#14 B.B. King (+ my favorite old songs of 2019)

Blues great B.B. King checks in at #14 on the checklist for 1991 Pro Set MusiCards Super Stars. That's the type of image that pops in your head when you think of B.B. King, so can't really complain about that, though (as with many of the cards) the picture might be a little cramped by the design.

Hey, it's the first instance in the set where the back picture isn't a secondary photo but rather a logo/wordmark. There will be a decent number of these as we make our way through the set. Running a Google image search for "b.b. king logo" doesn't show this one in the results that I could find, so I'm not sure if it's an official thing or just something worked up by the team at Pro Set. Regardless, it's pretty cool looking.

In addition to this card, Mr. King pops up again at card #253 in the Historic Concerts subset.

B.B. King. "The Thrill Is Gone" (live)

I've never been a huge fan of the blues. I don't hate it, but it's too "samey" for me to listen to too much of it before tiring of the predictable chord changes and whatnot. But that said, I've got nothing but respect for the legendary B.B. King. "The Thrill Is Gone" is the only specific song of his that I could name off the top of my head, however. I recently also listened to his record with Eric Clapton (which I checked out back when we were covering Clapton near the start of this blog) called Riding with the King which is really good.

B.B. kept frequently performing well into old age, passing away in 2015 at age 89. I remember hearing that his shows in his final years were often pretty bad, but I suppose you need to adjust your expectations accordingly when you're going to see a performance from a guy in his late 80s.


CUSTOM CORNER

In the previous post, I listed a few new/recent songs I've been digging in 2019. Now I'm going to share some older songs that've been in heavy rotation for me this past year.

Bob Welch - Sentimental Lady
A few months ago, the name Bob Welch was known to me only as the pitcher who won the AL Cy in 1990 with 27 wins for Oakland. But turns out there was a popular musician who shared that name. This Bob Welch (Robert Lawrence Welch Jr.) was a member of Fleetwood Mac for a while in the early 70s and helped guide them towards the breakout success they'd achieve later in the decade. He also had some solo hits, with "Sentimental Lady" being the one that I've been into lately. I'm kinda embarrassed to admit that I was introduced to the song thanks to it being prominently featured in a recent episode of Family Guy. I heard it on the show and was like, wow, how have I not heard this song before? I was obsessed with it for weeks, one day listening to it probably over 20 times in one day, no joke! There are a couple different versions of the song, a 1972 Fleetwood Mac version and a shorter 1977 solo version. My preference is the latter version with the more-prominent Christine McVie "all I need is you" backing vocals. Facing serious medical issues in 2012, Bob took his fate into his own hands at age 66 rather than push through a few more years living in debilitating pain, which is sad but can't say I blame him. This gorgeous song of his lives on.

Jay Ferguson - Thunder Island
Dr. Hook - Sharing The Night Together
Like with "Sentimental Lady" these are a couple more songs that fit under the umbrella that is known today as "yacht rock". I know some folks don't like the term (sorry, Night Owl), but it's basically just a shorter way of saying "soft rock from the mid 70s through mid 80s". It's a genre I'm a big fan of, recalling the "easy listening" hits on the radio when I was a kid riding in the car with my mom. "Thunder Island" is another track I have Family Guy to thank for introducing me to. Not sure who on their writing staff is making it their mission to bring attention to these lesser-known smooth gems of the past, but hats off to them! "Sharing The Night Together" is a song I was familiar with, but hadn't heard in a long time until it was featured in the recent Breaking Bad movie El Camino. It's a great song and a peaceful scene in an otherwise tense film.


Phil Collins - Colours
Genesis - Misunderstanding
I had a bit of a Phil Collins/Genesis revival this year, though I suppose I never really stopped listening to him since the 80s. Surprisingly, neither Phil Collins nor Genesis has a card in the MusiCards set despite being big names at the time, so I'll have to be sure to feature each in upcoming Custom Corners. I had ...But Seriously (1989) on cassette back in the day and liked most of the songs a lot. The track that's stuck with me the most is "Colours" which is actually a couple different songs in one, with a mellow keyboard intro giving way to an anti-apartheid rock song with big horns and big drums. With the total length clocking in at nearly 9 minutes, it didn't get much radio play and was never much of a hit, but it's an all-time favorite of mine. "Misunderstanding" is an older Genesis song (1980) that had evaded me until earlier this year when noted cardblog reader (and Collins/Genesis fan) Mr. Haverkamp asked if I could make a custom card for him using images from the song's music video. It's a neat a song. Reached #1 in Canada, but not as big of a hit in the US.


