Rock Chick of the Day: Royal Thunder – April Showers

As lead singer of the Atlanta based Rock group Royal Thunder, Mlny Parsonz with her back of the barroom pipes that soar somewhere north of Grace Slick and South of Ronnie James Dio, has her band ready to break into the mainstream with their latest release, WICK.

Video of the Day: Slaid Cleaves – Drunken Barber’s Hand

Slaid Cleaves is one of those under the radar, criminally ignored artists that should be much more famous than he his. I will stand on Ray Wylie’s coffee table and say that Slaid Cleaves is one of the best songwriters working today. This one is from Ghost on the Car Radio, his most recent and highly excellent release.

Rock Chick(s) of the Day: Tequila Mockingbyrd – Never Go Home

The new record Flight and Fight just might be in the running for Rock album of the year. It’s that bloody good.

Best Albums of 2017: Ron Sexmith – The Last Rider

Ron Sexmith – The Last Rider (rating 4 out of 5)

Ron Sexmith is one of the many artists that is a real big deal north of the border, but largely obscure and very under rated in the United States. With Pop sensibilities that would make Brian Wilson blush, The Last Rider is a Pop masterpiece from start to finish.  The opening track, “It won’t last flows like the best ballad Elvis Costello has ever produced, and “Our Way” is finely produced love song that would have fit in quite nicely on a mid-70’s Kinks album.  “I Look into your eyes till I lose myself and the world starts turning our way” sets the mood just perfectly.

“Breakfast Ethereal” will put you in the Hot Tub Time Machine back to the land of Pet Sounds.  If Brian Wilson had a love-child with Rufus Wainwright who recorded an album that crossed the cosmic divide between Pet Sounds and The Beatles “Strawberry Fields Forever,” this song would have been the offspring.

And the cool vibes don’t stop there. Ron goes lower and a bit slower on “Shoreline” where the lush string arrangements bring forward the top-notch production values shown throughout by Sexmith who produced this album himself.

There is a slow build up in tempo all the way up to “Radio,” a song that be seems to share some DNA with the similarly named Al Stewart song, “Song on the Radio,” and with  “Dreams are Bigger” you get a sweet, pungent second-hand smoke whiff of Harry Nilsson.

After about 5 turns of the table, this platter gets better and better. There is literally not a bad song to be heard, and since the over/under for maintaining a relationship is three dates, it looks like Ron Sexmith, The Last Rider and I will be BFF’s for a very long time.

 

Best Albums of 2017: Red Hot – A Memphis Celebration of Sun Records

Sometimes with compilations like this one, where the clock turns back to the early days of Rock and Roll, the results can be a bit over bloated and poorly produced with the song selections mostly standard “heard that song a hundred times” fare. Red Hot – A Memphis Celebration of Sun Records, is definitely been there, not that.

The song selections are mostly deep track cool with artists contributing to the project that are just under the radar, but if you have not heard of them are definitely work your ear-quiantence. Valerie June does a decidedly vintage version of Carl Perkins’ “Sure to Fall,” proving one again that she seems not capable of producing a boring effort, and Americana Singer Shawn Camp does Jerry Lee Lewis more than proud belting out “Lonely Weekends.”

The Album was recorded at both of the Historic Sun Studios, and to make things even better, all of the artists donated their time to this project with the proceeds going to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. The two more celebrated songs covered here, “Folsom Prison Blues” by Alan Youngblood Hart and “High School Confidential” won’t set the world on fire, but are more than solid renditions of songs we all have heard and love.

A favorite is John Paul’s Keith’s Rockabilly contribution, “Red Cadillac and a Black Mustache,” a Warren Smith cover. For extra credit, take a drive over to Bob Dylan’s cover of this song from Good Rockin’ Tonight, the Legacy of Sun Records, which is pretty much this record but with bigger names and less cool songs.

Video of the Day: Minks Miracle Medicine – Somebody Else By Your Name

Minks Miracle Medicine is West Virgina Roots Rock duo Melissa Elizabeth Wright and Daniel Zezeski. “Somebody Else by Your Name” is their latest release from their new album, House of Candles. The entire record is a winner with “The Nashville Song,” the story of music hopeful hoping to make it big in Nashville, and “Keeping Score” as standout tracks.

 

 

Rock Chick of the Day: Beth Ditto – Fire

Former lead singer of The Gossip, Beth Ditto is out on her own in full force with here newly released solo effort, Fake Sugar.

Rock Chick of the Day: Torres – Skim

We haven’t heard much from Torres since her 2015 release Sprinter. Now, with her premiere single on 4AD, we should see a new album just around the bend.

Video of the Day: Dion and Paul Simon – New York Is My Home

Video of the Day: Royal Blood- Hook, Line, and Sinker

The new Royal Blood record is due out pretty soon. In the meantime here is a fresh slice of Rock and Roll pie.