Georges Moustaki – same (Amiga, 1980)

Georges Moustaki (real name Joseph Mustacchi) was a French singer-songwriter, born on May 3, 1934 in Alexandria, Egypt, to Greek parents. In 1951, he moved to Paris and started writing for a French-speaking Egyptian newspaper. He began his career as a guitarist & composer for many artists, like Édith Piaf, Serge Reggiani & Yves Montand. Later, he chose the first name Georges as a tribute to Georges Brassens.
In 1969, “Le Métèque” has been Moustaki’s first hit.

Although he achieved his greatest fame in France, singing French-language songs in a distinctly French style, singer/songwriter Georges Moustaki was more a citizen of the world – or, as he often put it, a “citizen of the French language.” Christening himself a cultural “mongrel” in his signature hit “Le Métèque,” Moustaki’s first love was the classic-style French chanson, but he often appropriated bits of world folk musics from Greece, Turkey, the Middle East, Brazil (bossa nova and MPB), Argentina (tango), and other parts of Latin America, the United States (blues and jazz), Holland, and anywhere else his travels took him. Simplicity was a hallmark of many of his own recordings; possessed of a soft, warm voice, he often sang with only his own guitar for accompaniment, creating an intimacy that translated to his live gigs as well. A successful artist in his own right, Moustaki initially made his name as a songwriter of some renown, composing material for many of the top French singers of the late ’50s and ’60s (including Edith Piaf
‘s classic “Milord”). He moonlighted as a poet, actor, novelist, and journalist at various points in his career, and remained one of France’s more ambitious artists as his trademark beard and long, flowing hair turned white.

Reportedly suffering from emphysema, Georges Moustaki died last week in Nice, France on May 23, 2013; he was 79 years old. Rest in peace!

Tracklist:

Side 1:
01 Ma solitude
02 Hiroshima
03 Joseph
04 17 ans
05 Les marchands
06 Le meteque
07 Le facteur
08 Le temps de vivre

Side 2:
09 Ma liberte
10 Marche de sacco et vanzetti
11 La Pierre
12 Nous sommes deux
13 Bahia
14 Si ce jour-la
15 Votre ville a vingt ans
16 Elle est elle

Georges Moustaki – same (Amiga, 1980)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Georges Moustaki – same (Amiga, 1980)

Georges Moustaki (real name Joseph Mustacchi) was a French singer-songwriter, born on May 3, 1934 in Alexandria, Egypt, to Greek parents. In 1951, he moved to Paris and started writing for a French-speaking Egyptian newspaper. He began his career as a guitarist & composer for many artists, like Édith Piaf, Serge Reggiani & Yves Montand. Later, he chose the first name Georges as a tribute to Georges Brassens.
In 1969, “Le Métèque” has been Moustaki’s first hit.

Although he achieved his greatest fame in France, singing French-language songs in a distinctly French style, singer/songwriter Georges Moustaki was more a citizen of the world – or, as he often put it, a “citizen of the French language.” Christening himself a cultural “mongrel” in his signature hit “Le Métèque,” Moustaki’s first love was the classic-style French chanson, but he often appropriated bits of world folk musics from Greece, Turkey, the Middle East, Brazil (bossa nova and MPB), Argentina (tango), and other parts of Latin America, the United States (blues and jazz), Holland, and anywhere else his travels took him. Simplicity was a hallmark of many of his own recordings; possessed of a soft, warm voice, he often sang with only his own guitar for accompaniment, creating an intimacy that translated to his live gigs as well. A successful artist in his own right, Moustaki initially made his name as a songwriter of some renown, composing material for many of the top French singers of the late ’50s and ’60s (including Edith Piaf
‘s classic “Milord”). He moonlighted as a poet, actor, novelist, and journalist at various points in his career, and remained one of France’s more ambitious artists as his trademark beard and long, flowing hair turned white.

Reportedly suffering from emphysema, Georges Moustaki died last week in Nice, France on May 23, 2013; he was 79 years old. Rest in peace!

Tracklist:

Side 1:
01 Ma solitude
02 Hiroshima
03 Joseph
04 17 ans
05 Les marchands
06 Le meteque
07 Le facteur
08 Le temps de vivre

Side 2:
09 Ma liberte
10 Marche de sacco et vanzetti
11 La Pierre
12 Nous sommes deux
13 Bahia
14 Si ce jour-la
15 Votre ville a vingt ans
16 Elle est elle

Georges Moustaki – same (Amiga, 1980)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

VA – Tercer Festival de Oposición (1979)

The connection between music and politics, particularly political expression in music, has been seen in many cultures. This album features recordigs from the “Tercer Festival de Oposicion”, organized in 1979 by the Mexican communist party and with guests from Angola, Cuba, Nicaagua, El Salvador and Guatemala.

