Rickie Lee Jones - Atlas Marker

Note: ...in a perfect world will be on break for the Christmas holiday. New posts will resume on Monday, Dec.29. Enjoy whatever season you happen to celebrate happily and safely, and thanks for reading.

The first moment I heard the song "Chuck E's in Love," a tune Rickie Lee Jones wrote in honor of musician Chuck E. Weiss, a mutual friend of her and her then-boyfriend Tom Waits, I knew I had to hear more music from this remarkable singer/songwriter. She packed so much emotion and attitude into every performance it made her impossible to ignore. Her voice was so distinctive, as was her songwriting style...a sort of a bohemian sensibility informed her music, making it somewhat exotic, a throwback to an earlier era.

Born in Chicago, the Jones family moved to Arizona when she was five and then to Olympia, Washington when she was 10. Her father abandoned the family at about this time, leaving them on their own. Rickie dropped out of high school in the 11th grade, opting to take the GED to finish before enrolling in college in Tacoma. At 18, she pulled up stakes and headed south to California, first to Huntington Beach and then Venice, where she studied at Santa Monica College.

From her website:

Rickie Lee Jones - biography and timeline
Biography, by Hilton Als

Think of what you are about to read as a documentary film of sorts, replete with close-ups and fade-outs, starring the premiere song-stylist and songwriter of her generation, Rickie Lee Jones.

In this film we see: Rickie Lee Jones’ face, her distinctive mouth, and her thick, beyond shoulder length blonde hair as she walks down a road in a bucolic section of Tacoma, Washington, where she currently resides. It is springtime. She does not wear shoes. She carries a guitar. The sky overhead is as shiny as mica. As Jones searches for a place to sit and play in the sun, we see various aspects of her contemporary life come into frame, engaging Jones’ attention as she smiles, and listens, and reflects. We see her daughter, Charlotte Rose; Jones’ mother and siblings; various friends. All of these people come and go, passing in front of, and behind, our primary focus: Rickie Lee Jones playing her guitar and singing any number of her award winning songs: "Chuck E.’s in Love," or her interpretation of the classic, "Making Whoopee," for which she won a Grammy® in 1990.

The brilliant characterizations she builds are amplified by her voice, which, at times, has the lonesome sound of a train whistle on a wind swept prairie and, at other times, sounds like nothing so much as laughter winding down into a whisper, or a sigh. Jones was fast becoming a poet of the disenfranchised who eschewed any purely commercial considerations when it came to making a song. Ironically, Jones has always had a strong and solid fan base that has always purchased the album Rickie Lee Jones means them to have.

After high school in Olympia, which she had returned to in her mid-teens, Jones began singing more and more. She also wrote lyrics in a little notebook she kept. Sometimes, she’d sing the entire score of "West Side Story," to amuse herself.

By the time she nineteen, Jones was living in Los Angeles, waiting tables and occasionally playing music in out of the way coffee houses and bars. All the while, she was developing her unique aesthetic: music that was sometimes spoken, often beautifully sung, and while emotionally accessible, she was writing lyrics as taut and complex as any by the great American poet, Elizabeth Bishop. In her voice and songs, we saw smoky stocking seams, love being everything but requited. And it was during these years that Jones’ song, "Easy Money," caught the attention of one musician and then the music industry. The song was recorded by Lowell George, the founder of the band, Little Feat. He used it on his solo album, "Thanks, I’ll Eat It Here." Warner Brothers auditioned Jones and quickly signed her to the label.

Her debut on Warners, "Rickie Lee Jones," released in 1979, won the Grammy® for Best New Artist. She was hailed by one critic as a "highly touted new pop-jazz-singer-songwriter" and another critic as "one of the best--if not the best--artist of her generation." In addition to the album’s brilliant songs--including the exceptional "On Saturday Afternoons in 1963," the haunting "Last Chance Texaco," and the popular "Chuck E’s in Love"--Jones was becoming a figure whose life was bearing a great deal of emulation by young women and men who found, in her deep and personal and idiosyncratic life and work, a model for the new generation of hipster: She was heralded as a trendsetter in dress (beret, sundresses, heels) and in lifestyle, given her by then famous relationship with two boys she helped to make famous, too: Chuck E. Weiss, a Los Angeles character, and the singer and songwriter Tom Waits, about whom Rickie has said: "We walk around the same streets, and I guess it's primarily a jazz-motivated situation for both of us. We're living on the jazz side of life."

Today's featured song, "Atlas Marker'," is from her album "Flying Coyboys," which is described in her bio:

"Flying Cowboys," on the other hand, is the work of what initially seems like an entirely different person. On it, Jones has become wedded to the world. She is not as isolated as she’s been before. Prior to the album’s release, Jones married the French musician Pascal Nabet-Meyer, whom she met while on holiday in Tahiti (they have subsequently divorced). She also gave birth to her child, Charlotte Rose, for whom Jones wrote the moving "The Horses," just as Richard Loris Jones had written "The Moon is Made of Gold," for his daughter years and years before.

It's a great recording, and I've listened to it many times over the years. It never gets old, and "Atlas' Marker," the final song on the album, is a perfect closer.

Maybe you want another world
One where heaven doesn't weigh so much
Maybe you'll find another girl
One you can feel when you do not touch
Well, I've got something
Warm inside me,
It won't let you
fall 'til I see
Somewhere better than this place
Somewhere better than the world
 where we live...

"Atlas' Marker," written by Rickie Lee Jones

Jim Croce - Lover's Cross

I have no idea who Lenny is.

My brother, who gave me a framed photo and autograph of Jim Croce, told me that he was a New York City cab driver who ushered many of the rich and famous among us around the Big Apple on a regular basis, becoming a sort of celebrity himself. This is not confirmed, and Lenny may just be one more mystery that goes unsolved.

But if it's true, then maybe there was a connection that Croce felt when he signed that autograph, since he spent some time as a cab driver in the days before his music career took off. He also worked in construction, worked as a welder and even taught at a junior high school in south Philadelphia. I remember him commenting once that his job essentially was to "rotate his students in and out of the sunshine coming through the windows so they would get their chlorophyll."

From the Jim Croce Biography page at Bio:

American folk singer, songwriter and performer Jim Croce was born James Joseph Croce on January 10, 1943, in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Italian-Americans Jim and Flora Croce. Raised listening to ragtime and country music, Croce picked up music at a young age. He learned to play his first song on the accordion, "Lady of Spain," when he was 5. He eventually taught himself to play guitar.

