(August 2026) Episode 737 is ELLA FITZGERALD. On a Mt. Rushmore of American voices, she’s on it. “The First Lady of Song,” perhaps the most famous female jazz vocalist of all time. I appreciate her art, as I do for all the jazz giants she collaborated with: Gillespie, Armstrong, Basie, Peterson. But … I don’t really like this music. I’m just not into the Great American Songbook. And I can’t stand scat singing, perhaps the form Fitzgerald is best known for. All due respect, of course.

Favorite album: Take Love Easy

Favorite song: Dream a Little Dream of Me (with Louis Armstrong)

Most unorthodox song: Sunshine of Your Love (not quite as far out as Dolly Parton’s Stairway to Heaven, but close)

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: I liked best the albums with jazz guitarist Joe Pass, simple affairs stripped of the chrome and glitz of her more iconic big band recordings

(August 2026) Episode 735 is WOLFMOTHER. At times it’s nutritious to return to the soul food of guitar rock, which 21^st Century revivalists Wolfmother provide in abundance. In this they remind me of fellow Australians and contemporaries Jet. Their best feature is the delicious tone of the Kyuss-like fuzz guitar which propels things with kickin’ hooks. The weakest part is Andrew Stockdale’s vocals, a combination of Jack White and Greta Van Fleet’s Josh Kiszka, which grate after a while. You may recognize “Joker and the Thief” from multiple uses in other media.

Favourite album: Wolfmother

Favourite song: Joker and the Thief

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: If you grew up on guitar rock, try this. Each album has its satisfaction; the best is the first and they gradually lose quality after that.

(July 2026) Episode 731 is NATURAL SNOW BUILDNGS. Labeled as “avant-folk,” this French man-woman duo create expansive recordings that generally fall in the ambient and drone genres. But this is not music to meditate or space out to. There’s a darkness to it, but it is not menacing. There are occult themes, but they are not ominous. To me this music is the soundtrack of walking through a dark forest, uncertain but unafraid. There are other elements too, like peculiar psychedelic folk singing and distorted guitar freak-outs. This episode also covered albums each recorded solo under ISENGRIND (more drone) and TWINSISTERMOON (more folky).

Favorite album: Daughter of Darkness

Favorite song: Song for Laurie Bird

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: Worth a try for those who like drone/ambient material, particularly because it does not invoke a customary emotional response. Some of their recordings are up to six hours, providing for extended listening.

(February 2026) Episode 709 is ALI FARKA TOURÉ. A guitarist from Mali who in the 1990s became one of the most internationally successful artists from West Africa. Described as “the African John Lee Hooker” as for the resemblance in low, minimal, extended blues songs. Touré’s music blends Malian styles with African-American blues which of course can trace roots back to West Africa. He sings in a variety of languages. Most of all I admire his guitar skills with which, especially later in his career, he crafted mesmerizing textures.

Favorite album: Ali Farka Touré (1988)

Favorite song: Bonde

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: Ali Farka Touré and the double-packaged Red/Green album are good representations of his more traditional early style. In the Heart of the Moon and Ali and Toumani showcase the later mesmerizing style. Talking Timbuktu (with Ry Cooder) is a good in-between.

Episode 683 of the “opus project” is HIGH TIDE. Among the bands that adopted a heavy sound in the late 1960s that came to be seen as influences on metal, you can’t do much better than the UK’s High Tide, or at least their first album Sea Shanties. It’s a quality experience, not unlike if Jim Morrison were the lead singer of Iron Butterfly. But they didn’t last long. Their second album was proto-prog aided by a violin as a main instrument. There was a synth-heavy recording in the 1980s and several releases of live performances of extended jams, none of which is interesting.

Favourite album: Sea Shanties

Favourite song: Futilist’s Lament

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: Sea Shanties is the only good thing

Episode 677 of the “opus project” is MA RAINEY. Known as the “Mother of the Blues” for her popularity in the early decades of the 20^th century. She had a tough, powerful voice that carried over jazz-instrumented blues songs. It’s “old-timey.” Gertrude “Ma” Rainey recorded over only six years of her career, but that leaves us plenty of songs.

Favorite song: Booze and Blues

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: Her work is handily compiled into a 4-volume package.

(August 2025) Episode 667 is DWIGHT YOAKAM. He emerged in the 1980s as a throwback to the basics of honky tonk and Bakersfield when country music was doing other things. The recent episode on Buck Owens gave me an appreciation of that style, so moving to Yoakam seemed natural. While I didn’t listen to his music back in the day, I did sense that his image was genuine rather than phony. In his 20-some recordings over the years he has shifted his style but always comes back to his roots. He does a respectful job covering others’ songs.

Favorite album: Buenos Noches from a Lonely Room

Favorite song: Guitars, Cadillacs

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: The first three albums seem pretty classic. 2012’s 3 Pears is a good later one.

Episode 653 is AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS. If Courtney Barnett fronted a punk band, it might sound like Amyl and the Sniffers. Maybe it’s Amy Taylor’s talk(scream)/sing vocal style in an Australian accent. They bring a lot of energy (from their live shows reportedly) to the recordings, especially on the first album, which brings a good punch of throwback-y punk/garage rock.

Favourite album: Amyl and the Sniffers

Favourite song: Starfire 500

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: The first eponymous album.

(May 2025) Episode 651 is TOWER OF POWER, the horn-driven funk/soul band out of the East Bay, California, and expressively proud of it. They reached their peak in the mid-70s (with Lenny Williams on vocals) but have kept up to the present day, in part because the horn section has had its own life backing up many famous artists over the years. When they get funky, it’s good funk. But the soul pop and ballads don’t quite bite, so I can’t put them on my A-list of 70s funk/soul acts. Horn aficionados will love them though.

Favorite album: Urban Renewal

Favorite song: What is Hip?

Favorite instrumental: Walkin’ Up Hip Street

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: The four albums from 1973 to 1975 (Tower of Power to In the Slot)