Óscar Chávez (born 1935) is a Mexican singer, songwriter and actor. He was the main exponent of the Nueva Trova in Mexico in the sixties and seventies. He is also noted for his strong social commitment as well as for the left wing ideas expressed in his lyrics. His impressive discography spans four decades.

María Amparo Ochoa Castaños, (1946-1994) better known as Amparo Ochoa, was a Mexican singer-songwriter. She was one of several other Mexican artists who emerged in the 1960s belonging to a genre known as “Nueva canción”. Ochoa was born in 1946 in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. Before becoming involved in music, Ochoa served as an elementary school teacher. She became heavily involved in songwriting beginning in 1962, and her career took off when she won a contest in her native state with the song “Hermosísimo Lucero”. In 1969, she moved to Mexico City to attend a music school. Shortly after, she released her first album “De la mano del viento”.
Ochoa is best known for writing songs with strong messages against social injustice as well songs about Mexican history and culture. Most of her lyrics focus on poverty, indigenous rights, and women’s rights.

Besides the Latin American artists, this album contains also a version of the “Lied der Moorsoldaten”, sung in German language by Hermann and Inge. Does anybody know more about these artists?


Tracklist:
01. Corrido a Nicaragua – Oscar Chávez
02. Cueca larga – Sanampay
03. La banda – Chava Flores
04. Palma sola – Eva de Marczyc
05. Irán Elías Criserio – Grupo Taoné
06. Casitas de cartón – Los Guaraguao
07. Cipriano Hernández Martínez – Gabino Palomares
08. Los angelitos – Amparo Ochoa
09. Los soldados de la ciénaga – Herman e Inge

VA – Tercer Festival de Oposición (1979)
(256 kbps, front & back cover included)

The Clancy Brothers – Come Fill Your Glass With Us (Tradition,1959)

The Clancy Brothers are a family of singing Irish expatriates who have been important figures in re-popularizing their native music in North America and are still among the most internationally renowned Irish folk bands. Some even credit the band as important figures in starting the folk revival of the ’50s and ’60s.

The second album from the Clancys and Makem is among their most notable efforts, helping launch the group to international success. As indicated by the title, “Come Fill Your Glass with Us” is a virtual soundtrack of Irish pub life, perfectly evoking the hard-drinking, late-night atmosphere; songs include such traditional classics as “Whisky You’re the Devil,” “Finnegan’s Wake,” “The Parting Glass” and “A Jug of Punch.”

Tracklist:

Side One:

Whisky You’re the Devil

The Maid of the Sweet Brown Knowe

The Moonshiner

Bold Thady Quill

Rosin the Bow

Finnigan’s Wake

The Real Old Mountain Dew

 

Side Two:

Courting in the Kitchen

Mick McGuire

A Jug of Punch

Johnny McEldoo

Cruiscin Lan

Portlairge

The Parting Glass

 

 

Sleeve notes:

 

” A group of workmen were tearing down a very old distillery in the south of Ireland. It had not been used for fifty years and was full of birds’ nests. When they reached the vat where the whisky had been stored, they found a small metal pipe leading from it and going into the ground. It had been well hidden. They dug down following it one foot underground till it ended in a small hollow under a tree two hundred yards from the distillery. No one could explain it.

The facts end here, but they suggest strange stories of men long ago stealing to that hollow at night and draining off the whisky out of sight of the distillery.

There is no one to tell of the nights of drinking and song that came out of that pipe, But I’m sure some of the Irish drinking songs on this record were sung, as some of them are much older than that distillery.

Drinking and singing have been enjoyed by men everywhere and always. As islands were discovered and jungles penetrated, all new found peoples had songs of some kind and had found a way of making intoxicating drink. If you hear a lot of singing from your neighbor’s home at midnight, you just know there is drinking going on.

In Ireland people would gather in the pubs on fair days and market days when their business of the day had ended, to “wet their whistle” and hear n song. A travelling piper, fiddler, singer or fluter would provide sweet music for pennies and a farmer could learn a new song or two.

My grandmother kept one of these pubs and learned quite a few of the songs, one of them being “Whisky You’re the Devil,” which I have not heard elsewhere.

