Fred Koller - Sweet Baby Fred

Dopo qualche anno di silenzio discografico verso la fine degli anni 90 l'Appaloosa Records pubblica questo album di Fred Koller considerato dai piu' il suo capolavoro. Ascoltare il nostro non può non portare alla memoria John Hiatt sia per il timbro vocale che per la vena compositiva. Nel cd la base ritmica è a dir poco di primo piano con Kenny Blevins e Garry Tallent a farla da padrona consentendo a Fred di unire la propria capacita' poetica ad un sound rock piu' che robusto. Molti di noi si ricordano Fred per aver scritto a quattro mani con John Hiatt ( sempre lui ) "Angel Eyes" , bellissima canzone portata al successo planetario dai Jeff Healey Band. Ma i suoi brani sono stati cantati dagli anni 70 in poi da uno stuolo incredibile di musicisti rock , country e folk e penso non sia sbagliato accostare Fred a grandi personaggi quali Nanci Griffith, John Prine o Jon Gorka. Insomma una piccola produzione tutta Made In Italy oggi disponibile sia su cd nei migliori negozi che in formato digitale .

Per Acquistare l'album in formato Flac http://www.iflac.it/album.php?id=24
Per Acquistare l'album in formato Alac http://www.iflac.it/album.php?id=25 

Pat McLaughlin - Party At Pat's

Grazie alla "musica" liquida Appaloosa Records è lieta di annunciare di nuovo la disponibilita' in formato Flac e Alac del cd da tempo introvabile di Pat McLaughlin : Party At Pats'. Si tratta di un album a dir poco magnifico di un personaggio schivo,timido,poco espansivo e alla ricerca della propria vita. Ricerca che si traduce nell'epoca in cui il cd è stato pubblicato in una lirica musicale profonda,delicata che porta spesso alla memoria personaggi come John Prine e Van Morrison in primis. Ecco allora che solo Nashville poteva ospitare un`anima cosi` musicalmente delicata . Pat nella sua lunga carriera ha avuto come fans personaggi di primo piano del songwriting made in Usa che lo hanno voluto in veri e propri camei nei propri album... stiamo parlando di musicisti del calibro di Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond , Jim Rooney ,Jamie Hartford, John Prine , Nanci Griffith ,Roseanne Cash , Maura O’Connell ,Don Williams , Josh Turner ,Shawn Camp ,Julie Roberts , John Doe ,Ashley Cleveland ,Roger Cook , Subdudes ,Al Kooper ,“Cowboy” Jack Clement solo per citarne alcuni. Ma la vera peculiarita` di Pat è quello di avere il dono della composizione, scrive e musica testi come pochi nell`ambiente cosi` a lui si sono rivolti Bonnie Raitt , Taj Mahal ,Tricia Yearwood , John Prine, Delbert McClinton ,Katy Moffatt ,Ashley Cleveland solo per citarne alcuni. Quindi permetteteci di dire di essere felici di aver la possibilita` grazie alla musica liquida di potervi proporre questo album da anni fuori catalogo, un vero e proprio gioiellino di musica cantautorale che dovrebbe prendere posto in ogni discoteca ( fisica o liquida che sia ) di ogni "buon Gustaio" musicale. Musicisti

Jim Rooney - Brand New Tennesse Waltz

The Americana Music Association named Jim Rooney as its Lifetime Achievement for Producer/Engineer award winner. He'll receive the award at the 8th Annual Americana Honors & Awards ceremony, set for Thurs., Sept. 17 at the Ryman Auditorium.
Rooney's production work has been integral in the development of Americana music, a genre loosely defined as music that is based on American roots music traditions. Rooney produced Nanci Griffith's Grammy-winning Other Voices, Other Rooms album, Hal Ketchum's Past The Point of Rescue, Iris DeMent's Infamous Angel, John Prine's Aimless Love and many other widely hailed albums.
"Jim Rooney is the number one reason I have a career," said Griffith. "He gave me confidence in my writing, inspiration to write, and handed me the want ads to look for an apartment in Nashville."

