On the Disk-Tray Now
The Irish Ramblers, The Patriot Game (1964)
I am an aficionado of Irish folk and rebel songs, and have been all my life. This album, long out of print on vinyl and not yet available on CD, is largely the reason why.
Parenthetically, I have been able to renew my acquaintance with the album through the good offices of a family member of one of the Ramblers (now recording under the name The Clancy Tradition), who made a CD copy of the vinyl recording available to me. The Patriot Game absolutely lives up to and surpasses my memories of it – it is quite simply the best extant example of its genre. I am truly grateful to Dan Clancy for making it possible for me to hear these tracks again.
Several of the songs on this album have been recorded many times, and are very familiar to anyone interested in Irish music: “Sean South from Garryowen,” “Whiskey in the Jar,” “The Patriot Game.” All the songs are traditional, and you can find other artists’ renditions of almost all of them. But I have never heard better versions of any of these songs, by anyone. (To hear, for example, “Follow Me Up to Carlow” as it should be sung -- with just the right leer of relish at the lines “Now for black FitzWilliam's head / We'll send it over, dripping red, / To Liza and her ladies!” -- you must turn here.)
The “successor band” to the Irish Ramblers is the Clancy Tradition, and their 1998 recording Live at the Towne Crier Café demonstrates that over the 35 years since The Patriot Game was recorded, the lads have become more sophisticated instrumentalists. But back in the ’sixties they were preeminently vocalists, and the pleasure they took in singing these songs is a big part of the pleasure of hearing them. Collectors should seek out the vinyl album, and fans of Irish music should hound Elektra Records to rerelease it. It’s a tragedy and a shame for a living gem like The Patriot Game to be in danger of disappearing into the archives of music history.
[Contact Elektra Records Customer Service to request either that The Patriot Game (recorded by The Irish Ramblers in 1963 and released in 1964 as Elektra album number EKS7249) be released on CD, or, in the alternative, that the rights thereto be permitted to revert to the artists so that they can arrange for its release: Elektra Sales (“for questions on the availability of specific releases”)]

All Recommendations
King Sunny Adé, Juju Music (1982)
Nigerian superstar King Sunny Adé is usually thought of as a father of juju music, and this album explains more eloquently than I ever could why that is and what that means. Twenty musicians, talking drums, numerous electric guitars: a rich, complex sound with a highly evocative beat. Far and away my favorite album by any African musician I know.
[See also: DJMM - AMZN]

Leonard Cohen, The Future (1992)
Most of Leonard Cohen's work is frankly too new-age for me; I need something with more meat and bone to it. This album, uncharacteristically, provides all the meat, bone and gristle anyone could ask for. Two of the tracks are featured on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack, both real eye-openers, and it was on the strength of those that I bought this album. Not one track drops below the standard of quality those two tracks set. The music is compelling, Cohen's basso profundo is fascinating, and the lyrics are the kind you never forget having heard them once.
[See also: DJMM - AMZN]

Cowboy Junkies, The Trinity Sessions (1992)
I challenge any heterosexual man to hear Margo Timmins' voice on this album and fail to fall passionately in love with her. Far and away the Junkies' best album, this one features the best versions I have ever heard of Blue Moon and Working on a Building. The minimalist, yet somehow simultaneously countrified, sound cannot fail to evoke an exquisite, melancholy pleasure.
[See also: DJMM - AMZN]

Leo Kottke, Great Big Boy (1991)
Kottke is always described first and foremost as a phenomenal guitarist, which he is. But I am a Kottke fan for his lyrics, which are at their best on this album. Surreal and usually comic, I can't get enough of them. The essential silliness of many of the songs, despite their extreme sonic complexity, apparently has resulted in Kottke having a cult following among quite young children, so try this one on your kids as well as yourself.
[See also: DJMM - AMZN]

Taj Mahal, Happy Just to Be Like I Am (1971)
I am a serious Taj fan. This is, I think, Taj's best "neo-traditionalist" interpretations of black American blues music -- and it's just such a happy album. One of the very best selections from a master musician.
[See also: DJMM]

Taj Mahal, Mo' Roots (1974)
I really am a Taj fan. As far as I can tell, Taj has spent his whole life exploring the many, many variations of African and Afro-American music (mostly African-derived music, but in fact he explores other musical heritages as well), immersing himself in each particular style in turn, and then coming away having incorporated elements from it into his own active repertoire, modified to fit his personal style. This album represents his internalization of the rules and rhythms of the Caribbean. A true masterpiece. St. Kitts Woman, Blackjack Davey -- fantastic.
[See also: DJMM - AMZN]

