Pause & Play (the music site)

Vault of Fame's the name of the game

2008-07-26T18:52:00.001-04:00

It's been a while for the vaunted Vault of Fame. Sorry about that, chief.

Spent several hours today poring over reference books and my own CD/vinyl collection for a new batch of songs and albums to induct.

The selection, as usual, is eclectic (from Bread to Primal Scream) ... but also pretty mainstream. It's all easy on the ears. Enjoy.

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New (and old) discoveries

2008-07-22T20:37:00.000-04:00

One of the few pleasures left in music (c'mon, admit it, things just aren't the same anymore) is discovering new/old music for the first time. Here are some great things new to my ears:

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OK, we're back ...

2008-07-10T11:08:00.000-04:00

Three months since my last posting? Sheesh. That's what happens when you have a full-time job AND maintain a Web site.

Here's the kind of stuff that has kept me busy lately:

Hometown rules for We the Kings

For Trapt, newfound freedom

Less Than Jake: Based on solid rock

Eric Hutchinson: His dues are paid in full

For the songwriters

2008-04-19T13:34:00.000-04:00

2007 International Songwriting Competition winners announced

In a related note, Pause & Play again will partner with the ISC to support this year's contest. More details later.

So, what's up with the blog?

2008-04-17T17:18:00.001-04:00

Why so few posts since December/January? Easily answered. Since then, I've been working very hard at my "real" job, as entertainment editor for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in Florida. "Real," as in it pays the bills.

Here's some of my music-related handiwork lately ...

Dennis Lambert: Hitmaker finds a fan base in Philippines

Davy Jones enjoys his fame

The Jimmies' sound pops for children

Vibes good again for Mike Love

Juice Newton: Still the queen in fans' hearts

The Moody Blues - Livin' on the Edge

New singer revives Blind Melon

It's ... it's ... it's the Vault!

2008-04-17T17:07:00.000-04:00

Pause & Play opens up the Vault of Fame again to add new best-song and best-album entries.

This is a pretty impressive batch of songs and albums, if you ask me - ranging from Bee Gees to Rage Against the Machine, from Little Richard to Mary J. Blige.

Check 'em out here!

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Return of the P&P blog ... this time for sure!

2008-03-27T14:45:00.002-04:00

Has it really been since Jan. 31 that I've filed anything? Anything? All apologies ... I vow to do better. Beginning now, with what I hope will become a daily fixture.

Here are some future items for P&P:

NEW STUFF:

All-American Rejects, The (title TBA) - Interscope, summer 2008

"Peace, Love & BBQ," Marcia Ball (producer: Stephen Bruton; guests: Dr. John, Wayne Toups, Tracy Nelson, Terrance Simien; Read here) - Alligator, April 8

"Enchanto," Sergio Mendes (guests: Natalie Cole, Fergie, Juanes, Carlinhos Brown, Vanessa da Mata; Hear here) - Starbucks/Concord, June 10

"Year of the Gentleman," Ne-Yo (first single: "Closer"; Hear here) - Def Jam, June 24

OLD STUFF:

"Exclusive [CD/DVD]," Chris Brown (2007 album; with a DVD of tour footage) - Jive, June 3

Finally, more Vault entries!

2008-01-31T20:49:00.000-05:00

So sorry for the lack of activity on this so-called blog. A full-time job away from P&P is taking more and more time away from what I truly enjoy doing ... like adding more songs and albums to our Vault of Fame.

This time, there are eight songs and eight albums to induct ... to make up for a few missed months of new entries.

Hope you enjoy this bunch - from Shania Twain and Naked Eyes to The Cars and Tom Petty.

For Sharon Jones, success is sweet at any age

2008-01-20T14:27:00.000-05:00

By GERRY GALIPAULT

Sharon Jones has so much soul power, she could make a jailhouse rock.

The New York-based singer, with her band The Dap-Kings, is finding success late in life, at age 51, in a business littered with teenagers and twentysomethings churning out generic hits.

She’s reveling in the attention, mindful of all the years she struggled — all the years she toiled at tough jobs.

Like her two-year stint as a prison guard at Rikers Island, New York’s massive jail facility.

“When I was at Rikers, I was singing with neighborhood bands and doing some studio stuff here and there,” Jones said in a recent phone interview. “One night, I made the mistake of telling the inmates that I sing. I was joking around; they were joking, too, but they were serious ... they said they wouldn’t lock up until I did a verse and a chorus of ‘The Greatest Love of All.’

I was worried that I was going to have to call the squad team in. So I sang it, and then said, ‘Now lock up.’ They cheered me on. One of the inmates had to make them all go back in and then when he got to his cell, he said ‘Miss Jones, you can close mine now.’ ”

Riot averted.

