Remembering Lee Hazlewood in advance of his birthday on Thursday. —Ed.

If Lee Hazlewood lingers in the contemporary cultural memory, it’s easily due to his work with Nancy Sinatra. On The LHI Years: Singles, Nudes & Backsides (1968-71), the Light in the Attic label collects a bunch of his post-Nancy collaborations and a welcome helping of his solo shots, and the results are highly recommended not just for Hazlewood’s fans but for anyone with an inclination for well-crafted oddball pop.

Though his music never wavered from its thoroughly commercial designs, Lee Hazelwood was still a truly strange duck. And the undeniable datedness of his work can really add to the overall weirdness factor, though that’s in no way a bad thing; if often possessing production values and orchestrations that are accurately assessed as “middle of the road” (not the same as “mainstream”), his songs almost always avoid falling into simple kitsch.

But Hazlewood was more than just a bizarro/sophisto cowboy that blended Vegas-inclined pop with a country-inflected folksiness both on his own and in a collaboration with Sinatra that still comes off like a Swingin’ ‘60’s reaction to Dolly and Porter. Indeed, while loads of folks are familiar with the string of late-‘50s hits that he produced and co-wrote with Duane Eddy, it’s also true that most of those listeners aren’t cognizant of Hazlewood’s actual involvement with those songs, a short flowering of creativity that stands amongst the finest instrumental rock music ever recorded.

He was also the impresario of Lee Hazlewood Industries, a fleeting subsidiary label of ABC Records. Naturally, a fair portion of LHI’s relatively slim discography is dedicated to its namesake; both his solo album Forty and The Cowboy and the Lady, credited to the duo of Hazlewood and actress Ann-Margret were released in 1969, and Cowboy in Sweden came out the following year. Back around 1999 or so, Steve Shelley’s Smells Like Records began admirably reissuing some of Hazlewood’s harder to find stuff on compact disc. This program included both the Ann-Margret collab and Cowboy in Sweden, but plenty of worthy bits and pieces slipped through the cracks.

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The Michael Marcus Quartet’s new recording, Next Stop Down, is an inspired set of originals that are steeped in the tradition but consistently straining against genre constraints. Featuring Marcus on tarogato, soprano sax, and on one selection, tenor sax (he also bangs a gong), plus Rod Williams on piano, Ricky Rodriguez on bass, and Allan Mednard on drums, the music thrives through an inviting familiarity, but the band is unafraid to get loose, and the compositions brandish some welcome edge. It’s available now on compact disc and digital through the indefatigable ESP-Disk of New York City.

He can navigate jazz’s outer regions with aplomb, but Michael Marcus got his start backing blues heavyweights Albert King and Bobby “Blue” Bland. Moving into the jazz realm, Marcus debuted as a leader with Under the Wire in 1991 for the Enja label with trumpeter Ted Daniel, trombonist Joseph Bowie, bassist William Parker, and drummer Reggie Nicholson in the band.

Since then, Marcus has recorded a ton, including nine releases with saxophonist Sonny Simmons, a fellow Bay Area guy, leading the Cosmosamatics, cut five with Ted Daniel as Duology, and has over 15 under his own name with a variety of players on numerous labels. A key early collaborator was the pianist Jaki Byard, with whom Marcus recorded two albums, both for the Justin Time label.

He also cut two records with the Jus Grew Orchestra, assembled by saxophonist Jemel Moondoc, one for the Ayler label and one for Eremite. More recently, Marcus has been part of the Blue Reality Quartet with horn man extraordinaire Joe McPhee, vibraphonist-percussionist Warren Smith, and drummer Jay Rosen.

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TERRE HAUTE, IN | There are certain artists you suffer through an extreme heat advisory for, and for me, Wynonna Judd is one of those. The Raised on Radio tour rolled into The Mill on July 3rd with Wynonna and Melissa Etheridge co-headlining and Maggie Rose opening the night, and somehow thousands of us willingly stood outside in what felt like the surface of the sun.

Maggie Rose kicked things off with a set that deserved more attention than opening acts usually get. Soulful, powerful, and completely unfazed by the heat, she set the tone perfectly for the night.

Melissa Etheridge then took the stage and owned it. Her voice has raw grit and power that makes every song hit hard. She sounded incredible all night, and the crowd was hanging onto every word. Melissa has always had a way of making huge outdoor venues feel strangely personal, and that was absolutely true at The Mill.