Jim Rooney is also an appreciate country songwriter and Appaloosa records had the honor to edit two fantastic albums. One of this is Brand New Tennessee waltz

1 The Brand New Tennessee Waltz Winchester 3:03
2 Be My Friend Tonight Cook, Prine, Silverstein
3 Amanda McDill 3:51
4 Heaven Come a Woman Chandler 3:37
5 Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone Prine 2:28
6 We Must Believe in Magic McDill, Reynolds 2:56
7 Fish & Whistle Prine 3:42
8 Dreaming My Dreams Reynolds 3:18
9 Six White Horses Moody 3:01
10 Satisfied Mind Hayes, Rhodes 3:34
11 In It for the Long Run Rooney 2:57
12 Only the Best Rooney 2:55

13 I Recall a Gypsy Woman McDill, Reynolds 3:13
14 Broiled Orange Prine 3:36
15 Ready for the Times to Get Better Reynolds 2:03
16 South in New Orleans Anglin, Wright 3:08
17 Tennessee Blues Charles 4:31
18 Interest on the Loan Rooney 2:39
19 The Girl at the End of the Hall Hill, Rooney 3:11
20 No Expectations Jagger, Richards 3:47

Eric Wood - Don't Just Dance ( Ap 150 )

Each soul has a voice that speaks to a mystery
Well hidden in someone’s dark spirit
Its song may well penetrate many an ear
Yet only one truly can hear it
To this one its meaning is poignant
His heart can hardly hold it
This pawn in the hand of this powerful poem
Is exalted far beyond the poet

From…. "Let My People Go" by Eric Wood

The music of Eric Wood has been described as intense, compelling, intimate, provocative, poetic and personal by many critics in the U.S, Canada and Europe. An American amalgam of jazz, folk, country and rock meets Brazilian and Middle Eastern musical idioms in his music. Together, they weave the raiment for the poignant, lyrical writings rendered in Wood’s smoky, baritone voice on his new upcoming CD release. Simultaneously romantic & political, Wood occupies a never too far off, yet still somewhat isolated location in the American song-writing landscape. "This sounds too much like it’s really what Eric Wood’s music must be for it to be the result of some calculated gesture," a Music Reviews Quarterly writer reported. In another very recent review of Eric’s first CD, Letters From the Earth (Tangible Music TG129), in London’s MOJO magazine, Pat Gilbert writes; "As a 40something songsmith, Eric Wood ought to have some encyclopedic pedigree. But a 30-year career that started in Ohio’s coffee houses, took in Nashville in the early 70s and ended up in the bars of New York’s East Village has seemingly left an indelible blank on the pages of Guinness and Macmillian." He calls Eric’s first CD "an unhurried melt of folk, blues and wee-hours jazz, often operating over subtle Latin rhythms and unobstrusive strands of jazz instrumentation (vibes, marimbas, sax). It’s a belated solo debut that’s astonishing for it’s gleefully understated musicianship and emotional authenticity."

The new Eric Wood CD, to be released in September on Appaloosa Records /IRD, establishes his musical diversity and extraordinary lyrical prowess with a new band, in a context all its own.

Eric came from an austere background in the Appalachian foothills near the Ohio /West Virginia border. Factory workers that had migrated from mostly Eastern Europe, indigenous hillbillies, and Amish families shared both the turf and the troubles. Each group held tightly to their own beliefs, religions and types of folk music while to the dismay of them all, the radio blasted the new unholy, British invasion music to their kids. While the older music was marrow deep in Wood’s bones, it didn’t calcify until it was thoroughly saturated with the new. To the entire neighborhood’s dismay, Wood’s more than slightly "loosely wrapped" adoptive mother (as he refers to her) often listened to the music of Harry Belafonte, Ray Charles and early Bob Dylan at high volumes. These voices sounded so severe in this environment, even the most open-minded individuals in his home-town had great difficulty listening to them. Eric heard these sounds early on and never thought twice about them. They were just more music to his ears. But life with his mother’s volatile personality nevertheless proved impossible even for him. He left home in the late `60s at the age of 15 to establish a new life among the leftover Beats and newcomer Hippies in San Francisco’s Haight-Asbury district. There, more rhythmically compelling Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck and Thelonious Monk influenced music, brought to his ears by local bands who were mixing it all up, exposed Wood to new currents through which he’d learn to make all those previously diverse forms flow together freely.