After graduation, Croce worked on construction crews and taught guitar at a summer camp. He also worked as a teacher at a junior high school in South Philadelphia.

Croce met his future wife, Ingrid Jacobson, at a folk music party. They wed in 1966, the same year that Croce released a self-issued solo album, Facets. From the mid-1960s to early 1970s, Croce and Jacobson performed as a duo. At first, they sang covers by musicians like Joan Baez and Woody Guthrie, but were soon writing their own music. Croce landed a regular gig at a steak house in Lima, Pennsylvania.

Croce and his wife became disillusioned with both the music business and New York City, so they sold their guitars and moved to the Pennsylvania countryside of Lyndell, where they had their son, Adrian James, in 1971. Jacobson learned to bake bread and can fruits and vegetables. Croce got a job driving trucks and working construction, and continued to write songs, often about the people he would meet at bars and truck stops while working.

In 1970, one of Croce's former college friends, Joe Salviuolo, also known as Sal Joseph, introduced Croce to Maury Muehleisen, a classically trained pianist, guitarist and singer-songwriter from Trenton, New Jersey. Sal encouraged the duo to get together and record new songs, and to send them to ABC Records. At first, Croce backed Muehleisen on guitar, but their roles later reversed, with Muehleisen playing lead guitar to Croce's music. Following Sal's advice, Croce and Muehleisen recorded their songs and sent them to ABC, and soon met with producer Cashman in New York City. In 1972, ABC Records signed with Croce and released his first solo album, You Don't Mess Around With Jim. The record was an instant success, and became a Top 20 album in the United States. The title track reached the Top 10 on the pop charts while "Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)" reached the Top 20.

From 1972 to 1973, Croce performed in more than 250 concerts, and made appearances on television programs. In early 1973, ABC released his second album, Life and Times, featuring "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown." The single hit No. 1 on the American charts in July 1973, and then went gold. That same year, Croce and his wife relocated to San Diego, California.

On Thursday, September 20, 1973, the day before his ABC single "I Got a Name" was released, Croce, guitarist Muehleisen, and four others were killed when their chartered Beechcraft E18S crashed while taking off from the Natchitoches Regional Airport in Natchitoches, Louisiana. He was 30 years old.

Jim Croce's songs have a warm and personal feel, like a note from a good friend. He told stories about his life that were relatable and so easy to identify with. I miss that sort of songwriting and performance.

A Spectre of Christmas

This is a bit of silliness I wrote several years ago that tend to I share around this season. It was fun to write, and I hope you find it as goofy and fun as I do.

A Spectre of Christmas
by Edgar Allan Poe (sort of)

‘Twas the day before Christmas -- I sat in my room,
Black curtains drawn against darkening gloom.
The stockings were empty and charred near the hearth
and I sat, stony, somber, no peace on my earth.

The children, the wife, had been long tucked away…
Their bones turned to dust in the depths of the grave.
And alone, I atoned, for the sins of my past,
and I sat, stony, somber, with heart and soul lashed.

When, at length, there arose a clamor outside --
a bellow of beasts under licking whips hide --
and the voice of a madman that rattled the doors …
I sat, somber, silent, as I listened for more.

The damned creatures names spilled forth from the list
in tones that trailed fire from the river of Styx.
As the raging voice howled and harkened the past,
I stood and I strode toward the window at last.

I parted the darkness and stared through the pane
at a dark harnessed burden that sat like a stain
to mar the fresh snowfall that covered the ground …
I stood, and I stared, and I made not a sound.

A vermillion-wrapped wraith, with whip firm in hand,
stood in his sleigh to survey the bleak land,
blasted by winter, left barely alive…
It was then that I knew that Saint Nick had arrived…

Thumbs Carllile - Faded Love

I remember reading about Kenneth Ray "Thumbs" Carllile's first experience with music in an interview in Guitar Player magazine with him where he described his early encounter with guitar. According to his biography: "...he began playing music at the age of eight after his sister Evelyn won a dobro for selling balm. He used the new instrument so much that his irritated sister hid the steel bar, but the resourceful young man began using his thumbs to practice. When his father gave him a Silvertone guitar, Carllile's thumbs were too short and fat to make it around the neck, so he began playing it on his lap like a dobro."

That's right...he looked at his thumb and decided that it looked close enough to a slide and he began to play using his thumb.

That's a real musician.

Here's more from the Artist Biography by Sandra Brennan at AllMusic:

Kenneth Ray "Thumbs" Carllile was an innovative guitar player and songwriter. The son of an impoverished Illinois tenant farmer, he began playing music at the age of eight after his sister Evelyn won a Dobro for selling balm. He used the new instrument so much that his irritated sister hid the steel bar, but the resourceful young man began using his thumbs to practice. When his father gave him a Silvertone guitar, Carllile's thumbs were too short to make it around the neck, so he began playing it on his lap like a Dobro.

Carllile's family moved to Granite City, Missouri when he was ten. There he made his debut playing "Sweet Georgia Brown" during a Ferlin Husky performance. He was tossed out of high school at age 16 for refusing to shave and then began performing regularly with Husky until being discovered by Little Jimmy Dickens during a performance in St. Louis. Dickens was impressed and gave Carllile the nickname "Thumbs," a moniker Carllile never really liked.

Thumbs played the guitar like a fine pianist played a piano. With his left hand free to maneuver over the fretboard and all five fingers free to scale the neck, he could play anything. And he did.

Virtuoso is a word that should be used sparingly, like a seasoning in a fine meal, but Thumbs was a virtuoso in the best sense of the word. He added greatness to every track he played on.

Sometimes you only need a thumb to add the best things we need in the world.

Sufjan Stevens - Casimir Pulaski Day

 

I'm not going to write anything here about this song, a gorgeous and absolutely heartbreaking song in the form of what is almost a lullaby. I don't need to. Greg Olear at The Weeklings has already done that, and it's a fantastic piece of writing. I encourage you to read the whole thing. I'll give you a sample, but give your appreciation to Mr. Olear:

Song Beneath the Song: “Casimir Pulaski Day” by Sufjan Stevens
Greg Olear
Tuesday, September 4, 2012

(Come on Feel the) Illinoise, the second installment in his [Sufjan Stevens] proposed-but-as-yet-unfinished Fifty States Project, is, for my money, the best album made in the oughts. At turns lush and spare, it features the soaring“Chicago” (the best song of the decade, it says here), the frantic “The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts,” the 5/4-time title track, and the devastatingly beautiful “Casimir Pulaski Day,” known in our house as, simply, “Sad Song.”

