Arriving on newsstands on December 1, this year's Oxford American Southern Music Issue, which comes with a 27-song CD, focuses on the music of Mississippi.
Inspired by the diversity and depth of the state's musical heritage, the editors of The Oxford American have scoured the Magnolia State and unearthed 27 brilliant Mississippi songs to shake up the thinking (and booties) of its audience.
In fact, the new Music Issue may surprise people who believe that Mississippi boasts only blues music. Though rightly regarded for its fantastically rich blues heritage, Mississippi can also claim the birthplace of rock & roll (Tupelo, Miss., where Elvis Presley was born) and country (Meridian, Miss., where Jimmie Rodgers, "The Father of Country Music," was born).
But, of course, even those genres don't cover it all.
Want Soul music from an underrated genius? Check. Seventeen-piece all-babe big band? Check. Lonesome Sun Records–approved hillbilly? Check. This year's OA CD includes those sounds, plus: jazz, gospel, New Wave, garage rock, 1950s pop—and much more.
Beyond the tunes, there is the text, and this year's Oxford American Southern Music Issue is no different than its 12 predecessors in attracting some of the world's most scintillating music writers to contribute. To wit:
* The nuanced and thorough Peter Guralnick on Sam Phillips's greatest musical discovery (Elvis? Jerry Lee Lewis? Johnny Cash? See our cover for the answer)
* The controversial but stylish Elijah Wald on the x-rated origins of blues lyrics
* The sublime Cynthia Shearer on her former mentor Barry Hannah's most personal mixtape
* The stupendous William Gay on one of his all-time favorite artists, Mississippi John Hurt
PLUS: A special section of The OA featuring lists and musings by a shapely medley of provocateurs, including Roy Blount, Jr., Nick Hornby, and Rosanne Cash, to name just a few.
To explore our online extravaganza of exclusive content devoted to the music of Mississippi, please visit our MISSISSIPPI MUSIC LOVEFEST!
Holy mackerel. The Oxford American’s annual music issue is always good, but this new one -- number 13 -- is a staggering piece of work. Possibly the best-ever stocking stuffer for the music nerd in your family. (It’ll pretty much fill up a stocking good.) It’s a head-shaking feat that the staff at the OA can pull off this mix of advanced-calculus-level music-writing and deep-diving obscure archive-digging compilation assembly. This year’s issue focuses on the state of Mississippi. (Last year year was Alabama, and I think this is only the second issue devoted to one specific state -- can’t wait until they get to Georgia and North Carolina.) With writers like David Gates, Roy Blount Jr., Jack Pendarvis, Rosanne Cash, Nick Hornby, Oliver Wang, Peter Guralnick, and poet Yusef Komunyakaa (!) it’s totally worth the $11 tag for brain-tickling reading. But the righteous music featured in 27-track accompanying CD is basically the most awesome mix you’re likely to acquire anytime soon.
Editor Marc Smirnoff wisely frames the issue by stressing that there’s no hope of even scratching the surface of Mississippi’s musical depth in one issue of a magazine. As he points out Elvis (“King of Rock”), Hank (“Father of Country”), Robert Johnson (“King of the Delta Blues”), Sam Cooke (Forefather of Soul), and countless other giants like Son House, Ike Turner and B.B. King, just to cherry-pick a few, were all born in the Magnolia State. And so Smirnoff says the OA (whose original home was Oxford, Mississippi) stands in awe of the state’s musical riches. You should, too.
Mississippi is a vast and deep place -- and if you’ve never had the pleasure of tooling around Tupelo, Vicksburg, Hattiesburg, Jackson and Oxford, I suggest you plan a road trip. You don’t need to be a fan of William Faulkner or the Delta Blues to practically feel you owe it to yourself as an American. If you can’t do that, this is a pretty good substitute.
There are some names on the CD that you will recognize, like Bo Diddley and Howlin’ Wolf, and some you might recognize, like academic composer (and teacher of Stephen Sondheim) Milton Babbitt and wide-ranging entertainer and bluesman Jim Jackson. You might know Jackson’s “Old Dog Blue,” featured on this CD, from the version known as “Old Blue” that the Byrds did on their Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde record. This is perhaps the most moving song ever written about a dead pet dog (sorry “Old Shep”), and Jackson’s performance is practically shamanic in its seeming ability to communicate to beyond our realm. Some of the artists, like, say, the Germans (a post-punk band from Jackson) or disco singer Fern Kinney, I’m betting you never heard of.