Soon after this crucial point in his ever-more musically enriched life, Eric Wood suffered life-changing injuries from a severe car crash that left him hospitalized and without his own brain’s memory-forming functions for more than a year. It was during that time that he turned to writing songs as a way to capture the thoughts and emotions that would otherwise escape him. Songwriting became a kind of temporary memory and a road map out of the convoluted confusion the injuries caused. This is when the songs of one of his mother’s favorites, Bob Dylan, came back to his mind. Suddenly they were the only thing that made perfect sense to him. He began to search for the recordings of other Dylan contemporaries and subsequently came to hear and especially love Tim Buckley (who Wood’s music is sometimes compared to) and Joni Mitchell.

Recovery came slowly and left Eric with a singular new direction. Within another year, he was performing his own songs nationwide at college concerts and coffee-houses. While functioning as the opening act on a Pure Prairie League tour, Kris Kristofferson heard his music and offered him a publishing deal at Combine Music in Nashville. After moving there, Eric held staff writing positions at two other publishing houses and produced 2 recordings that the country music establishment found very difficult to swallow. They were never released. Wood’s rhythmic orientation, lyrics and melodies weren’t going to lead him to the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. He left for New York City in 1979. In the subsequent 20 years, Wood recorded & performed with top jazz players including Bobby Previte (Depth of Field) and Lindsey Horner (Koch Records) performing at the Bottom Line and The Knitting Factory to growing audiences. Subsequent U.S. tours with Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin and Richard Thompson brought more fans and critics to hear him. Finally in 1997, Eric was signed in New York to Tangible Music and his first CD was released. It garnered high critical acclaim from many publications including Entertainment Weekly, The New Yorker, The Chicago Tribune and Rolling Stone, as well as a front page, Giancarlo Susanna review in one of Rome’s largest newspapers, La Unite. More European acclaim in Musica, Late For The Sky, Muccio Selvaggio, JAM Magazine, MOJO, Rock ‘N Reel and many others soon followed. Buscadero rated it #8 in the top 10 albums of 1997. And Billboard Magazine rated Letters From The Earth #9 in a "Year End Critics’ Poll". This was quite an accomplishment for a debut record. One solo European tour and another with Wood’s entire band soon followed.

In September 1999, the Eric Wood group’s 1998 summer tour will finally come to an end with the new release on Appaloosa /IRD Records. For Eric and the rest of his band (T. Xiques, Carlo DeRosa, Jeff Berman & Luis Perdomo), it actually began in the spring of `98 in the Brooklyn rehearsal space /apartment of string bassist DeRosa. The next two months were spent rehearsing and performing for audiences at The Living Room in NYC where they worked up new songs Eric planned to record as well as older material from Wood’s first CD for their scheduled upcoming tour dates in northern Italy. Then, during the Eric Wood group’s Italy `98 tour, an impromptu live recording session was arranged at B&B Production Studios near Ferrara, Italy. It was only a couple of days before their headline performance date at the Sotta Le Stella festival at Ferrara (Dylan headlined the year before). But the band had too little studio time left to listen back to the tracks before another band came in. The tapes were subsequently stashed in a gig bag and not heard until Eric later returned to the states. While still in Italy, Franco Ratti at Appaloosa /IRD Records suggested to Eric that he record his new CD for that label. Wood agreed, not knowing he was already carrying the crucial tapes in his bag. Later, the project was completed at World Studios in NYC. During one of his 1998 performances in Italy, singer-songwriter Cristina Dona’ ("Tregua" Mescal-Mercury) joined Eric onstage. The memory of her magic voice singing with him prompted Eric to send some of these newly recorded tracks back to Italy for Cristina to sing on.

