It’s Paramore New Vinyl Thursday at The Vinyl Underground at 7th Heaven. Check out this week’s list of new vinyl arrivals:
The 1975 – Being Funny In A Foreign Language (Limited Edition, White Colored Vinyl, Indie Exclusive)
AC/DC – Back in Black
Arcs – Electrophonic Chronic (Indie Exclusive, Clear Vinyl, Limited Edition)
Air – Moon Safari (180 Gram Vinyl)
Al Green – I’m Still In Love With You (Green Colored Vinyl, Indie Exclusive, Anniversary Edition)
Amy Winehouse – Back to Black
A Tribe Called Quest – Midnight Marauders
A Tribe Called Quest – Anthology
Bad Brains – Bad Brains Punk Note Edition
Billie Holiday – Songs For Distingue Lovers
Bob Dylan – Bringing It All Back Home (150 Gram Vinyl)
Brad Mehldau – Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays The Beatles
Bruno Mars – 24k Magic
The Beatles – 1
Black Sabbath – Paranoid (180 Gram Vinyl, Limited Edition)
Black Sabbath – Master of Reality
Bon Iver – For Emma Forever Ago
Billie Eilish – Dont Smile At Me
Boney James – Detour
Chicano Batman – Black Lipstick (Limited Edition, Colored Vinyl, Red)
Crimson Glory – Transcendence – (Limited Edition, 180 Gram Vinyl, Colored Vinyl, Blue)
Cymande – Cymande (Orange Clear Vinyl)
The Cranberries – Dreams: The Collection
Cage the Elephant – Melophobia (180 Gram Vinyl, Digital Download Card)
The Cure – Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (180 Gram Vinyl)
The Cure – Wish (30th Anniversary Edition) (Brick & Mortar Exclusive)
Chris Stapleton – Traveller
Donald Byrd – At The Half Note Cafe, Vol. 1 (Blue Note Tone Poet Series)
Dolly Parton – Jolene (140 Gram Vinyl, Download Insert)
Don Covay and The Jefferson Lemon Blues Band – Different Strokes For Different Folks
Weekly Review:
Donald James Randolph better known by the stage name Don Covay, was an American R&B, rock and roll and soul singer and from the 1950s to the 1970s.
His success with songs “Mercy, Mercy” (featuring a young Jimi Hendrix on guitar) and “See-Saw,” made him part of the great American soul era of the 1960’s. But he is best known for songs he co-wrote that were covered by other artists: “Pony Time”, was a US number 1 hit for Chubby Checker and “Chain of Fools” was a Grammy-winning song for Aretha Franklin.
In a 1964 interview with UK music weekly Record Mirror, Covay said, “Singing is my first love, but I like to express my thoughts in the songs I write as well as in the way I sing them. I am always looking for experiences we all know and try to relate them through both my writing and my singing.”
It’s that delicate balance between his own unique perspective on life and the universality of the human condition that made Covay such a powerful force.
His solo career began in 1957 as part of the Little Richard Revue. He worked both as the star’s chauffeur and as an opening act. At the time Covay released the single, “Bip Bop Bip”, on Atlantic, produced by Little Richard and featuring his backing band, the Upsetters.
In 1962, Covay had his first hit under his own name, “The Popeye Waddle”, a dance-oriented track. He also started writing songs for Roosevelt Music in the Brill Building in New York City. He would go on to write hits for Solomon Burke and Glady’s Knight and the Pips.
In 1969, he joined former Shirelles guitarist Joe Richardson and blues and folk singer John P. Hammond to form the Jefferson Lemon Blues Band. They recorded two albums: The House of Blue Lights and Different Strokes for Different Folks, before splitting up.
Marking five decades since its original release, Different Strokes for Different Folks as been remastered and reissued on heavyweight red virgin vinyl.
Mostly recorded at the prestigious Muscle Shoals Studios, this record conveys Covays ability to mix soul, funk, gospel and rock to display his talents for singing, songwriting, and producing.
This is a great record for those looking to deepen their 60’s soul collection or for just a great party record.
Just perusing song titles like: “Why Did You Put Your Shoes Under My Bed,” “Standing In the Grits Line,” and Ain’t Nothing That A Young Girl Can Do For Me,” gives you idea if Covay’s uniq and at times humorous perspective.