B-52s - Follow Your Bliss
Teenage Fanclub - Is This Music?
Here's a pair of instrumentals from a couple bands that were active at the time of the MusiCards set (though neither got a card) and are still around today. "Follow Your Bliss" is a dreamy track that closes 1989's Cosmic Thing, a pretty darn good record that these days is mostly just remembered for "Love Shack". And another album-ending instrumental, "Is This Music?" came out in 1991 on Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque record. It's crammed with distorted guitars buzzing away delightfully. I've got Spotify to thank for putting these songs on my radar this year by including them in "mix for you" playlists (Don't get me wrong; Spotify recommends me a lot of shit, but once in a while they hit a home run.)


Speed Round:
The Wrens - This Boy Is Exhausted - Catchy indie rock. I need to check out more from them.
Florence + the Machine - Dog Days Are Over - According to iTunes, my most-listened-to track ever.
Cymbals Eat Guitars - Jackson - I LOVE THIS SONG.
Deerhunter - Desire Lines - Another song I will sometimes listen to on repeat over and over.
Beck - Dreams / Beck  - Colors - That Beck album from 2015 was really good.
Kamasi Washington - Clair de Lune - I like to listen to this as an intro before listening to Dark Side of the Moon. (It's a whole thing I do once a month or so.. yes, weed is involved.. I'll probably talk about this more in a future post.)


And so... Those are some of my favorite songs I've listened to a bunch in 2019 that originally came out at least a few years prior. Good stuff; Check 'em out!

Next up on the blog is John Lennon.. which I'm going to try to post on Christmas Day to bring a little "Happy Xmas" to the blog, but we'll see if I'm able to pull that off. Don't have a whole lot of time for drafting posts this time of year.

Any thoughts on B.B. King you'd like to share, or any songs that you've had on heavy rotation in 2019? Sound off in the comments! Thanks for reading.

#13 Jefferson Airplane (+ my favorite songs of 2019)

1991 Pro Set MusiCards #13 Jefferson Airplane. 

Jefferson Airplane's second card in the set is an improvement over their first. I mean, you can actually see their faces on this one. It's a fine if unremarkable shot of the members hanging out near a building looking like they're on a smoke break.

The back picture seems to be from the same photoshoot as the front (same outfits). Minor typo in the write-up, as their Monterey Jazz Festival appearance was actually in 1966 (not 1967) according to Wikipedia. The person writing these likely mixed it up with Monterey International Pop Music Festival, which was a different concert that Jefferson Airplane also played, and that one was in '67.

When I was a young'un in the 80s, my mom had Jefferson Airplane's 1967 breakout album Surrealistic Pillow in her record collection. We'd slap it on the ol' turntable once in a blue moon. My favorites were "Somebody To Love" and "White Rabbit" (which isn't a big surprise since those were their two greatest hits), with the other songs not doing much for me.

Jefferson Airplane - "White Rabbit" (live at Woodstock)

I have a distinct early memory of asking my mom about the lyrics to "White Rabbit". I figured out the song was sort of about Alice In Wonderland-- familiar to me via the classic Disney animated film-- but I couldn't make out the closing lyrics at the end. My mom told me the line was "Think ahead". Like, oh yeah, (as the Boy Scouts advised) be prepared, and all that. Years later I realized the actual lyrics were "Feed your head"-- in line with the song's underlying drug theme. To this day I'm not sure if my mom was just softening the reality for me (as parents often do with their innocent, naive children), or if she truly misheard the words. I should try to ask her sometime if the situation ever presents itself. (My mom was always pretty straight-laced, though in recent years, she has shared with me that there've been a small number of times in her life that she smoked the wacky tobacky.)


COVER TIME

I thought I'd try having fun recording a version of "White Rabbit" of my own this morning. It's quite the catastrophe and although only 2 minutes long, I doubt anyone will be able to get to the end. But the challenge is there if you're up for it! Fiberoctopus - White Rabbit.mp3

Doing something a little different for the Custom Corner today. Since we're into mid December and year-end lists are popping up, I figured I'd identify my favorite songs of the year. I might cheat a bit and dip into songs from a year or two ago-- hey, I wasn't doing a music-centric blog until this year-- but the bottom line is these are a few "current" songs I've been digging in 2019.

As an aside, this year marked my entry into streaming music. I've been chiefly an mp3-listener since around the turn of the millenium. At home, I'd mainly listen to mp3s via iTunes. Away from home, I'd listen to mp3s on my iPod (or CDs in the car). My wife had switched over to Spotify a while back, and earlier this year I got a family-plan add-on with her. Seems like a pretty good deal. I haven't completely switched my listening habits to streaming, but I'd say I'm about 50-50 now between iTunes and Spotify, trying to embrace streaming more going forward.

