wise it's completely its own song.
Tia Juana

Blue Mood isn't nearly as fun. Why do they always have to pair up a good, fast single with a slower number? MORE POWER PLEASE. I mean, it's a good song, but you just go ahead and listen, I don't really have any actual knowledge to spread here.
Blue Mood