Another one of her songs was “Portlairge,” which is a local Gaelic song, and all the place names mentioned are within twenty miles of her pub. The words translate as follows:

 

— 1 —
I was the day in Waterford.
Fol dow, fol dee, fol the dad I lum.
There was wine and pints on the table.
Fol dow . . .
There was the full of the house of women there,
Fol dow . . .
And myself drinking their health.

 

— 2 —
A woman from Rath came to visit me,
And three of them from Tipperary.
Their people weren’t satisfied.
They were only half satisfied.

 

— 3 —
I’ll set out from Carrick in the rooming,
And take a nice girl with me.
Off we’ll go thro’ “The Gap,”
And northwards to Tipperary.

 

Like Tom and Liam and I, Tommy Makem learned most of his songs from his family, particularly from his mother, Mrs. Sarah Makem, who still lives in County Armagh, Ireland and sings on Tradition’s THE LARK IN THE MORNING, TLP 1004. When Tommy sings “Bold Thady Quill,” he is singing about a champion hurler from County Cork, whom I understand is still alive.

The song “Finnigan’s Wake” gave the title to the famous novel by James Joyce, who was interested in Tim Finnigan’s resurrection from the dead by having whisky (water of life) poured on him during a fight at the wake.

 

The Gaelic chorus of “Cruiscin Lan” (My Little Full Jug) means:
Love of my heart, my little jug, Bright health, my darling.

Most of these songs tell their own story. They are not merely curiosity pieces or antiques; they are still very much alive and are as popular as the drink that inspired them.

PATRICK CLANCY”

The Clancy Brothers – Come Fill Your Glass With Us (1959)
(256 kbps, front cover included)

The Clancy Brothers – Come Fill Your Glass With Us (Tradition,1959)

The Clancy Brothers are a family of singing Irish expatriates who have been important figures in re-popularizing their native music in North America and are still among the most internationally renowned Irish folk bands. Some even credit the band as important figures in starting the folk revival of the ’50s and ’60s.

The second album from the Clancys and Makem is among their most notable efforts, helping launch the group to international success. As indicated by the title, “Come Fill Your Glass with Us” is a virtual soundtrack of Irish pub life, perfectly evoking the hard-drinking, late-night atmosphere; songs include such traditional classics as “Whisky You’re the Devil,” “Finnegan’s Wake,” “The Parting Glass” and “A Jug of Punch.”

Tracklist:

Side One:

Whisky You’re the Devil

The Maid of the Sweet Brown Knowe

The Moonshiner

Bold Thady Quill

Rosin the Bow

Finnigan’s Wake

The Real Old Mountain Dew

 

Side Two:

Courting in the Kitchen

Mick McGuire

A Jug of Punch

Johnny McEldoo

Cruiscin Lan

Portlairge

The Parting Glass

 

 

Sleeve notes:

 

” A group of workmen were tearing down a very old distillery in the south of Ireland. It had not been used for fifty years and was full of birds’ nests. When they reached the vat where the whisky had been stored, they found a small metal pipe leading from it and going into the ground. It had been well hidden. They dug down following it one foot underground till it ended in a small hollow under a tree two hundred yards from the distillery. No one could explain it.

The facts end here, but they suggest strange stories of men long ago stealing to that hollow at night and draining off the whisky out of sight of the distillery.

There is no one to tell of the nights of drinking and song that came out of that pipe, But I’m sure some of the Irish drinking songs on this record were sung, as some of them are much older than that distillery.

Drinking and singing have been enjoyed by men everywhere and always. As islands were discovered and jungles penetrated, all new found peoples had songs of some kind and had found a way of making intoxicating drink. If you hear a lot of singing from your neighbor’s home at midnight, you just know there is drinking going on.

In Ireland people would gather in the pubs on fair days and market days when their business of the day had ended, to “wet their whistle” and hear n song. A travelling piper, fiddler, singer or fluter would provide sweet music for pennies and a farmer could learn a new song or two.

My grandmother kept one of these pubs and learned quite a few of the songs, one of them being “Whisky You’re the Devil,” which I have not heard elsewhere.

Another one of her songs was “Portlairge,” which is a local Gaelic song, and all the place names mentioned are within twenty miles of her pub. The words translate as follows:

 

— 1 —
I was the day in Waterford.
Fol dow, fol dee, fol the dad I lum.
There was wine and pints on the table.
Fol dow . . .
There was the full of the house of women there,
Fol dow . . .
And myself drinking their health.

