various artists - Mojo Presents: The Route To Quadrophenia

I've been exploring more of the original mod & beat sounds this year, hearing these songs through the lens of proto-punk/new wave. So I'm finding myself hearing an awful lot more from the Yardbirds, Small Faces, Kinks, and Who than I have in the past. For some of y'all, that may seem weird. But I'm prejudiced against the dinosaurs of rock, so I just slept on some of these bedrock rock records until this year.

...which ended up being a fun little discovery for me. The stripped-down, amphetimine-fueled rock records of the early 60s that soundtracked the mod movement in the UK fed into the first wave of British punk. So of course I'd feel a collection like this, coming in the issue of Mojo dated October 2011. With an equal balance between the contemporary mod tracks and the early rock, jazz, and R&B that inspired the song in the first place. I love having Slim Harpo and Mose Allison alongside the Creation and the Action. The addition of a new-in-2011 Booker T. song is a bit weird, but, hey, maybe Stax wasn't licensing any MG's songs at a reasonable rate for this project.

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various artists - Blues Masters, Volume 6: Blues Originals

Thorw away post: my joints are sore and I'm phlegmy and I haven't recovered from the visit from Mother Mummy. So you get some more blues masters, a perfectly apt title for something that includes Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson, and Elmore James.

I sent this one to my 11-year-old niece in a box of CDs for her to check out. Gotta turn the youth onto the goods, right?

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various artists - Blues Masters Volume 4: Harmonica Classics

Learning things about the blues is fun. For instance, I post this mainly to take the opportunity to note that it's taken more than 30 years to wrap my brain around the fact that "harp" is synonymous with "harmonica". It was on acquiring this that I realized there are at least three different "Sonny Boy Williamsons", all working wihin the milieu. There is only one Howlin' Wolf, and while "I'll Be Around" isn't "Back Door Man" or "Tail Dragger", it's still a pretty great song.

Finally, this is generally my least-favorite volume of "Blues Masters" that I've acquired. Only time and expense will tell if this remains the case, but I guess the presence of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and the Fabulous Thunderbirds knock this down a few points.

Or I'm just jealous I'll never blow the harp the way these wailers do.

Discogs

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