Mozart - Lacrimosa (from the Requiem)

Claudio Abbado conducts the Lucerne Festival Orchestra with the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Swedish Radio Choir.

Pachelbel - Canon in D Major

The Academy of Ancient Music conducted by Christopher Hogwood.

Dee Dee Sharp - Mashed Potato Time

Guitar Shorty - Slow Burn

Krugman on Trump and Economics

At the usual place.

Mr. Bush has chosen to attack Mr. Trump as a false conservative, a proposition that is supposedly demonstrated by his deviations from current Republican economic orthodoxy: his willingness to raise taxes on the rich, his positive words about universal health care. And that tells you a lot about the dire state of the G.O.P. For the issues the Bush campaign is using to attack its unexpected nemesis are precisely the issues on which Mr. Trump happens to be right, and the Republican establishment has been proved utterly wrong.

Pink Floyd - Grantchester Meadows

Probably my favorite Roger Waters song.

Amy Beach - Hermit Thrush At Eve

The pianist's name is not given for some reason. It's not the composer, Amy Beach, who died in 1944. Beach is one of the woman composers whose work has been rediscovered in the last few decades. This is her Opus 92, Number 1.

Danny Gatton & Joey DeFrancesco - Well You Needn't

I've posted this before but the link is broken, so why not. Danny Gatton was a true Master of the Telecaster, while Joey DeFrancesco was one of the spearheads of the B3 revival in the nineties. Here they work out on a Thelonious Monk classic.

The Beach Boys - Help Me, Rhonda

Happy birthday to Al Jardine, here taking the lead vocal.

The Doors - Aura Studio Demos

The Doors made their first studio recordings fifty years ago (h/t Glide magazine). Fame was still a couple of years away. Here Morrison sounds very young, the whole sound is unfinished, but the results are still fascinating.

The band here was Morrison,  Ray Manzarek, and John Densmore, plus Ray’s brothers Rick Manczarek on guitar and Jim Manczarek on harmonica, along with a woman playing bass whose name is lost in the mists of time. Manczarek's brothers and the bassist would fall away, Robby Krieger would join, and the world would open up to them.

Lily Tomlin - Edith Ann

Happy birthday to Lily Tomlin.

Krugman on Katrina, Trump, and the Lessons of Recent History

The things that Krugman says seem pretty obvious, but very few people seem to be saying them.

What we should have learned from Katrina, in other words, was that political poseurs with nothing much to offer besides bluster can nonetheless fool many people into believing that they’re strong leaders. And that’s a lesson we’re learning all over again as the 2016 presidential race unfolds.

You probably think I’m talking about Donald Trump, and I am. But he’s not the only one.

John Peel's Desert Island Discs

John Peel, longtime and deeply influential British DJ, plus the force behind all those Peel Session releases, was born on this date in 1939.

Courtney Barnett - Avant Gardener

H/t PK.

Ravel - Pavane pour une infante défunte

The Orchestra UniMi with Alessandro Crudele conducting. Not familiar with them, but they seem to know what they're doing.

Count Basie's Kansas City Seven - Lester Leaps In

Featuring Lester Young.

Jimmy Rushing - Going to Chicago

Elvis Costello - New Amsterdam

Happy birthday to Mr EC.

Quicksilver Messenger Service - Gold and Silver

Terje Rypdal, Miroslav Vitous, Jack DeJohnette - Sunrise

Guitar, bass, drums, but not a power trio.

nada is subject to the vagaries of circumstance

Terrible internet connection that I don't have the patience to struggle with, so nothing today, sorry.

Marianne Faithfull - Come and Stay With Me

Among other things, nice-sounding twelve-string guitar.

The Seeds - Can't Seem to Make You Mine

Johnny Nash - Hold Me Tight

An early Jamaican hit in the USA.

Catherine Russell - Darktown Strutters' Ball

This song is now almost one hundred years old - this version was recorded last month.

R.E.M. - Gardening at Night

Early early music by those Athenian boys.