When my son was two, he was having a tantrum, as two-year-olds will. As he screamed and complained, “Casimir Pulaski Day” came on the iPod. He immediately stopped crying, as if a button had been switched off on his back, and walked to the speakers, listening intently, spellbound by the music. “This is a sad song,” I told him. “Sad Song,” he repeated. And so it has remained.

I’ve listened to “Sad Song” hundreds if not thousands of times. I don’t mean I had it on while I was driving, or in the background with friends over; I’ve listened to it. I hummed the trumpet part to my daughter the night she was born. I’ve sung it to her and my son as a lullaby countless times, and each time, as I sing lyrics I know by heart, some new flash of insight hits me. It’s a song that never fails to move me.

“Casimir Pulaski Day,” the seventh track on the Illinoise, concerns a young man’s memory of the week leading up to the death of his dearest friend. It is unquestionably the best song ever written about a 12-year-old girl dying of bone cancer.

There is an adolescent and artless quality to the lyrics. There is no metaphor, no fancy fifty-cent words, no coherent structure. The story itself is poorly told; we must assemble and organize the traces of the narrator’s memory to deduce what happened. The music underscores this simplicity: the same four chords repeated over and over, uncluttered arrangement, none of the swirling synthesizers and female chorales and abrupt shifts in dynamics that characterize “Chicago” and “The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts.”

But it is this very artlessness that makes the song so moving.

The entire piece is here...

Maya Beiser - Kashmir (Live on Soundcheck)

Another two-post day, but this was too good not to share. I've featured Maya Beiser and her remarkable playing before, and this inspired cover version of the classic Led Zeppelin song "Kashmir" is definitely worth a listen. I especially enjoy how Beiser uses electronic effects, including delays and looping, to allow her to essentially accompany herself in this live performance at the show Soundcheck, produced by WNYC - New York Public Radio.

Return to Forever - Majestic Dance

Stanley Clarke, Chick Corea, Al DiMeola and Lenny White

I was already a music fan for years before I started learning to play guitar, having raided my mom's collection of 45s in my single-digit years, playing them on her squat brown bakelite-encased record player that only played 45 rpm singles broadcast through a single cheesy little speaker (I'll explain what a 45 single is later, young ones, don't panic), but once that educational process began, I became totally obsessed.

My best Christmas present when I was 11 was a guitar...it was a cheap, poorly-made import, but it was mine. It was a Decca acoustic guitar, and it was a musical instrument in name only. This wasn't a guitar to learn on, it was a tough-love device that made you prove that you really wanted to play with each note. And I did it until my guitar teacher informed my parents that I really did want to play and that I had what it took to get to the next level. And they gifted me with the guitar that I will treasure for the rest of my life...a Gibson acoustic guitar.

It never had one of the trademark red and white labels inside to identify its particular make, so to this day, I'm not entirely sure what model this magnificent dreadnaught happens to be. It looks like a Gibson Heritage model from 1971, but I'm not certain. I don't care. It sounds and plays beautifully, and it has aged like a fine wine. I'm the one and only owner of this beauty, and I've treated it with love and respect, just as it deserves.

When I was 12, my best Christmas present was my own AM/FM radio. It was only portable in the sense that it had a handle. About 8" wide, a foot tall and probably 4" thick, it was powered by either six D-cell batteries or through its AC cord (non-detachable, but you could stash it in the same compartment with the batteries if you wound it up right). And the antenna...it extended out about 3 feet from the side of the radio case, and with its swivel base, it could accommodate some pretty arcane angles in search of a strong FM signal. I loved it, and I had it on constantly as I dialed between my favorite stations trying to catch a good song (anything that featured a lot of guitar, essentially).

And when I was 13, my favorite Christmas present was a record player. I could finally buy and play LPs.

So I was set. The radio helped me find more music, the record player allowed me to play my favorites as much as I wanted and I had my hands full (figuratively and literally) trying to learn how to play all those songs. I was never very good at that last part, but I didn't care at all.

But I found myself needing more out of my music, and somewhere between my 13th and 14th birthdays, I discovered public radio and a whole new world of music. West Virginia Public Radio played classical music by day and jazz at night, and I fell in love with both. And they were so different. Classical was so orderly and precise and formal. I used to take my radio to the bathroom so I could listen to the New York Philharmonic in concert as I took my Sunday bath (hey, I was a kid).

Charlie Byrd, Barney Kessel and Herb Ellis

Not jazz. Jazz was looser and wilder and more unpredictable. Sure, you don't get much more precise than tunes by Duke Ellington and Count Basie's big bands, or Quincy Jones' arrangements for Frank Sinatra. But I tended to favor jazz a little more as I discovered musicians such as Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck, Thelonius Monk, Charles Mingus and Miles Davis. And those guitarists...Joe Pass, Jim Hall, George Barnes, Tal Farlow. The first issue of Guitar Player magazine I ever bought featured a cover story on Charlie Byrd, Barney Kessel and Herb Ellis, all of whom I'd first heard on public radio.

Then came what Frank Zappa once referred to as the "dreaded jazz-rock fusion" music (even though he dabbled in it a bit himself on "Hot Rats"), which, of course, immediately caught my teen-aged attention. John McLaughlin's playing with the Mahavishnu Orchestra changed my world. Larry Coryell was another who could blaze away with the best of them. Miles Davis blew everyone away with the groundbreaking "Bitches Brew," which featured a fantastic array of musicians, some of whom would go on to assemble a couple of my favorite bands of the era.

Jaco Pastorius

Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter would go on to form Weather Report, and their album "Heavy Weather" is a classic (which contained their great hit "Birdland," a tune you'll probably recognize right away), and it more or less introduced the world to the blindingly talented and tragically flawed Jaco Pastorius, one of the most influential bass players of the past few decades, especially in jazz. To this day I still hear young bassists playing parts very clearly bearing Jaco's distinctive style and sound.

Then there was Chick Corea and Lenny White. They eventually went on to join forces with Stanley Clarke and Al DiMeola in the mid-1970s in what is sometimes referred to as the classic lineup of the group Return to Forever. Their 1976 album "Romantic Warrior" would become their best-selling recording, earning the group a gold record.