Don McCalister Jr - Down In Texas ( Ap 131 )

Maybe it's because he looks more like a computer programmer than a country musician. Perhaps if he got a big cowboy hat or slicked back his hair and put on a hip Nudie suit. Nah, scratch that. Don McCalister is just fine the way he is. The best way for him to break through into the upper echelon of Austin's overloaded country scene is just to keep playing great music, the kind that attracts help from the likes of Jesse Taylor, Doug Sahm, Champ Hood, Ernie Durawa, and Floyd Domino. If you haven't discovered McCalister yet (and odds are you haven't) and you love sweet songwriting, good Western swing (including the woefully forgotten clarinet), and covers ranging from Butch Hancock and Townes Van Zandt to "Steel Guitar Rag," this album is as good a place as any to start

Lee Nichols

From the musical hotbed of Austin, TX, sprang Don McCalister, Jr., a singer/songwriter with a revolving group of friends and musicians that made up his Cowboy Jazz Revue. Intelligent songwriting and McCalister's smooth tenor, backed by a Western swing and jazz-tinged country sound, drew comparisons to other Texas mainstays, including Ray Benson (Asleep at the Wheel), Lyle Lovett, Hal Ketchum, and the music of Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys. On any given night, the Revue could appear as just a trio, with McCalister and Boomer Norman on guitar and Carl Keesee on bass, or expand to a full orchestra with as many as 14 musicians on-stage. Some of the notable musicians that occasionally played with McCalister included the Grammy award-winning Floyd Domino on piano, Champ Hood on fiddle, Lynn Frazier on pedal steel, Stan Smith on clarinet, and Maryann Price on vocals.

The son of a college professor, McCalister was raised in several places, including California, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Maine, Alabama, and New Orleans. As a result, he cites a variety of musical influences, such as Muddy Waters, Flatts and Scruggs, Norman Blake, and Duane Allman. Moving to Austin in 1981, McCalister formed his first band, the short-lived Bluegrass Demons, in 1986 before helping found the Flakey Biscuit Boys, which became a popular central Texas bluegrass band which performed regularly at the renowned Kerrville Folk Festival. After that group dissolved, McCalister independently released a cassette in 1990 entitled Silver Moon which moved in a folk music direction and concentrated on his songwriting. Shortly thereafter, he assembled the Cowboy Jazz Revue. McCalister was signed to Dejadisc in 1993 and his debut album, Brand New Ways, garnered McCalister rave reviews in and around Austin, plus airplay on regional radio stations.

Jack Leaver ( All Music Guide )

Don Michael Sampson - Copper Moon ( Ap 110 )

"I want to point the music lover towards a product of absolute quality that needs no fear of comparison with the most important singer/songwriter products of 1995.

Trust .... a truly serious thing. For my part I remember that I trusted Sampson immediately, when I bought his first two records AMERICANSONGS and COYOTE in the United States directly after their release --- these are also two great records. What genre is he, whom does he resemble? Simple questions, but difficult to answer. He writes songs, he sings them one after another in a linear fashion, with a stentorian voice, supported by an exact and refined instrumentation, simple and classic, based on acoustic and electric guitars, bass, drums.At times something different is added to the mix, or the rhythm section disappears, as in several songs on this COPPER MOON album. Thats all? Well, any Simple Simon can do that, someone might object. Thats just it. When a true artist does it, the result can be a masterpiece! Now Don Michael Sampson, he's a true artist, as God is my witness: a great singer/songwriter -- one whose backpack is loaded with substance --- and I assure you that his records are an absolute priority for the demanding listener. Dry and decisive musicality that unwinds sinuously, enchanting, in a folk/rock context of absolute quality. Everything is reduced to essentials: nice sound with only a few instruments, big, very big impact beyond a doubt. Don Michael Sampson does not have a great voice, but he has 'that' voice ... the voice of someone who has wandered in the desert, of someone who has lost his belongings, of someone who suffers. As a guitarist, he does what he has to, and it's fine like that. At times it seems to me almost as if you could think of Sampson as a possible evolution (dimensionally parallel but inevitably differentiated) of ...well, John Prine, for that way of doing country rock and folk rock so offhandedly that it does'nt even seem to be that any more. Listen to the first song on COPPER MOON (Three White Horses) and judge for yourself. This is also the first of six instrumental pieces, with Ben Keith on steel, slide and tambourine. Warren Haynes on electric (lead and slide), Michael Rhodes or Dave Pomeroy on bass. Chad Cromwell or Craig Krampf on drums. On two occasions you also hear Larry Knechtal's piano. Sampson plays acoustic (Martin, Gibson) and also the twelve-string. There is sadness in the grooves of this disk, at times desperation; always there's something magic, something bewitching. I should list the songs at this point: listen, they are all beautiful. I would not know how to choose. An indispensable album, which you really can't do without ... it is still hard for me to realize that it really exists."

