Down the Line - Dan Israel

Down the Line - Dan Israel

3:01

Time I Get To Cedar Lake, 2018

Written by Dan Israel

This is low-key, jangly folk-pop in the style of Pete Yorn, Wilco and similarly raw, literate artists influenced by Dylan, Costello, and their ilk.  It's got a catchy melody, with Israel's straightforward singing delivery, a plaintive quasi-rasp, giving it a down-home touch.    

Dickie Betts - The Dean Ween Group

Dickie Betts - The Dean Ween Group

3:26

The Deaner Album, 2016

Written by Dean Ween

This guitar-led instrumental is an homage to the Allman Brothers sound.  A boogie-woogie piano line under the soaring Southern rock guitars gives the song its playful edge.  It's a little bit jazz, a little big jam band. It's probably also equal parts sincere admiration and goofy aping, like most of Ween's output.  Like the guitarist it honors, it's played with a relaxed swagger, but a pinch of silliness is added in as well.

Dream Chaser - Willie Nelson

Dream Chaser - Willie Nelson

3:15

Dream Chaser, 2026

Written by Buddy Cannon, Willie Nelson, and Bobby Tomberlin

Astonishingly, on his seventy-ninth studio album, Nelson's voice is in terrific form. This song is an uptempo celebration of the life of a musician.  Lyrically, perhaps inevitably with the singer at 93 years of age, it's a wistful, but not maudlin, look back at the past: "Time just seems to vanish / Right before my eyes / You may not understand it / Why we live with the sacrifice."  Echoing the sentiment of many artists, he also declares "I've done it all for free."  At this stage, Nelson isn't reinventing the wheel, but it's a highly enjoyable example of the work of an absolute master who writes five quality songs by the time the average country singer has finished tuning up.

Early Roman Kings - Bob Dylan

Early Roman Kings - Bob Dylan

5:14

Tempest, 2012

Written by Bob Dylan

Melodically, this is one of the most stripped-down songs Dylan ever recorded.  The band locks into a simple, repetitive blues groove and barely budges. Dylan's vocal is even more extreme: rather than singing a conventional melody, he mostly declaims the lyrics like a street preacher.  As is nearly always the case in his later material, Dylan's lyrics meander, contain non sequiturs, quote snippets of this and that, toss out lines both surreal and profane, evoke a dark world of gangsters, power brokers, and conflict: "I was up on black mountain the day Detroit fell / They killed them all off and they sent them to hell / Ding Dong Daddy, you’re coming up short / Gonna put you on trial in a Sicilian court."  Whether Dylan is talking about ancient Rome, modern street gangs, or power itself hardly matters. The song is about people who believe their authority is permanent, who assume the world will always work in their favor. The relentless groove reinforces the idea that this is how things are, this is how they've always been, and this is how they'll always be. However, the lyric tells us that empires do crumble and fall. 

Exactly Like You - Sam Cooke

Exactly Like You - Sam Cooke

2:11

My Kind Of Blues, 1961

Written by Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields, 1930

A triumphant love song, in which the narrator declares he's been waiting all his life for someone who is a perfect fit.  "Now I know why mother taught me to be true / She meant me for someone, baby / Exactly like you."  The singing is superb, of course, and the tempo is energetic, especially when it gets to the inner rhymes that often were used in songs of the era: "You seem to understand / Each foolish little dream I'm dreaming / And the schemes I'm scheming." Pace the album title, musically this isn't blues, but big-band swing.

Ever Fallen In Love - Nouvelle Vague

Ever Fallen In Love - Nouvelle Vague

3:29

Athol Brose, 2016

Written by Pete Shelley, 1978

The album title refers to a Scottish drink made by mixing porridge, honey, whisky, and sometimes cream.  That's all well and good, although this laid-back, cool '60s Euro-bossanova cover of the Buzzcocks is maybe more of a mojito or Old Fashioned vibe.  The clave percussion and high, tinny strings offer up views of a beach side bar.  This song was also covered ten years earlier on the band's album Bande à Part, sung by Mélanie Pain; this version is sung by Cuban-French singer Liset Alea, whose vocal delivery is, to my ear, delivered with more of a come-hither smirk.

Everything's On TV - The Hellacopters

Everything's On TV - The Hellacopters

3:15

Rock & Roll Is Dead, 2005

Written by Nicke Andersson

This is a '70s-style revival rock track, with a guitar solo in the middle that could have come straight out of the Allman Brothers.  The Hellacopters are a Swedish rock band with enough swagger and glam to make you look past the serviceable, but hardly novel, attack on television culture.  There are a couple of witty lines here ("The world's in a hurry but I don't have to worry / I got my virtue and I got my vice / I got bedsores, aching ligaments galore / Now that's a tiny sacrifice"), but mostly it's taking potshots at an easy target.  Not that rock songs have to have syllogistic arguments.  Fist-pumping is sometimes enough.

Engine Joe - Slobberbone

Engine Joe - Slobberbone

2:26

Barrel Chested, 1997

Written by Brent Best

This is a story song, somewhat in the vein of Chuck Berry, about a guy who runs a barbecue stand, but he used to be a mechanic until he hurt his hand somehow.  "Why ya gotta talk about Engine Joe / Like he's some guy in a fairy tale book? / Everybody knows that he just cooks / Baked beans and brisket in a BBQ stand."  He meets a funny little lady who is also a rodeo clown, and they settle down together.  Best's terrific acoustic guitar work gives his tossed-off growling vocal a nice platform.  The band's name, by the way, is ostensibly from a dog toy, but every woman I have ever mentioned this band to reacted with disgust, immediately assuming the more vulgar meaning.  

Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye - Sonny Rollins

Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye - Sonny Rollins

3:23

The Sound Of Sonny, 1957

Written by Cole Porter

Sonny Rollins died yesterday at the ripe old age of 95.  What better send-off for the great tenor saxophonist than this terrific Cole Porter song?  Legendary drummer Roy Haynes, nicknamed "Snap Crackle," provides a terrific high metallic counterpoint to Rollins' fluid and conversational sax lines.  I like it when jazz artists don't play too many ideas and let the melody speak up.  Rollins gives Porter's beautiful melody some respectful space.

Lawdy, Miss Clawdy - Lloyd Price

Lawdy, Miss Clawdy - Lloyd Price

1:51

single, 1952

Written by Lloyd Price

I didn't think all that much of Price's "Where You At?", but this song, which features Fats Domino on piano, is an R&B classic that popularized the New Orleans sound and helped shape rock and roll.  It was hugely influential.  Elvis covered it a few years later; Larry Williams' "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" is said to be a reworking of it.  Price's vocals are impassioned, and Domino's rolling piano lines give it a solid groove.  Legendary drummer Earl Palmer provides the backbone, and there's a smooth sax solo at the midpoint.