That also was the last recording of that particular lineup. Corea decided to change the group, and he reformed RTF without White and DiMeola after that release.

But that album was, and still is, stunning. The compositions are tight and complex, and we get to hear a group of musicians at the top of their game. Corea was one of the veteran musicians in the combo and the band leader, and his keyboard work was intricate and inspired. A colleague from his days with Miles, White was a force of nature on his drumkit, providing thunderous fills throughout the album while still providing nuanced percussion where it was needed. Bassist Clarke and guitarist DiMeola came across as the young turks, young men who were full of energy and creativity and prodigious technique. These two lit musical fires and fanned them so they could see them burn. Yet they could still dial it back into a more relaxed groove when the song needed exactly that approach. Versatility was, and is, a virtue.

I couldn't get enough of that album. DiMeola and Clarke in particular grabbed my attention in a major way. I'd never heard playing like that before. I didn't even know you could play like that. I was astonished every time I heard Clarke weave through one of his complex bass runs, when I heard DiMeola pull off blistering licks, often muting the notes with the heel of his picking hand to make the notes pop in staccato flurries. It became known for a while as his "Mutola" effect, a playful amalgamation of the word mute and his last name DiMeola.

No, I never learned how to play anything by Return to Forever. To be honest, I was a little too intimidated by what I was hearing to even give it much of an attempt. But I still love that music.

These days, I don't listen to as much jazz or classical music as I used to, even though we have a great classical music radio station here in Dallas (WRR Classical 101.1 FM) and one of the best jazz radio stations I've ever heard, broadcasting from the University of North Texas campus in Denton (KNTU 88.1 The One).

Yet the desire for more music is still firmly in place, and I still welcome every discovery. And yeah, sometimes I still wish I could play a little more like Al DiMeola did in today's featured track. That's a part of my youth that I don't want to outgrow.

The Pearlfishers - Across the Milky Way

Note: The video graphic is actually the album cover for The Pearlfisher's album "Up With the Larks," and it's a fantastic recording. But it's not "Across the Milky Way."
Photo below: David Scott, singer/songwriter and frontman for The Pearlfishers, age 12.

Respect The Elders.
Embrace The New.
Encourage The Impractical and Improbable,
Without Bias.
- David Fricke

Those beautiful and simple words, voiced over the song "Acknowledgement" from John Coltrane's transcendentally epic album "A Love Supreme," comprises the opening of pretty much every episode of Vin Scelsea's wonderful radio show "Idiot's Delight."

Vin is a rare bird, one of the last of his kind, and something that should be treasured...a freeform FM radio DJ. Freeform radio has been with us since the late 1960s, and Vin Scelsea is one of the pioneers of the genre, cited as "the founder of freeform on WFMU," a great public station that still broadcasts today, and it's as gloriously eclectic as ever.

Here's an excerpt from Kathleen O'Malley's Definition of Freeform, published in the "Historical Dictionary of American Radio" that explains things a bit more:

Freeform Radio: An approach to radio programming in which a station's management gives the DJ complete control over program content. Freeform shows are as different as the personalities of DJ's, but they share a feeling of spontaneity, a tendency to play music that is not usually heard. Their ideology tends to be liberal or radical, though their program content is not usually overtly political. Many DJ's mix diverse musical styles, engage in monologues between music sets and/or accept callers on the air. The only rules that free-form DJ's are bound by are FCC regulations such as station identification and restrictions on foul language.

Vin's "Idiot's Delight" shows are always an adventure. He has introduced me to some remarkable music over the years, and his interviews are thoughtful and insightful and always engaging. I first discovered him around 2000 when he was hosting a daily noontime show called "Live at Lunch," which sometimes broadcast from his home studio, and sometimes from a custom-built studio at J&R Music World (now closed) in New York City. The show streamed live online, and I listened to it as much as I could at work, headphones in place as I toiled away. It was exactly what I needed.

And those shows...sometimes, Vin would happen upon a theme and play a string of songs that fit into that theme. Perhaps the color blue caught his attention for some reason. Out would come songs from the album "Blue" by Joni Mitchell, or perhaps "Blue Valentine" by Tom Waits, or maybe "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis. He might decide to play Johann Strauss' "Blue Danube Waltz," or "Blue Bayou" by Linda Ronstadt or even "Song Sung Blue" by Neil Diamond. That's the beauty of freeform radio. Anything goes. On one afternoon while broadcasting from his home studio, he noticed it was raining, and for the last few minutes of the show he simply placed a microphone near an open window and just let the sound of rainfall serve as the coda.

When "Live at Lunch" ended in 2001, I followed him to his regular spot at WFUV hosting "Idiot'sDelight," and there I have stayed almost every Saturday night from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. EST.

That's where I discovered The Pearlfishers and their fantastic album "Across the Milky Way."

The band is from Glasgow, Scotland, and it's fronted by singer/songwriter David Scott. Here's a bit of background from a piece in The Los Angeles Beat:

No Room for Rock Stars: an Interview With David Scott
Posted on June 13, 2012 by Shirley Pena

David Scott has come a long way since he was a teenager in Glasgow, writing songs and dreaming of a successful career in music. Born in Falkirk, Scotland in 1964, he is without a doubt  that city’s greatest export since its demise as Scotland’s center of the iron and steel industry in the 18th-19th centuries.

Says David: “Falkirk is slap between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Many will have passed through on their way from one city to the other.”

Since forming the Pearlfishers in 1989, he has refined and broadened the band’s sound, while gaining a cult following in his native Scotland for his work in both the Pearlfishers and later in BMX Bandits.

Renown for their luscious mix of acoustic-driven soft pop and subtle orchestral flourishes, the Pearlfishers have remained hugely successful in their native country, influencing a number of bands there.  As the band’s only constant member, David Scott has served as its guiding light since 1989, constantly refreshing and revitalizing the band’s sound to the appreciation of their devoted fans.

Besides his role as the band’s principal songwriter, producer and vocalist, David Scott has produced a number of recordings with other artists (most notably Amy Allison) and has played with an impressive array of high profile artists, among them Alex Chilton, Yeon Gene Wang, Ricky Ross, Maher Shalal, Hash Baz and Bill Wells.

Since 1999, Scott has also worked as a broadcaster on BBC Radio (fronting music documentaries) as well as contributed music to many theatre productions in Scotland.  Furthermore, Scott has won praise as the co-organizer of several all star tribute shows to artists such as Brian Wilson and Ennio Morricone.