Renato Bottan

"This is the fourth album release by one of America's closest guarded secrets, the unique talent known as Don Michael Sampson. Judging from his recordings, his influences range from the Johnny Burnette Rock n Roll Trio through to Neil Young and thrown into the melting pot for good measure are his own smoky tinged vocals, all in all a potent mixture which deserves to be heard by audiences who appreciate true artistry. 1995 sees the issue of his latest offering COPPER MOON. This is a veritable potpourri of compositions, tempos and themes but all bearing a personal identification. Sleeping Dogs is a song cut at the first take with a strong blues influence, mean and moody vocals and lyrics full of apprehension. Three White Horses and Blue are good honky tonk shuffles which leave the listener feeling happy in the first instance and with mixed emotions in the latter case. 61 Road has a Richie Valens chugging style guitar and Black Tambourine is an atmospheric song with a crying guitar. Both paint a portrait of a guy on a stage in a corner of a smoke filled bar pouring his heart out in song. Red Bird In The Rain has full backing from the likes of Larry Knechtal, Ben Keith, Dave Pomeroy and Craig Kramph and is just a plain old beautiful song. Acoustic offerings include Dark Horse Rider, Strongest of Stars, Lonesome Ace and All There is To Know which all have meaningful lyrics demanding to be listened to. Thieves has a degree of improvisation evident (and how many classic songs have come about in this manner) and Long Time Ago has a strong gospel feel. Both songs evoke a picture of life in the Southern backwoods. This is certainly one of the better offerings of 1995 and is well worth seeking out."

Tony Wilkinson

This record is the surprise of the year in the group made of nocturnal songs of the wish and loners with unquiet blood. The songs play and I listen carefully breathing in a Nebraska haze, a rough Southern sound and moonlight made ballads. Formerly from California this poet/artist has for the most part been unjustly overlooked for his prior albums AMERICANSONGS, COYOTE and the more recent CRIMSON WINDS. Lets hope this magnificent and shadowy COPPER MOON can repay Don Michael Sampson, songwriter of quality and experience and shining poetry. The presence of an itchy slide like that of Warren Hayes (Government Mule) tell a lot about the swampy atmosphere of the tracks. Sampson exhibits his guitars, mainly acoustic and extracts from them seducing sounds with a suffering and autumn voice, made of sorrowful intimacy. All songs have been written by him, many recorded at his home. These songs are enlightened by bright light and sad like the day overwhelmed by shadows. But the dark zones are a leit-motiv of this record, mind you. The introspection of Strongest of Stars, the rough blues of 61 Road ....hard and full of bloodlines at the surface and whispered between teeth on the dull and original wires of a 30's guitar (he brought for $5 in the California desert). And the smoky Thieves coming from an acoustic guitar with a slide reigning alone in winding lines. Guitars, like old wine --- let's enjoy, if an old guitar gives us a magnificent Red Bird In The Rain. Lonesome Ace bent in melancholy, is the clearest water of the record -- my favorite, and Warren Haynes solos that rave in the electric Sleeping Dogs, the airy rhythm of Three White Horses valuable country to be played in a Chevrolet driving along the plains. Blue intrigues me, written in a moment of sadness and dedicated to a dog ---one of the same name, like mine, who died some years ago, always in my mind (pardon my sentimentality). Don Michael Sampson is a true craftsman, working by himself, in the silence of his room, while the dark night stands still hearing. Sincere to the bone, essential in the magic of his singing. Easy owner of one of the records on the year."

