When the dog is the Rock Star

Today we bid goodbye to our beloved greyhound Madge.  I know everyone has or has had that special dog that no other person has ever had and well it may be true.  Madge was that dog for our family for sure.  She was our leg leaning, excitable spinning, 60-pound 45 mile per hour couch potato.  We had Madge for 6 years, 8 months and 14 days.  That was 2,448 days to be exact.  More exacting is that we had her for 3,525,120 minutes.  I would prefer to think of her in terms of minutes because every minute with her was fun.  Every minute with her was a blessing.  Every minute with her was, well, rewarding.  She never cared that you were having a bad day because in that minute that she walked up to you you were the most important person in the world.  Everything about her came down to the minute.  We walked her 3 or 4 times a day, maybe 20 minutes or so per walk.  She was a rock star in our small town of 1,800 people.  Everyone knew her.  They acknowledged us when we walked her, but everyone wanted their minute with her.  Just to pet her, for her to lean against them, for them to just take a minute to say hello.  For that minute she was their best friend.

People asked all the time if Madge was a rescue greyhound and I guess the short answer to that is yes, but the real question is who was the rescue and who was the rescuer?  We did adopt Madge from a greyhound rescue, so in that sense, she was a rescue, but she also rescued us.  She rescued our family in that she provided so much new joy to us.  In the beginning, we loved watching her learn new things.  Seeing her confusion looking in a mirror, trying to figure out where those steps went and then figuring out how to maneuver on them.  Watching her suddenly wake up and start spinning on our living room floor while my wife and I watched thinking what in the world is wrong with this dog.  Spinning became the funny sideshow to many a stunned passersby while we were on our walks.  As Madge grew older, her muzzle turned white, all of those super muscles got a little softer and the affection grew even stronger for our family.  Always the lover of nature she started posing for her morning photos in front of and inside of any bush or flowering plant that she could find.  Madgie started getting a following on facebook as the daily pictures captured hearts near and far.  Madge was in her element, she was making people feel better, she was making people happy and most of all she was making people forget time and just admire her love for everything around her even if just for a minute. 

We adopted Madge around the same time as Marley and Me was released in theaters.  I remember watching it then thinking that I hope we didn’t have a dog like Marley.  WOW!  That dog was crazy!  But in many ways we did have a dog like Marley.  Marley captured your heart for his crazy rambunctiousness.  Madge captured it the opposite way.  She was calm and oh so very sweet.  She was the photo negative to Marley, but in the end, they were very similar.  They were full of life until they weren’t.  Madge didn’t give us time to prepare.  She was sick a few days and wasn’t drinking much water and didn’t feel like eating, but she was still Madge.  She was always looking for a person to lean against, a hand to pet her on her head or a kid to lay down next to right up to the end.  When I took her to the vet today and stood talking to the technician, there was Madge, leaning against my leg while I played with her ear (she loved that).  When it was time, she was dutiful in her love for me understanding the tough decision that I had just made and she assumed her normal position as I sat on the floor.  She laid her head against my leg, waited, and then, she was gone. 

My daughter Rachael found the excerpt from Marley and Me that summed up what a dog wants, “A dog has no use for fancy cars, big homes, or designer clothes. A water logged stick will do just fine. A dog doesn't care if you're rich or poor, clever or dull, smart or dumb. Give him your heart and he'll give you his. How many people can you say that about? How many people can make you feel rare and pure and special? How many people can make you feel extraordinary?"― John Grogan, Marley & Me

For the entire time that Madge was with our family I worked from home.  Everyday, all day, when I was the only one in the house, she would lay behind my office chair except when it was time to go for our 3 o’clock walk or when she heard the kids’ school bus.  Then she was all business.  She could always sense when I may have had a difficult phone call or when I was tense.  She would get up from her spot and make me take a minute to pet her.  That was Madge.  The ultimate officemate.  She just wanted me to take a minute to relieve MY stress.  In the evenings when it was time to watch TV there was Madge, sharing the couch with me watching baseball, football, a thousand movies (including Marley and Me just a couple of weeks ago), a million TV shows, anything.  She just wanted to be there.  To her, every minute counted.  All 3,525,120 minutes to be exact.

My blog is about playlists and music and while this blog post is about my dog it is also about music.  Madge was rock and roll, Madge was jazz.  She was singer songwriter and pop.  She was country and she was techno.  Madge was all of the emotions of the music that I loved rolled into one living immortal being.  Like a great song, in my heart and mind she will never die.  Like the great songs that have seen me through a lot of pain and sorrow, happiness and joy, Madge’s love for everyone in our house won’t be drowned out because she isn’t here anymore.  My office sure is quiet though.

