Harry Chapin - Dance Band on the Titanic/Living Room Suite CD

Dance Band on the Titanic/Living Room Suite CD music Beyond his considerable skills as a tunesmith and the charm of his ragged, emotive voice, Harry Chapin was primarily a storyteller, and the appreciative, attentive audience gives GREATEST STORIES LIVE an intimate, fireside feel. With less emphasis on the orchestral arrangements that could detract from the studio work, Chapin and his band play with vigor here, clearly energized by the live setting. The best thing about GREATEST STORIES LIVE, however, is the selection of tunes, which plays to Chapin's penchant for the "point-of-view song." Chapin's ability to invent a character and narrate the details of his or her life, coloring the scenes with details, metaphors, and literary flourishes is evident on "W.O.L.D.," the story about the life of a disc jockey, and "Mr. Tanner," the tale of a coat cleaner from Dayton, Ohio. Chapin's best-known songs are also here, including "Taxi," a melancholic tale in which old lovers meet by chance, and "Cat's in the Cradle," an emotionally resonant story of an underdeveloped father-son relationship. Each of these display Chapin's trademark skill with deeply human sketches, while "30,000 Pounds of Bananas" shows how fun he could be in concert, making this set the best representation of the artist's strengths as a songwriter and performer.

Dance Band on the Titanic/Living Room Suite songs Seals & Crofts' highest-charting album, Diamond Girl went up to number four on the strength of its Top Ten title cut and the follow-up, "We May Never Pass This Way (Again)." A well-produced collection of songs ranging from the personal to the spiritual, this LP captured the twosome in their commercial and artistic prime. "Ruby Jean and Billie Lee" is an attractive autobiographical ballad written to the duo's wives. "Nine Houses" and "Intone My Servant" invoke the religious faith so important to them that they would stay after concert performances to share it with those who cared to listen. "Standin' on a Mountain Top" is a flashback from their early-'60s days with the Champs, and "Dust on My Saddle" is a cowboy story also written by Seals in the '60s. Louie Shelton's production is impressive throughout, making Diamond Girl an appealing collection of radio-friendly '70s soft rock. ~ Jim Newsom

Dance Band on the Titanic/Living Room Suite album for sale When Dion DiMucci was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Traditional Blues category for 2006's Bronx in Blue, an excellent collection of blues standards, it was an official affirmation that he was "back." In truth, he'd never left, and had been recording all along. He issued a stellar follow-up in 2007's Son of Skip James, a collection of revelatory blues covers and fine new material. The third album in this blues trilogy is Tank Full of Blues. Recorded in a trio setting, Dion produced the album, wrote all but two selections, and played the hell out of all the guitars on it. Tank Full of Blues is a slippery, street-smart, utterly inspired album of blues and roots rock tunes that are free of nostalgia and drenched in history. Truth be told, any of the current era's bluesmen would be hard pressed to come up with lyrics near as profound as those found the in the harrowing "Ride's Blues (For Robert Johnson)." The track offers a new myth about the great bluesman; it delves deep into spiritual matters while addressing the terror that lies in the heart of anyone lost to her or himself. There's a redemptive twist that's as surprising as it is free of cliches. The meld of acoustic and distorted snarling electric guitars tells its own story -- the story of the blues itself -- to underscore the narrative. The title track, offered in swaggering Chicago blues style, offers a familiar and bitingly humorous tale of the life of an itinerant musician to be sure, but in a larger sense, also speaks to the conflicted nature of the human heart. "Two Trains" is a beautifully executed medley of Muddy Waters' "Still a Fool" and Johnson's "Ramblin' on My Mind." "My Michelle" pays tribute to Jimmy Reed's enduring musical influence and sense of humor. The strutting, updated rockabilly in "I'm Ready to Go" lays out Dion's sense of purpose in this world and the next. Finally, in "Bronx Poem," a spoken word piece that closes the disc, Dion speaks the unvarnished truth about where he's been and, perhaps even more bravely in this cynical age, where he stands -- without flinching. He possesses a rhyme skill set that would make any rapper jealous. Accompanied by his own haunting guitars and Robert Guertin's quietly shuffling drums, Dion celebrates humanity in the light of his spiritual convictions. In doing so, he comes full circle to meet himself as a street corner poet in the 1950s, and reveals his wisdom as the result of his experiences in the past and the present. He has no need to romanticize or apologize; he remains the keen-eyed, tender-hearted observer he has always been. Tank Full of Blues may be the late entry in a catalog of great work by Dion, but it stands with his best recordings. In fact, it is the album he's been waiting an entire career to make. ~ Thom Jurek Recording information: Sounds Great Studios. Personnel: Dion DiMucci (vocals, guitar); Robert Guertin (drums, percussion). Liner Note Author: Dion DiMucci.

Dance Band on the Titanic/Living Room Suite buy CD music Heavy lies the crown on Bruce Springsteen' head. Alone among his generation -- or any subsequent, actually -- he has shouldered the burden of telling stories of the downtrodden in the new millennium, a class whose numbers increase by the year, a fact that weighs on Springsteen throughout 2012's Wrecking Ball. Such heavy-hearted rumination is not unusual for the Boss. Ever since The Rising, his 2012 return to action, a record deliberately tailored to address the lingering anger and sorrow from 9/11, Springsteen has eschewed the frivolous in favor of the weighty, escalating his dry, dusty folk and operatic rock in tandem, all in hopes of pushing the plight of the forgotten into public consciousness. Each of his five albums since The Rising has been tailored for the specific political moment -- Devils & Dust ruminated over forgotten Americans in the wake of the Iraq war, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions was an election year rallying call, Magic struggled to find meaning in these hard times, Working on a Dream saw hope in the dawning days of Obama -- and it's no mistake that Wrecking Ball fuses elements of all four into an election year state of the union: Bruce is taking stock of where we are and how we got here, urging us to push forward. If that sounds a bit haughty, it also plays that way. Springsteen has systematically removed any element of fun -- "Mary's Place" is the only original in the past decade that could be called a party song -- along with all the romance or any element confessional songwriting. He has adopted the mantle of troubadour as oral historian, telling tales of the forgotten and punctuating them with rallying calls to action. Wrecking Ball contains more of the latter than either of its predecessors, summoning the masses to rise up against fatcat bankers, set to singalongs lifted from Seeger. There's an unshakable collectivist hootenanny feel on Wrecking Ball, not to mention allusions to gospel including a borrowed refrain from "This Train," but Springsteen takes pains to have the music feel modern, inviting Tom Morello to do aural paintings with his guitar, threading some trip-hop rhythms into the mix, and finding space for a guest rap on "Rocky Ground." Springsteen is so focused on preaching against creeping inequality in the .U.S, he's emphasized his words over his music, letting the big-footed stomps and melancholy strumming play second fiddle to the stories. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine Photographers: Jo Lopez; Danny Clinch. Personnel: Bruce Springsteen (vocals, guitar, banjo, piano, organ, drums, percussion, loops); Ron Aniello (guitar, keyboards, drums, loops); Kevin Buell (guitar); Greg Leisz (banjo, mandola); Charlie Giordano (accordion, piano); Stan Harrison (clarinet, alto saxophone); Ed Manion (tenor saxophone); Darrell Leonard, Curt Ramm (trumpet); Art Baron (euphonium, tuba, sousaphone); Dan Levine (alto horn). Recording information: MSR Studio; Stone Hill Studio; Very Loud House Studio.