Though I'm north of my 40th birthday and most of my favorite songs are what I was into as a younger dude, I still like to keep myself open to new music. I'm not into the majority of what's on the charts these days, but there's definitely still some good stuff out there. (I'll admit, though, that most of the modern stuff I dig is unabashedly harkening back to the 80s and/or 90s.)

I'm also still discovering cool music from the past that I hadn't encountered before, but I think I'll do a separate list for "Old songs I've been digging in 2019".. So expect that in the next post or the one after. But for today, I'll try to limit it to songs released in the past year or two.

Big Thief - Not
Big Thief - Paul
Big Thief - Cattails
Big Thief is an indie rock/folk band I just discovered a couple months ago. The Brooklyn-based quartet released their first album in 2016. Their latest, Two Hands, came out in October 2019. My introduction to them was a clip from when they were a musical guest on Stephen Colbert performing "Not" which I really enjoyed, and around that same time, a guy on Twitter was mentioning how great the new album was, so I checked it out and eventually gave a listen to their earlier stuff too. Of these 3 favorite songs I've linked above, I think "Paul" is actually from their first record, while "Not" and "Cattails" are from the new one. Think I'd crown these guys my "Favorite newly-discovered active band of 2019".

Morrissey - Back on the Chain Gang
I've been a big fan of Morrissey (and his earlier band The Smiths) since high school (early/mid 90s), though with a few exceptions, his output from the past couple decades hasn't done a whole lot for me (not to mention some of his eyebrow-raising comments that paint him as a bit of a crotchety old twat these days). But this cover of the Pretenders' classic, a bonus track on his latest release, is wonderful. Somebody on Twitter said it was even better than the original, though I'm not sure I'd go that far. (Morrissey has a real MusiCard, by the way, so we'll cover him further someday.)

FM-84 - Bend & Break (Instrumental)
FM-84 is another new band I got into a year or two ago. As the name would imply, they've got a retro 80s vibe. Chillwave or Synthwave? Vaporwave maybe?.. I'm not cool enough to know exactly what you call this type of music, but it makes for a great modern trip back to the 80s. Sounds like something you might hear in the score for Beverly Hills Cop or Knight Rider. I generally prefer their instrumental stuff, as the vocals tend to pull me out of the moment and back into the 21st century.

R. Stevie Moore / Jason Falkner - I H8 Ppl
This is a fun song about hating people in general, which I can relate to, as an introverted homebody. Turns out it's from 2017, but I only heard it recently when it appeared on a mix Spotify put together for me.

Julia Michaels - In This Place
This is an awesome, ridiculous song that plays during the end credits of the Ralph Breaks The Internet. It's almost like a parody of a modern pop song (it's about a fictional video game called Slaughter Race [in earnest] and it's chockful of over the top autotuned vocal clips), but I love it!

Susto - Last Century
El Ten Eleven - You Are Enough
A couple more recent rock songs that Spotify recommended to me. They sound like they're from the 90s, which I mean as a compliment. I've been wanting to check out more of each of these bands' stuff, though haven't gotten around to it yet.

The Glands - Atmosphere
The Glands - Save a Place For You
More songs that harken back to the 90s, but only came out recently. See, the main guy behind The Glands (an indie rock band active around the turn of the millenium) passed away from lung cancer a while back, but they scraped together a posthumous album of leftovers and rarities that came out in late 2018. "Atmosphere" is a great mid-90s sounding pop rock song, complete with vinyl scratching in the chorus. "Save a Place For You" on the other hand is a hauntingly beautiful song featuring only piano and voice. I'll have to feature The Glands more in a future Custom Corner, as they're a fantastic, relatively unknown band.

Jenny Lewis - Red Bull & Hennessy
I miss her early days in Rilo Kiley when she was less polished, though Jenny still cranks out quality album after quality album.

Lizzo - Good as Hell
It was a trip for me to see Lizzo get so popular this year. Back in 2014, I saw her open for Macaulay Culkin's band Pizza Underground in a packed small club. I hadn't heard of her at the time and thought her set was surprisingly good, but still wouldn't have predicted her to one day be up for Record of the Year and 7 other Grammys. She's also scheduled to be the musical guest on Saturday Night Live next week for Eddie Murphy's long-awaited return to the show. Should be a fun episode.

Lizzo - "Good As Hell"

I hope that if you listened to any of these tracks, you found at least a song or two you enjoyed!

How about you? What new stuff have you been listening to in 2019? Let me know in the comments and I'll check it out.