"Methamphetamine" - Old Crow Medicine Show (redux; studio version)

Since Ronnie Van Zandt of Lynyrd Skynyrd died, I have been waiting for someone to pick up this fallen torch and run with it. Neil Young has kept the flame alive -- take the acoustic version of "Keep On Rockin' in the Free World" from his album Freedom, for example -- but now Ronnie's heirs are on the job.

Old Crow Medicine Show will. "... [r]ock You Like A Hurricane, Meth-am-pheta-meeeen" -- and this story is set in the poorest part of Appalachia, with roots down to northern Florida. You can beat the South at Appomattox, but stubborn hillbillies, crackers and rednecks (me included) just won't sign up for most of the Yankee agenda.

It's only too late if you think it is -- give a spin to "Mother's Little Helper" (Stones), "That Smell" (Lynyrd Skynyrd), "Keep on Rockin'" by Neil, and "Meth" by our young Medicine Show friends. And "Don't Forget this fact, we can't get [David Ruffin] back, Cocaine." (-- J.J. Cale classic song broken by me to honor the late Temps lead singer.

In this drug war, just who is the enemy? Eh?

Robert Jordan's guapa

I just finished rereading Hemingway's story of the mountain resistance fighters in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). This time, I looked up the word guapa, a Spanish term of endearment, roughly translating as "My lovely". Once that Sicilian thunderbolt hits Roberto, rabbit and guapa are his only ways of addressing his crop-headed beauty Maria. 

I'm glad I looked it up.

Remembering Bobby Bland

Bobby "Blue" Bland, one of the most influential blues, soul and R&B singers of our time, passed away this past Sunday at the age of 83.

I first heard the song Stormy Monday performed by The Allman Brothers Band, only discovering Bland's definitive version years later. I thought this track would make a fitting remembrance of this legend in his own time.

The Velvet Underground -- Alternate Lou-approved Outro to Cut from "Loaded" (1970): Sweet Jane

This is is one of the only LPs I ever "borrowed" and never returned. I guess I stole it but this record was so fundamental to my late-70s-'til-now musical development, well ....

Hear what all this fuss out of me for the last four decades is about just below.

(Bye the bye, Maureen Timmons and The Cowboy Junkies do a rock solid cover of this essential song.)

"The Dude Abides."

"The Dude Abides."