"Lost Melodies"

"I often lay back in my garage room, listening to scratchy records of Willie Bobo, Thee Midniters, War, and Miles Davis.  Sometimes oldies; the "Eastside Sound" revues, old Stax and Atlantic rhythm & blues: Wilson Pickett, Rufus Thomas, Solomon Burke, and The Drifters.  And of course, Motown."

~Luis Rodriguez, Always Running, La Vida Loca Gang Days in L.A.
(p. 84, Chp.4)

My Tape Deck Worldwide (no. 1)

Its all about tape decks...  I first heard of MC Melodee searching the net many years ago when I dug up an old site that was no more than a couple pages, lil' bit of info, and a reference to "La Melodia".  It had two tracks uploaded in an embedded player... couldn't access the song on mp3 at the time.  The track was titled "Dough", and the other I can't remember, but was just as good.  I was in the dorm just listening to the track over and over again wishin' I could figure out how to pull the audio from the site and get it on air. Fast forward a few years and I finally get access to the track through an eMusic download of Vibing High, which I believe was the debut of La Melodia... it had a dope single on there, my favorite at the time called "Time"... I was also surprised to hear the record included the "Dough" track I'd heard a few years before.  Needless to say the record caught a lot rotation from that semester on.  Now in the 2013, out the blue I decided to drop in on the sites, and stumbled across MC Melodee's latest record with producer Cookin Soul titled My Tape Deck.  eMusic is real stingy with the credits you gotta pay for these days, but I took whatever credits I had and downloaded it for the HTC digital.  Been listenin' to it everyday since.  A no. 1 record right here for the LHHS charts.  One for the crates if you interested in purchasing the LP from the site.  Page linked on the side panel to the left below or click on the image above for more info on MC Melodee.   

"Now, Then, & Forever"

One of my all time favorite bands.  If someone referred to Earth Wind & Fire as the greatest, I would have no problem with that.  Caught the interview by chance on PBS with Tavis Smiley which is how I found out about the new record.  Picked it up next day at Best Buy.  The music display at Best Buy rivals that of a Goodwill.  But as long as I found the Now, Then & Forever, I was set.  This album is incredible.  Sounds right on time with everything I've always loved about all the records I have heard from Earth Wind & Fire.  Powerful elements.  Click on the image up above for the interview with Tavis Smiley.  

'Radio Free Dixie'

"The blues coming from "Miss Sis' Polk's juke joint captured Williams's imagination at an early age.  On hot summer nights, "barrel-house music engulfed the neighborhood like a dense fog," he recalled.  As a young teenager, Robert Williams used to steal from bed, pretend to be headed for the outhouse, and then keep going.  He "could hear the piano, hot and spicy, rolling out the blues."  The 1920s and 1930s were the heyday of the Piedmont blues, at once party music and deep lament, hammered out on piano, guitar, harmonica, banjo, and washboard, slow dragging and high stepping in juke joints that nuzzled the railroad tracks from Atlanta to Durham.  "The drawn home blues" pouring out of Miss Sis's Place "drew me like a magnet," he wrote in his unpublished autobiography more than fifty years later." (Pg. 23)

Tyson, Timothy B. Radio Free Dixie, Robert F. Williams & the Roots of Black Power. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.