Dogwood Tales
Wednesday, May 06, 2026
Night Life by Ray Price
This album features a spoken introduction from Mr Ray Price himself promising “songs of happiness, sadness, heartbreak.”
To be honest, this is mainly about the latter two emotions featuring late night honky tonks, lonesome streets and ending up in jail because you drank a whole bottle of gin. Again.
Musically, this has its roots in the Western Swing sound with fiddles handing off to gorgeous sounding pedal steel guitars and back again, with solid double bass and drums keeping the tempo going. Ray Price has a mighty fine singing voice holding everything together.
Going back to the intro, Ray urges fans to get in touch and let the band know if you enjoyed the record. Well, I certainly did!
Honky Tonk-tastic!
Tuesday, May 05, 2026
Beautiful Freak by Eels
The only really off putting thing about this is the cover, which has an uncomfortable image reminiscent of a 1930s freak show or similar, which I’m guessing is deliberate given the subject matter of the title track.
Monday, May 04, 2026
Electric Warrior by T. Rex
Some of my earliest musical memories are of glam bands on Top of the Pops, with their sparkly clothes, platform boots and long hair. Who were these alien creatures and why was their music so exciting?
Of all the stars in the glam firmament, Marc Bolan burned the brightest and sadly the briefest. Like Bowie he transitioned from folk pop into harder glam rock sounds, and I wasn’t surprised to see that this album was produced by Tony Visconti.
The first two tracks Mambo Sun and Cosmic Dancer set a mellow vibe, with Beatles-esque strings before kicking it out of the park with the glorious stomping Jeepster. As well as the well known hits, he also pulls off a great blues number in Lean Woman Blues
1971 really was the best year for music.