My playlist dedication to my Madgie.  They are songs that make me think of her.

More Like You- Freebo

Summer Breeze – Jason Mraz

Rainbow Connection – Johnny Mathis (or Kermit.  Your choice)

Gone To The Dogs - KT Tunstall

Please – John Carrie and Moor Green
Old Blue Chair - Kenny Chesney

Down The Road – Mickey Hart
Morning Dance - Spyro Gyra

Gift – O.A.R.

You’ll Be In My Heart – Phil Collins

Reach For The Sun – The Polyphonic Spree

Secret Of Life – Richie Havens

Hymn - Ultravox
Wild Horses - Rolling Stones

Old soul, new jazz? All good.

So I am not a guy that likes to write reviews of a record.  I like to talk about the body of work that an artist produces.  Often times I find brilliance in an album only after hearing a follow up album or what an artist is trying to do after hearing the next album they produce.  In my last blog entry I talked about John Carrie and his song, Please.  It was the song that was used in the video for Denver the Guilty Dog.  I think that some people understood when I said that in my opinion it wasn't even the best song on the CD and that CD in my opinion wasn't even the best in John Carrie's collection.  Keep in mind, this is my blog, therefore my opinion.  I got several emails from people telling me about how wrong I was about the song.  Many are convinced that THAT song is the best that he had to offer and it was perfect for the video.  My reply to every one of those people was the same and their response to me was expected.  Question, how many of John's CDs do you own and or have you listened to?  Every single person that responded to me was basically the same.  They only knew that song and only because of that video.  Typical, you can't base an opinion on one song from one CD.  You especially cannot base whether a song is his best or worst if you don't even know what his body of work entails!  Oh, and the song wasn't written for that video.  That just sort of happened.

Now here we are today, a few days after my seemingly hate filled post writing another about another artist with a few great albums.  By the way, John Carrie personally responded to my post (Cool! I know, Right?) And thanked me for the post.  He went on to post my blog link on his facebook page.  I think that people that don't know his music were more upset than he was that I said that Please wasn't the best song on that CD and that CD wasn't his best work.  And to that point, I never said that Please wasn't a great song.  In fact, I said it WAS a great song.  That should tell you how good the CD was.  I guess my second question is, why send me email telling me you dislike my post.  Why not just post it on my page.  I don't hide from people's free speech.  I encourage it.

Now, on to today's musings.  If you were to take the amalgamation of the soulfulness of Teddy Pendergrass, add the impeccable tone of Luther Vandross, throw in the savoir faire of Johnny Mathis and top it off with the timelessness of Nat King Cole, what would you get?  Or try this, if you had the Manhattans and tossed in the O'Jays and flavored that with the Isley Brothers and garnished all of that with Smokey Robinson and the Miracles can you imagine the sound?  BUT, what that would you get if just for good measure you added Charles Mingus, Idris Muhammad, John Coltrane, Ahmad Jamal and Johnny Hartman?  Well, you would get an idea of who Gregory Porter is.  He is all of that but then again none of it.  He is his own man and his band are who they are and together, Gregory Porter and his band are exceptional.

I was turned onto Gregory Porter a couple of years ago by a friend.  I had never heard of him but one listen to his record, Water had me hooked.  The title track instantly put my mind at ease.  It was like a warm summer day right after a cooling rain shower.  It made me feel good.  It made me feel happy.  It made me feel cleansed.  Gregory's wonderful baritone voice is comforting in everything that he sings.  As you listen to him, you do not tire as with many vocalists.  Just the opposite, you find energy building with each song.  As I listened deeper into his first album, I found so many memories pouring out of my youth with, 1960 What?  I was born in 1965.  I do remember the last part of the 60s albeit mostly snap shots in my mind. That said I do remember the early 70s vividly.  This song reminds me so much of living in Long Beach, California in the early 70s.  I can see the the Afros and Cadillac Eldorado's slinking down the streets in LA.  I can see the racial inequalities and Vietnam War playing out on the nightly news.  I can hear 1960 What as the soundtrack of that era,  I remember those African American men on the street corner along Pioneer Blvd where we lived in Long Beach and talking to them and just thinking how cool they were.  I was a 6 or 7 year old kid.  I didn't know anything about racial problems really. I just knew those guys were cool and Gregory captured that on this that song.  That song is funk, not in the way of say Parliament or the Bar-Kays.  No, none of that.  It is funk as in Gregory Porter.  Like I said earlier.  He is his own man.  One of the things that I generally hate is when an artist takes a song that was made famous and then sings it the same way as the original.  I have heard Feelin Good (written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse) done by a million artists.  None and I mean none measure up to Nina Simone.  The musicianship is only overshadowed by her impeccable vocals.  No one has ever come close.  Gregory Porter's version is special too and comes as close to her version as I have ever heard.  How is that possible you may ask?  He captures in a stripped down, no instrument version the emotion that she used an entire orchestra to get.  She sounds beautiful in her rendition but his puts the heart and soul of a share cropper picking cotton on a hot summer day in the Deep South at the turn of the century into my mind.  Proof, that vocals from a wonderful vocalist can do for your mind and soul what a good book can do for you thoughts and imagination.  Having talked about his funk and soul I haven't talked about the smooth, silky jazzy art that oozes from this man.  The first song on this album is called Illusion and that is exactly what he paints.  This song is "pretty".  That is until you figure out that he is talking about a broken heart.  A great talent can make you feel good by sometimes telling a sad story.  THAT, is the kind of artist that Gregory Porter is.

