The Platters - Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

What a voice.

Coro de Câmara EMVL - Alguém Cantando

Homemade video, which is why the sound isn't perfect, but a wonderful arrangement and performance of one of my favorite Caetano Veloso songs. "Someone is singing."

Buck Owens and His Buckaroos - Together Again

The clip starts when the song is already in progress, but what the hell, it's Buck in his prime doing what is not only one of his best songs, but one of the great country songs, period. Singing harmony is his longtime collaborator Don Rich, who became something of a cult figure in his own right. Rich eventually recorded several songs with Phil Ochs, not exactly a C&W singer.

The Impressions - It's All Right

Curtis Mayfield, particularly early in his career, was one of those songwriters who seemed to delight in taking something that most people wouldn't much notice -- a simple phrase, for example -- and using it as the seed for a song. "It's All Right" is about as simple a phrase as there is, but in the hands of Mayfield it became the kind of song that sticks in your head a long, long time. His group at the time, the Impressions, knew how to do it right.

nada on the trail

Nothing today, sorry.

Krugman on Budget Cuts and Basic Services

Dr Krugman makes me sad, but then telling the sad truth is sometimes a doctor's job.

In effect, a large part of our political class is showing its priorities: given the choice between asking the richest 2 percent or so of Americans to go back to paying the tax rates they paid during the Clinton-era boom, or allowing the nation’s foundations to crumble — literally in the case of roads, figuratively in the case of education — they’re choosing the latter.

Ray Charles and Count Basie - Oh What a Beautiful Morning

Good morning.