Eric Lindell

Ending this week's series of artist from Louisiana is Eric Lindell. He is originally from California, but operates out of New Orleans now. A combination of Rock, Blues and Reggae, he puts on a great show.

This first video is a song off his 2006 album Change In The Weather. This is "Two Bit Town".



Another song of the same album, "All alone".



Finally a song off his most recent album Gulf Coast Highway, "I Can Get Off On You".

Buckwheat Zydeco

Monday I said that I was going to devote my posts this week to musicians from New Orleans, but I have decided to expand that to musicians from Louisiana.

Today's post is on Buckwheat Zydeco. Stanley “Buckwheat” Dural, Jr. is from Lafayette, Louisiana, and is one of the most popular Zydeco musicians in the country. He frequently plays in Baltimore and I have seen him several times. He shows always have great music, and are a lot of fun.

Here is an extended version of "Hard to Stop" from the 2007 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.



Here is another performance that is mostly instrumental.



Going back over 20 years, here is a cover of Bob Dylan's song "On a Night Like This".

Irma Thomas

Last week was Mardi Gras. If I had thought ahead, I would have done posts on artists from New Orleans. Better late than never, so I am doing that this week.

First up Irma Thomas. I say her perform last summer at the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival in DC. She gave an amazing performance and at the same time made it look so effortless. The only problem was that the schedule was running behind, and so her performance was a bit short. She packed a lot into her time, but I hope to get to see her agains sometime so I can see more.

This first song, "Time Is On My Side", has a bit of history. She recorded it in the 1960's and somewhere Mick Jagger saw her performance of it. He copied not only the song, but her delivery of it. At least he copied it as much as he was able to. It when on to become one of the Rollings Stones early hits, but Thomas did not really get any credit for it.



This version of "You Can Have My Husband" is from the same Jools Holland show as the previous video. Jools Holland should probably get a prize for supplying the most videos for this blog.



Finally, here is a song recorded at the funeral of Snooks Eaglin, "Singin' Hallelujah".

Patty Griffin

Patty Griffin just released a gospel album, Downtown Church. Here are a couple songs included on that album.

"Move Up"



A Dorothy Love Coats song, "Strange Man"



This song, "Waiting for My Child", Patty performed as a duet with Mavis Staples on the album Oh, Happy Day. She has also included a version of the song on her new album.

Lady Antebellum

Lady Antebellum released their second album, Need You Now, in January. This is their second album, and it debuted at number 1 on the Billboard chart. Their first album, Lady Antebellum, was one of my favorites from 2008. It is very rare that such a good first album can be followed up by an equally good second, but they have done it. They have great male/female harmony.

Here from the new album is "American Honey".



The title track off the new album, "Need You Now".



"Never Alone", with Jim Brickman, was not on either of their albums, but I like this video.

Lyle Lovett

I am going to do a couple posts on musicians who have recently released albums that I am listening to. Last October Lyle Lovett released the album Natural Forces. He is "Pantry" from that album.



Here Lovett performs the title track from the album with some help from John Hiatt.



From Joshua Judges Ruth in 1992, here is "Church".

String Bands - Uncle Earl

Uncle Earl is a sting band that leans more toward traditional Appalachian music. In this first video they perform "Starry Crown".



In this video Abigail Washburn sings "Last Goodbye", from their album "Waterloo, Tennessee".



This is "Warefare", from the album "She Waits For Night".



Finally, since Wednesday's post was on the Carolina Chocolate Drops, here is a short video of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and Uncle Earle together.

String Bands - Carolina Chocolate Drops

The music of the Carolina Chocolate Drops is based on African-American string band music, which pre-dates jazz and blues. Here the members of the band perform and discuss their upcoming album, Genuine Negro Jig.



Here they perform "Cornbread & Butterbeans".




This is the second version of "Salty Dog" that I have posted on this blog. Tnis song was also included on the post I did last year on The Dillards.

String Bands - Hot Club of Cowtown

This week I am going to do posts on string bands. All three of the bands are contemporary, but their music derives from old traditions. First up the Hot Club of Cowtown. They lean toward western swing music.

First, here is a video of some music spliced with an interview with the band.



Here is video from Jools Holland's New Years Eve show from a couple years back. This has two songs, "Orange Blossom Special" and "There'll Be Some Changes Made".



Here is a song off there latest album, Wishful Thinking, titled "Can't Go On This Way".

Precious Bryant

Here are a couple videos from Precious Bryant. She's an incredible guitar player.

Here she performs "My Chauffeur", a song that has been covered many times in both the folk and blues traditions.



He is an instrumental, "Georgia Buck".



I wish there was more, but that is all the video I can find of Bryant. Here is one more that is just audio, the Memphis Minnie song "Black Rat Swing".



I have set the ringtone on my iPhone to a Precious Bryant song title "Sugar Hill Blues". You can hear that song here.

Mississippi John Hurt

Since I started the week off with an old blues song, I am going to continue in that vein. Today post is a couple videos from Mississippi John Hurt (1893-1992). Hurt first recorded in 1928, but his recordings did not sell, and he did not record again until the 1960's when he returned to prominence as part of the 60's folk revival.

These first two videos are from Pete Seeger's television show. In this first video Hurt tells about learning to play the guitar and sings "Good Night Irene".



Here he performs the gospel song "You Got to Walk that Lonesome Valley".



From the Newport Folk Festival here is part of the song "Candyman".

Trouble So Hard

I was going to include this video of "Trouble So Hard" in the post I did on Paolo Nutini earlier this month. But then I decided that the song deserved a separate post. I like Nutini's reggae take on this blues song.



This song goes back to a recording by Vera Hall (1902-1964). It was made for the Library of Congress during the 30's or 40's as part of a project to document musical style around the United States.



The song came to prominence in 1999 when Moby sampled the song as part of his recording "Natural Blues". In Moby's recording Hall's original vocals were used, but here is a video of him performing it with Jill Scott and the Blue Man Group.