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LAURA ASHTON JONES - THE MOUNTAIN WIND BLOWS COLD

5/20/2016

Ordinarily, I'd just put this up on the Free List (and I will put it up over there in due time), but the front page is really quiet right now, so here it is.

If you're as badly addicted to Christmas music as I am--and, for your sake, I kinda hope you aren't--you've probably got some Christmas albums you've bought that you've never even listened to, for one reason or another. Seriously, I've got the bug that bad. So I was going through the stacks and stacks and stacks of unsorted CDs sitting around my place (about 80-85% of which I have listened to) and came across a 2013 local artist compilation from Knoxville that I had no memory of. It was a charity effort--the fourth and, apparently, last Christmas album put together by independent radio station WFIV -- "Homegrown For The Holidays".

Now y'all know that local artist compilation CDs are my favorite kind of Christmas album. For charity...all the better. But 2013 was also one of those years I was super occupied with family obligations. So I guess it slipped through the cracks. That turns out to be a pretty cool thing because, well, wouldn't you be excited to find a Christmas present you never opened in the middle of May? I mean, you're hardly going to give a thought to, "Dang, I wish I'd opened it then." No, you're going to be all like, "Cool! I get to open a Christmas present right now! In the middle of May!" Wouldn't you?

Like most local artist Christmas compilations, it had highlights and some that didn't quite rise to that level. Personal favorites, FWIW, included the opening Boogie Woogie piano take on "Run Run Rudolph" by the Kit Shickers and Billy Lawson's "Santa Claus Is Back In Town".

But, hands down, the "winner" for me was the original "The Mountain Wind Blows Cold" from Laura Ashton Jones (no relation to either Laura Ashton or Ashton Jones). It's a tune that should have appeal to fans of Bluegrass, Country and Americana, but also to fans of Indie, Alternative, and Singer/Songwriter sounds. It won me over instantly. And fortune smiled upon us because the track is available as a FREE download via Laura's ReverbNation page. She's still playing the Knoxville area, as far as I can tell, though ReverbNation appears to be her only music oriented web site and there aren't too many details there. In any case, it's the middle of May and "The Mountain Wind Blows Cold" is a pretty nice Christmas present to find at this time of year. Enjoy.

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CANDYE KANE (1961 - 2016)

5/8/2016

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It's hard to recall a more devastating year for those of us whose lives revolve largely around music. I mean, damn, it's only May and already the list of artists we've lost is far too long. David Bowie, Prince, Dan Hicks, Ernestine Anderson, Paul Kantner and Signe Toly Anderson of Jefferson Airplane, Billy Paul, Lonnie Mack, Merle Haggard, Leon Haywood, Lee Andrews, Black, Maurice White, Gato Barbieri, Keith Emerson, Troy Shondell, Clarence Reid, Thunderclap Newman, Long John Hunter, Sonny James, Gayle McCormick, Frank Sinatra Jr., Red Simpson, Paul Bley, Vanity, Gogi Grant, Jimmie Van Zant, Otis Clay, Glenn Frey, and Sir George Martin. And I know I'm forgetting people. They used to say deaths came in threes, but I don't recall anyone saying they came in thirties.

I cried when Joey Feek of Joey + Rory passed; so sad that someone so young and beautiful should go like that. I don't know how many people watched "Can You Duet", but I did and I only watched because of Joey & Rory.

Growing up, my parents had a lot of Classical and Easy Listening albums. They only had three albums that appealed to me (not counting the CXhristmas records). One was a Kingston Trio album and another was Jimmie Rodgers' hits. The third was a collection of gold records from Capitol artists and there was only one song on that I listened to (over and over)--Sonny James' "Young Love". What a record!