Then Wynonna came out and somehow matched that same energy note for note. Wynonna doesn’t just sing, she commands a stage in a way very few artists can anymore. Her voice is still enormous, emotional, and effortlessly powerful live. Even in temperatures that should honestly qualify as a hostile work environment, she never missed a beat.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Craft Recordings’ Original Jazz Classics (OJC) series returns with a pair of seminal releases from two jazz icons. Continuing the year-long celebration of the centennials of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, OJC will reissue The Miles Davis Quintet’s Cookin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet and John Coltrane’s Coltrane on August 14.

Originally released on Prestige in 1957, both albums capture pivotal moments in the careers of two of jazz’s most influential artists. These new editions feature all-analog (AAA) mastering from the original tapes by Cohearent Audio, 180-gram vinyl pressed at RTI, and Stoughton Tip-On jackets with obi strips. Both are available for pre-order today and will also be released digitally in 192/24 hi-res audio.

The Miles Davis Quintet, Cookin’ with The Miles Davis Quintet | The quintet—which also featured John Coltrane (tenor sax), Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Philly Joe Jones (drums)—stands among the most celebrated groups in jazz history. Music critic Ralph Gleason, a founding editor of Rolling Stone magazine and co-founder of the Monterey Jazz Festival, once gushed, “The intricacy of the linkage between the minds of these musicians has never been equaled in any group, in my opinion.” Cookin’ is one of the four albums to emerge from the Quintet’s legendary 1956 sessions at the storied Van Gelder Studio.

Recorded without rehearsals and in a single take, the fittingly titled Cookin’ features Davis at a pivotal moment in his artistic evolution, unleashing the full dynamic range of his trumpet. As All About Jazz observed, “He plays his ass off… ranging high and low with Olympian poise and, at times, unprecedented ferocity.”

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Remembering Larry “Rhino” Reinhardt in advance of his birthdate tomorrow. —Ed.

For the past week or so, I’ve been walking around singing “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” in a resonant voice, pretty much nonstop. I don’t sing all 19 minutes of it, mind you. You can’t sing a drum solo. Still, my significant other is threatening divorce, and we’re not even married.

A monolithic monument of molten metal sung by a guy with enunciation problems, Iron Butterfly’s 1968 “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” (on the LP of the same title) hit the charts at the dawning of the progressive rock era, when 19-minute song cycles with titles like “Crystals Medusa” or “King Arthur’s Gelatinous Sceptre” were beginning to blight the musical landscape. There is nothing “progressive” about the 19 minutes of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”–the song’s a regressive return to the primitive simplicity of “Louie Louie” and anybody–even me–could play it, for hours if the mood struck.

“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” is all primal force, an implacable juggernaut that grinds exceedingly fine–you don’t listen to it as much as get out of its way. Forget the Age of Aquarius–to quote Blue Öyster Cult, “This ain’t the garden of Eden… and this ain’t the summer of love.”

No, it’s the most ominous song about Adam and Eve’s playground ever–guitarist Erik Braun’s repeated fuzz-guitar riff, keyboard player/vocalist Doug Ingle’s ominous church organ, and Lee Dorman’s speaker-shuddering bass are all menace, and the only problem I have with the song–and it’s a serious one–is the way its forward motion is interrupted by a couple of lengthy solos–the first (unconscionably) by Ron Bushy on drums and the second by Ingle on organ. I’d have preferred an impregnable wall of heavy metal noise with no exits, no interruptions, no let up—the West Coast’s retort to the Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Today, 4x GRAMMY® Award-winner Shooter Jennings announces the release of Diamonds, a new album of previously unheard songs by his legendary father, Waylon Jennings. The title track was featured on a special CBS Sunday Morning story on Shooter and Waylon Jennings.

Diamonds is the second in a series of albums featuring previously unknown recordings by Waylon Jennings that his son, Shooter Jennings, recently unearthed. Diamonds is heralded by the title track out today. The song features a surprise appearance by the late great Glen Campbell, who joins Gordon Payne, Jerry Bridges, Carter Robertson, Barney Robertson, Rance Wasson, the collective known as the Waylors, in backing Waylon Jennings.

