I officially am a Ben Harper fan!

Not that I belong to any “official” fan club, but I really like what he does veeeeeery much!

The first song I heard was Excuse Me Mister (from Fight for your Mind) and I got instantly interested. Then, I went on listening to the complete cd and got seduced. The next move was the double live cd Live from Mars and ... I have become a fan!

Live from Mars still is my favorite Ben Harper record. It brilliantly illustrates two very contrasted sides of Ben Harper’s musical talent.

On the first cd, he performs with his former band The Young Innocent Criminals. The songs are full of power, sometimes very electric (e.g. Glory & Consequence), even a bit chaotic (e.g. Woman in You). There are many great moments there, like Burn one Down, Excuse Me Mister and even a very good cover of Sexual Healing.

On the second cd, Ben Harper performs solo, playing different guitars. And this is the cd that gives one the opportunity to fully enjoy the voice, the lyrics and the superb guitar playing!

If you do not know Ben Harper yet, this double cd is a must!

Robert Plant after Led Zeppelin: my top 3

If you happen to shout Robert Plant the forest will echo with … Led Zep! Nothing wrong or abnormal about that, I like them too!

Nevertheless this post is about part what Plant did after Led Zeppelin split. In other words, lots of albums - with ups and downs – which I shall not try to list or describe here (here is  a good wikipedia discography page).



The only things I want to do here is to share my top 3 with you...
 

Mighty ReArranger (2005, with Plant's
The Strange Sensation)

... and to provide you with Amazon samples links if you wish to discover these albums.

• Mighty ReArranger
• Fate of Nations
• Band of Joy
  
  
  
  
  
  

Fate of Nations (1993, solo)

Band of Joy (2010, with  a new group: Band of Joy)

This for my favorites! What are yours?

Izia higelin : Energy at its best!

Izia Higelin's first album

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This young lady is French and sings in English. She is the daughter of one my favorite French songwriters, Jacques Higelin.

She once defined herself during an interview as being spontaneous, free, energetic, kind of rebel and sometimes ... rough. And that is exactly the way her songs sound!


 

Josh T. Pearson - Last of The Country Gentlemen: brilliantly sepulchral!

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Beware if depressed ! (Warning: check!)

Josh T. Pearson -
Last of The Country Gentlemen

You now may discover the beauty of this precious album precious, as rare as a public confession of a dozen tracks.

An acoustic guitar, voice and text to express the inner tension between a kind of Christ like temptation ("I am off to save the world") and accepting ones own limitations ("You need a Saviour and I just am not HIM."), to say how much a human being can feel divine, but also restricted, yet resigned.

The tone is that of pure folk, slow and darkly mesmerizing, completely dominated by the voice and guitar. A record of great beauty, then, off the beaten track.

Samples available from Amazon

Sweetheart, I aint your christ, from YouTube :

Blues proposals

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No, no, no. I promise, I will not try to wrtie the history of blues, nor will I evoke its own sub styles or the many musical genres it has influenced!  This has already been done very well elsewhere, for example on wikipedia.

I prefer shortly introducing a few contemporary bluesmen I like very much.

Starting with Seasick Steve. Blues singer and guitarist, whose gravelly voice, guitar playing and rather rough sound most directly evoke the “idea” of what is called blues.


I suggest a not so old recording, which I consider very representative of his work: Man From Another Time.

Samples are available Amazon

It is only a few week ago that I discovered Napoleon Washington, thanks a music forum. This Swiss bluesman plays a much more "sophisticated" blues, somehow slicker, than his counterpart across the Atlantic.
 

His latest album - Mud & Grace - is listenable online on his own website.

Finally, I propose a band that plays electric blues, which sounds a bit "garage": The Black Keys.
 
Here is an Amazon link to sample tracks of the album by which I have discovered them: The Big Come Up