So who is this vocal magician?  He was born in the early 70s in Southern California not far from where I lived in fact.  His mother being a minister gave him opportunity to sing in church.  Perhaps that was where he gained that big, soulful voice.  I don't know, but I am glad he found that voice because we are better for it.  He excelled in football and earned a full football scholarship to Division I, San Diego State University.  Not too shabby!  Lucky for us (unlucky for him) he injured his shoulder and had to find something to do with him time.  His body of music is a pretty good trade off I’d say.  

Anyway, back to the music.  How does one follow up a great freshman effort of a record?  I mean Water really was a great album and was very well received.  I don’t think I have seen a negative article about it.  In fact I think it was universally liked.  Well if you are Gregory Porter and you have set a very high standard and have lofty goals, you release, Be Good.  I will admit that the lullaby title track had me hooked from the first time I heard it.  I would have bought the CD for just that track but if I had only listened to that song I would have missed out on an album that I count in my top 50 records in my 48 years of life (I will be posting that list soon).  Every single song on this record is smashing.  Yes the tone is exactly what you would expect.  Perfect, spot on and full of timbre.  BUT, it is also so much more than that.  It is timeless and warm.  The tone and joy and sadness in his voice is palpable.  He is able to play with emotion and wrap your mind around the theme of every song.  Be Good is about him being relegated to the “friend” group in a woman’s life that he cared deeply for.  What man among us has not felt that sting only to recover to something better later?  So, if 1960 What, on his first record painted a picture of life in LA in the 60s and 70s then On My Way To Harlem is the New York City anthem.  I can imagine guys getting ready to step out to the Apollo or Minton’s in the 60s to take in Dizzy or Charlie Parker or Billy Eckstine.  If you continue the tour of this record to track number 8 you get to a song that so beautifully and exquisitely paints a picture of what a mother is.  The love of the idea of what a mother is is so imbued in this song that you can’t help but hope every mother is like this.  We are familiar with “I am woman, hear me roar”.  This song is more like, I am mother, hear me whisper to you what you need to know and show you how to love.  Following Mother’s Song up a few songs later is the ever meaningful God Bless The Child.  Again, as Feelin’ Good on his previous CD, I have heard this song redone over and over almost to cliché.  Everyone has their own take on it and this version is absolutely fantastic.  Gregory’s effort is spectacular in that as he did with Feelin’ Good, he does it sans any instruments aside from his vocals.  God Bless The Child is stripped down to only the emotion in his voice and what emotion there is.  This follow up to his first record is more a follow on than follow up.  I copied the first and second CD to my computer and then put them into a playlist and hit shuffle.  Other than the fact that I know what songs are on each CD. I couldn’t tell the difference in style or emotion.  Both flow easily and succinctly together.  As I said at the outset, I don’t like to necessarily review an album but prefer to talk about an artist and their body of work because often, a CD will build on and create space for the next record.

So for his first two records, Gregory did an outstanding job of laying a foundation for people to fall for his ample talent.  This is a guy that was nominated for 3 Grammy Awards and won best Jazz Vocal Album in 2014 for his third album called Liquid Spirit.  What is amazing to me is the number of people that don’t know of Gregory Porter or the albums of which he created.  In fact, if he walked down the street of Anytown, USA there is a really good chance the no one would even recognize him.  I have a feeling that will change.  With as much talent as he has, it is bound to change.  People that do know him love him.  They love the fact that he moves at his own pace.  They love the fact that he will wear a flat hat that has been modified with a complete neck cover because he wants to.  And finally, people love him because he is real.  You don’t get a guy that needs Pro Tools or Auto-Tune or anything else to alter that voice.  To do so would be awful.  