Then there were the years she spent as an armored car guard for Wells Fargo. She even packed some heat, a .38 revolver.

“I would go with the trucks to ATMs at Citibanks,” she said. “I would wear regular clothes, and I would step up and watch the guys put the money in the machines. I did that for a couple years, then I did some security over on Broadway, watching some of the big buildings. It prepared me for this; it got me ready.”

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Long before Amy Winehouse spearheaded last year’s neo-soul revival, Jones and The Dap-Kings were stirring up memories of 1960s R&B on the nightclub circuit. Then a pair of albums, “Dap Dippin’ With Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings” (2002) and “Naturally” (2005), captured the essence of James Brown, Aretha Franklin and all things ’60s and ’70s soul. It caught the ear of producer Mark Ronson, who recruited The Dap-Kings to play the authentic funk/soul sounds on Winehouse’s breakthrough “Back to Black” album in 2007.

A third album from Jones and The Dap-Kings, “100 Days, 100 Nights” (on Daptone Records), kept the ball rolling in early October.

“If it took Amy Winehouse for people to learn about me and The Dap-Kings and Daptone Records, that’s a good thing,” Jones said. “I have nothing bad to say about her. I just wish her the best.

“I met her last summer in Florida. Her manager treated her like she was a superstar, and all I wanted to do was hang out with her, because I’m pretty down to earth. I’m like, ‘Let’s take a picture,’ and the manager’s all ‘No, no pictures.’ But she seemed like a nice girl.

“The only thing I have to say is that she’s in my prayers, that she really needs some friends to pull her up, not push her down. That environment that she’s around, she needs to let it go.”

Born in Augusta, Ga., and raised in New York, Jones idolized Augusta’s favorite son, James Brown. She had the thrill of a lifetime in the fall of 2006 when she got to meet the Godfather of Soul after a concert in Italy.

“It was a few months before he passed away Christmas Day,” she said. “I literally waited backstage for 45 minutes till he came out ... he looked me in the eye and said, ‘God bless you, daughter,’ and they took a picture of us. It’s on my MySpace site. I could feel his heart beating through my fingers because I put my hand around his waist. I looked him in the face and for some reason I knew I wasn’t going to see him again. He didn’t look well; he looked so weak.”

Another thrill was a chance to appear in a movie. She has a small role in Denzel Washington’s “The Great Debaters.”

“You’ll see me in the first three minutes of the movie,” Jones said. “I was singing and dancing all over the juke joint. I enjoyed the experience, and I was so looking forward to my little lines. But they cut two of them out, and they cut out my song ‘That’s What My Baby Likes.’ But that’s OK; I’ll wait for the director’s cut to come out on DVD.”

Success is better late than never for Jones, who never doubted for a moment that people would appreciate her music.

“In my younger days, they would say it’s all about luck, this and that,” she said. “But I knew God gave me a gift and I knew that people would accept me for my vocals and not the way I look or my age.”

Rhonda Vincent is all The Rage

2008-01-18T13:12:00.000-05:00

By GERRY GALIPAULT

Should this bluegrass thing not work out, Rhonda Vincent can always fall back on a role she filled last June: wedding planner.

Not only did Vincent plan the wedding for her publicist and personal assistant, Julia Yoakum, she wrote and performed the wedding song and served as matron of honor.

"It was such an exhausting day," she said in a recent phone interview. "It started so early, because of the scheduling at the Ryman (Auditorium in Nashville); it got changed the night before. The rehearsal, which you do the day before, we had to do the same day. Then I played at the Bluegrass Series that night at the Ryman and stayed after to sign autographs."

But she says it was all worth it, especially singing "I Give All My Love to You," a track off her new Rounder Records album, "Good Thing Going" (released Jan. 8).

"Julia wasn’t finding a song she could use for the wedding, so as I was planning the wedding out, I was writing down all the things she had said before, like 'I'll never find anyone,' 'There's nobody for me,' " Vincent said. "Before I knew it, I came home and we made it a family project. I left the lines to the song in the living room and my husband, daughter and I would add to it.

"The very first time I sang it was at her wedding. I was so nervous. It was at the Ryman Auditorium on June 28, and I think it's on YouTube somewhere.
(In fact, you can see it here: tinyurl.com/26b583.)

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Will Vincent help plan her own daughters’ wedding some day? No way, she says.

"That's my first and last. Never again. Besides, both my daughters told me they don’t want me planning their wedding. Thank goodness for that."

So, Vincent's stature in the bluegrass world is safe and secure. She has won seven straight International Bluegrass Music Association awards for best female vocalist, from 2000 to 2006. With "Good Thing Going," she will likely add an eighth trophy to her mantle.

The album's highlight is "The Water Is Wide," a lilting duet with Keith Urban.

