Playlist 11/2-11/08

As before, there are no themes intended other than What I Listened To This Week...

Track 1

Ted Hawkins - Bring It Home Daddy

Last week's obsession continued this week, and this is the song that started it all. A Sam Cooke fan can't help but notice titular similarities between this song and Bring It On Home To Me, and lyrical similarities between Ted's "you're my ice cream and I'm your candy" and Sam's "your the apple of my eye, you're cherry pie/oh you're cake and ice cream" from Nothing Can Change This Love. And since Ted remarked that Sam's voice "did something to me" when he got out of prison at 19, I can't help but wonder if he's joining Solomon Burke in riffing on the line. In Can't Nobody Love You, King Solomon explains, "Sam called you cake and ice cream, he called you cherry pie/Ray Charles called you his sunshine but you're the apple of my eye."

Derivatives aside, this was the song that perked my ears and made me notice Ted Hawkins. I'm so glad.

Tracks 2-4

Booker T. - She Breaks

This week's new obsession was Booker T. Jones' 2009 release, Potato Hole. The album features Booker T, best known for Green Onions (originally a B-side!) but also the legendary "resident piano player, later organ player" at Stax Records; his backing band on the album is the Drive-By Truckers, described along with The Hold Steady as the only currently touring bands that smile when they're on stage.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but the organ soothes the Truckers' gritty three-guitar-attack and it works beautifully. I wouldn't have been as surprised if I'd known that the Truckers had collaborated back in 2007 with The Great Lady of Soul, Bettye Lavette...

Bettye Lavette - I Still Want To Be Your Baby (Take Me Like I Am)

See. If I'd heard that I wouldn't have questioned for a moment whether it was a good idea to cover Andre 3000.

Booker T. - Hey Ya!

Really, wonderful. One reviewer put it best by saying this "makes the world safe for Hey Ya! again."

Track 5

The Big Pink - Dominoes

Ubiquitous and catchy. Rigorous standards here at the weekly playlist.

Track 6

P.O.S. - Low Light Low Life

It's the flight of the salesman/Death of the bumblebee.

Dance to the rhetoric.

Track 7

Girlyman - St. Peter's Bones

Girlyman, or, If Paul Simon Joined The Indigo Girls. Thank goodness John Dickerson's blog is back. He linked to a live performance of this song, and is now 2/2 in music recommendations after introducing me to The Avett Brothers earlier this year.

Track 8

Felix Da Housecat - Do We Move Your World?

Felix Da Housecat, or...Prince? So says TNC's wife. This track was a Song of the Day from The Current. Turns out it's the perfect song for making the transition from workday zone-out to interval workout zone.

Track 9

Dirty Projectors - Stillness Is The Move

I give their new album, Bitte Orca a thumbs-up, but barely. It remains to be seen whether this repairs the damage done to my hipster cred when I walked out of that Grizzly Bear concert. Pitchfork gave this album a 9.2 and wrote,

It's breezy without a hint of slightness, tuneful but with its fair share of tumult, concise and inventive and replayable and plain old fun.

Which, probably, is more or less verbatim what pops into anyone's head when they listen.

I like between two and four songs on Bitte Orca. This is one of them. I'm not sure if it's "brainy," but it's interesting.