As I mentioned, his third record won a Grammy for best jazz vocal album.  Here is the great thing, this record expands on his second which tied your emotions to his first.  Great artists can build your expectations over time just by staying true to who they are and what they are.  Liquid Spirit starts with a bird and the luck of a broken wing delicately mended with love.  No Love Dying is a great song about the goodness that is there if you can accept it and then pass it on.  This song features an incredibly tasty sax solo that ties the song together also.  When you move on to the title track, Liquid Spirit will take you down to the muddy river that is reminiscent of Muscle Shoals.  This song is the epitome of old blues spirit.  You will find yourself tapping your foot, clapping your hands and bopping your head the whole way though.  I challenge you to try to not feel the funk coming out of this muddy water anthem and just when you have your heart up you are pulled a couple of songs later into Water Under Bridges and you are transported to a whole new emotion at light speed.  We are transformed to a beautiful ballad that sums up the song that hit you with raw emotion just a few minutes before.  “It’s like water under bridges that have already burned.”  It is everything that the song before wasn’t.  Liquid Spirit was the mud in the water, Water Under Bridges is the emotion that was in the mud. Moving forward again you are treated to Movin', a soulful 70s sounding song that could have easily been recorded by anyone from Lionel Richie to Lou Rawls to Al Jarreau.  This song is about that guy that has his heart set on a woman but she doesn’t really notice and if there is a song that defies time it is this song.  This could have been released in the 60s, 70s, 80, or 90s.  It sounds perfect for the 2000s and today.  It is just that cool.  It sounds like something that you have heard before but then about like nothing that you have ever heard.  How many artists can make you feel that way?  Those that have heard the song know exactly what I am talking about.  Those that haven’t, what are you waiting for.  

Gregory Porter has come along at a time when the music industry is lacking.  Pop stars are a dime a dozen and few have any talent outside of Pro Tools and Auto Tuning.  Other than their looks they are devoid of talent.  Many of the Jazz artist that I have heard lately are people that tend to screech out notes that are so far above their talent level that they cross the line of jazz and barely tolerable R&B.  Speaking of R&B, most isn’t.  It is a bastardized version of hip hop.  Jimmy Scott, Jon Hendricks, Nina Simone and even Cab Calloway are in my opinion the standards by which all jazz vocalists should be judged.  Gregory Porter fits in that mold.  Is he that level right now?  I don’t know, I know that he can hold a person’s attention like they did.  I know that he has the ability to set a standard as they did.  Only time will tell but if his first three records are any indication of what he is capable of, I would say we are in for a treat.

Be Good by Gregory Porter

Hey Laura by Gregory Porter

1960 What? by Gregory Porter

And Jools Holland on Gregory Porter

 Link to him on facebook and see him when he travels near you.  Gregory Porter's facebook page.

What's in a song?

A dog, a chewed up package of cat treats and a great song.  Kind of a strange set of bedfellows wouldn't you say?  Well that is how most people were introduced to John Carrie and Moor Green.  Who hasn't seen Denver the dog and his guilty looking expression when confronted with the evidence of his crime, all the while, a great song is playing in the background pleading, Please, Please, Please.  Well, I doubt that when John Carrie produced that wonderful song that it would take a guilty dog to promote it.  Hope he's getting some sort of royalty because it has been seen almost 40 million times.  If that song however is the only thing people ever hear from John Carrie they are sadly missing out.  To me, Please is a great song but it isn't even the best on that CD and that CD isn't even the best that he has recorded.

As I write this I am listening to his latest effort (from 2012 actually), Shy Away.  It is a mind blowing piece of work that has 12 songs and spans about 45 minutes.  It doesn't have the hooks like Sewn Up or Past The Point from the Clearing Air or the studio polish of Today or Back to the Sea or of course the aforementioned Please from Folk Is Not Happy.  Shy away is a CD that is raw and sans Moor Green.  It is John Carrie pouring his heart and mind out.  It is stripped down and directly to the heart on every song.  No over the top production like we find all to often by artists trying to capture their angst or heartbreak in a studio with pro tools and Auto Tuning. No, there is none of that.  What you get with Shy Away is a CD that you have to sit and take in song by song by song and probably several times until you get the whole thing.