David is now a lecturer at the University of the West of Scotland,where he teaches an advanced course in commercial music.

"Across the Milky Way" is a great recording, and I have nothing but thanks and appreciation for the man who has introduced me to so much music.

Thank you, Vin Scelsea.

Bonus: The 40 Best Little Radio Stations in the U.S.
By Josh Jackson | Paste

Sufjan Stevens - Angels We Have Heard On High

That's right...it's become a two-post day.

Normally, I'm not a big fan of Christmas music, simply because I've heard so many of the old standards so many times over and over through the years. But once in a while, something pops up and surprises me.

Thanks to Vin Scelsea's show "Idiot's Delight," here's my most recent surprise. There will be more on Vin in tomorrow's post, as he figures prominently in the course of discussion.

Sufjan Stevens has recorded a number of Christmas songs over the course of his career, often rewriting them, revising them, adding new lyrics to make them a much more personal of an expression of his own sentiments. His reworking of "Angels We Have Heard On High" is a beautiful example of that.

Finally...I've found a Christmas song that I can actually enjoy without wanting to choke someone to death with a bowl of figgy pudding.

Willis Alan Ramsey - Satin Sheets

Willis Alan Ramsey is an enigma not just in Texas musical lore, but among his fans worldwide. He burst upon the scene in 1972 with his self-titled album "Willis Alan Ramsey," a recording rich with great songs from start to finish. One of those songs, "Muskrat Candlelight," became a huge hit under the name "Muskrat Love" by the group Captain & Tennille. It also continues to get slammed as one of "the worst songs ever" by multitudes of music press publications and reader polls.

I doubt that Ramsey cares.

But that album is a thing of music legend. Those songs, the product of a 20-year-old, middle-class singer/songwriter, didn't sound like what you'd expect from their source. He wrote tightly-constructed tunes that were rich in detail. And his voice...it was not the voice of a young man. It was an old voice, a mature-sounding voice with the burrs and scrapes of road wear, the voice of a man who had experienced more life...good and bad...than many will experience in a full lifetime.

And now, 42 years later, that album is the only one he has ever released.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama and raised in Dallas, Ramsey had the sort of high school experiences you'd expect from a young musician...a succession of rock bands with his classmates. But there was one friend from that time who changed his approach to music and led him toward songwriting.

From the story Ballad of Spider Willis, Texas Music Magazine, Fall 2012
By Geoffrey Himes

While attending Highland Park High School in Dallas, Ramsey belonged to several bands that played the usual covers: Beatles, Stones, Young Rascals. But he was also in a folk duo with Brice Beaird who wrote all his own songs. “I said, ‘God, how do you do that?’” Ramsey remembers. “He said ’It’s easy. You think an original thought and write it down.’ I didn’t know you could do that. Every time he said, ‘Here’s another song I wrote,’ it aggravated me so much that I started writing my own songs.”

Ramsey made two stabs at college, in the fall of 1969 in Memphis and in the spring of 1970 at the University of Texas. He lasted one month the first time and two months the second. “I just liked music too much,” he explains. “I had an English lit class with a great teacher who encouraged us to write what we knew. I was too young to know anything, so I decided to drop out and learn some things.”

He started hanging around with fellow singer-songwriters such as Ray Wylie Hubbard, Steven Fromholz and Allen Damron at a coffeehouse called the Chequered Flag Coffeehouse and bar at Lavaca and 15th in Austin. Before long Ramsey was getting out of town to play at the Rubiyat in Dallas, Sand Mountain in Houston and ultimately the national college coffeehouse circuit. He admired Townes Van Zandt and Keith Sykes, but his biggest heroes were Guthrie and Robert Johnson.

An old acquaintance of mine knew some of Ramsey's friends and family in Dallas, including his ex-wife. He once told me about how Ramsey was signed to Shelter Records, the record label founded by the great Leon Russell and producer extraordinaire, the late Denny Cordell, because his management figured that Shelter would be one of the only labels around that could provide an atmosphere that would allow Ramsey to give free reign to his more wild impulses.

Apparently, even the Master of Space and Time couldn't provide enough space or time to Ramsey, and he left Shelter at the end of his contract, citing "creative differences."

More on today's featured song from the Willis Alan Ramsey Press page:

Satin Sheets
This was the only song on the debut album that Ramsey recorded the way he played live—without accompaniment. Over a relaxed finger-picking pattern, he drawled, “I wish I was a millionaire; play rock music and grow long hair.”

“That was me wishing I could be as great and incredible as Leon Russell and the Allman Brothers,” Ramsey confesses. “I was trying to make light of my deep, hidden, infantile desire to be a rock star.”

The song was recorded by Waylon Jennings for 1977’s Ol’ Waylon album (and later by the Bellamy Brothers and Shawn Colvin). “Waylon was such a sweet guy when I met him a couple times,” Ramsey says. “He had this nobility in that rich baritone of his, especially when they recorded him on analogue tape early on. I had a problem imagining that Waylon Jennings would even cut one of my songs, especially after hearing the way he cut Billy Joe Shaver’s stuff. Now there’s a real writer for you.”

So here we are, 22 years after that single album was released. Where has Ramsey been? For a while in the 1980s he lived in Great Britain. By some accounts, he was studying traditional Celtic music; others maintain that he was tracing his family roots. During that time, other artists were covering his songs, among them Widespread Panic, Jerry Jeff Walker, Jimmy Buffett and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. In 1989, he returned to the United States and began performing again in Austin, often appearing with Dallas singer/songwriter Alison Rogers. They married in 1991 and continued to perform together. They co-wrote a hit for Lyle Lovett in 1996, the song "That's Right, You're Not From Texas."

He appeared on Austin City Limits in 2000, performing new material alongside his classic tunes, and he has a follow-up recording titled "Gentilly" that has been in the works for years, but that album still seems like a promise adrift in the ether. Perhaps it will come. Perhaps not.

But maybe neither Ramsey nor the rest of us necessarily need that second album. We got one great one. Maybe one is enough.

Most of us never get that much.

Beverly "Guitar" Watkins - Gonna Play the Blues For You

For as long as I can remember, music has been a process of discovery for me, whether it involves an unfamiliar style of music, a recording I didn't know about, or an artist or a group I've never heard before. It's a joy to experience new music...new to me, at least...and I actively seek out the unfamiliar. I don't make it happen as much as I used to these days, since the distractions of being an adult can tie an anchor to your heart and soul. But when I can slip the chains for a little while from time to time, great things come into view.