Gayle McCormick was the lead singer of Smith, who rocked the charts with an edgy Blues Rock update of "Baby, It's You"; pretty much everything else Gayle ever recorded is worth listening to as well. She had an amazing voice. Sadly, none of her later singles were hits and, by the mid-70s, she'd had her fill of the music industry. She returned to her Missouri home, worked retail, took care of her elderly mother and...never sang again. More, she had no desire to do so. She'd been there and done that and, for her, it was another life and not one she cared to ever revisit.

Ernestine Anderson was a singer of Jazz and Blues who, too often, was overshadowed by Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn. But her records were always dynamite. When I found myself working a format that required me to play, well, everything, Ernestine's classic "Never Make Your Move Too Soon" was one of the first Jazz or Blues tunes I fell in love with. That song and "Joe's Blues" by Joe Williams got past my artificial music walls and made me actually want to explore further, to see what else was out there that I'd been missing out on all these years. Without Ernestine Anderson, there is no Stubby's Christmas. OK, that's not much in the grand scheme of things, but it ain't nothing.

The mid-80s weren't exactly my favorite time. I was completely out of radio for the first time in a decade and that looked to be permanent. I wasn't dating or meeting anyone. And I was doing a long commute and eating a lot of mac & cheese and Ramen noodles. I was feeling a bit crappy about life in general. And I was frankly tired of turning on the car radio and hearing songs like "Karma Chameleon" on what seemed a continuous loop. One day, close to Christmas, I turn on the radio and hear Black's "Wonderful Life". That song turned me around. First, it made me smile and, then, it made me optimistic about the future. And, hell, it was just a great track.

Billy Paul helped usher in the golden age of Philadelphia International soul. "Me and Mrs. Jones" was ubiquitous and yet I never got tired of hearing it. I may well have been one of the first DJs to play "Another Lonely Christmas" on the radio and, let's face it, Prince was a pretty badass artist. How many people do you know who can simultaneously play guitar like Jimi Hendrix while doing a James Brown split? You certainly can't deny that David Bowie's duet with Bing on "Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth" is now a seasonal staple and Bowie was pretty much a constant in the soundtrack of my life. And George Martin produced the Beatles; 'nuff said.

PHOTO by ALAN MERCER

And this is why I shy away from obits on this blog these days. It isn't just an academic exercise anymore; I'm at that age where it's a very emotional one.

So why did the passing of Candye Kane on Friday cause me to broach the subject once again? Lots of reasons. 1) She was a truly remarkable artist who covered the waterfront of Blues styles, sounding like a master of them all, and she was a helluva songwriter. 2) She's not as well known as most of those we've mentioned above, so maybe I can steer you to checking out more of her music. 3) It's Mothers Day and Candye had two sons, one of whom was a member of her band. 4) She was an activist and a philanthropist and I like people like that. 5) She sang Blues and, for me, that's enough. 6) And because she'd been fighting pancreatic cancer for the past eight years, still managing to perform over 250 days a year, frequently literally pulling herself up out of her hospital bed to do so. In spite of the cutesy name, this was a woman who deserves and who earned a whole lot of R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Not doing the whole bio thing, though. I'm too tired of death to do so, at the moment.

I'm aware of two Candye Kane Christmas songs. The first was her 1992 recording (with Dick Montana of the Beat Farmers and Kim Wilson of the Fabulous Thunderbirds) "Let's Put The X Back In Xmas". The second was a 1999 recording (for the House of Blues Christmas CD), "Santa Is A Swinger Now". And, if you're a longtime reader of Stubby's, you may find that you already have them both. Even though the original CDs are long out of print, "Let's Put The X Back In Xmas" was included on the Alternate Root's free download Christmas collection in 2011 and "Santa Is A Swinger Now" was included on AR's 2012 holiday set, also a free download. Ain't that some stuff?

I'm really tired of people I care about dying. But it isn't my call, I guess. And we're all on a journey that inevitably leads there. At least we know that, when we get there, the music is going to be incredible.

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LAURA ASHTON JONES - THE MOUNTAIN WIND BLOWS COLD

CANDYE KANE (1961 - 2016)

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