"I'm really excited that people recognize that song when I perform it," Vincent said. "It came from a Karla Bonoff record (1979’s 'Restless Nights'). Everybody wants to sing along with it. I always wanted to record that.

"I actually recorded that song for the previous album, 'All American Bluegrass Girl,' but it has to fit the project and it didn't seem to fit with that bunch of songs. So when we worked on this album, I knew, 'Yeah, this is the one.' And I just knew Keith would be the guy. Karla sang with James Taylor on her cut of that. I just thought that Keith had the perfect voice for it."

Vincent, who co-produced the album with her brother, Darrin, knows a thing or two about recording. The 45-year-old mandolin player has been in the business since she was 5. There was no way around it; music is ingrained in her family's history in Kirksville, Mo.

"My first recording was with my family in 1967," she said. "I sang two songs on the 'Sally Mountain Singers' album. I grew up in this musical family that spans like five generations and hopefully it'll be six generations. My daughters are singing and my brother's children are singing.

"It was this wonderful life of music, and it was a very intense life of music. When I was 5, we had a radio show and a TV show. We were performing locally and regionally because of the TV show. My dad would pick me up from school every day and we would sing till dinner, and after dinner friends would come over and we would sing till bedtime. It was a concentrated life of music that evolved into a career."

Her solo career didn't take off until after she formed her band, The Rage, in the 1990s. With each album in the 2000s, her sales and popularity have soared.
Over the years, Vincent earned respect within mainstream country, much like Alison Krauss has.

"We actually grew up together, and we're friends," Vincent said. "In 1985, I did a show called 'You Can Be a Star,' and I went to Nashville for a brief period and I got a job with the host of that show, Jim Ed Brown. My family was still performing and there were some shows I missed; this one time, my dad discovered this 12-year-old girl from Champaign, Ill. He hired her. She wore my clothes and she toured with my family. It was Alison!

"I've watched her blossom into this incredibly talented young lady. She has created her own style of music much beyond bluegrass."

What's new (1.7.08)

2008-01-07T14:26:00.000-05:00

Goodbye 2007, hello 2008!

NEW STUFF:

Black 47 ... (March 4)

Chris Cagle ... (Feb. 19)

Ray J ... (April 2008)

Webbie ... (March 4)

P&P's Recommendables (the songs), Vol. 3

2007-12-28T20:37:00.000-05:00

Yes, yes, I have been very (VERY!) bad about keeping up with this blog. One of my New Year's resolutions is to be better about this ... anyway, here goes another list of my new favorites (new and old stuff).

"A Lovers Holiday" - Change

"Someone Great" - LCD Soundsystem

"All Tomorrows Parties" - The Velvet Underground & Nico

"2001 Spliff Odyssey" - Thievery Corporation

"When Love Breaks Down" - Prefab Sprout

"Whole Thing" - Big Blue Ball (featuring Peter Gabriel)

"Do You Compute?" - Donnie Iris

"C'mon Every Beatbox" - Big Audio Dynamite

"Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)" - Robert Plant/Alison Krauss

"Vicious Games" - Yello

"The Word Girl" - Scritti Politti

"Comfy in Nautica" - Panda Bear

"Gorgeous" - Gene Loves Jezebel

R.I.P.: Ike Turner

2007-12-12T21:20:00.000-05:00

Time to play "River Deep Mountain High" in his honor.

Godspeed.

Obit here.

Revisiting some long-lost '80s new wave

2007-12-12T21:05:00.000-05:00

I've been listening a lot lately to the '80s new-wave channel at www.radioio.com. I've been introduced to some great songs I've never heard before and some I've long forgotten about, such as ...

"Great Southern Land," Icehouse
"Harley David (Son of a Bitch)," Bollock Brothers - is that Mick Jagger on vocals?!
"In Too Deep," Dead or Alive
"Love an Adventure," Pseudo Echo (it's more disco than new wave)
"Young Manhood," The Wild Swans
"What We All Want," Gang of Four
"Telecommunication," A Flock of Seagulls - I don't care what you say, Derf, they rule!!
"Forbidden Fruit," The Blow Monkeys
"The Lion's Mouth," Kajagoogoo
"King in a Catholic Style," China Crisis
"Blind Vision," Blancmange
"Guitar, Talk, Love & Drums," Gary Myrick
"City for Lovers," Way of the West
"There's More Snakes Than Ladders," Captain Sensible

... have anymore to recommend?!

P&P's Recommendables (the songs), Vol. 2

2007-12-06T18:14:00.000-05:00

Some more of our favorite tracks newly available (as well as some forgotten gems and some you should get to know) at iTunes.

