Since 1942, BBC Radio has featured Desert Island Discs - eight recordings the program's guests would bring to a desert island. Here are my album choices (not in any order, and from eight different music genres) after the jump ...
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Preface - for these eight selections, I have avoided choosing "Best Of" albums as much as possible (and sometimes it isn't) and to be sure: there are music categories that necessarily had to be left out. For example, I'd like to have selections in Western Swing, a more rocking style of R&B, bluegrass, chorale or ancient music, etc. (and perhaps I'll use that in a future essay). For now - using the BBC criteria, here are my choices (and again, these are in no particular order):
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From folk music - the album In the Wind from Peter, Paul & Mary from October, 1963.
They did a good deal to popularize the music of Bob Dylan, with their versions of "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" and "Blowing in the Wind" - which reached #9 and #2 on the Billboard pop singles charts. Folk music would in the future become more agitated, but theirs was the voice that was more appealing to the general public.
The album itself reached #1 in the albums charts and, along with some traditional ballads (such as "Tell It on the Mountain") it featured some original tunes including "Very Last Day" - another spiritual. The Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion would - in just a few months time - help end the folk music boom (and generate the 'going electric" debate) but to me: this album was folk music's apex.
From rock music - the 1968 album Wheels of Fire from my favorite band of all time: Cream. This double-album features one studio album (with bassist Jack Bruce's compositions such as "White Room" and "Politician") as well as a live album (with Eric Clapton's tour-de-force on "Crossroads" and Ginger Baker's epic-length drum solo on "Toad"). Power and sophistication in one package.
The band split in November 1968 at the Royal Albert Hall in London - I was lucky enough to get to see them at the first of four reunion concerts at the same venue, and here is my concert review from May 2, 2005. I felt like a kid again.
From jazz - the 1959 album Kind of Blue from Miles Davis. It is not the most adventurous album ever, but Miles featured several sidemen who went on to become name performers themselves (Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley, pianist Bill Evans and especially the saxophonist John Coltrane).
It has gone on to be the best-selling jazz album of all time and it epitomizes modern, cool jazz. Sadly, the album's only surviving performer is drummer Jimmy Cobb who is 82 years-old.
It made the NPR 100 - the 100 most influential 20th century American musical works, and on its 50th anniversary in 2009, Fred Kaplan in Slate Magazine explains why even those who don't care for jazz like this album.
From the Great American songbook - as contrasted with the instrumental music above, the 1963 album John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman was John Coltrane's hope of winning over critics who disliked his intense, avant-garde nightclub playing.
As Dan Okrent wrote in an Esquire article The Greatest Record Ever Made this album has several romantic ballads ("You Are Too Beautiful", "My One and Only Love") and perhaps the definitive version of the Billy Strayhorn song Lush Life - which is difficult to pull off for any singer, but Johnny Hartman's baritone makes it sound easy. In fact, the recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder considers it "one of the greatest recordings he's ever made, if the not the best".
That is one reason why Clint Eastwood featured Johnny Hartman's voice (circa 1963) in the soundtrack to his film version of The Bridges of Madison County in 1995.
From country music - you couldn't go wrong with the soundtrack to the O Brother, Where Art Thou? film from 2000 ..... but it was just edged out by another album which I reviewed this past summer.
The All-Music Guide’s Bruce Eder wrote that the 1972 album Will the Circle Be Unbroken? was the first country album that a lot of rock listeners under the age of 30 ever listened to – and I’d include myself among them. Officially, this was an album by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – or, in the immortal words of Bush the Elder: the Nitty Ditty Nitty Gritty Great Bird - yes, that's how he referred to them at a 1992 awards ceremony. In reality, it was a joint venture between a California-based country-rock band (who had Jackson Browne as a past member) and the traditional Nashville veteran music community .... and its legacy was so great, it spawned a follow-up Volume 2 album eighteen years later.
From the blues - my favorite style is the electric Chicago blues, and in particular the man who is the fulcrum of that genre, Willie Dixon - if all he did was act as Chess Records' staff producer, arranger, A&R talent scout and in-house double bassist on many famous recordings: well, his place in history would be assured.
Yet it is his songwriting that endures. If you've ever heard a blues or rock band perform "I'm Ready", "Little Red Rooster", "Spoonful", "Back Door Man", "Big Boss Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "You Shook Me", "I Can't Quit You, Baby", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Ain't Superstitious" or "My Babe" - among 500 others - then you have heard his work.
But he is often a sideman on most recordings, with few albums under his own name (with his 1970 release I Am the Blues a notable exception where he sang the tunes).
And so in order to draw on his range of work, it's necessary to choose the 1989 compilation Willie Dixon Chess Box - with lead performances by a wide range of musicians such as Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Koko Taylor, Lowell Fulson, Jimmy Witherspoon, Sonny Boy Williamson, Otis Rush and even Bo Diddley. The one common denominator: Willie Dixon's prolific songwriting.
From classical music - like that of Willie Dixon, here too is a decision to include both my favorite composer (J.S. Bach) and my favorite style of classical music (classical guitar) .... which leads inexorably to the nonpareil Andrés Segovia - as Joseph Stevenson writes in the All-Music Guide "There were classical guitarists before him, and distinguished ones even when he appeared, but it was not an instrument that was regarded as a serious vehicle for classical music - Segovia changed that".
And while he has other albums with works from my composer of choice, this 1954 Deutsche Grammophon release - Volume Four of the distinguished label's "Segovia Collection" series - shows his ability to make you think that Bach wrote exclusively for the guitar ... in particular, Bach's Chaconne originally written for violin, now transcribed for guitar.
And finally, from soul music - again, I'm choosing a compilation album (solely to ensure that a certain song is on it) from Aretha Franklin - although her 1968 album Lady Soul would be the first choice for a regular release, as it gave her a well-deserved nickname.
But I will choose 30 Greatest Hits as it does have some of the works from "Lady Soul" - as well as my favorite Aretha Franklin track, her 1974 cover version of Until You Come Back To Me written by Stevie Wonder .... which I just gotta have.
Now I'm sure I'll still go crazy on a desert island ..... but these eight recordings will keep me sane for an extended period, stalling for time in hopes of a rescue .....
Now, on to Top Comments:
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From twigg
Crashing Vor gives a stunning reply to BenderRodriguez in a sub-thread from a diary that will hopefully be deleted.
From FogCityJohn:
In the diary by Clarknt67 about the end of DADT - katynka explains why there are times when you just need to shut up about meta.
From side pocket:
I enjoyed this thread (on JanF's edition of J Town for today) - where bubbanomics ..."expanded" (so to speak) on Ebby's question.
From Dragon5616:
blue aardvark had a particularly funny compliment for jotter today in High Impact Posts. That led to this question from Hugh Jim Bissell, who got this helpful(?) reply from Bill in Portland Maine.
And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening .........
In the diary by jobu about the rousing performance by Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren on the "Morning Joe" program of MSNBC - where she swatted away gotcha question after gotcha question - Sherri in TX went on to speculate that Joe Scarborough must be regretting his decision to invite her: "This didn't go the way it was supposed to" ... and then concluded with this thought, "Massachusetts is lucky to have her ... I hope they don't screw it up".