“This track eluded me,” says Shooter Jennings. “I kept finding it across three different sessions while I was going through my father‘s work. At first, I was very confused because of the sound of the guitar as to what it was. Suddenly, upon listening to the whole thing, I realized Glen Campbell had stopped by the studio and they recorded this little gem on a late December night in 1978. The remaining members of the Waylors helped put the picture together. It quickly became one of my favorite recordings that my dad ever made and I knew I had to have a whole album centered around it.”

Shooter shared the first installment of newly uncovered songs last year with Songbird, which was met by widespread acclaim from such publications as NY Times, the Tennessean, Rolling Stone, Consequence of Sound, Billboard, Stereogum, Variety, American Songwriter, Parade, Whiskey Riff, Holler Country and many more.

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Celebrating Ringo Starr in advance of his 86th birthday tomorrow. —Ed.

News flash! Critic declares Ringo Starr greatest ex-Beatle! Rioting breaks out in hipster enclaves! Brooklyn in flames! Incensed Lennonites carry signs: “Michael Little = Dingbat!” Hairy Harrisonoids counsel karmic calm: “This too shall pass!” McCartney maniacs attempt to sooth selves with “Silly Love Songs”! NME headline reads: “Panned on the run!”

In my dreams. But it’s what I really believe. I really believe that Ringo Starr, who never got no respect and was the comic foil and clown of the legendary Fab Four has—over the almost four-and-a-half decades since the Beatles went the way of the Ono, er make that Dodo—produced far more genuinely likeable pop songs than any of his “genius” fellow Mop Toppers.

But first, a sordid confession. I’ve never cared much for Ringo’s old band. I can count on one hand the number of Beatles songs I really love (“Helter Skelter,” “She Said She Said,” “Hey Jude,” “Tomorrow Never Knows,” and “Let It Be”). As for most of the rest of their oeuvre, it could vanish into the void and I would never miss it.

And there are plenty of songs (the dreadful “Long and Winding Road,” the hideous “Something,” and the unpalatable “Got to Get You Into My Life”) whose disappearance would make me very happy. As for the post-Beatles work of John, Paul, and George, I can think of maybe one or two (at most) songs I love by each of them. Shit, Ringo matched them with ONE single, 1971’s “It Don’t Come Easy” backed by “Early 1970,” a very funny series of good-natured jibes about his former band mates.

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We’ve closed TVD’s HQ for the Fourth of July holiday. While we’re away, why not fire up our Record Store Locator app and visit one of your local indie record stores?

Perhaps there’s an interview, review, or feature you might have missed? Catch up, and we’ll see you back here Monday, 7/6.

COSTA MESA, CA | There’s nothing quite like a summer reggae show in Southern California. The sun sinking behind the OC Fair & Event Center, a warm breeze drifting through the venue, and thousands of fans ready to sing along with every word—it’s the kind of night this music was made for. On Friday, June 26th, Iration’s Where It All Began tour hit the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, California.

The tour celebrates nearly two decades of the Hawaiian-bred, Santa Barbara-based band’s independent success, and it shares its name with their brand new album that dropped back in May. They were supported by Tunnel Vision, Artikal Sound System, and Tribal Seeds—a stacked lineup that any West Coast reggae fan would circle on the calendar. With four bands covering everything from surf-punk to roots reggae, this was less a concert and more a full-on celebration of the SoCal reggae scene. The weather was great and the crowd was ready for a night of singing and dancing.

San Clemente band Tunnel Vision got things going with their punk/surf/reggae style, getting us all going for the night. The band famously formed back in 2012 while its founding members were working together at the Lost Surfboards factory, and their whole sound still carries that surf-and-skate DNA. Frontman Hayden Hanson and the guys grew up surfing and skating around Orange County, so this was practically a hometown show for them, and it showed.

Early crowds can be tough to win over, but the amphitheater was already filling in fast and Tunnel Vision made the most of every minute of their set. They played a lot of great songs like “Hop in the Van” off their album Days Away, which everyone was singing and dancing to. It was the perfect way to kick off the night.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | World Circuit Records will release Buena Vista Social Club (30th Anniversary Edition) on 4th September. Produced by Ry Cooder and Executive Produced by Nick Gold, the classic multi-million-selling Grammy-winning album will be reissued on “pearl sunrise” colour double-LP, reflecting pearl’s long-standing association with 30-year anniversaries. Buena Vista Social Club 30th Anniversary Edition is the third in a series of re-releases celebrating the prestigious label’s 40th Anniversary and is available now for pre-order.