Beverly "Guitar" Watkins is one of those great things. I first heard about her in an article called "Playing It Forward" in Premier Guitar magazine's November 2014 issue. Written by Ted Drozdowski, it's a terrific piece that focuses on the great Music Maker Relief Foundation, founded by folklorist and musician Tim Duffy. Like the legendary Alan Lomax before him, Duffy set out to find and record obscure artists who were mostly forgotten in their twilight years, hoping to document styles of music that aren't heard much these days, if at all.

But some of these artists still have a fire going inside and they play on, partly because they can, and partly because they have to. They all seem to share a deep love for what they do, and a love for the audiences who come to hear them play. Watkins has that fire. She describes her playing this way: “My style is real Lightnin’ Hopkins lowdown blues. I call it hard classic blues, stompin’ blues, railroad smokin’ blues.”

In short, this woman can still play her ass off, and she can leave a lot of musicians more than a half-century younger than her in the dust.

From the Artist Biography by Richard Skelly at AllMusic:

Her earliest influences included Rosetta Tharpe, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Memphis Minnie, and she was exposed to the music because of her grandmother, who would play their recordings on the family Gramophone. She began playing guitar as an eight-year-old, learning by listening to the records her mother would play for her. Later, she was exposed to the records of touring bands, including Louis Jordan's and Count Basie's. She began to model her playing after Charlie Byrd and Basie's rhythm guitarist, Freddie Green. Throughout high school, she participated in a variety of talent shows and played trumpet in the school band. Her high school band master helped broaden her knowledge of jazz and blues guitar, and piano. After a succession of bands in high school, she settled in with playing with Piano Red, who later changed their name and found their widest appeal, as Piano Red & the Houserockers, which led to bookings outside Atlanta and northern Florida in cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Washington, D.C.

Although her first instrument was guitar, the Atlanta native began playing bass for a band called Billy West Stone and the Down Beats while she was in high school. In 1959, Watkins met Piano Red (Willie Lee Perryman, also known as Dr. Feelgood), who had a daily radio show on Atlanta station WAOK. She joined his band, Piano Red and the Meter-Tones, and began playing shows in Atlanta and surrounding towns. Eventually they began touring the southeast. Shortly after changing their name to Piano Red and the Houserockers, they began touring nationally and they scored two successful singles: "Dr. Feelgood" and "Right String But The Wrong Yo-Yo."

The band broke up in 1965, and Watkins went on to play with Eddie Tigner and the Ink Spots, Joseph Smith and the Fendales, and finally with Leroy Redding and the Houserockers until the late 1980s. After that, she became a fixture on the Atlanta music scene in a section of town known as Underground Atlanta.

Not just a great guitarist, singer and harp player, Watkins is a true performer. At 74, she still pulls out the stops like the blues players from years ago, like playing the guitar behind her head. As she says in her Premier Guitar interview: “I can sure enough stand-toe-to-toe with any man and play guitar just as good if not better — and nobody’s going to beat me at putting on a show.”

Know what? I believe her.

Here's more on the Music Maker Relief Foundation:

Music Maker Relief Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the true pioneers and forgotten heroes of Southern musical traditions gain recognition and meet their day to day needs. Today, many such musicians are living in extreme poverty and need food, shelter, medical care, and other assistance. Music Maker's aid and service programs improve the quality of recipients lives. Our work affirms to these artists that we value the gifts of music and inspiration they have delivered to the world. Our mission is to give back to the roots of American music.

King Crimson – 21st Century Schizoid Man

A lot of musicians have been a part of the legendary progressive rock band King Crimson, but every incarnation of the band shares one constant...founder and guitar player Robert Fripp. The iconoclastic musician has formed, reformed, disbanded and reformed the group no less than eight times over more than four decades, each iteration (which tend to last around two to three years each) reflecting Fripp's concept of what King Crimson should be at any given moment.

And those musicians include a who's who of progressive rock: Greg Lake (Emerson, Lake and Palmer), John Wetton (UK), Bill Bruford (Yes), Adrian Belew (Frank Zappa) and Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel) are but a few of the luminaries who have been a part of Fripp's ongoing effort to reinvent his musical collective over the years. And as the band members change, so does the sound...each version of the band has its own distinctive approach and style.

But the incredible "21st Century Schizoid Man," from Crimson's 1969 debut album "In the Court of the Crimson King" set the high standard that the band would meet (and surpass) throughout the group's long tenure.

From the DGM website:

King Crimson

"King Crimson is, as always, more a way of doing things. When there is nothing to be done, nothing is done: Crimson disappears. When there is music to be played, Crimson reappears. If all of life were this simple."
Robert Fripp

King Crimson was conceived in November 1968 and born on January 13th 1969 in the Fulham Palace Cafe, London (Fripp/Ian McDonald/Greg Lake/Michael Giles/Pete Sinfield), coming to prominence after supporting The Rolling Stones at Hyde Park. Their ground-breaking debut In The Court Of The Crimson King (1969) described by Pete Townshend as "an uncanny masterpiece", began a career that has spanned four decades and influenced many bands and individuals including Yes, Genesis, Tool, and Porcupine Tree.

"King Crimson lives in different bodies at different times and the particular form which the group takes changes. When music appears, which only King Crimson can play then, sooner or later, King Crimson appears to play the music"
Robert Fripp

I was part disappointed and part highly amused when I recently began seeing a TV ad for Invictus, a cologne made by Paco Rabanne and marketed by Macy's that is using a segment of King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man" as its theme music (to be fair, it's sampled in Kanye West's song "Power," the piece that is used for the majority of the spot). But the refrain from the Crimson song is what jumped out at me. Here are the lyrics to the song in question...they are pretty bleak:

21st Century Schizoid Man

Cat's foot iron claw

Neuro-surgeons scream for more

At paranoia's poison door.

Twenty first century schizoid man.

Blood rack barbed wire

Politicians' funeral pyre

Innocents raped with napalm fire

Twenty first century schizoid man.

Death seed blind man's greed

Poets' starving children bleed

Nothing he's got he really needs

Twenty first century schizoid man.