I’ve only just cracked into the thing, flipped through the pages, looked at the contributors, read a few of the pieces (Guralnick’s essay on Howlin’ Wolf and Sun Studio’s Sam Phillips is a perfect dual portrait, and David Gates’ piece on the Mississippi fiddle music of Carter Brothers and Son and how Ralph Peer and others recorded and marketed regional music -- old time, blues, etc. -- in the 1920s and 30s is presents a startling contrast to the level of knowledge we have about recording artists from the more recent past). I scoped out the list of artists on the compilation, listened to the CD one time through, but I can see it’s gonna keep me busy well into the new year.
(Roots & Rythms) Order The Issue Here:
http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/issues/27/
trax:
1. Uncle Jonah’s Place (1961) - Harold Dorman 2. What Can You Bring Me (1971) - Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band 3. I'm Lonesome (1957) - Ernie Chaffin 4. Heart-O-Matic Love (1955) Bo Diddley 5. Tallahatchie River Blues (1930) - Mattie Delaney 6. I'm Ready for Your Love (1982) - Fern Kinney 7. Love-A-Rama (ca. 1956) - Leon Bass & the Keystones 8. Snap Your Fingers (1962) - Joe Henderson 9. Blues, Blues, Blues (1956) - Hayden Thompson 10. Jump Children (1946) - The International Sweethearts of Rhythm 11. Howlin' for My Darling (1959) - Howlin' Wolf 12. (My Baby Loves) Chili Dogs (1951) - Dusty Brooks 13. Tit for Tat (1969) - Ruby Andrews 14. Sidewalk (1991) - The Hilltops 15. Old Joe Bone (1928) - The Carter Brothers & Son 16. I've Got the Real Thing (1968) - Syl Johnson 17. Guitar Slim (1954) - Guitar Slim 18. Radio, Jukebox and T.V. (1958) - Jimmy Donley 19. Gospel Train (1973) - The Golden Nugget 20. Rock & Roll Blues (1958) - Travis Wammack 21. Storm Thru Mississippi (1951) - Henry Green 22. Uprising [radio edit] (1986) - Wadada Leo Smith & Ed Blackwell 23. Old Dog Blue (1928) - Jim Jackson 24. Bad Girl (ca. 1965) - The Riviaires 25. Love Sick (1981) - The Germans 26. Post-Partitions (1977) - Milton Babbitt (played by Robert Miller) 27. Biloxi (1994) - Ted Hawkins
...served by Gyro1966...
Razor & Tie's 1995 collection The Lonesome Fugitive: The Merle Haggard Anthology (1963-1977) is the gold-standard among Hag collections, containing 40 songs from his classic years at Capitol Records (plus a couple of early singles originally released on Tally, later acquired by Capitol). While there are two box sets -- Capitol's essential Down Every Road and Bear Family's excellent complete recordings, Untamed Hawk -- this is the only hits collection to be both comprehensive and concise, containing all the big hits and major songs on one compulsively listenable collection. It's not just that this has all the hits, since it does, it's that the collection chronologically follows his charting singles from 1963's "Sing a Sad Song" to 1977's "A Working Man Can't Get Nowhere Today," skipping only a couple of mid-'70s hits toward the end, adding the timeless "Today I Started Loving You Again" on the first disc, thereby offering a streamlined summary of his period of greatest creativity and commercial success. While Haggard certainly has many terrific, even classic, songs from the 15 years covered here that didn't make the cut, the hits -- and every song outside of "Today I Started Loving You Again" charted, including a staggering 22 country number ones -- illustrate his growth as both a songwriter and musician and constitute one of the greatest bodies of work in American popular music. It's possible to dig deeper -- and most serious listeners owe it to themselves to dig deeper, acquiring either or both of the aforementioned boxes, along with proper albums -- but this not only serves as an ideal introduction, it's a perfect summary of Haggard's work and a necessary cornerstone of any country collection. (by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic)
.jpg)
%20ALL.jpg)
%20@320.jpg)
%2045%20-%20385A.png)
.jpg)
%2001.jpg)
