Poco

Finally, another album that I can’t stop listening to!  I had picked it out of a couple of boxes that my aunt and uncle were getting rid of.  I hadn’t had a chance to listen to it (my collection is getting rather large), but as time allowed I finally put it on the turntable and haven’t been able to stop listening to it!

The album ‘From the Inside’ was recorded in 1971 by country rock band Poco.  I have a couple of their other albums and actually my favourite was ‘Pickin’ Up the Pieces’ but From the Inside is taking over!

There is a great book you should read by Barney Hoskyns about the Laurel Canyon music scene back in the late 60’s to mid 70’s in LA called ‘Hotel California: Singer-Songwriters and Cocaine Cowboys in the LA Canyons 1967-1976’.

Anyway, the short story of Poco is that a couple of members of Buffalo Springfield, Richie Furay and Jim Messina joined forces and created this band along with Rusty Young and George Grantham (among the others that auditioned but not chosen was Gregg Allman.).  It all sounds so country rock/California-ish.  Which is great if you’re into The Byrds, The Eagles, Poco, Buffalo Springfield and Mason Profit.

If you dig country rock, then you should get your hands on From the Inside and or Pickin' up the Pieces.  One or the other, but preferably both.

Twang

There is something magical about the sound of a pedal steel.  Some people love them, some people hate them.  I LOVE THEM!

It all started with my first listen to Gram Parsons with The Byrds and their 'Sweetheart of the Rodeo' legacy album, with all of the outtakes.  I was given that album back in 2004 and cranked it in my headphones.  I couldn't let anyone know that I liked country music.  I was becoming a closet fan!  If you knew me a few years ago you would know that I absolutely hated country music.  Well, I was ignorant.  I didn't know enough about it to differentiate between top 40 country and real country music, western music.

I brought this over to the UK with me and started loving country music. 

It was the sound of the pedal steel that would just make me melt inside.  Under the influence, it would kill me even more!

I met all kinds of folks over there who felt the same.  It surprised me.  I didn't think anyone really liked it.. especially anyone my age.

I attended 'Come Down and Meet the Folks' at a pub in Camden town, London one Sunday afternoon for a piece of country pie, wearing a 'The Band' shirt that some kid made me when I was volunteering down at Levon Helm's.  Some long haired, bearded 'bloke' approached me with a card.  'Sin City' nights near the  'Great Portland Street' tube station.  Down there in a little pub was a f*cking hoedown.  Proper!  It was amazing.  Folks dancing to Waylon, Emmylou, Southern Rock, all kinds of great tunes and westerned right up.

It was heaven!  I can only hope to do something around here someday.  It's been my dream ever since to play this awesome music and have people dance to it.  Actually, build a music barn and have hoedown's.

Bryce and I put on a barn dance in September of '09 with live music and I DJ'ed some great tunes afterwards.  We had the barn looking ripe.  Straw bales to sit on, corn stalks, gourds, pumpkins, white lights, corn roast, the whole lot.  People were pumped about it and this will become an annual event.

Anyway, I will come up with a list of great ditty's that will surely impress you if you love the sound of pedal steel like I do.  Just a great mix of country music.  Bands and artists that you SHOULD KNOW ABOUT.

Knee Deep in the Blues

Reading Keith Richards' autobiography is really bringing me back to my love for the blues.  I was knee deep in the blues at one point in my life.

My love for the blues spiraled out of control after I had seen The Last Waltz and was on my search for the elements of rock and roll.  That and visiting Levon Helm and listening to the blues; eating, sleeping, breathing the blues.

I didn’t realize how much Keith and Mick loved the blues.  I mean, yeah their first singles were blues covers, but I had never read any biography’s of theirs.  Actually, my search for the elements of rock and roll were all American based, and I can honestly say at this point, I am reading for the first time how and when the blues exploded in the UK.  Didn’t I mention that some of the greatest rock and roll bands came from the UK?  Led Zeppelin is 100% blues influenced, Eric Clapton, Free and Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green.

I need some book recommendations for the birth of rock and roll in the UK.  Believe it or not, while I was actually LIVING in the UK I went crazy over country music.  London and country music.  Who knew?  I came home a country gal.

Anyway, I was right heavy over Chicago blues’ Willie Dixon, obviously Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed.  Man, Jimmy Reed is one cool cat.  “Bright Lights, Big City”, “Big Boss Man” and “Baby What You Want Me to Do” is a real groovy ditty.

I have met some blues legends and greats when I was knee deep!  Little Sammy Davis, Bob Margolin, Luther Johnson, and Hubert Sumlin to name a few.

Chicago blues and the Delta blues.  Delta blues artists like R.L. Burnside, John Lee Hooker, Son House, Elmore James, Lead Belly, Sonny Boy Williamson, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and of course Robert Johnson.  My love for both Chicago and Delta are both the same.

To discover more blues, I used to go to the record shop and pick any album that had a great cover.  I discovered Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee that way!

It has been really great rekindling my love for the blues through reading Keith’s biography.  I am pulling out some albums that I haven’t listened to in a while.

The blues just filters through you.  Right to the bone; the sound of the blues.  Real soul music. 

I can't not mention the attitude that comes with being a blues cat too.  Bad ass.

I always loved Son House's quote about blues being about a man and a woman in love.

The List

I have everything back except the films in red.