21st Century Schizoid Man - written by Peter Sinfield (lyrics), Robert Fripp, Ian McDonald, Greg Lake, Michael Giles (composers)

According to Songfacts, here is an excerpt from an interpretation of what the song is about:

Before a live performance of the song on December 14, 1969, Robert Fripp said that the song was dedicated to "an American political personality whom we all know and love dearly. His name is Spiro Agnew." Agnew was the thirty-ninth Vice President of the United States (and the first Greek American to serve in that capacity), serving under President Richard Nixon, and the 55th Governor of Maryland.

"Schizoid" is a personality disorder. It's often associated with multiple personalities, but the medical definition is extreme social withdrawal and trouble forming personal relationships. The lyrics, which were written by Pete Sinfield, take us inside the mind of a troubled individual with dark imagery and references to the Vietnam War ("innocents raped with napalm fire"). Sinfield, who started out as the band's roadie/lighting director, was their lyricist. Along with Keith Reid of Procol Harum, he's the most prominent member of a major band who did not sing or play an instrument with the act. Sinfield has said that the lyrics of this song are about "justice and injustice."

In a 2003 interview with Saga magazine, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that the guitar solo on this song was his favorite of all time. While he only mentioned the guitar part, his praise of the song drew interest for the contrast between Blair's policies and the political implications in the song.

It reminds me of when Royal Caribbean used Iggy Pop's song "Lust For Life" in a TV spot a few years back. Here is the first verse:

Here comes Johnny Yen again
With the liquor and drugs
And a flesh machine
He's gonna do another strip tease

Hey man, where'd you get that lotion?
I've been hurting since I bought the gimmick
About something called love
Yeah, something called love
Well, that's like hypnotizing chickens 

Lust For Life written by Iggy Pop and David Bowie

Note: A gimmick in this instance is slang for the paraphernalia used for injecting drugs.

Did we hear those lyrics in the spot? No, we did not. Did an entire generation or two of music fans hear that lyric in their heads during that spot? Yes, we did. And we were incredulous even as we were laughing.

At least Crimson probably is getting a little cash for licensing their song, and maybe a few chuckles along the way.

Bell X1 - Rocky Took A Lover

He said, "I wanna shine in the eye of Orion
But I drove my soul through the Black Hole."
She said, "That's a wonderful way to wake me."

"You weren't so nice last night
You're such an asshole when you're drunk."
He said, "At least I'm okay in the mornings."

He said, "The three wise men came a long way
Following that pin hole in the sky
Yeah that one right there"

She said, "I don't believe in any old Jesus
If there was a God then why is my arse
The perfect height for kicking?"

He said, "I'll shine for you, I'll burn for you."
He said, "I'll shine for you that's what I'll do."

From Rocky Took a Lover, written by Brian Patrick Crosby, Dominic Michael Phillips, Dave Brian Geraghty and Paul Anthony Noonan

The first time I heard "Rocky Took a Lover" by Bell X1, it caught me off guard. I'm not sure what I expected, but what I got was a gorgeous proclamation of love from a pair of less than likely lovers...one a romantic, one a realist...who find a way to connect in spite of everything, set to the simple underpinning of acoustic guitar and piano. What can be a more glorious statement than "I'll burn for you"?

There is a full band version of this song, but I definitely prefer the spare, stripped-down piece. It seems more fitting to the subject at hand.

Named after the first jet plane to break the sound barrier, the Bell X1 (originally called the XS-1) was first tested by Bell Aircraft chief test pilot Jack Woolams in January 1946, who became the first person to fly the XS-1, but that was a "glide flight," or unpowered flight tests intended to confirm the craft's safety and airworthiness. He went on to complete nine more glide flights before his death in August 1946.

He was replaced by Chalmers "Slick" Goodlin, who became the primary Bell Aircraft test pilot for the rocket plane, renamed the X-1-1. He made 26 successful flights in both X-1s from September 1946 through June 1947.

But the man we remember as the one who piloted the next-iteration X-1-2 that became the first aircraft to break the sound barrier was West Virginia native Chuck Yeager, memorialized in both Tom Wolfe's book "The Right Stuff," and then the movie of the same name based on that book, directed by Philip Kaufman (who also wrote the screenplay).

The band Bell X1 is a group from Dublin, Ireland, and I don't believe setting air speed records is among their long-term goals, but "Rocky" is definitely set among the stars. The band has been on the receiving end of numerous comparisons to The Talking Heads (the great Bell X1 song "The Great Defector" comes to mind right away), but it seems that every band and performer gets compared to someone else eventually. Influences are rarely something to be ashamed of, though...but if pressed I probably could name one or two apparent band influences that might be a bit hard to justify.

But music is here for us to enjoy and to appreciate, and Bell X1 has proven themselves with more than a half-dozen releases, numerous accolades and awards and a devoted fan base in their native Ireland.

Bend low again, night of summer stars.
So near you are, sky of summer stars,
So near, a long-arm man can pick off stars,
Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,
So near you are, summer stars,
So near, strumming, strumming,
So lazy and hum-strumming.
Carl Sandburg

Warren Zevon - Accidentally Like a Martyr

There are so many more songs in Warren Zevon's canon than "Werewolves of London," yet he is damned to be remembered as the writer of a novelty song. "Desperados Under the Eaves" is a superior work, as is "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" and "Excitable Boy" and "The Envoy."

But Werewolves is his legacy, for good, bad or indifferent.

When I pick up a guitar and decide to play a song by Zevon, I almost always gravitate to "Accidentally Like a Martyr." It's a great and fine piece of music, and a joy to perform.

From his website, a story from 2013:

Warren Zevon, who died a decade ago this September at the far-too-premature age of 56, was a singer, a songwriter and one of the great under-appreciated talents in modern America. But he could also be, as his friends, family and lovers will quickly tell you, a pain in the ass. He was at times intimidating, self-destructive, aloof. "He had tonnes of charisma, but when he didn't want people coming up to him, he had charisma in reverse," his ex-wife Crystal Zevon remembers. As a father, he was largely absent until his son and daughter were adults: "He had no language for dealing with children. As a teenager, I was angry that he wasn't there for me as a kid, angry at him for mistreating my mom," says his and Crystal's daughter, Ariel. And when he was drinking, he was almost unbearable: erratic, violent, emotionally absent, impossible.

This is the Zevon that became the cult legend: the hard-drinking, satire-spitting writer of biting rock'n'roll songs such as Werewolves of London, the song for which he is best known. But it's hardly the whole man and it's a version that doesn't come anywhere near to explaining why his fans and friends loved him and still love him so deeply.

