Recommendations from Jess at pH Balanced and mvyradio

A favorite blog of ours is pH Balanced, written by Jess Phaneuf, a DJ at mvyradio in Martha’s Vineyard. This week we pass along a few of her recommendations from the past few weeks. And by the way, you can tune in to mvyradio on the internet. There’s a nice iTunes link on their website, and it’s excellent listening all around.

St. Paul & The Broken Bones is a tight soul band from Alabama, fronted by Paul Janeway. Their debut release “Half the City” is out, and the video for “Call Me” introduces you to this excellent, though unlikely looking outfit. I hope Paul will be flattered by the inevitable comparison to a certain Blues Brother.

Appearing recently on The Conan O’Brian Show was Jamestown Revival performing “California (Cast Iron Soul)”. The song appears on “The California EP” as well as on the full length album “Utah”, named for the location of the mountain cabin where the songs were recorded. Jamestown Revival is the duo of small-town Texas high school friends Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance. Before trekking to Austin and L.A. to craft their sound, both had done solo work, and Clay had a few songs picked up by TV Shows ranging from “The Real World” to “Sons of Anarchy”.

Sam Roberts Band has just released the album “Lo-Fantasy” and the single “We’re All In This Together”. Sam Roberts has been well known in Canada for over a decade, winning a number of Juno Awards – Canada’s Grammys – along the way. His first hit single “Brother Down” came out in 2002, released on his first EP “The Inhuman Condition”.

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Reader Suggestions: Jake Shimabukuro, Melody Gardot, and The Shouting Matches

Time to catch up on reader recommendations.

First up is Jake Shimabukuro, ukulele virtuoso. Below is a video of his interpretation of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. Apparently, this video was posted in 2006 without Jake’s knowledge and went viral, by now attracting over 12,000,000 views. If you want to see Jake stretch this instrument into other genres of music, spend some time watching this TED Talk. After a flamenco tune, Schubert’s “Ave Maria” starts at about 5:30 and The Beatles’ “In My Life” at about 18:00. Thanks for the tip, John!

Philadelphia’s Melody Gardot has an incredible voice and an incredible personal story. Severely injured when she was hit by a car while riding a bicycle at age 19, she faced a long rehabilitation. In the video below she sings her composition “Baby I’m a Fool” accompanying herself on the guitar, an instrument she took up in the hospital when her injuries made it impossible to sit at the piano. If you want to hear more of her singing and learn more about her story, here are links to Part 1 and Part 2 of a mini-documentary, “The Accidental Musician”. Thanks for letting us know about her, Claudine!

Shifting gears, The Shouting Matches stake out a spot in a stripped down, bluesy, garage rock place. The trio, led by singer and multi-instrumentalist Justin Vernon, has put out an EP “Mouthoil” and a full length 2013 release “Grownass Man”. Vernon’s former vehicle, Bon Iver, won the 2012 Grammy for Best New Artist. Listen to “Avery Hill” from The Shouting Matches, and compare it to “Holocene” from Bon Iver to get a sense of the range of Vernon’s musical interests. Thanks for turning us on to The Shouting Matches, Gabe!

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All Hail Seattle – Home of Super Bowl Champions and Music

Not only is Seattle home to the 2014 Super Bowl champion Seahawks, but it’s also home to one of the most prolific music scenes in the U.S. The list of Seattle musicians spans many genres and many eras, and an interesting music / Super Bowl connection is that the owner of the Seahawks, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, also financed Seattle’s EMP Museum originally known as Experience Music Project.

Bing Crosby was born in Tacoma, Washington in 1923, and Quincy Jones moved to Seattle as a young boy in the 1940s. But perhaps Seattle is most identified with Jimi Hendrix. Here is a mash-up video of Jimi’s best charting single, his cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”.

Hendrix is a tough act to follow, but Seattle also gave birth to Grunge, and Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was born not far away in Aberdeen, Washington. Nirvana was chosen for the 2014 class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility, and this is the song that began an era.

A Seattle oddity of the 1990’s was The Presidents of the United States of America. Their biggest hit was “Peaches”, but it’s hard to beat “Lump” for a great hook. After watching the original, check out Weird Al’s “Gump”.

A current Seattle favorite, and feature of an earlier blog post, is blue-eyed soul singer Allen Stone, but at the recent Grammy Awards a big winner was rapper Macklemore. Pardon the language in this video, but nearly a half-billion people have viewed the unpretentious sense of humor of this new phenom.