Over the years his compositions have been recorded by such varied artists as Gene Vincent, Wanda Jackson, Connie Francis, Steppenwolf, The Daughters of Eve, Bobby Womack, the Rolling Stones, Wilson Pickett, Small Faces, Grant Green, Bonnie Raitt, and Peter Wolf, among others. – Major Matt
Weekly Review #2
Soul singer Don Covay is better known for the songs he wrote for others than his own recordings. Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools” and Chubby Checker’s “Pony Time” are but two hits he penned in the 1960s.
At the end of the ‘60s, Covay formed the Jefferson Lemon Blues Band, which despite its name is fine- tuned funk ensemble. The original lineup only lasted one album. By the time of 1972’s Different Strokes for Different Folks, the Lemon Jefferson group was really the Swampers, the hot studio musicians in Muscle Shoals, Ala. responsible for a slew of hits from everyone to Wilson Pickett and the Staple Singers to Leon Russell and Paul Simon.
Different Strokes is steeped in Southern R&B. Covay’s versatile voice is capable of plenty of grit to the hard funk of “Hitching a Ride” and “Why Did You Put Your Shoes Under My Bed.” He also brings a warm and gentle tone to ballads “In the Sweet By and By” and “Stop By.”
“Daddy Please Don’t Go Out Tonight” tells the poignant story of a returning military veteran struggling to adjust to domestic life after deployment. Closing number “What’s in the Headlines” is a socially conscious country blues number complete with kazoo. Resting between these heavier numbers is the supremely funky “Standing in the Grits Line” and the slow, deep groove of “Bad Luck.”
Only pressed once since its original release 50 years ago, Different Strokes is finally available again. Fans of Joe Tex, William Bell and other lesser-known Southern soul titans will want to pick this up. – Joel Francis
Dave Brubeck – Time Out (180 Gram Vinyl)
The Exploited – Let’s Start A War… (Colored Vinyl, Red, Black, 140 Gram Vinyl, Limited Edition)
Fleetwood Mac – Tusk
Frank Zappa – Hot Rats (180 Gram Vinyl)
Greta Van Fleet – From The Fires
Gil Scott-Heron – Small Talk At 125th & Lenox
Gorillaz – Gorillaz
Gorillaz – The Now Now
Incubus – Light Grenades
The Juliana Hatfield Three – Become What You Are (Indie Exclusive, Colored Vinyl, Yellow, Clear Vinyl)
James Brown – Soul On Top (Verve By Request Series)
Joshua Redman – Moodswing (Bonus CD, 180 Gram Vinyl, Reissue)
King Geedorah – Take Me To Your Leader (Colored Vinyl, Red)
Kendrick Lamar – Good Kid, M.A.A.D City
Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin II (180 Gram Vinyl, Remastered)
Lil Yachty – Let’s Start Here
Madison Cunningham – Revealer
Madison Cunningham – Wednesday
Madison Cunningham – Who Are You Know
Mel Brown – Chicken Fat (Verve By Request Series)
Mogwai – Come On Die Young (Colored Vinyl, White, Gatefold LP Jacket, Digital Download Card)
Mogwai – Mogwai Young Team (Colored Vinyl, Blue, Gatefold LP Jacket, Digital Download Card)
My Chemical Romance – Black Parade Is Dead
Madvillain – All Caps
MF Doom – Operation Doomsday
Madlib – Medicine Show No. 5 – History Of The Loop Digga: 1990-2000 (Indie Exclusive, Blue Colored Vinyl)
Margo Price – Strays
Magnum – Fully Loaded
Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On (50th Anniversary)
Michael Jackson – Dangerous (Picture Disc Vinyl)
Michael Jackson – Invincible (Picture Disc Vinyl)
Nirvana – Unplugged In N.Y.