"What We All Want" - Gang of Four

"Thnks Fr Th Mmrs" - Fall Out Boy

"I Caught Your Act" - The Hues Corporation

"Witchi-Tai-To" - Brewer & Shipley

"No More Drama" - Mary J. Blige

"Don't Be Shy" - Cat Stevens

"Paper Planes" - M.I.A.

"Mozambique" - Bob Dylan

"Wax Simulacra" - The Mars Volta

"Cherry Baby" - Starz

"People Get Up and Drive Your Funky Soul (Remix)" - James Brown

What's new (11.27.07)

2007-11-27T14:08:00.000-05:00

NEW STUFF:

Black Crowes, The ... album title; release date (March 4, 2008)

DeVotchKa ... (March 2008)

Justin Townes Earle ... (spring 2008)

Aimee Mann ... (spring 2008)

Rosey ... (March 2008)

What's new (11.21.07)

2007-11-21T16:44:00.000-05:00

NEW STUFF:

Weezer ... (April 22, 2008)

What's new (11.20.07)

2007-11-20T13:02:00.000-05:00

NEW STUFF:

Erykah Badu ... (Feb. 26, 2008)

OLD STUFF:

Julie Andrews ... (Jan. 22, 2008)

DVDs:

Randy Bachman & Burton Cummings ... new release date (Jan. 8, 2008)

What's new (11.19.07)

2007-11-19T13:31:00.000-05:00

NEW STUFF:

Kate Nash ... U.S. release date (Jan. 8, 2008)

Dolly Parton ... release date (Feb. 5, 2008)

DVDs:

Mariah Carey ... (Dec. 4)

P&P's Recommendables (the songs)

2007-11-14T16:18:00.000-05:00

Starting a new feature ... our favorite tracks newly available (as well as some forgotten gems and some you should get to know) at iTunes. Enjoy!

"Bombs" - Faithless

"Confucius" - The Skatalites

"Like You'll Never See Me Again" - Alicia Keys

"I've Got Nothing" - The Kunks

"Your Time Is Gonna Come" - Led Zeppelin

"Something In My Eye" - Ed Harcourt

"Minstrel Boy" - The Guess Who

"The Lion's Mouth" - Kajagoogoo

"Spice Up Your Life (Stent Radio Mix)" - Spice Girls

"Tick Tick Boom" - The Hives

"The Night Sky" - Keane

"Mad Man Moon" - Genesis

Another month, another "Vault"

2007-11-13T12:31:00.000-05:00

Finally added some titles to our Vault of Fame - four essential albums and four essential songs, from Danny O'Keefe and Eminem to Aerosmith and Nelly Furtado.

Enjoy.

What's new (11.12.07)

2007-11-12T12:10:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of postings lately. I vow to be more diligent.

Anyway, this one's for the troops past and present. God bless you and God bless America!

NEW STUFF:

Black Mountain ... (Jan. 22, 2008)

Drive-By Truckers ... (Jan. 22, 2008)

Fleshtones, The ... (Jan. 22, 2008)

Mars Arizona ... (Jan. 22, 2008)

Eric Matthews ... (Jan. 22, 2008)

North Mississippi Allstars ... (Jan. 22, 2008)

Radiohead ... U.S. release date (Jan. 1, 2008)

Amanda Shaw ... (Jan. 8, 2008)

Times New Viking ... (Jan. 22, 2008)

Trent Willmon ... (Jan. 15, 2008)

What's new (10.26.07)

2007-10-26T12:46:00.000-04:00

NEW STUFF:

Cherish ... (March 25, 2008)

Sheryl Crow ... album title; release date (Feb. 5, 2008)

k.d. lang ... (Feb. 5, 2008)

Tift Merritt ... (Feb. 26, 2008)

Alanis Morissette ... (2008)

Sia ... (Jan. 29, 2008)

What's new (10.25.07)

2007-10-25T13:14:00.000-04:00

NEW STUFF:

American Music Club ... (Feb. 19, 2008)

B-52's, The ... album title; release date (Feb. 26, 2008)

What's new (10.24.07)

2007-10-24T13:57:00.000-04:00

NEW STUFF:

Blind Boys of Alabama, The ... (Jan. 29, 2008)

Madness ... (2008)

Katy Perry ... (spring 2008)

Beanie Sigel ... (Dec. 11)

Simple Plan ... (Jan. 29, 2008)

OLD STUFF:

"The Brit Box: Indie U.K., Shoegaze and Brit-Pop Gems of the Last Millennium" ... new release date (Nov. 20)

Keller Williams ... (Dec. 18)

DVDs:

"The Simpsons Movie" ... (Dec. 18)

Barbra Streisand ... (Jan. 22, 2008)

P&P INTERVIEWS:

Renee Zawawi ... just added (Nov. 27)