RIP Julian Bond

He was inadvertently responsible for one of the most surreal moments of my life. In the fall of 1996 I was on my way to an 8:00 class at the University of Virginia, wending my way completely alone through the paths behind the buildings on the Lawn, turning corners often, when I suddenly came across another lone figure, dressed in a nicely tailored overcoat and laughing at something said by an unseen person in the Mercedes into which he was leaning. He noticed me and looked a little perturbed. My brain was racing trying to figure out why his face seemed so familiar, when I realized I'd seen it many times before but only when mediated by a TV screen or printed page. I nodded, he relaxed and turned back to the car, and I went on to class. He taught at UVA, so it made sense for him to be there, but wow anyway.

Steely Dan - Your Gold Teeth

Later extensively reworked as "Your Gold Teeth II" a few albums later. There are so many things I like about this song I'll forego mentioning them. Just listen.

Science Fiction/Double Feature

Happy anniversary to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, released forty years ago today.

L.C. Cooke - Tell Me

Sam's little brother.

Jimi Hendrix - Ain't No Tellin'

Handel - Concerto Grosso Op. 6 no. 4 in A minor

Happy birthday to conductor Raymond Leppard, here with the English Chamber Orchestra.

Krugman on Talking Points vs. Reality

Dr K on the things that barely registered at the Republican candidates' debate.

Strange, isn’t it? The shared premise of everyone on the Republican side is that the Obama years have been a time of policy disaster on every front. Yet the candidates on that stage had almost nothing to say about any of the supposed disaster areas.

And there was a good reason they seemed so tongue-tied: Out there in the real world, none of the disasters their party predicted have actually come to pass. President Obama just keeps failing to fail.

Dizzy Dishes

Happy birthday to Betty Boop, whose first appearance was in this cartoon; it was released on this date in 1930.

Bert Jansch and John Renbourn - First Light

Both gone now.

nada engages in non-specific activities

Nothing today, sorry.

Barbara Strozzi - Che si può fare

A seventeenth-century composer with whom I was unfamiliar.

RIP Billy Sherrill

Pitchfork has a good overview here. Here's an example of his work.

Johnny Rivers - Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu

Today would have been Larry Knechtel's seventy-fifth birthday. He was one of the most active of the Wrecking Crew, the great LA session musicians of the sixties. Here he plays the piano, one of his many instruments, on a song was originally recorded by Huey "Piano" Smith.

Charlie Shavers - Undecided

Cilla Black - Step Inside Love

RIP Cilla Black, born Priscilla White but rechristened by her manager Brain Epstein. This song was written by Paul McCartney.

The Jim Carroll Band - People Who Died

Stanley Jordan - Eleanor Rigby

 Live at NAMM 2015.

Muddy Waters with Buddy Guy - Wee Baby Blues (Oh Wee Baby)

Happy birthday to Buddy Guy. This was recorded in 1963.

Tommy Johnson - Cool Drink Of Water Blues

I've posted this before but the clip has disappeared. Recorded in 1928.

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band - East-West

Today would have been Mike Bloomfield's seventy-second birthday. He takes the final solo on this track, the one that raises everything to another level. Butterfield never played this song again after Bloomfield left the band.

Duke Ellington - It Don't Mean a Thing

The Soul Stirrers - Touch The Hem Of His Garment

Because you can't really have too much Sam Cooke.

Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival

Fifty years ago today. Mike Bloomfield on lead guitar.

Little Milton - I Can't Quit You Baby

I posted some Milton recently. How about some more?

Ted Greene - Autumn Leaves

Amazing technique.

Al Di Meola - Race with Devil on Spanish Highway

The Tremeloes - Here Comes My Baby

Written by a young Cat Stevens.

Henry Hall & His Orchestra - The Teddy Bear's Picnic

Florence Foster Jenkins- Der Holle Rache

Very few people become famous for singing badly, but here's one.

Steely Dan - Babylon Sisters

I've posted this before, but a while ago, so it's ripe for the plucking.

G.F.Handel - Water Music

First performed two hundred and ninety-eight years ago today. John Eliot Gardiner conducts the English Baroque Soloists.

James and Bobby Purify - I'm Your Puppet

Classic early soul.