 

— 2 —
A woman from Rath came to visit me,
And three of them from Tipperary.
Their people weren’t satisfied.
They were only half satisfied.

 

— 3 —
I’ll set out from Carrick in the rooming,
And take a nice girl with me.
Off we’ll go thro’ “The Gap,”
And northwards to Tipperary.

 

Like Tom and Liam and I, Tommy Makem learned most of his songs from his family, particularly from his mother, Mrs. Sarah Makem, who still lives in County Armagh, Ireland and sings on Tradition’s THE LARK IN THE MORNING, TLP 1004. When Tommy sings “Bold Thady Quill,” he is singing about a champion hurler from County Cork, whom I understand is still alive.

The song “Finnigan’s Wake” gave the title to the famous novel by James Joyce, who was interested in Tim Finnigan’s resurrection from the dead by having whisky (water of life) poured on him during a fight at the wake.

 

The Gaelic chorus of “Cruiscin Lan” (My Little Full Jug) means:
Love of my heart, my little jug, Bright health, my darling.

Most of these songs tell their own story. They are not merely curiosity pieces or antiques; they are still very much alive and are as popular as the drink that inspired them.

PATRICK CLANCY”

The Clancy Brothers – Come Fill Your Glass With Us (1959)
(256 kbps, front cover included)

Ed Sanders – Beer Cans On The Moon (1973)

“They say rock & roll and politics don’t mix,” sings Ed Sanders at the very beginning of his second and final solo LP. That’s not necessarily true, but if you were going to make an argument against that declaration, this album is one of the last exhibits you’d want to use as evidence.

The crucial flaws were not those of intent: Sanders wasted no time in advocating “Nonviolent Direction Action,” satirizing the war-mongering of Henry Kissinger, hailing the unwinding of the Watergate scandal, and grinding out a “Universal Rent Strike Rag.” Perhaps these weren’t as immediately attention-grabbing issues as Vietnam and free love, but they were still important, especially in 1973. But Sanders was let down by the pedestrian, typically laissez-faire early-’70s rock arrangements, the severe limitations of his nasal twanging vocals, and most crucially by his own bluntly unwitty songwriting.

Sanders had proved he was skilled at crude wit with the Fugs, yet even though his efforts here are similar thematically, they sound forced and overly didactic, and are more tiresome than funny, even for many who wholeheartedly agree with his sociopolitical outlook. Sad to say, even many left-wingers and Fugs fans will demand the record be removed from the turntable long before its conclusion, or at any rate before the daft, echo-laden novelty tune about a “Yodeling Robot” that falls in love with Dolly Parton.

– Richie Unterberger

Ed Sanders – Beer Cans On The Moon (1973)
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Third World War – Third World War II (1972)

Much like their American counterparts MC 5, Third World War were a heavily politicized band from England who made their mark playing heavy rock songs with an overtly left-wing political agenda. They were well known amongst the London Underground scene, playing free concerts with the likes of Arthur Brown, the Pink Fairies, and the wonderfully eccentric Viv Stanshall (before he formed the infamous Bonzo Dog Band).

Their songs focus on the poor, disenfranchised, the uneducated; on rebels, Hells Angels, and semi-skilled laborers fighting for their freedom. The music could at moments be sensitive, but was more often than not a raw, “punk” sound.

This lp, their 2nd (and last), dates from 1972, and musically is a more complete album than their self-titled debut. There are some excellent bluesy numbers, mainly “Coshing Old Lady,” (their tribute to Hells Angels), mellow ones such as “Factory Canteen Mews,” which offers excellent guitar work by Terry Stamp. Mainly, the lp is heavy rock numbers, such as “Yoko,” “Urban Rock,” “Rat Crawl,” and their classic numbers- “I’d Rather Cut Cane for Castro,” and the brilliant “Hammersmith Guerrilla,” with very political lyrics such as: “Get yer arse down to Hammersmith town; Join the urban guerrillas Take up arms against the crown; Don’t talk about wrong and right, Get out and fight!” Pretty heavy stuff. Their 2 lps are wonderful listening, and fans of the “Kick Out the Jams” era MC 5 will find Third World War (the name says it all) as kindred spirits – and even more political!

Third World War – II (1972)
(320 kbps, cover included)

Hanns Eisler – Deutsche Sinfonie (NOVA, 1988)

Deutsche Sinfonie, Op. 50, is a composition for soloists, chorus and orchestra by Hanns Eisler. Despite the title, it is considered to be more in the style of a cantata than a symphony.

