Random Ruminations: Music

Anna Hutto, Reprise II

Posted Sun Oct 30, 2011 in Music

Many years ago I wrote about Anna Hutto (here, here, and here). In listening to my only recording of her work, Journey, I decided to do a little web searching for her.

As far as I can tell, she’s dropped out of sight once again. She was back, briefly, in 2005 or thereabouts. But I can’t find here and her website, www.annahutto.com is dead.

However, that said, I found a few of her songs on Folk Alley [link points to her song list]. I’m going to order a copy of her CD Welcome Here this evening. Then I’ll have two of her recordings.

The comments on her songs (on Folk Alley) are interesting and worth the read.

However, losing her again makes me melancholy. Her music did a lot for me during those hard days early in the last decade. Having met the young woman who made the music made it more poignant. I really don’t like to lose voices like that.

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Lillywhite Sessions

Posted Fri Oct 7, 2011 in Music

The Karmageddon Master of the Steve Lillywhite Sessions of Dave Matthews Band recording is something I recently acquired. I originally came across both Busted Stuff and Grey Street through the original Napster. (Back when it was “Fire good; Napster bad.”) When I was suffering through my clinical depression, the lyrics to Grey Street resonated so clearly with what I felt. Even now, when I listen to the music, I’m haunted by the feelings that were so strong then. I’m so blessed that those feelings are only shadows of what they were then.

Still, they are there and the Black Dog sits over in the corner, always, waiting… watching. But, I don’t go to that place often. There is danger there.

I was so glad to find the files in digital lossless format. I would have settled for the raw tracks, but Karmageddon (a sound engineer) processed the tracks (mastered them) into digital lossless. The link is from Weekly Davespeak and the files are hosted on MediaFire here.

The Wikipedia article about the recordings is full of interesting information. It’s a recommended read.

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Garbage

Posted Tue Apr 26, 2011 in Music

How did I miss their work? I knew I’m Only Happy When It Rains and Stupid Girl (who doesn’t)? I picked up on the dark side of #1 Crush. But I didn’t realize the quality of their music until I snagged a copy of Version 2.0 a few months ago.

I recently filled in their back catalog. I ripped the discs to FLACs and then converted to high bit-rate MP3s for my iPod. I’ve been listening to them the last few days and this is good work. I don’t like all of the songs, but they are well-executed and a lot of the writing is very good.

I’m going to be listening to a lot of Garbage over the next few weeks as I let their work settle in. I’m glad I decided to pick up their remaining albums.

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Patsy Cline

Posted Mon Apr 18, 2011 in Music

I just logged into my office computer and the weather widget has snow indicated in Minden! I was planning to ride this morning. I’ll have to reevaluate.

I have been working through my music collection the last couple of months. I decided to go back through, re-rip the CDs, and re-encode to MP3 (actually LAME) at the highest quality. I have plenty of room and there’s no reason not to have better quality tunes, especially because I tend to listen through ‘phones.

New material is being ripped to FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) and then converted to MP3 (well, LAME). I’m keeping the FLACs in case I decide to go lossless a bit down the road. For the moment, I’m only doing new material and those recordings I like best.

Last night I was moving some of the newly-minted rips into iTunes and I noticed a Patsy Cline recording I had not heard in awhile. Wife and I are watching Lost and we heard a Cline recording in Kate’s backstory. So, I started my recording while my iPod was synchronizing.

I’d forgotten that beautiful contralto voice. Wonderful.

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Gerry Rafferty

Posted Sun Apr 10, 2011 in Music

The last couple of weeks were a real roller coaster. I don’t think I’m quite ready to post anything here about personal things at the moment. I’m not particularly bashful; I’m just not sure the timing right. Leave it at life is far too interesting at the moment.

I was listening to Radio Paradise last night when the DJ announced one of the songs from the recent playlist being by “the late Gerry Rafferty.” I was a little startled, because I had not heard of his death.

Rafferty was one of my musical heroes¹. His writing skill was among the best and held up well over time. At a time when I couldn’t justify buying music, I still owned several of his albums on vinyl. All my vinyl is now gone, but I picked up City to City a few years ago when I stumbled on a copy at a used CD shop.

My kids were hard on turntable cartridges and so I often couldn’t listen to vinyl recordings. I learned to record cassettes from my albums so I could play music in the car and listened to them on a Sony Walkman at work.

But Rafferty died in January. That is a loss for the musical universe. It makes me a little sad.

¹ City to City is playing in the background right now. It’s my only Rafferty recording at the moment. I think I need to fix that.

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Working on Music

Posted Fri Sep 24, 2010 in Music

I wish I could say I was playing and was working on music in that fashion. But, I’m not; I’m working on my collection of music. Now that I passed all of my discs through the cataloging program, I should have a complete record of those recordings I own. The exception is the digital purchases. I have a few of them and am now tracking them down and cataloging them.

My intent is to obtain physical media for all of my music. In the event of a catastrophic failure of multiple systems, I will always have the physical media as a fall back. In the event of loss of the media, then my insurance would kick in and my records of my collection will be helpful.

I’m in the process of ripping everything using LAME to produce high-quality variable bit-rate MP3s. The equivalent bit-rate is 320kbps. The file size is equivalent to AAC, but the MP3s are more portable, at least to date.

I’m listening to music and writing while I babysit the process. This is enjoyable and a great respite from other activities. So, I putter in my workroom during the evening. I don’t watch much television (it can’t hold my attention long).

I’m enjoying the process and listening to music is good too. As I find things from some of the back catalogs of my favorite artists, I’m filling them in. This is fun too and I have new material to listen to. I like.

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New Music 19 September 2010

Posted Sun Sep 19, 2010 in Music

Band of Joy Cover Art Sometimes it doesn’t take much to please me. This is one of those instances. Yesterday we picked up a copy of Band of Joy by Robert Plant. I’m still getting my head around the recording. Although I’m not a huge fan of Robert Plant, I still like his work and Raising Saind works for me. So, I have high hopes this recording will grow on me as I give it time to settle in.

The second recording is Kim Richey’s newest, Wreck Your Wheels, which is playing as I write. Richey’s work does it for me. She has a wonderfully mellow voice and her skill as an emotional songwriter is mature and rich.

It doesn’t happen often, but I’m really happy this afternoon. New music feels good.

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