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.