Roky Erickson - Two Headed Dog (Red Temple Prayer)

Main Title Theme (Billy) - Bob Dylan

From Dylan's soundtrack to Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The real Billy was shot to death by the real Pat on this date in 1881.

The Non-Grexit

Oh boy. The Guardian sums it up.

Juan del Encina - Levanta pascual

Music written about five hundred years ago. Jordi Savall and ensemble.

Aaron Copland - Fanfare for the Common Man

The New York Philharmonic conducted by James Levine.

The Rolling Stones - Lady Jane

Greenhouse on the "Liberal" Supreme Court

Longtime Supreme Court journalist Linda Greenhouse has gradually become one of the sanest of the better-known inside-the-Beltway journalists, bucking the trend to hew to the center-right line and instead actually speaking sense. Here's an example.

The court typically takes cases in order to resolve a conflict among the lower courts, making a grant of review an essentially neutral act from which little can be concluded. Rather, it is cases like King v. Burwell and the Fair Housing Act case that tell the tale. On neither question was there a circuit conflict. Affirming the lower court decisions was a vote for the status quo at least as much as for a “liberal” result. That was especially true in the Fair Housing case. Not only the Fifth Circuit, one of the country’s most conservative courts, but every other circuit had ruled that the Fair Housing Act did not require proof of intentional discrimination. For the Supreme Court to have gone the other way, as most people expected (or else why did the court take the case?) would have manifested right-wing activism in the extreme.

Jacques Brel - Marieke

The Beatles - What Goes On

Happy seventy-fifth birthday to Mr Starkey.

Krugman on the Greek Referendum

The basics.

The truth is that Europe’s self-styled technocrats are like medieval doctors who insisted on bleeding their patients — and when their treatment made the patients sicker, demanded even more bleeding. A “yes” vote in Greece would have condemned the country to years more of suffering under policies that haven’t worked and in fact, given the arithmetic, can’t work: austerity probably shrinks the economy faster than it reduces debt, so that all the suffering serves no purpose. The landslide victory of the “no” side offers at least a chance for an escape from this trap.

The Band - Out of the Blue

Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata on Eight Floppy Drives

Why not?

Johannes Brahms - Symphony No.3: Third Movement, Poco Allegretto

Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting the Berlin Philharmonic.

nada sticks its head out yet again

Sorry, nothing today.

James Cotton - Angel Of Mercy / Blues in my Sleep

Happy eightieth birthday to one of the harmonica giants.

Mark Spoelstra - Sugar Babe, It's All Over Now

Rafael Kubelík Conducts

Here he conducts Smetana's "Moldau."

Lightnin' Hopkins - My Babe

The Rascals - A Beautiful Morning

Krugman on the Supremes and the ACA

Well, here you go.

Now, you might wonder why a law that works so well and does so much good is the object of so much political venom — venom that is, by the way, on full display in Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissenting opinion, with its rants against “interpretive jiggery-pokery.” But what conservatives have always feared about health reform is the possibility that it might succeed, and in so doing remind voters that sometimes government action can improve ordinary Americans’ lives.

Sonny James - Young Love

Let's keep this going a little longer.

The Poni-Tails - Born Too Late

How about another late-Eisenhower era hit?

 

Jimmy Charles - A Million To One

So maybe not a classic, but hey, still pretty good. Not easy to get out of your head once you've heard it.

Rocky and Bullwinkle Clips

In memory of Paul Frees, voice of Boris Badenov and many others, born this day in 1920.

Otis Redding - Try A Little Tenderness

Sure I posted some Otis just a few days ago, but it's hard to have too much. And this is a rare opportunity to actually see him perform.

The Coasters - Yakety Yak

Paul Robeson - Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen

Otis Redding - A Change Is Gonna Come

Otis does Sam.

Jimi Hendrix - Still Raining, Still Dreaming

Ulysses

Happy Bloomsday.

Wes Montgomery - Bumpin' On Sunset

John McCormack - When You & I Were Young, Maggie

Agustín Lara - Solamente Una Vez

Unexpectedly heard this performed last night.

RIP Jim Ed Brown

My favorites of his hits:

Every Mother's Son - Come On Down To My Boat

Pop music circa 1967, after things started changing but before they got really weird.

