Sorry, another Aretha Franklin clip. But, until recently, I'd only heard this Dr John song by Delaney and Bonnie, and was always a bit lukewarm about it. I was flicking through Jerry Wexler's autobiography, and he speaks highly of Aretha's version, which also features Duane Allman (more subtle though - no screaming slide solos) and currently, is the greatest thing I have ever heard.

It almost seems that Neil Young will never release his long-rumoured Archives box set as long as there's a better way to do it that hasn't been invented yet. But, with this, can we assume that this will one day be the norm for box sets and, eventually, albums? Is this how music will be marketed in the future?

Those good people at The Word have just emailed me to recommend a good music streaming service for any obscurity you care to mention and can't find anywhere. I immediately typed in Roger Miller's recording of Less Of Me, something I've wanted for a while. And there it is.

What I want to know is, what's the catch? Should I register? Should I get everything obscure I want, quickly, before it gets shut down? Is it completely legal? Can I buy music? Is there, dare I ask, a "Ctrl-click" option? You know what I mean. Advice, please, from the good folk that found it in the first place.

Following on from the podcast, this has long troubled me. I know Steele had a hit or two in the late fifties, possibly even pre-Cliff Richard, and that he was a little bit of a local rock 'n' roll sensation for poor types who were incapable of recognising the real thing. My Dad always used to say that, at his school in about 1957, in the grand tradition of Oasis vs. Blur, and Stones vs. Beatles, that you were either a Tommy Steele fan or an Elvis fan. Can this possibly be credible? Was he ever really that big?

I mean, that in 1957, this:

was somehow comparable with this:

Surely not...

In the immortal words of Ron Nasty and Dirk McQuickly, I'm shocked. And stunned.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7371949.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7361159.stm

I heard UB40's cover of Can't Help Falling In Love this evening and was reminded just how awful it is. It sounds exactly like their unforgivably misguided version of I'll Be Your Baby Tonight. I turned to my friends and said, "If there was one band you could send into outer space, who would it be?" Mine would have to be UB40. I mean, I don't even like most reggae (maybe the occasional Dandy Livingstone or Desmond Dekker, but that's it); so it goes that I pretty much despise the entire recorded output of UB40.

Then we talked about Simply Red for a bit.

Who's yours?

As many Word readers have mentioned in the 'Lazy Top Five' thread, Aretha Franklin is quite obviously one of the greatest singers ever known. In this clip, from a concert recorded in Stockholm almost exactly 40 years ago - in May 1968, when she was 26 - she shows why. For sure, the song misses the seminal Muscle Shoals groove that spawned it, but her voice. Even if you just watch the first 50 seconds, marvel at the way she sings the words 'liar' and 'cheat', the way she confidently sits just behind the beat...this is the way to start your weekend, folks.

In my current obsession with southern soul, I'm coming across a phrase that increasingly annoys me the more I hear it. Dan Penn, The Box Tops, Eddie Hinton, Dusty Springfield and Donnie Fritts and the like are always placed firmly in the category "Blue Eyed Soul". Apart from being an irritating, limiting category, it seems to harbour a slightly racially dubious assertion that white people don't 'do' soul, but if they do, they get their own pigeonhole.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewMix?id=77021040&s=...

I'm not going to post a link to it, just to be sure of not incurring Word's displeasure; but it's called The B Side - the domain of one Red Kelly. It discusses, at great length and with what appears to be very well informed research, those forgotten B sides - mostly in the genre of Southern Soul. If you enjoy the work of James Carr, Clarence Carter, Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham, Chips Moman, Arthur Conley, Sam Cooke, Lee Dorsey, Aretha Franklin, King Curtis, Wilson Pickett, Billy Preston, Joe Simon, Candi Staton or people like them, you're in for a treat. It does country, it does soul, and it's done with a whole lotta love.