The first song is Coming Back To Life and if you have ever been knocked down and gotten back up and took on the world and then won, this is your song.  Just remember to listen with your mind.  A couple of songs later we are treated to Killer Blows.  It is all about the human condition.  Life is tough and if you let it, life will eat you alive but if you stand up to it, you can take whatever it throws at you and you can stand up to anything.  If there is a gut punch song on the CD it is The Green River.  The first time I listened to this song I thought, this is a really nice song.  It really sounds like a sweet song.  The second time I thought this has some undertones.  The third time through I was almost in tears.  It is a powerful song that you should hear.  That is all I will say except I hope that you buy the CD so that you can decide for yourself.  How do you see yourself in the grand  scheme of things?  And then there is Wintersun, another one of those songs that you need to listen to a few times.  I love this song and if I have a favorite on this CD it is Wintersun.  A song of hope but like life, not too much hope.  If you are a hardcore folk guy this album may test your patience because it is clearly John's way to express his feelings and genre's be damned.  That said, You Are My Sky is a good 'ol fashioned folk song.

So, that isn't really a review but it is my thoughts on this exceptional record.  If you are new to John Carrie start with this one.  You can get a good feeling for the power in his writing.  You get a sense of who he is before you delve into the Moor Green part of his work.  Moor Green is his band and they are exceptional on his other recordings.  Shy Away though needed to happen, it is his best work.  I stumbled across John Carrie several years ago while cruising around You Tube and found the song Over and Over.  It was a pretty bad video of a live performance but it didn't matter.  I heard the power in that song and I was hooked.  Found the CD (Folk Is Not Happy) and I have been hooked ever since.

John Carrie is not going to be for everyone and in fact, he will tick some people off because he is pretty matter of fact.  He talks about life, relationships and the world around us.  He will challenge you and if you don't like that, you won't like him.

My John Carrie and Moor Green playlist:

Wintersun
The Green River
Leaving Now
Over and Over
Autumn
The Space Between
Heal The Scrapes
Coming Back To Life
Green Think Tank
and I have to include, Please (For Denver.  The guilty dog.)

This is the video that started it all for me.  I have been hooked since.

Its been a long time.....

As I sit here writing this, I realize that it has been about 3 years since my last post.  What started out as a way to share my thoughts on music because a chore.  Really?  As much as I love music, this became a chore.  It wasn't a chore, I got lazy.  I'm going to try to post more often because sometimes in the busyness of life we need something to talk about that isn't well, the busyness of life.  Music is cathartic for me.  Some people find their imagination tested and expanded by reading a book, others watching a movie but for me, it has always been music.

So, I am going to endeavor to write more and slack less.  You can read my blog or not, your call.  I'm going to update it for my sanity not yours.  In fact, my sanity may reduce yours!  You may read something and it drives you crazy.  Well, sorry.  Well, no I'm not.  Write your own blog and express yourself.  I'll try to not be mean spirited but I'll admit that some bands and artists bring the worst out in me (insert Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus and Nicki Minaj here) and pop culture "stars" like anyone named Kardashian or Hilton.

So stay tuned for more frequent updates.  I promise you will be either informed, annoyed, enlightened, cheered up or saddened.  I may touch on an emotion or I may touch on a nerve.  I hope that you enjoy some of what I write.

I like to leave people with a playlist at the end of a post so take a listen to these songs.  No particular tie into this post other than it is what I am listening to as I write this.

Maeve O'Boyle - Taxi
John Carrie and Moor Green - Please
Lloyd Cole - Margo's Waltz
Jory Nash - The Best of Your Heart
Jack Johnson - Sleep Through the Static
Sophie Madeleine - You Are My Favorite
K.D. Lang - Miss Chatelaine
Eva Cassidy - Wayfaring Stranger
Mitchell Brunings - Redemption Song
Freebo - To The Light
Ryan Adams - Come Pick Me Up
Jason Mraz - Bella Luna
Michael Grimm - I'd Rather Go Blind
Professor Longhair - Jambalaya
Tom Waits - Ol' 55
Jason Castro - Fragile
John Mayer - Why Georgia
Lyle Lovett - I've Been To Memphis

Well, there it is.  My first blog entry in almost 3 years and a playlist to boot.  Hope that you like the music.  I do.  Some of it lighthearted, some not so much.  All of it is quality non poppy music.  So, what do you think.  Drop me a note.