Little Milton - Feel So Bad

Jackie Wilson - Lonely Teardrops

This is how music used to appear on TV all the time: as blatant an example of lip-syncing as you'll ever see. But what a singer, what a performance, so what the hell.

Krugman on Derp

It's rat cheer.

“Derp” is a term borrowed from the cartoon “South Park” that has achieved wide currency among people I talk to, because it’s useful shorthand for an all-too-obvious feature of the modern intellectual landscape: people who keep saying the same thing no matter how much evidence accumulates that it’s completely wrong.

The quintessential example is fear mongering over inflation. It was, perhaps, forgivable for economists, pundits, and politicians to warn about runaway inflation some years ago, when the Federal Reserve was just beginning its efforts to help a depressed economy. After all, everyone makes bad predictions now and then.

But making the same wrong prediction year after year, never acknowledging past errors or considering the possibility that you have the wrong model of how the economy works — well, that’s derp.

Oops again

Skipped yesterday's post. Losing it here, folks.

Neil Gaiman Reads Jabberwocky

I think he gets a few words wrong, but overall very impressive.

Krugman on Texas and the Economy

Pointing out the obvious shouldn't create so much controversy. Here's the link.

Belief that tax cuts are a universal elixir that cures all economic ills is the ultimate zombie idea — one that should have died long ago in the face of the facts, but just keeps shambling along. Nothing that has happened in the past quartercentury has supported tax-cut mania, yet the doctrine’s hold on the Republican Party is stronger than ever. It would be foolish to expect recent events to make much difference.

nada the 97th

Not feeling well, nothing today.

Jan Peerce - Kol Nidre

What a voice.

Bismarck's Voice

Now this is a curiosity. The sound quality is terrible, but hey, this was recorded over a hundred and twenty-five years ago.

Madeleine Reads "The Swan" By Charles Baudelaire

Let us acknowledge the publication on this date in 1857 of Les Fleurs du mal.

Swamp Dogg - Sam Stone

John Prine's Vietnam-era song reconfigured by one of the lesser-known soul music greats.

Norman Blake - Whiskey Before Breakfast

Forgot to post yesterday too. I'm losing it...

Ray Charles - Mary Ann

Not feeling well yesterday so I missed a post. So how about two today?

Ray Charles - (Night Time Is) The Right Time

Skip James - I'm So Glad

First heard by many people in the electrified version by Cream, here is the original.

Bob Dylan - Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands

Let's keep Bob's birthday celebration going a little longer.

Bob Dylan - Tomorrow Is a Long Time

Recorded in concert in 1963.

Judy Collins - Marat/Sade

Debussy - La soirée dans Grenade

Alicia de Larrocha, piano.

nada sows, eventually reaps

Nothing today, sorry.

Old Crow Medicine Show - Wagon Wheel

A new classic, to be oxymoronish about it. Check Wikipedia for the fascinating story of its origin,

Digby on the Mentally Ill and the Police

Depressing.

The Supreme Court ruled this week that police shooting an agitated schizophrenic woman is justified even if they could have stood outside in a hallway and left her alone in a room until more help arrived. The Justices felt that it was reasonable for them go bursting into the room and shoot her even though they had already been in there, had retreated and knew that she couldn't harm anyone but herself.

Mickey Newbury - She Even Woke Me Up To Say Goodbye

The Mad Men Finale

Sonia Soraya of Salon has a good take.

There’s a part of me that hopes that Don was able to find some kind of self-acceptance and closure through his meditation and chanting and therapy—to take his adventure entirely at face-value, and see his adventure in Big Sur as Don learning that settling for being merely himself is not that bad. There’s also a part of me that doesn’t believe it could be that simple—surely “Mad Men” is not so naïve as to be wholly credulous of the hippie, New-Age spin on Eastern philosophy, even if Don Draper might be? And there’s a part of me that gets that one of the takeaways of the finale is showrunner Matthew Weiner reminding us that Don Draper isn’t real, but this era was (and in some ways, still is) very real.