The Band - Documentary
The Black Crowes - Cabin Fever
The Last Waltz
Festival Express
Woodstock Diaries
Neil Young - Heart of Gold

Allman Brothers Band - More Peaches bootleg

Rolling Stones - Rock and Roll Circus
Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter
Rolling Stones - 4 Flicks
Led Zeppelin - The Song Remains the Same
Led Zeppelin - DVD box set
Monterery Pop Festival
Guy Clark - Austin City Limits
Doug Sahm - Austin City Limits
Lucinda Williams - Austin City Limits
Drive-By Truckers - Live at the 40 Watt
Tom T Hall
Gillian Welch - The Revelator
Earl Scruggs - with Bob Dylan and Joan Baez
Johnny Cash - Documentary
Elvis: That's the Way it Is
Chuck Berry - Hail, Hail Rock and Roll
Bob Dylan - Renaldo and Clara bootleg/rarity
Bob Dylan - No Direction Home
Bob Dylan - Live at Newport
Roger Waters - The Wall Live '91
Townes Van Zandt - Be Here to Love Me
New Grass Revival
Bob Dylan - Masked and Anonymous

Charlie Daniels Band - Volunteer Jam

Tom Petty - Pack Up the Plantation

An Ode to Christopher Graham – The Ballad of Robbery!

Arriving home to a break-in really bites the big one!  Especially when you find out that ALL OF YOUR music DVD’s have been stolen!  All of the music DVD’s that you were going to use to create a buzz in this town.  All of the bootleg concerts, rarities, international films, hard-to-find’s.

When I arrived in the lounge to discover that everything had been taken, I was absolutely devastated.  It felt like someone had taken my child.

Anger, sadness, confusion, helplessness all set in as I stared out of the window to wait for the police to arrive.  How on EARTH am I going to recover these?  I don’t have a couple grand to replace them, I don’t have the time to find them.  This person had no idea what he had taken.  It wasn’t just a bunch of DVD’s that you could replace, these were different!

My mother called me to suggest I call the used CD’s shops in town.  The second one I called started naming off my films.  I can’t even explain to you what I felt as he named them off one by one.  It was like a massive piece of joy and happiness were coming back into my body with an overwhelming feeling.  I also felt a whole lot of revenge when the gentleman from Disc Depot on George Street told me that an idiot by the name of Chris Graham from 23 Kenver Street, Omemee was the one who sold my children to him.  Disc Depot will refuse any items if the person can’t provide ID.

I zoomed to the police station and was reunited with the ones I had thought were gone forever.  All but 12! 

The asshole even took my Levon Helm tote bag made back in 2004 that isn’t being made anymore.  The guy had no idea what he had taken from me.

I will comment later with The List of my collection and the 12 that are missing.

A Little Snippet About Me

It all started in my mother’s belly.  I could hear the tunes muttered through her belly wall.  Just as the day I started breathing was the day it was all about the tunes.

My parents always had awesome records playing on the old Marantz turntable until it started collecting dust as compact discs became the new thing.  I dusted that little ditty off and started my own collection (bulk of it was mom and dad’s at that point!).

Time flew on and it was around the middle of 2002 when I watched ‘The Last Waltz’ for the first time.  Man oh man did that film ever change my life.  Every single frame of that film became my life!  I was on a mission to discover music.  Where it came from, how it all began. 

During my research, I found myself driving down to New Jersey, New Hampshire and Woodstock to see the only bits of Levon Helm that were available at the time.  The Levon Helm Blues Band.  The first night that I had ever seen him down in Teaneck, New Jersey was one of the best days of my life.  Backstage mingling with the man himself and the band.

Soon after that I was down in Woodstock every month to volunteer at his brand new Midnight Rambles, crashing in his studio, listening to playbacks of the night’s performance with Levon and his sound engineers.  Life was fucking amazing!  I had seen Levon sing for the very first time after he was diagnosed with throat cancer.

I met all kinds of amazing musician’s, blues legends, ramblers, gamblers, and locals.

After a few months of this I upped and left to the UK for a couple of years.  It was time to move on.

Life in London, in the UK was pretty amazing.  I discovered that the best rock and roll bands came from the UK.  Free tickets to Rolling Stones gigs, running into John Paul Jones, making friends with Corb Lund’s parents, partying at Blue Rodeo’s hotel and meeting all kinds of great folks.  I saw some of the best music in my life over there.

Things were so great over there rock and roll wise that when I had to come back to Canada, to Peterborough, I realized that we were missing it all.  This history, the classics, the stories.

Here I am bringing back the history, the classics and the stories and the just plan love for the best music of all time.

Me and Levon Helm (September 2004) at his property.

Rock and Roll Film Nights

This town needs some rock and roll!

Starting on November 17th at the Sapphire Room, I will be hosting a rock and roll film night featuring 'FESTIVAL EXPRESS'.

It's a great documentary about a train tour that went from East to West in 1970.  The Band, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Buddy Guy, Ian and Sylvia, Bonnie & Delaney and a whole lot of Canadian Club whiskey.  Music, whiskey, festivals, Canadian landscapes, trains.. what's not to love?

The film nights are to happen monthly.  Next film comin' down the pipeline is the forever famous 'THE LAST WALTZ', the best rock and roll film ever.  That should be a good night.


I hope y'all come and join me on the 17th, or just check back often.  There's a lot of great tunes out there and I plan on bloggin' them.

Happy listening!