Freegal finds

                             Freegal All stars 

Aretha Franklin: “Sweet Bitter Love” from a Dutch re-issue (of all things) reminding us of one of the greatest of American blues singers

Barbara Lea: “Killing Time” just a starter song to meet the sadly under-sung heart-breaking ballad mistress

Barry Goldberg: “More Soul” Capturing the feel of a smoky 60’s room full of rocking blues is the grooviest organist you never heard of…

Basil Rathbone: “Masque of the Red Death” The greatest interpreter of Poe that ever lived.

Big Bill Broonzy: “I Feel Good” An amazing celebratory blues song!

Chet Atkins “Bouree”  Chet Atkins could play the theme of an ice cream truck and make it sound great.

Connie Francis “Who’s Sorry Now”  Once the brightest star in America,  her fame has  faded somewhat but not the bittersweet cry in her wonderful voice.

Darrell Scott “Colorado” Folkies know him as a great songwriter and performer and it is time normal people did too…

Dawes “A Little Bit of Everything” One of the few contemporary bands that will make even old hippies happy.

Etta James “My Dearest Darling” A voice so full of power and conviction that she could break your heart and be heard several counties away…

George Jones “My Favorite Lies” IMHO the greatest living American singer, even with the corniest of lyrics he makes it all work.

Hoagie Carmichael “Memphis In June” a voice, a song and an arrangement so rich and sweet you could pour it over a waffle.

John Hiatt “Homeland” The more you listen to his high voltage vocals riding over actual thought provoking lyrics the more you wonder why he is not on the currency or something.

Jose Alfredo Jiminez y Amalia Mendoza “Llego Borracho El Borracho” Two of Mexico’s greatest singers tell a tale of terrible tragedy brought on by good liquor and bad judgment.

Ahn Trio “ Magic Hour” These ladies are adept at interpreting the most avant-garde of classical compositions but they can also make a simple lullaby into something remarkable.

Joshua Bell “the Girl with the Flaxen Hair” The great violinist can sculpt even a warhorse into a masterpiece with this silky touch.

Kris Kristofferson: “From Here to Forever” If you have children and listen to this without tearing up there is something very wrong with you.

Neko Case “Middle Cyclone” Once in a while she writes a lyric you want memorize and quote in a bar but you are always too drunk to remember it when the time comes.

Ricky Nelson “Lonesome Town” A truly dreamy ballad singer who gets ignored by the critics because he was Ozzie’s son.

Simone Dinnerstein (Bach) Keyboard Concerto No. 5 in F minor BMV 1056 With unreal expressiveness within her exquisitely disciplined approach Ms. Dinnerstein makes you see Bach in a different way, even at half the speed of Glenn Gould.

Sviatoslav Richter “Well Tempered Clavier” (Bach) the master…nuff said.

Thomas Newman “Little Women” Probably the greatest film score composer in the world who can do more in two minutes than some cannot in two hours.

When You Are Old

                                   When You Are Old


                                                       by William Butler Yeats


When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.