Taj Mahal - Good Morning Miss Brown

Acid Mothers Temple Live @ Terminus Rennes

Contemporary psychedelia.

B.B. King - 3 O'Clock Blues

We knew it was coming, but it's still a loss. RIP. Here's the song that started his career in 1950.

Ken Boothe - Everything I Own

I've posted this before, but that video has been removed from YouTube, so it's fair game again. I found out recently that this love song by David Gates was actually written shortly after his father died. So it's a memorial, a song about irretrievable loss.

Steve Lawrence - Pretty Blue Eyes

A lost classic? Not really, but an interesting artifact from its era. I like it, but it's definitely the kind of song that proves the original burst of rock and roll was losing its steam by 1959.

Dionne Warwick - Anyone Who Had A Heart

Happy 87th birthday to Burt Bacharach.

Krugman on Vampires

Dr K sez:

The Republicans who came to power this year are...trying to kill Dodd-Frank, the financial reform enacted in 2010.

And why must Dodd-Frank die? Because it’s working.

This statement may surprise progressives who believe that nothing significant has been done to rein in runaway bankers. And it’s true both that reform fell well short of what we really should have done and that it hasn’t yielded obvious, measurable triumphs like the gains in insurance thanks to Obamacare.

But Wall Street hates reform for a reason, and a closer look shows why.

Milton Babbitt - Ensembles for Synthesizer

From 1964.

Henry "Red" Allen - Rosetta

From the "Sound of Jazz" on television in 1957, with Coleman Hawkins and PeeWee Russell.

Robert Johnson - Come On In My Kitchen

Happy 104th birthday to Mr J.

Little Feat - New Delhi Freight Train

Happy birthday to Terry Allen, who wrote this song.

Jimmie Dale Gilmore - Tonight I Think I'm Gonna Go Downtown

Happy birthday to JDG.

Domenico Scarlatti - Sonata K.9

Dongsok Shin plays the oldest surviving piano, built in 1720. Thanks to Google for opening this door yesterday.

Ron Carter with Eric Dolphy & Mal Waldron - Rally

Steven Weinberg on a 'final theory' of nature and symmetry in physics

Happy birthday to one my favorite Nobelists.

The Drifters - Spanish Harlem

RIP Ben E. King, here in a performance before his solo career started.

Krugman on Presidential Politics and Integrity

Once again, simply stating the obvious that is rarely stated.

The point is that we’re not just talking about being wrong on specific policy questions. We’re talking about never admitting error, and never revising one’s views. Never being able to say that you were wrong is a serious character flaw even if the consequences of that refusal to admit error fall only on a few people. But moral cowardice should be outright disqualifying in anyone seeking high office.

The Louvin Brothers - When I Stop Dreaming

Randy Newman - Baltimore

Little Joe y La Familia - Las Nubes

1977

Ann Peebles - I Can't Stand the Rain

Duane Eddy - Rebel Rouser

Lyle Lovett - Sheik Of Sh Boom

Another Walter Hyatt song (co-written in this case).

Ray Charles & George Jones - We Didn't See A Thing

Last F**kable Day

Genius.

Get More: Comedy Central,Funny Videos,Funny TV Shows

Vladimir Nabokov discusses "Lolita" part 2 of 2

Happy birthday to VN.

How Corporate Lobbyists Got That Way

Best summary I've seen.

The evolution of business lobbying from a sparse reactive force into a ubiquitous and increasingly proactive one is among the most important transformations in American politics over the last 40 years.  Probing the history of this transformation reveals that there is no “normal” level of business lobbying in American democracy. Rather, business lobbying has built itself up over time, and the self-reinforcing quality of corporate lobbying has increasingly come to overwhelm every other potentially countervailing force. It has also fundamentally changed how corporations interact with government—rather than trying to keep government out of its business (as they did for a long time), companies are now increasingly bringing government in as a partner, looking to see what the country can do for them.

Johnny Tillotson - Poetry In Motion

I actually like this song, but it's a good example of what rock and roll had devolved into by 1962, and why the advent of acts like the Beatles about the same time pretty much rescued R&R as a musical form.

