Art of the Song presents Doin’ It Right In The Land of 1000 Dances, a free mix for your downloading pleasure! Perfectly calibrated to get those hips shakin’ and feet tappin’, play this on your speakers and get ready to dance the night away! If you’re feeling lucky, just click the picture for the download, or wait til after the tracklisting to click the link below.
Please note that it’s a zip file, and won’t have the proper track order, but if you put all the songs on your itunes, then click the Doin’ It Right In The Land of 1000 Dances.m3u file, iTunes does the work for you. Now that’s what I call Doin’ It Right!
Doin’ It Right In The Land of 1000 Dances :
1. Hang Fire – The Rolling Stones 2. Coming Back to Me Baby – James Carr 3. Pressure Drop – Robert Palmer 4. Keep On Movin’ – King Tuff 5. Doin’ It, Right – Cheers Elephant 6. Hit and Miss – The Tins 7. 100 Yard Dash – Raphael Saadiq 8. Black Snake – Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears 9. Soulless- Fake Problems 10. I’ve Got To Convince Myself – Allen Toussaint 11. Morning Crimes – Theme Park 12. Caught Me Thinkin’ – Bahamas 13. Fantasized – Robert Cray 14. Happy Pills – Norah Jones 15. Land Of 1000 Dances – Wilson Pickett 16. Shotgun – Jr. Walker & The All-Stars 17. Ophelia (from The Last Waltz) – The Band 18. Act Nice & Gentle – The Black Keys 19. The Night Before – The Beatles 20. Please Be It – The Generationals 21. Hold On! I’m Comin’ – B.B. King & Eric Clapton
“She’s So Scandalous” off of Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears sophomore LP, Scandalous is a heavy groove that melds a fusion of funk, blues, and a little bit of reggae. The drumming on this one is phenomenal, a gritty hi-hat and stick-snare shuffle with some dubby reverb, while the bass does a nimble blues groove as this song builds and builds, anchored by the soul shouting of Joe Lewis himself. Based out of Austin, TX, Scandalous was produced by fellow Austinite Jim Eno of Spoon, but this band really knows how to bring the funk.
Just in time for everybody to tuck in to the most lazy and food filled day of the year. As always the tracks are all free downloads, but support these wonderful artists if you can.
Man Who Lives Forever (Rollo & Grady Session)- Lord Huron
Lord Huron has been a band that is constantly defying my expectations, they’re due out for a well deserved full length album this coming year and if Man Who Lives Forever is any indication of where their sound is going, look for them to be all over the indie airwaves next year.
Possibly the greatest talent to emerge from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Frusciante has shown that he’s no one trick pony and a masterful songwriter in his own right, Song To Sing When I’m Lonely is one of my favorites, starting with a melody right out of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Blitzen Trapper have the new Americana sound locked down on their most recent full length, American Goldwing. Think of it as Wilco with a little more drawl and optimism. Not many bands these days can write a narrative as compelling as this Portland group.
Critics of The Head and the Heart stated that their debut album was filled with derivative sounds of Americana, on “Coeur D’Alene” all they can note is a perfectly crafted pop song.
Quite possibly my favorite song of 2011 with its off-kilter rhythms and technicolor arrangements, Temple lures you in with the first few notes and by the time his charming lilt comes into the fore there’s no letting go.
White Denim is one of those bands that can make prodigious skill seem par for the course for their songwriting, “Handwriting” being an intriguing guitar run through that makes you wonder how they’re playing what they’re playing and can still mold it into a conventional song form. The pedal steel puts a nice touch.
If not the best thing to come out of Iceland, by far he is the most underrated. Sure his name might never be commonplace in pop music but he is as well deserving as any singer-songwriter out there right now.
Gotye shows the creative intensity that we used to expect out of Beck, but this Australian troubadour proves his equal and more through his clever approach at arrangements and his chameleon vocals.
Livin’ In The Jungle- Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears seem intent on bringing R&B back to what it once was, the hard propulsive blues that brought the Black Keys into prominence with Brothers only with more of a funky kick and a wicked horn section.
James Hunter wowed Van Morrison with his debut Believe What I Say even getting the man himself to duet on a couple tracks with him, if Sam Cooke had managed to live to old age this croon might be what we were in for.
When it hits me that she’s gone/ I think i’ll run for president/ Get my face put on the million dollar bill/ So when these rich men that she wants/ Show her ways they can’t take care of her/ I’ll have found a way to be there with her still
Within the opening of “Million Dollar Bill” Taylor Goldsmith managed to portray the sadness, jealousy, and ultimately love that’s still present when your lover has left you. Proof why he’s one of the greatest songwriters of his generation.
It wouldn’t be the farthest stretch to compare this band with Mumford & Sons, but that would greatly undermine the talent present in this group, the lyrics and vocals alone on this song should guarantee them recognition for album of the year (and yes, the rest of the album is fine too).
For the acoustic guitars and the rolling drum fills that propel this song along and the endearing harmonies that go along with it. Who couldn’t like a band called Tiger Waves? And you call yourselves American.
No matter how many incarnations there was and will always be of tight harmonies and acoustic fingerpicking, it will always sound good, and Jones Street Station isn’t about to change that. But they certainly liven the arrangement up to great success.
The Art of the Mixtape 