Silly Sundays - 30 Rock - Muffin Top

Today is my wife's birthday, and in her honor I'm posting her favorite song right now. Since we returned from our honeymoon, we've started watching 30 Rock in earnest, and in the last six weeks we've watched all the available DVDs -- by the end of this season we'll be caught up.

I had to edit this together myself, since the show still hasn't released an official soundtrack, so I took recordings from the two original episodes where the song was featured and slapped them together. It's a tiny bit sloppy at the cuts, but I hope it doesn't interfere with your enjoyment of the song.

In October, I'll be posting the other really really great song from season one, "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah." Until then, download this and put it in all your mixes. Happy birthday, sweetie! I love you.

Jane Krakowski featuring Ghostface Killa - Muffin Top
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Jerry Nelson - Eye of the Storm

If you made a list of your 20 favorite songs from all the different Muppet productions, I think you'd find that Jerry Nelson (archived fansite bio interview) sang at least 12 of them. As Count von Count, Floyd Pepper, Kermit's little nephew Robin, and Gobo Fraggle, Jerry has spent the vast majority of his life singing and funning his way into the hearts of kids and adults around the world.

And a few months ago he finally released his first solo album, composed of songs he's been writing all his life. (I've been waiting decades for him to do something like this. Now, if only Kevin Murphy from MST3K will release an album my life will be complete.) The album is sprawling and eclectic, featuring musical assistance from Nelson's family and friends, and backing vocals from a lot of his Sesame Street friends. This song in particular is the hardest rocking one off the album, looking at Nelson's perspective on death and naming all his fallen friends (including his daughter, Christine, and his comrades-in-armsleeves Jim Henson and Richard Hunt). But choosing this particular track was a tossup -- there are three or four other songs I wanted to post as well. "Alligators" is a swampy, vaguely Fogerty-esque number, while "Tides" may have made the list of songs to be played at my memorial service whenever I die. As you'll note in this song, Jerry isn't afraid to cuss a little, and the only track that's definitely kid-designed is "Be Positive," though I'd imagine kids of all ages would enjoy the album a lot.

I've been living with this album for a few months now, and it's been in pretty heavy rotation -- I can't tell whether it's as good as I think it is, or just my obsessive Muppet love making me enjoy it so much. What do you folks think?

Jerry Nelson - Eye of the Storm
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Steve Earle - No Place To Fall

I'm trying to get back in the habit of posting more random songs here, without so much dependence on theme weeks to post frequently -- let's see how I manage...

If you're reading this blog, chances are pretty good that I don't need to tell you who Steve Earle is, and almost as good I won't need to tell you who Townes Van Zandt is. Earle's tribute album has been out for a while now, and in fact I got my copy for my birthday back in September (thanks, Jen!), but I'm just now getting around to writing this post about it.

Townes was Steve Earle's hero and mentor, and for a long time I've been using Steve's quote on and off as an email signature:

“Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world, and I’ll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.”

The album has been widely reviewed and blogged elsewhere, but it's amazingly good -- just Earle and a small handful of his friends, with no overproduction (which marred most of Townes' studio albums -- though as mentioned in that NY Times story above, his "Live at The Old Quarter" album is a perfect representation of his genius). This is a quietly droning version of one of my five favorite Townes Van Zandt songs. (Don't forget to click here to listen to another Townes cover.)

If you'd like to hear more from the album, or rip audio for a third bonus disc (the nice second disc is just Earle solo versions of the songs from the official album), you can check out live videos on YouTube, or click here or here.

Steve Earle - No Place To Fall
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Stagger Lee Saturdays - Long Cleve Reed and Harvey Hull

Long Cleve Reed and Harvey Hull were also known as The Down Home Boys, and other than that I can't find anything else about them. They recorded a few other sides for a couple of labels, but this record is why they'll be remembered. Not this recording; this record.

This record is incredibly rare -- there's only one copy still extant, and it's worth at least $30,000. (That makes it one of the most valuable records ever.)

I like this -- it feels to me like the best folk music, like something dug out of the dirt and pushed into a primitive shape. The harmony vocals duet with the surface noise to instantly transport me to the past, a time when my ancestors were growing tobacco or cotton in Georgia's red dirt and on weekends they could supplement their income by entering a small record label and singing into microphones.





...wow, I'm more tired than I thought. But it's Saturday, and if I don't finish this now it won't get posted in time. Let's just say I love this recording, and leave it at that.

Long Cleve Reed and Little Harvey Hull - The Original Stack'O Lee Blues
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Stagger Lee Saturdays - Dom Flemons

Dom Flemons (official MySpace AMG) is better known as one-third of Carolina Chocolate Drops, who are currently on tour promoting their new album. (Sadly, I don't think I can make the Atlanta show -- what with the wedding and honeymoon I have very few spare pennies around here right now. Too bad; what I've heard of the album is fantastic.)

This is a high-energy take on Stag (and yet another featuring Furry Lewis' "When you lose your money" moral). Dom puts everything he has into this song, and I can just imagine how much fun it must be to see him do this live.

Stag's adventures in hell continue in this version too -- one unusual lyric is that the earthquake we occasionally hear about isn't caused by Stag tormenting Billy down in hell -- it's just Stagger Lee with his John B. Stetson hat.

Dom Flemons - Stackolee
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Stagger Lee Saturdays - Champion Jack Dupree

Champion Jack Dupree (wiki discography bio MySpace AMG) was a New Orleans-born boogie-woogie blues piano player, who at various times in his life was also a painter, a cook, a POW, and a very good boxer. (For more about boxing and Stag, see here.)

This is a N'awlins-sounding poppy blues take on Stag, recorded the same year as Lloyd Price's huge hit, but not sharing much in common with that. This is from Dupree's biggest hit album, Blues From The Gutter, which also includes recordings of "Junker's Blues" and "Frankie and Johnnie."

Dupree namechecks Louis Armstrong in this song, and in fact the two of them were raised in the same orphanage home (Armstrong had family to live with, but was sent to the home several times for delinquency). Another lyric to note is that the gambling is glossed over in one line, but Billy begs Stag for a two whole verses. (Not quite as sadistic as Broke Toe Rezo's version, but still...)

Champion Jack Dupree - Stack-O-Lee
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