Lydia Mendoza - Mal Hombre

Salsa Celtica - Esperanza

The world's premier Scottish/Spanish crossover band.

Betty Carter - Make It Last

Another slow, beautiful jazz vocal number.

Sarah Vaughan - Indian Summer

Percy Sledge - When a Man Loves a Woman

RIP

The Rolling Stones - No Expectations

Krugman on Polarization and the Next Eighteen Months

When it comes to his straightforward political analysis, Krugman is very good at stating what seems to be obvious but that no one else seems to have said quite so clearly.

How did the parties get this far apart? Political scientists suggest that it has a lot to do with income inequality. As the wealthy grow richer compared with everyone else, their policy preferences have moved to the right — and they have pulled the Republican Party ever further in their direction. Meanwhile, the influence of big money on Democrats has at least eroded a bit, now that Wall Street, furious over regulations and modest tax hikes, has deserted the party en masse. The result is a level of political polarization not seen since the Civil War.

Julian Beck, Judith Malina - The Living Theatre May 17, 1975

RIP Judith Malina.

oops

Damn. Missed posting yesterday. My millions of fans are upset, he said wryly.

Paul McCartney - Every Night

On this date in 1970 Paul McCartney announced that he was leaving the Beatles. This was one of the songs off his first solo album, released at the same time.

The Youngbloods - Grizzly Bear

Obviously from American Bandstand, and according to the YouTube page from 1967.

Scott Walker - Sons Of

Written by Jacques Brel.

William Wordsworth - The World Is Too Much With Us

Tammy Wynette - Stand By Your Man

Handel - Messiah

Lord Buckley - The Nazz

Forgot to post yesterday so double post today. Enjoy.

Bach - Saint Matthew's Passion

Philippe Herreweghe conducting Cantate Domino Schola Cantorum, Collegium Vocale Gent, Collegium Vocale Orchestra, and soloists.

Tynan Interviews Olivier

Kenneth Tynan was born on this date in 1927. Here he speaks with Laurence Olivier in 1966 about a life in acting.

Harry Carney - It Had to Be You

Baritone saxophone by a master. The strings are of the kind of icky variety, but you can't have everything.

Anton Webern - Six Pieces for Orchestra (Op. 6)

Pierre Boulez conducts.

Ray Charles - Tell Me You'll Wait For Me

Monty Python - Nudge Nudge Wink Wink

Happy birthday to Eric Idle.

Thad Jones & Mel Lewis - The Groove Merchant

Another one of the amazing Jones brothers, here functioning as a co-bandleader. From 1968.

Krugman on the Blue Recovery

Ah, just read it.

Bob and Ray - The Great Lakes Paperclip Company

Cecil Taylor - Free Improvisation #3

From around 1980.

Bach - Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, Third Movement

The Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra filmed at Toronto's Trinity-St. Paul's Centre on May 15, 2009.

The Gary Burton Quartet - I Want You

Young jazzers in the sixties doing Dylan. Bassist Steve Swallow is featured.

Andy Stewart - Ae Fond Kiss

Dallas Frazier - Elvira

Marva Wright - St. James Infirmary

Doug Sahm - Louis Riel

James Taylor - BBC 1971 - Love Has Brought Me Around

Live at the BBC in 1971 with Jo Mama and Carole King.

Charley Pride - Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'

Frank Zappa - Pink Napkins

A variation on "Black Napkins" posted a couple of days ago.

Norma Tanega - Walkin' My Cat Named Dog

One of the curios of the very early psychedelic era,

Frank Zappa - Black Napkins

James Ray - If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody

Oops, got distracted yesterday morning, so a double post today to keep things up-to-date.

The Rolling Stones - Sway

James Taylor - Sweet Baby James

Happy birthday to JT.

Harvey Mandel- Christo Redentor

Jan And Dean - Sidewalk Surfin'

The date on the label is a re-release -- this song dates to the first era of skateboarding in the mid-sixties. It's the Beach Boys' song "Catch a Wave" with new lyrics, as apparently Brian Wilson was happy to adapt his song.

Ornette Coleman - Lonely Woman

Happy eighty-fifth birthday to Mr C.

