Sons & Daughters

I don't know where I came across this but it doesn't matter. 



 

Him

It all started with Him. A song called "Him" that showed up on my Youtube recommendations since I follow the Majestic channel.



Love it, but couldn't figure out who the original vocal belonged to. One other track by Mitsu that I heard years ago was a remix of Dwele that was super dope, so I figured that this Him track was also a remix. I found Mitsu's page on Facebook and a comment on the posting of this same video there led me to look for a guy named Mabanua...who did the original version:



I went digging for more Mabanua. Found this dope video of him crafting a beat and realized that he has a great sound. More digging.I found a short track he did for an anime tv show soundtrack




I found his Dis-cogs page with a listing for a remix that he did of a song called Sweet Love by Opensouls ft Ladi6.
I couldn't find that song, but did manage to find another song they did with the same singer. The video is a bit morbid, but what a great soul song.



I recognized Ladi6's name from a house track that I have, so I dug further into her discography and found a fantastic drum & bass track by Shapeshifter (available here thankfully for purchase)



and a track off her album that reminds me of Fat Freddy's Drop (who is also from New Zealand and she has collaborated with in the past)



(There are so many Youtube videos on this post, it will never survive in it's entirety.)


 

Miss Jaye

Fun road trip to Nashville this past week, capped off with a fun night with Miss Courtney Jaye at her album release party at The Stone Fox.

I would normally have been speechless at the sight of a woman so beautiful, but since we had already exchanged a couple of emails, I introduced myself and explained that I had gotten a lei shipped over for her (she lived in Kauai for a short time) and proceeded to give it to her. She was amazed and excited. 

The new album came out last Tuesday and is a nice blend of pop and country. First video and one of my favorite songs from it.



and another new one, acoustic version 




A couple of songs have a throw-back 70's feel to them...a sound I think she was going for considering the Juice Newton "Queen of Hearts" cover at the show and the super lovely "Lotta Love" acoustic last song. 



I'm honored and still giddy at getting to hang out with CJ and her friend after the party at Santa's Pub for some Karaoke and then later to late night breakfast. I felt like an old friend. Hope we can continue to be that.

Rippin

Anyone who knows me might be sick of me talking about Andrew Ripp. Too bad. I want him to be famous and I want everyone to have the same reaction to his songs that I do.

I was telling him the other day at his ALoft hotel performance that I don't truly understand how his voice resonates with me. 

It's not about the lyrics: It's about the sound of his voice. It helps that he makes catchy and heartfelt tunes, but it's more than that. He also choose good songs to cover, like Mirrors by Justin Timberlake. (sorry embedding is disabled, but click on it)

I heard this before I heard the original and I just love it.



 

Pharrell

with all the recent talk about Pharrell's recent appearance with Nile Rodgers on the new Daft Punk, I kept meaning to come back to this track which I heard a few months back.

Catchy fun track and (in this case) hot models and bewbz in the video.



 

Imagine Dragons

It's hard to not compare them to The Lumineers with this intro, but this is better than Hey Ho

I think I heard this on the radio here in Chicago and Shazam'd it. Good stuff. 



I'm not signing up for the newsletter or anything, but the song Hear Me is also catchy

Jamey Johnson plays Hank Cochran

I posted this video a little while ago and am still in love with the song



I hadn't heard of Jamey Johnson before but this song is just so great in an old time country way. For some reason, I never got around to looking into the rest of the album...it just slipped my mind the way that things do these days, but yesterday I came across it at the library and it's just so good.

This video gives a good description of Hank and why the tribute record was put together:



Lots of great singers here; country legends even.

Beyond the Alison Krauss, the Merle Haggard stuff is excellent including the Patsy Cline classic.



and this more "uptempo" number which features Willie Nelson



Lots of other clips on YouTube if you're interested.