In-Car Entertainment

Hello again. As you may have noticed, the promise of daily record reviews has been broken; I've been somewhat remiss recently. This all started when I went home to visit parents, didn't write anything up, got a backlog, never cleared it, got further behind, and so on and so forth.

The good news is that I intend to start again soon. The bad news is that means you miss all the wonderful things to which I've listened in the meantime. Of course, that's no big deal, because I'll surely get round to listening to them again (although I do have quite a few CDs which have only had one outing and have then been subsequently ignored, for various reasons). But you're in for a treat: I'm going to attempt a brief summary of the highlights from the interim!

While at home, I sampled Emmylou Harris's concept album The Ballad Of Lucy Rose, a set of songs she wrote based around fictional characters, but openly based on her relationship with country-rock godfather Gram Parsons. It's an intriguing set, with some very short punctuation pieces, and unless you know a bit of the background, it makes very little sense indeed. Read the sleevenotes before listening! Also featured that weekend was Tony Joe White's new album The Heroines, which as the name suggests is a series of duets with female country and rock stars alike. This is a remarkably crisp sounding set - the backing is superb, and Tony's on great form himself. He even manages to upstage Emmylou on their duet: a feat not often achieved!

On the way home I dug out Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, about which millions of words have been written and so for now I'll add no more. Then it was Funk Drops Vol 3, the latest in the fantastic series that trawls the Warner archives for lost funk-soul gems. I wasn't quite as impressed with this volume as the previous two, but it's still quality material none the less.

That week, I randomly chose the second disc of an Elvis Presley hits compilation - featuring everything from 'Are You Lonesome Tonight' onwards. That must have put me in the mood for something more serious (Elvis's 70s antics sound great but are hardly the most sincere pieces of music ever), for the next day out came Leonard Cohen's 1984 album Various Positions. I'm a huge Cohen fan, have listened to his work countless times and yet I still find something new in each listen. "Hallelujah" has been reworked in, of all places, the Shrek soundtrack, and so it's great to hear the original in context.

The weekend journey to Peterborough had a Motown Beatles covers compilation on the way there (varied: some are great, most aren't), and the highly alliterative Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens on the way back. Stevens is a singer-songwriter currently growing in reputation. I was very impressed with the sound: these are works of considerably beauty. I can't possibly do justice here, so a further listen and full write-up will follow in the next couple of weeks.

That just about brings us up to date, via Sly & The Family Stone's patchy effort Fresh (ignore, and try their earlier stuff first) and yet another Blue Note 'rare groove' jazz sampler. Oh, look, it's Richard "Groove" Holmes - again! OK, you've probably never heard of him, but when you've got tens of compilations along similar lines, even his Hammond organ can grind.

I'll leave you with that horrendous pun. Normal service will resume shortly!