Townes Van Zandt - If I Needed You

Pink Floyd - On The Turning Away

Guitar Slim - Well, I Done Got Over It

The Seldom Scene - Paradise

A bluegrass version of John Prine's environmental warning song.

Jackie Brenston - Rocket 88

The Ballad of Mack the Knife

From the original English-language version performed off-Broadway in New York in 1954. Much more straightforward in its phrasing than most better-known subsequent versions.

Ned Kendall's Hornpipe

Nineteenth-century American music as played in the twenty-first century.

Leonard Nimoy - Proud Mary

Why not?

Jimmy Burns - I Wanna Kiss You

Old school blues, recent recording.

Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels - C.C. Rider / Jenny Take a Ride

George Harrison - Let It Down

Don and Juan - What's Your Name?

Another oldie.

Poco - Pickin' Up The Pieces

Clark Terry - Stardust

RIP. This was recorded in 1967.

Emmylou Harris - Wayfaring Stranger

Buffy Sainte-Marie - Until it's Time for You to Go

This song is rarely heard as performed by its songwriter.

Sam Myers - Ninety-Nine

Old school blues, but recorded fairly recently. The authentic practitioners of this style, like Sam Myers, are slowly leaving us. Fortunately we have this.

T.S. Eliot - Ash Wednesday

Lesley Gore - You Don't Own Me

RIP Lesley Sue Goldstein.

The Seekers - I'll Never Find Another You

Another sixties artifact.

The Kinks - No Return

Faux-Braziliana circa 1966.

Gary Owens - Golden Voice Announcers School

RIP

Robert Wyatt - Raining in My Heart

Goodbye Jon

What Digby said.

I'm sure I'll be writing more about the end of the Stewart-Colbert era which I think has been hugely important to liberal politics. But I have always had some reservations about Stewart's "serious" commentary which I'm seeing a whole lot of liberal pundits applaud today as if that's what made him important.  What made him important was that he took the piss out of pundits.

Gene Vincent - Blue Jean Bop

Buddy Guy ~ Feels Like Rain

Not sure what year this is, and it's not technically blues, but what the hell, it's nice.

Pharrell Williams - Happy

Great song. Congratulations on a well-deserved win.

Lonnie Johnson - Woke Up With the Blues In My Fingers

Not a lot of people these days have heard of Lonnie Johnson, but he was a very good and extremely influential guitarist.

The New Basement Tapes featuring Rhiannon Giddens - Hidee Hidee Ho #16

H/t PK @ NYT.

Krugman on Greece and the EU

Here.

Like all too many crises, the new Greek crisis stems, ultimately, from political pandering. It’s the kind of thing that happens when politicians tell voters what they want to hear, make promises that can’t be fulfilled, and then can’t bring themselves to face reality and make the hard choices they’ve been pretending can be avoided.

I am, of course, talking about Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and her colleagues.

Ole Bull - Sæterjentens Søndag

Nineteenth-century Norwegian violinist and composer. Not sure who the performers are.

Frank Sinatra - The Night We Called It A Day

Early Sinatra.

Mendelssohn - Hebrides Overture (Fingal's Cave)

The London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado.

Krugman on Economics and the Long Run

Here you go.

We are, after all, still living through the aftermath of a once-in-three-generations financial crisis. America seems, finally, to be recovering — but Bowles-Simpsonism had its greatest influence precisely when the United States economy was still mired in a deep slump. Europe has hardly recovered at all, and there’s overwhelming evidence that austerity policies are the main reason for that ongoing disaster. So why the urge to change the subject to structural reform? The answer, I’d suggest, is intellectual laziness and lack of moral courage.

Steely Dan - Aja

Prolific pianist Joe Sample has been gone less than six months, which means that today those who celebrate his birthday do so without him. On this song he plays a supporting role on electric piano, but then a good session musician always does no more than what's required.

Chuck Willis - What Am I Living For

An early-rock-and-roll-era classic.

Chushingura: The Truth / 忠魂義烈 実録忠臣蔵 (1928)

I've seen the four-hour film made (I believe) in the sixties, but not this one. The tale of the forty-seven ronin fascinates many people, including me.