Principally composed between 1935 and 1947, but not completed until 1957, it is an eleven-movement setting of poems by Bertolt Brecht, drawn mainly from Brecht’s Songs, Poems and Choruses of 1934, and by Ignazio Silone, adapted by Eisler.

It was premiered in its full form at the German State Opera, East Berlin, on 24 April 1959. Brecht had died in 1956.

Eisler’s theme was the advance of Nazism in Germany. Yet the composer encountered difficulties in both reception and performance of the work throughout its long period of composition and development. When the first two movements (at this stage subtitled An Anti-Hitler Symphony) won a prize at the 15th Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music, gaining a promised performance of them at the 1937 Paris World Exhibition, the Nazi regime persuaded the French government to have the performance cancelled.

Here´s the “Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin” recording, conducted by Max Pommer and released in 1988 on the NOVA label.

Hanns Eisler – Deutsche Sinfonie (NOVA, 1988)
(256 kbps, front cover included)

Hanns Eisler – Deutsche Sinfonie (NOVA,

Deutsche Sinfonie, Op. 50, is a composition for soloists, chorus and orchestra by Hanns Eisler. Despite the title, it is considered to be more in the style of a cantata than a symphony.

Principally composed between 1935 and 1947, but not completed until 1957, it is an eleven-movement setting of poems by Bertolt Brecht, drawn mainly from Brecht’s Songs, Poems and Choruses of 1934, and by Ignazio Silone, adapted by Eisler.

It was premiered in its full form at the German State Opera, East Berlin, on 24 April 1959. Brecht had died in 1956.

Eisler’s theme was the advance of Nazism in Germany. Yet the composer encountered difficulties in both reception and performance of the work throughout its long period of composition and development. When the first two movements (at this stage subtitled An Anti-Hitler Symphony) won a prize at the 15th Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music, gaining a promised performance of them at the 1937 Paris World Exhibition, the Nazi regime persuaded the French government to have the performance cancelled.

Here´s the “Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin” recording, conducted by Max Pommer and released in 1988 on the NOVA label.

Hanns Eisler – Deutsche Sinfonie (NOVA, 1988)
(256 kbps, front cover included)

Mississippi John Hurt – The Best Of (1968)

No blues singer ever presented a more gentle, genial image than Mississippi John Hurt. A guitarist with an extraordinarily lyrical and refined fingerpicking style, he also sang with a warmth unique in the field of blues, and the gospel influence in his music gave it a depth and reflective quality unusual in the field. Coupled with the sheer gratitude and amazement that he felt over having found a mass audience so late in life, and playing concerts in front of thousands of people – for fees that seemed astronomical to a man who had always made music a sideline to his life as a farm laborer – these qualities make Hurt’s recordings into a very special listening experience.

This inappropriately titled album is actually a concert recording from a performance at Oberlin College in 1965. Regardless, Hurt’s rich, gentle voice and relaxed, flowing guitar lines could soothe the stormiest Monday. Among the hymns and traditional songs heard here are “I Shall Not Be Moved,” “Nearer My God to Thee,” “Since I’ve Laid This Burden Down,” and “You Are My Sunshine.” Complementing those are Hurt folk/blues staples, notably “Monday Morning Blues,” “Coffee Blues,” and “C.C. Rider.” The blues patriarch’s warmth and geniality come through here with such emotional intimacy that you can’t help being deeply moved. –Genevieve Williams

Tracklist:

Side 1:

1. Here Am I, Oh Lord, Send Me 3:02
2. I Shall Not Be Moved 3:26
3. Nearer My God To Thee 3:04
4. Baby What’s Wrong With You 3:35
5. It Ain’t Nobody’s Business 3:04

Side 2:

1. Salty Dog Blues 2:58
2. Coffee Blues 3:15
3. Avalon, My Home Town 3:41
4. Make Me A Pallet On The Floor 3:45
5. Since I’ve Laid This Burden Down 3:45

Side 3:

1. Sliding Delta 3:06
2. Monday Morning Blues 3:56
3. Richland Women Blues 4:33
4. Candy Man 3:47
5. Stagolee 4:22

Side 4:

1. My Creole Belle 2:25
2. C.C. Rider 3:59
3. Spanish Fandango 1:05
4. Talking Casey 4:19
5. Chicken 0:54
6. You Are My Sunshine 2:36
.
Mississippi John Hurt – The Best Of (1968)
(256 kbps, cover art included)