Otis Redding – Otis Blue / Otis Redding Sings Soul (180 Gram Vinyl)
Oscar Peterson Trio – Night Train (Verve Acoustic Sounds Series)
Paramore – This Is Why (Indie Exclusive, Clear Vinyl)
Phoebe Bridgers – Stranger In The Alps
Post Malone – Twelve Carat Toothache (Indie Exclusive, Colored Vinyl, Yellow)
Parliament – Osmium
Queen – Greatest Hits
Robert Glasper – Black Radio III Indie Exclusive: (Indie Exclusive, Limited Edition, Colored Vinyl)
Sleep – Dopesmoker
Soul Glo – Diaspora Problems (Colored Vinyl, White)
Sturgill Simpson – The Ballad of Dood & Juanita
Steve Lacy – Gemini Rights
Sade – The Best Of Sade (180 Gram Vinyl)
Smashing Pumpkins – Gish
Sunny War – Anarchist Gospel (Indie Exclusive, Clear Vinyl, Red, Sticker, Gatefold LP Jacket)
Folk singer Sunny War lived a lifetime by the time she was 25, experiencing addition and homelessness before using music to help pull herself out. These events inform War’s songwriting, providing perspective on Anarchist Gospel, War’s first album on a major label.
Across 14 songs and 50 minutes, War blends folk, gospel, rock, country and soul, effortlessly channeling Tracy Chapman one moment and Nina Simone the next.
War cuts straight to the quick on opening track “Love’s Death Bed,” discussing the break-up that precipitated a move from Los Angeles to Nashville, where War grew up. Her kiss-off is almost on par with Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice”: “But I hope it was fun,” War sings, “being the last heartbreak of mine.”
War gets several high-profile assists from David Rawlings on acoustic guitar and banjo, Allison Russell and Jim James from My Morning Jacket. Rawlings appears on several tracks, including a surprising (and profane) cover of Ween’s “Baby Bitch.” Russell takes a verse on the album’s other cover, Van Hunt’s “Hopeless.”
But War’s original songs are what power Anarchist Gospel. James appears on “Earth,” an evocative song about the poor state of the environment. “Sound the alarm,” War cries out. “Reach out to your fake God/Time to disarm/The soldiers of the facade.”
It took War a half-dozen albums and nearly a decade to climb to the point where she has major-label support and top-shelf collaborators. Anarchist Gospel demonstrates War is in it for the long haul. – Joel Francis
Soccer Mommy – Color Theory (Indie Exclusive, Limited Edition, Yellow Colored Vinyl)
Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation
Sonic Youth – Sister
Tennis – POLLEN (Indie Exclusive)
Thee Sacred Souls – Thee Sacred Souls
Thelonious Monk – Genius Of Modern Music (Blue Note Classic Series)
Talking Heads – More Songs About Buildings And Food (180 Gram Vinyl)
Television – Marquee Moon (Clear Vinyl, 140 Gram Vinyl, Brick & Mortar Exclusive)
Taylor Swift – 1989
The Velvet Underground – Loaded
Wet Leg – Wet Leg
Weezer – SZNZ: Spring (Indie Exclusive, Colored Vinyl)
Weekly Review:
In lieu of releasing a new album last year, veteran indie rockers Weezer released quarterly, seasonal EPs.
Inspired by Antonio Vivaldi’s symphony “The Four Seasons,” Weezer’s Spring opens with “Opening Night,” which incorporates a main theme of the classical composer’s masterpiece. Weezer frontman and songwriter Rivers Cuomo espouses the delight he finds in characters from Shakespeare’s plays against an arrangement that switches between acoustic instruments from a Renaissance fair and the band’s classic electric crunch.
The result is either cloy and ingratiating or a refreshing, depending on where one stands with Cuomo’s post-millennial output. The remaining six songs aren’t like to change the listener’s mind. “Angels on Vacation” opens with a choir, while “The Sound of Drums” borrows a harpsichord.
The EP’s best song, “A Little Bit of Love” recalls the carefree joy of “Island in the Sun” and “Keep Fishin’.” Lyrics about waning winter frost invoke that first warm day of the year, where you can throw open the windows and bask in the sun.
“A Little Bit of Love” is almost good enough on its own to win back the jaded Weezer fans who have rejected everything since Pinkerton or the Green Album. This is Weezer at its most playful, for those who are willing to play along. – Joel Francis
Yo La Tengo – This Stupid World
Young Fathers – Heavy Heavy (Indie Exclusive, Colored Vinyl, Red, 140 Gram Vinyl, Poster)
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Enjoy the music and we will see you soon. Your loving Vinyl Underground at 7th Heaven staff:
Sherman, Gordon, Matt, Dylan, Doyle, Heather, Gregg, Dave, Kimmie, Daniel, and Lain.