Luigi Nono - Dell'Azzurro Silenzio, Inquietum

Some twentieth-century classical music I had not heard before.

Goon Show - Curse Of Frankenstein

As far as I can find out, this is the last episode ever of the original run of the Goon Show, broadcast on this date in 1958. Enjoy.

Frank Sinatra - Nevertheless

On this date in 1895 was born Harry Ruby, who with his partner Bert Kalmar wrote a number of standards, including this one.

Dorsey Burnette - Hey Little One

Peter, Paul & Mary - Old Coat

A song I've always loved, and about as sad a one as you'll ever hear.

Jay & The Americans - Sunday and Me

Neil Diamond's first success as a songwriter. His own success performing his own songs was still in the future. Complete with studio chatter at the start.

A Kingdom in the Middle of Petro-Politics

Interesting piece by Josh Marshall on the Saudi ruling family.

Every Saudi head of state who has governed this pivotal, brittle and profoundly influential petro-state during the years of its ascendency since 1953 has been the son of a man born only a decade after the US Civil War....This fact is more than a novelty. As Saudi Arabia became a bigger and bigger force in world affairs this succession principle cast a mortal pall over the regime.

House Squabble

A proposed bill in the House of Representatives that would have banned abortions after twenty weeks was pulled due to Republican infighting. Some sort of wave has crested, it seems. TPM explains.

Procol Harum - Too Much Between Us

Love...well. It doesn't always work. Sometimes not even close.

The Beatles - And Your Bird Can Sing

From the US cartoon series that the lads were not really all that crazy about, but what the hell.

MLK

The Grateful Dead - Next Time You See Me

Live in Copenhagen in 1972. Within a year Pigpen would be dead.

Sam Cooke - Get Yourself Another Fool

What a voice. What. A. Voice.

Krugman on the Swiss

Sometimes the truth is the most depressing (pun intended) thing.

What you need to understand is that all the usual rules of economic policy changed when financial crisis struck in 2008; we entered a looking-glass world, and we still haven’t emerged. In many cases, economic virtues became vices: Willingness to save became a drag on investment, fiscal probity a route to stagnation. And in the case of the Swiss, having a reputation for safe banks and sound money became a major liability.

nada is as nada does

Sorry, nothing today.

The Fortunes - You've Got Your Troubles

My favorite part is the vocal counter-melody that comes in at about 2:30.

The Lovin' Spoonful - Blues in the Bottle

Traffic - Medicated Goo

This is the live version from 1971's Welcome to the Canteen. Dave Mason was back in the fold for a brief spell.

Slim Harpo - I'm a King Bee

Classic electric blues.

The Fabulous Thunderbirds - Why Get Up

Elvis Presley - One Night With You

Forgot to mark E's eightieth birthday yesterday. Here you go.

Dr. John - Cold, Cold, Cold

Not the Little Feat song, but of course Dr. John is even more NOLA-ish.

Adam Krieger - Der Liebe Macht herrscht Tag und Nacht

A pre-Bach German composer. Performed by Roberto Gini and colleagues, 1992.

Nino Tempo & April Stevens - Deep Purple

Happy birthday to Mr. Tempo, mostly a professional sax player but here a singer.

Krugman on Obama the Economic Policy Maker

I usually have a pull quote, but I'm short on time today. Just...you know...here's the article.

Ravel - Pavane pour une Infante Defunte

Seiji Ozawa conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Little Jimmy Dickens - May The Bird Of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose

The number of performers in country music who actually knew Hank Williams is now very small and getting smaller. RIP Little Jimmy Dickens.

Krugman on Inequality, Again

Professor K finds more evidence from another source. The point, however, remains pretty much the same: if you're not rich, you're screwed.

Incomes have grown slowly, if at all, for people around the 20th percentile of the world income distribution. Who are these people? Basically, the advanced-country working classes. And although [the] data only go up through 2008, we can be sure that this group has done even worse since then, wracked by the effects of high unemployment, stagnating wages, and austerity policies.

John McLaughlin - After The Rain

For some reason this is the piece of music I wanted to hear to start off the new year. Hope it works for you as well.