Francesco Caltagirone
Buscadero/Italy

Don Michael Sampson has his own unique style, very distant from the so called Nashville sound. He sounds more like Neil Young or Johnny Burnette. His ballads radiate a melancholy, very much like the songs of Leonard Cohen. He creates an atmosphere of a troubadour traveling the world, with a guitar on his back. His lyrics give you this abstract, mysterious unreachable feeling. This CD is a Groeiplaat --- which means the more you listen to the songs the better they get."

Hans van Dam

"Although he's a country lad at heart, Sampson skirts through troubadour folk country, tangles heavily with blues and even dabbles in a spot of near-space rock, showing off influences that include Neil Young, Johnny Burnette and Townes van Zandt. His sound is a varied combination that relies heavily on word play and atmospheric background strummings to create moods that sweep over the listener like moisture-heavy clouds."

Jim Driver

Freddie & The Screamers - I Ain't Crazy ( Ap 168 )

Twenty years ago I was just getting started as a music publisher. I had written a few songs that had been recorded by Blues artists like Johnny Winter and The Kinsey Report. I went looking for someone to do the administration for my publishing company and collect royalties overseas. I approached Buzz Cason at Southern Writers Group because he was outside of Nashville mainstream and understood R&B. He welcomed me aboard. Another of the writer/publishers there at the time was a very talented guy named Richard Carpenter. He'd actually had a few hit records. I was impressed, but more importantly we shared a love of Roots Rock, Soul Music and the Blues. We began writing together on a regular basis and soon were getting our songs cut by Blues artists like Koko Taylor, Sam Lay, Lonnie Brooks, Son Seals, Charlie Musselwhite and a host of others just as fast as we could write them. We also had free run of the 24 track recording studio Creative Workshop that was part of the SWWG organization. This meant that our demo recordings were actually state of the art master recordings.

Richard was a gret drummer and I played guitar and sang. We used several different bass players, but Jeff Davis quickly became our favorite. Jeff, of "Stick" as he's known to his friends, had just arrived in Nashville. He was a founding member of The Amazing Rhythm Aces and went on to work with Al Green, B.B. king, John Mayall's Blues Breakers, Bob Dylan and Ron Wood. We began playing live around Nashville ( most notably at The Ace Of Clubs on a weekly basis ) and because of our schedules bass players and drummers came and went. But the first lineup of the Screamers ( the group name was coined by Jeff Davis by the way ) was always my favorite. In 1989 I collected a bunch of our "demos" and sent them to Franco Ratti at Appaloosa Records in Milan, Italy. A few weeks later he called and offered us a record deal. The album was released in 1990. It sold pretty well and got good reviews so we decided to tour Europe. My wife, Mary-Ann Brandon, was also recording for Appaloosa so we put together a package show and spent the next few years touring relenstlessly with a revolving roster of musicians. Freddie & the Screamers recorded four albums in all.

By the mid 1990s I had gotten pretty busy as a record producer and songwriter and decided to retire the Screamers. I did a few solo albums, played with Tommy Tutone and the reunited Amazing Rhythm Aces, and bought up the catalogs of several old Nashville record labels for reissue. Mary-Ann and I continued to tour, but more and more it was in tandem with the many R&B legends we were producing and writing for. We stayed busy, life was good and I was happy. Jeff Davis and I had continued to work togegher on many projects throught the years, but afer I left Southern Writers Group in the late 1990s I lost track of Richard Carpenter. I ran into him at a Buzz Cason gig last year and we vowed to write together again, and what better excuse than a Screamers reunion ? Jeff Davis was game so we booked a gig in October 2008 at the Arkansas Blues % Heritage Festival ( aka The King Biscuit Blues Fest ). It was a resounding success and in February 2009 we went into the studio to record the new material we'd written. We're all quite pleased with it and agreed that we had to give Franco Ratti at Appaloosa Records the change to release it. He agreed and this is the result. It ain't nothin' fancy, just good, greasy, Tennessee R&B. Freddie & The Screamers are back with the back beat. We hope you dig it too.
Fred James.