Taj Mahal and the International Rhythm Band, Live and Direct (LaserLight)
I believe I mentioned that I was a Taj fan. This album is Taj in Calypso-immersion mode -- and it's the most intriguing, engrossing, and entertaining Calypso I am familiar with. The arrangements of Giant Step and Little Brown Dog are fantastic; unlike any other versions Taj has ever recorded elsewhere.
[See also: DJMM]

Dave Matthews Band, Under the Table and Dreaming (1994)
Ear candy! But not your audio Whopper or Twizzler, this is a sort of aural Lady Godiva gift box, every individual sweet a different, rich variant on an instantly recognizable theme. To me, it is an ideal mix of refreshingly vulgar, visceral lyrics with deceptively sophisticated orchestration of rock guitar and fusion violin. Just another perfect album.
[See also: DJMM - AMZN]

Maceo Parker, Life on Planet Groove (1992)
Parker provided a lot of the funk behind James Brown's soul sound, and has been a big part of George Clinton and Bootsy Collins' music projects as well. At various times in his long career he has headed his own band, and this is the best album from all of that. 2% jazz and 98% funky stuff, he proclaims, and he ain't lying. It's all authoritative get-your-booty-shakin' music, except the ballad-style Georgia on my Mind. Shake everything you got!
[See also: DJMM - AMZN]

Tom Petty, Wildflowers (1995)
To me this is perfect rock 'n' roll, as well as Petty's wry, nasal crooning at its very best.
[See also: DJMM - AMZN]

The Pogues, Peace and Love (1998)
A Steve Lilywhite production, this is my favorite Pogues album by a long nose. I think I know why, too. Shane MacGowan, once the creative force behind the band and now a solo artist, is a brilliant musician but perhaps too confident in his own talent, and certainly too drunk to be a fully reliable band-member. So the post-Shane Pogues albums definitely lack the guts and drive Shane brought to the band, but most of the pre-split albums have, for my taste, a little too much of McGowan's gritty, gutter style. It is my impression that Shane was the creative force behind the arrangements and writing of much of Peace and Love, but that, on account of being drunk, he was largely absent when it came time to record. The result: just the right amount of a good thing!
[See also: DJMM - AMZN]

Michelle Shocked, Arkansas Traveler (1994)
The artiste claims in her liner notes that she was inspired mainly by "blackface minstrelsy" in putting this album together; while I can detect a deep rooting in regional American folk traditions, as far as I can tell the blackface stuff only makes its presence known in an overt way on one (wonderful) track, with Taj Mahal providing back-up vocals. In any case, I'd say this is by a close call my favorite Michelle Shocked album (Captain Swing [DJMM - AMZN] being a very close second). Really good stuff.
[See also: DJMM

Spearhead, Home (1995)
Spearhead is a Michael Franti band, my favorite yet (first two: The Beatnigs [DJMM], The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy [DJMM]). This album, to me, is perfect hip-hop: a funky, clean, confident sound, everywhere touched with humor. The lyrics are highly intelligent, clearly the work of a veteran musician, but above all the sound is infectious, irresistible. Hottest track is "Red Beans and Rice" -- so nice!
[See also: DJMM - AMZN]

Squirrel Nut Zippers, Hot (1997)
The Zippers often get slammed by the music critics for a certain lack of originality... to my mind, their great strength lies precisely in their ability to avoid gratuitous originality. What they have accomplished is an impressive mastery of the swing idiom, in all its disparate dialects, permitting them to incorporate all of swing's greatest tropes and tricks into their repertoire. The result is that each of their albums is a sort of "essence of swing," the equivalent of a "greatest hits" of the whole genre. This is a wonderful album; so are their others (i.e., The Inevitable [DJMM - AMZN], Perennial Favorites [DJMM - AMZN]).
[See also: DJMM - AMZN]

Toots and the Maytals, Knock Out! (1992)
Toots Hibbert is a Jamaican ska/reggae star not sufficiently well known in the US. Happy, mellow, pass-the-spliff music doesn't get better than this album. Satisfaction guaranteed.
[See also: DJMM - AMZN]

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