Zevon was an artist's artist, relatively little known to the public but revered by the best of his contemporaries: Bob Dylan was a great admirer. Other fans included Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Ry Cooder, Emmylou Harris, Don Henley, Tom Petty, Dwight Yoakam, Billy Bob Thornton and T Bone Burnett, who played with Zevon on his last album. In Crystal Zevon's 2007 biography of her late ex-husband, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: the Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon, Springsteen writes, "[Warren] would write something that had real meaning, and it was funny, too. I always envied that part of his ability and talent." David Crosby also writes in the same book: "He was and remains one of my favourite songwriters. He saw things with a jaundiced eye that still got the humanity of things."

When trying to describe a musician's style, the usual tactic is to compare him to other musicians. But when it comes to Zevon, because his music is so highly literate and based on storytelling, the more apt comparisons are with writers. "One thing I regret," says his friend, Stephen King, "is that we never got a chance to collaborate on a song or story." In recompense, King has dedicated his forthcoming novel, Dr Sleep, to Zevon.

Hunter S Thompson was another literary friend and there were definite overlaps of sensibility between the two men: their unforgiving satire, their hard-living, their occasionally incomprehensible dark humour. Ariel Zevon recalls once going with her dad to a gig in Colorado and Thompson was waiting for them outside in his RV: "He invited Dad in, then ceremoniously draped some huge fancy cables around his neck and handed him a Taser. Who knows why? My dad dutifully wore the cables around his neck on stage, and lit up the Taser."

Warren was a difficult person. I've read his biography that revealed him for all his triumphs and faults. He had problems, and anyone who was in his life had to accept those problems as part of the package. He could be a cruel person, a mean drunk with a violent streak. But he also could be a remarkable artist. Like most of us, he was a complicated person.

But his music lives on.

Hasil Adkins - The Hunch

The grand master of psychobilly music. The wild man himself. The one-man Boone's Farm-infused band ready to rock at a moment's notice...Hasil Adkins.

Pronounced "Hassel," "The Haze" is a musical legend of epic proportions.

From his Wikipedia page:

Hasil Adkins (April 29, 1937 – April 26, 2005) was an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. His genres include rock and roll, country, blues and more commonly rockabilly. He generally performed as a one-man band, playing guitar and drums at the same time.

Growing up in poverty in the midst of the depression, Adkins' spirited lifestyle is reflected in his music. His songs explored an affinity for chicken, sexual intercourse and decapitation, and were isolated in obscurity until being unearthed in the 1980s. The newfound success secured him a cult following, spawned the Norton Records label, and helped usher in the genre known as psychobilly.

Adkins was born in Boone County, West Virginia on April 29, 1937, where he spent his entire life. He was the youngest of ten children of Wid Adkins, a coal miner, and Alice Adkins, raised in a tarpaper shack on property rented from a local coal company. Born at the time of the Great Depression, Adkins' early life was stricken by poverty. His parents were unable to provide him shoes until he was four or five years old. Some reports say he attended school for a very brief time, as few as two days of first grade.

Adkins' given name, Hasil, pronounced "Hassel", was often mispronounced. One of his brothers was named Basil, similarly pronounced "Bassel". Hasil dated a girl named Hazel, and was later given the nickname The Haze. As he explained it, the nickname came about "'cause Starlight records wanted something catchy and I didn't have no middle name."

Hasil Adkins loved to eat meat, specifically poultry, the subject of many of his songs. Following the release of 2000's Poultry in Motion, Adkins toured with "dancing go-go chicken" dancers. His diet also reportedly consisted in as much as two gallons of coffee a day, and copious amounts of liquor and cigarettes.

Aside from his fondness for meat, Adkins claimed to have but three loves in life, "girls, guitars, and cars. All three of [which] got me into trouble over the years." One such incident occurred in 1957 when he and three friends drove a car off a mountain. A local newspaper reported the car tumbled 70 feet into nearby Pond Fork. While the driver died at the scene, Adkins survived, although he sustained permanent back damage.

In the 1980s Adkins again found himself in trouble with the law. In 1983 he was living with his girlfriend who was still a minor. Her mother reported to police that she had been raped, and Adkins was subsequently charged with third-degree sexual assault, although the girl insisted the sexual acts were consensual. In October the same year, another relationship ended with jail time, when a shootout occurred between Adkins and a jealous husband. No one was hurt, but Adkins was charged with felony illegal possession of a shotgun and spent five months in jail.

Adkins was said to have suffered from manic depression and insomnia among other mental illnesses. He never married.

On April 15, 2005, Adkins was deliberately run over in his front yard by a teenager on an ATV. Ten days later, on April 26, Adkins was found dead in his home.

I missed my one and, as it turned out, only chance to meet The Haze. He was in Huntington, WV for a show at a local club called Gumby's in the late 1990s (the infamous G.G. Allin also played a show there, and I turned down an opportunity to interview him, for good reason). Some friends of mine did meet Adkins, and by all reports, he was a friendly and outgoing guy who greeted all who approached him as "brother" or "sister," arms outstretched for a hug. But I had other business that kept me occupied. Wish I'd cancelled them. My loss.

Hasil was an American original.

Michael Torke - Adjustable Wrench

Yeah, the graphic is pretty damn stupid. But the music is fantastic....

I do not like the music of Phillip Glass.

I'm sure he is a fine and decent person. I've seen a few of his interviews and a brief documentary, and he seems to be an interesting gentleman. But I do not enjoy his music.

Yes, I love minimalist music. Terry Riley's composition "A Rainbow in Curved Air" is one of my all-time favorites. Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" is a stunning work. Michael Nyman's score for the Peter Greenaway film "Drowning By Numbers" is a perfect companion to the fantastic cinematography.

Yet Glass leaves me cold.

But this isn't about Glass, or any of those other composers. This is about another music search that took me years to complete. The piece in question is called "Adjustable Wrench," and the composer is Michael Torke.

I caught the tail end of a performance of "Adjustable Wrench" on public radio. and I loved the piece immediately. It broke the rules of the stodgy classical music I heard on NPR, and I loved that.

And I never heard that piece again. Dammit. Another search.

After years of combing the classical music bins (shallow fare for us real fans, by the way) I found a CD of Michael Torke (I didn't know how his name was spelled until I found the CD) with the recording of "Adjustable Wrench." I was elated. I played the piece over and over.

Minimalist does not mean less music. In fact, there is a lot of music in the minimalist movement.

And I found it.