Ernest Tubb's Texas Troubadours

 Artist: Ernest Tubb's Texas Troubadours

LP: Country Dance Time

Song: "Detour"

[ listen ]

Song: "Leon's Guitar Boogie"

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I'm back. Here are a couple of tunes from this Ernest Tubb (with his Texas Troubadours) record I picked up at Fat Cat Records for just $.99 the other day. I'm willing to guess this record once belonged to someone with the initials "JHN." (John Henry Nashville? Jeb Henry Nistlethwhite? Who knows!) A lot has happened over the past four months while I haven't been posting. I wonder what some of the titles would be if Ernest Tubb and His Texas Troubadours were still around to write an LP full of songs about everything that's going on right now.

[ Ernest Tubb's Texas Troubadours ]

ABBA / Matt Williams [1967-2020]

Artist: ABBA

LP: Super Trouper
Song: "Super Trouper"

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Speaking of "family vibes," my brother Matt died suddenly of a heart-attack this past Saturday morning down in Portland, Oregon. I could write 100+ paragraphs filled with all the memories I have of him, but I'm just gonna mention one. And then I'm going to post 100+ photos instead.

Matt loved ABBA. I mean, he didn't dress up like them or anything, but I remember when he was about 13 years old in the early '80s, he had ABBA's "Super Trouper" on cassette and played it a lot. Well at age 11, I was just hip enough to know that ABBA had gone slightly out of fashion, so I teased him in front of his friends: "You like ABBA! You like ABBA!" Now of course I have all of ABBA's albums and recognize that they are actually one of the coolest things ever to come out of Europe...and also that another one of the coolest things ever is to be slightly out of fashion. My brother was way ahead of me.

Matt liked the album's title track in particular...and I do too. If anyone was a Super Trouper, it was Matt. In spite of  whatever I or anyone else believes, I like to think that now lights are gonna' find him shining like the sun, smiling, having fun, feeling like a #1. And I hope he won't ever feel blue, like he'd sometimes be, 'cause somewhere in the crowd there's me.

[ As a young lad, sittin' on the shag ]

[ Bug eyes ]

[ Photo for the cover of our first LP ]

[ Matt the baker boy ]

[ Matt and his glass ]

[ Out at the farm, slightly overdressed ]

[ Marching to the beat of our own drum ]

[ Okay, actually maybe Matt DID dress like ABBA ]

[ ABBA ]

[ Brothers at the oven ]

 [ Brothers at the campground ]

 

[ The Williams Family siblings ]

[ Happy to be taking care of his little brother ]

[ Matt with friends, champions at the table ]

[ At the table with mom ]

[ At Original Hotcake & Steak House in Portland, OR ]

[ Matt turns six ]

Matthew Lawrence Williams
[ January 21, 1967 — May 30, 2020 ]

We will miss you, Matt. Please let me know when you've seen this.

The Family Vibes

Artist: The Family Vibes

LP: Confined to Soul
Song: "Garbage Man"

[ listen ]

Here's a little something for a funky Friday, coming at you from all the way back in 1973. The Family Vibes are reportedly Ike Turner's backing band, which I suppose is why he is presenting them to us. Thank you. I love this "Garbage Man" track, in which a neighborhood garbage man woos his lady by offering to grant her an unlimited number of treasures that he has gleaned from his work. 

I remember reading about a documentary someone made a few years ago in New Zealand or someplace like that, and it was all about garbage men. They even choreographed a musical number in which all the men sang and danced as they collected the city's refuse. But now that I've typed that out, I wonder if I actually read about this film, or if maybe it was just something that happened in one of my dreams.

I feel like people in society generally look down their noses at garbage men (like, they wouldn't want their daughter or son to date them). But I've run into quite a few garbage men in the North Seattle neighborhood alleyways while delivering mail, and they're generally a friendly bunch, and rather fit too from lifting loads of everyone's discarded shit all day long! The recycling and yard waste fellows are generally an attractive set as well. And who knows? Maybe one day one of them could become a famous artist!

[The Family Vibes ]

Russell Dean

Artist: Russell Dean

LP: Russell Dean
Song: "Foreign Legion Seaman"

[ listen ]

It seems Russell Dean only made this one LP, back in 1971. So you have to ask: Why did it flop? Was it the bangs? The cover of my copy has been vandalized by someone with poor grammar. You have to ask: Did the perpetrator ever eventually learn the proper usage of indefinite articles 'a' vs. 'an'? Their brief critique of Russell is rather harsh, and you have to ask: Was it due to some interpersonal misunderstanding or maybe a hostile confrontation at an open-mic session at a popular Kansas City cafe, something like that...or was it, you know, the bangs? I wonder if Russell Dean is still alive. I just found out that Lynn Shelton and Fred Willard aren't, so you have to ask: Is anyone still alive? I looked for Russell online and came up with several possibilities, so you have to ask: Could one of THESE be this same Russell Dean? ...the one who's a idiot, I mean. These; these; these; these

Yevgeni Doga

Artist: Yevgeni Doga

LP: The Gypsy Camp Disappears In the Skies
Song: "Malyarkitsa"

[ listen ]

While spending my day off this week in Gig Harbor visiting my parents yesterday (bemasked and socially distant, but emotionally close; I hadn't seen them since Christmas!), I was thrilled to get a text from work telling me to take the next day off too, since I'd been working so many hours! That helped me relax, and I ended up staying for a later dinner than planned, and then played games and watched inspiring YouTube videos with them until I finally headed home to Seattle after 10:30pm.

So then I was a little annoyed when, this morning at 6:51 I got a text from the supervisor at work saying that, because there were so many call-outs, the manager wanted me to come in to work after all. "...at 9:30?" I texted in reply. I was thrilled to get a response ten minutes later saying never mind, they'd be able to get along without me and to take the day off after all. I jokingly replied that they were putting me on an emotional roller-coaster! 

Then at 8:02am I was annoyed to get a text from the manager saying that three pallets of Amazon parcels had just been delivered to the station and they needed me to come in to work after all to help deliver them...and that they didn't have a truck for me, so I'd likely need to go pick one up somewhere, and they'd be in touch again with further instructions. 

I was thrilled to get another text at 8:31am saying that they had decided to hold off delivering the new Amazon parcels until tomorrow, so I should go ahead and take the day off after all! So as of now (almost 1pm) it looks like I'll have the day off, but I'm still wearing my USPS uniform, just in case. 

I'm also posting this lovely number from Moldovian composer Yevgeni Doga; it's one of the pieces he wrote for the 1976 Russian film THE GYPSY CAMP DISAPPEARS IN THE SKIES (aka. QUEEN OF THE GYPSIES). I found this (slightly warped) copy in the dollar bins out in front of Beats and Bohos sometime last year. You can read all about Yevgeni "Eugen" Doga here, and go here to find some fun places to visit if you're ever in Moldova.

[ Yevgeni Doga ]