I recall Word's review of Emmylou Harris' album Stumble Into Grace a few years back, basically saying that it was "more of the same" in relation to her previous - and despite what Word says, very different and much better - album Red Dirt Girl; and, prompted by the 'trilogy' thread, I'm thinking rather of pairs of albums, where the artist in question just repeated the formula of two albums in a row, almost thinking "Hmm. That seemed to work. Maybe I'll do it again." If we accept Emmylou Harris, here are a few more:

Bob Dylan - Good As I Been To You and World Gone Wrong

Slow Train Coming and Saved; to my mind, a more natural pairing than making them two of a trilogy (both recorded by Jerry Wexler at Muscle Shoals, with far more religious content than the next album)

The Everly Brothers - Rock 'n' Soul and Beat & Soul

I'm not including Billy Bragg and Wilco's Mermaid Avenue albums; two volumes compiled from the same sessions is cheating. On similar grounds I'm disregarding Bruce Springsteen's Human Touch and Lucky Town. Not sure if I'm allowing Jackson Browne's two acoustic live albums. Neil Young only does it with 20-30 years between volumes.

Rufus Wainwright - Want One and Want Two

I suppose Johnny Cash did it two and a half times with American Recordings. Ideally I'm looking for pairings.

Despite what George Harrison said about Rubber Soul and Revolver, I don't think The Beatles ever did it.

There must be loads more, but it's Saturday morning and my mind's gone blank. Any suggestions?

I just got back from ten days in the American South: highlights were visits to Memphis, Clarksdale, Muscle Shoals, Nashville and meeting Mark Ellen at Gatwick. However, as John Cleese used to say, this is the nub of my gist:

I only had a couple of nights in Nashville, so a waiter called Matthew in Merchant's Restaurant recommended that on a Wednesday night, the best band to see can be found for $5 - currently about $2.50 - at 3rd and Lindsley. They're called The Wooten Brothers, and the first hour of their set was among the best hour I have ever seen by any band. I can't really do them justice, but imagine a faster and even tighter version of Little Feat, throw in some James Brown, Prince and bass solos that don't make you look at your watch; and you have a starting point for appreciating the talents of The Wooten Brothers.

http://www.myspace.com/thewootenbrothers

I saw them with a guest guitarist, who was unbelievable; but everyone shone. Their MySpace page (above) has some audio examples of their work, none of which sounds as good as they did last Wednesday, but they'll do for now. You heard it here. I ain't foolin', regardless of the date.

This is fantastic. How can you wrong with Emmylou Harris, James Burton et al?

"Dignity: always... dignity"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/avdb/news/uk/video/159000/bb/159891_16x9_bb....

WARNING: CONTAINS REFERENCES TO DIVORCE, PAUL MCCARTNEY AND GENERAL UNPLEASANTNESS

Does it get any worse than this?

I watched with interest the discussions about Queen and points raised about Bohemian Rhapsody, and they got me thinking.

Taking into account that personal taste is a consideration here, are there any songs that are so overplayed that it's virtually impossible to have an opinion on them any more?

I'd vote for Bohemian Rhapsody and Dancing Queen. Not Queen's nor Abba's fault, but these songs are played so often that seeing through my gut reaction - dislike - to whether they're actually any good or not has become nearly impossible. The common perception of such songs then becomes that they're 'classic', which conveniently enables us to never have to think about them properly ever again.

Any others?

I was channel hopping through VH1 and stumbled across this. I know it's from 2000, but it strikes me as about the most perfect parody of a late 1990s pop video that you could find. When watching Pop On Trial, I was wondering if the late 90s are far enough away to accurately judge, and whether they had a discernable style. However, having seen this, I thought: God, how late 90s is that? It's got everything: incredibly simplistic yet gut churningly heartfelt lyrics, bleepy William Orbity noises and little sort of 'hard core hip hop bit' to give it credibility; accompanied by much waving your arms around and looking oh so meaningfully at the camera, timing it exactly so that the glance to the camera comes on the final word of the line, preceded by wistful shoe gazing. Innit bloody awful?

They're beaming this Beatles song into space. I hope it's the Let It Be...Naked version, rather than the speeded up version with birds on it, the slowed down Phil Spector one with strings, or the inferior Anthology take.

Will we ever know...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7221667.stm

Thirty nine years ago today, folks:

It looks colder in the days before global warming, dunnit?

And, finally, a bit of trivia: which Bob Dylan song takes place on 30th January?

Clothes Line Saga.

The latest twist in the tale of Neil Young's permanently rumoured Archives project is that he's refusing to release it on compact disc. Is this the beginning of the future, or is Neil Young just doing what he does best and being a difficult old bugger?

From Billboard yesterday.