The history, authenticity and mystique of Buena Vista Social Club burns as brightly today as ever for fans both new and old. On 26 March 1996, the trio of Cuban bandleader Juan de Marcos González, American producer and guitarist Ry Cooder, and British producer and label owner Nick Gold assembled an impromptu group of Cuban musicians at Centro Havana’s historic 1950’s EGREM/Areito studios. The majority of those gathered were celebrated veterans of the golden age of the Cuban music scene of the 1940s and ’50s.

None of them had any idea that the recordings they were about to produce would change the lives of many people, themselves included, and would forever change the standing of Cuban music in the world. Buena Vista Social Club was the name given to both this extraordinary group of musicians and the album, recorded in just seven days.

The studio, owned by Cuba’s national label EGREM, was originally installed in the 1940s and is celebrated as a great jewel in recording history. The large wood-panelled studio enabled recording to take place with the full ensemble playing “live,” which puts the listener right in the room amongst the musicians. There is no doubt that this played a major part in the magical sound of the final recordings.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Wewantsounds is honoured to announce the first-ever international release of the legendary collaboration between Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand) and Don Cherry, featuring Carlos Ward. Following Ibrahim’s recent passing, this long-awaited edition is all the more relevant.

Recorded live in 1972 at Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen, this highly sought-after album was originally released exclusively in Japan in 1974 on the cult jazz label Trio Records via its revered Nadja imprint. An essential chapter in the musicians’ discographies, the performance skilfully blends jazz with rich South African rhythms and global influences. This definitive reissue features fully remastered audio, the original artwork, and a booklet with new bilingual liner notes by Jacques Denis.

The Third World-Underground captures a rare convergence of three singular musical voices: Don Cherry’s nomadic imagination, Abdullah Ibrahim’s deeply rooted South African lyricism, and Carlos Ward’s muscular alto saxophone. By 1972 when this magical album was recorded, Cherry and Ibrahim had already spent a decade redefining jazz by pushing beyond its foundations and embracing a broader, global musical language.

Cherry—who had helped revolutionise jazz alongside Ornette Coleman—was in constant search of new musical pathways. Drawing inspiration from the traditional sounds of Turkey, India, Africa, and beyond, he cultivated a fluid, borderless approach that expanded far beyond the trumpet, incorporating voice, percussion, and communal improvisation into his work. Ibrahim brought an equally profound sensibility. A spiritual heir to Duke Ellington, shaped by Cape Town gospel, township jive, and the emotional weight of exile, he transformed the piano into an instrument capable of both celebration and lament.

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Remembering Martin Phillipps, born on this day in 1963. —Ed.

For some, the two early 1990s releases from New Zealand’s The Chills, Submarine Bells and Soft Bomb, served as a gateway to one of the finest tunesmiths in the whole pop-rock shebang. But for folks who were previously clued-in to the band’s work for the Flying Nun label, these albums, both cut for Slash Records, represent leader and sole constant Chill Martin Phillipps’ already considerable pop ambitions in full flower.

Although it was never my preferred format, back in 1990 when Submarine Bells came out, I was still in the habit of occasionally buying music on cassette. I mention this because I did indeed initially purchase Bells on that very format, a decision spurred by impatience, as on my visit, the store didn’t have any copies in stock.

This pained me a little at the time, but I also knew I could remove the shrink wrap and pop that tape right into the car’s deck for immediate listening out on the highway, which was enticing as The Chills’ sound, which flows from a jangle pop/ indie pop fount with tangible if savvy nods to the 1960s, is well-suited for vehicular absorption. Upon reflection, Submarine Bells hits something of an apex in the windows down volume up mode, beginning with one of the band’s signature tunes, “Heavenly Pop Hit.”

That song’s stature relates largely to pure skill in the construction, but as said up above, Submarine Bells was many folks’ intro to The Chills, and sequenced on that album first, “Heavenly Pop Hit” no doubt deepened this first impression. Along with reaching No. 2 on the New Zealand singles chart (the album hit No. 1, as The Chills weren’t an u-ground thing at home), it snuck into the UK singles sales list at No. 97 and even made the Alternative Airplay chart in the US at No. 17.

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