Happy Trails - Fletcher Henderson - Keep A Song In Your Soul (1930)

Written by Benny Carter, this tune from Fletcher Henderson and his orchestra leads the rest of this month's souls happily down the trail.

Featured Artist - Tom T. Hall (Part Five)

Final tunes from Tom T. Hall, featured artist for this month.

God's Jukebox Playlist

In case this hasn't already come to your attention, this post is an alert pointing readers to an excellent Spotify playlist compiled by a reader, with over 4,000 tunes previously played on God's Jukebox.

With a selection of God's Jukebox live session tracks recently added to the Rockabilly DJ podcast page, 2012 has begun much better than 2010 ended.


 

Featured Album - Trinidad - Calypso (1939 - 1959) (Part Four)

Final two helpings from the excellent calypso compilation that has been this month's featured album:

God's Jukebox Sessions - Rock n Roll style (Part Three)

Third and final episode can be heard here

RIP - Etta James (25/01/1938 - 20/01/2012)

Jamesetta Mills...

Featured Artist - Tom T. Hall (Part Four)

Three more tunes from the archive of great songs written and performed by Tom T. Hall, including a repeat of  "The Ballad of $40" this time from the Johnny Cash show in 1969.

RIP - Johnny Otis (28/12/1921 - 17/01/2012)

Johnny Otis has died, age 90

Featured Album - Trinidad - Calypso (1939 - 1959) (Part Three)

Three further wonderful tunes from the album featured this month.

RIP - Jimmy Castor - (23/06/1940 - 16/01/2012)

Jimmy Castor has died, age 71

Featured Artist - Tom T. Hall (Part Three)

More tunes from Tom T. Hall, this month's featured artist.

God's Jukebox Sessions - Rock n Roll style (Part Two)

Episode Two now up here

Gospel Slot - Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs - You Can Feel It In Your Soul (1956)

Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt feeling soulful, Earl showing he was quite good at the guitar as well as banjo.

Featured Album - Trinidad - Calypso (1939 - 1959) (Part Two)

More tunes from the very fine Calypso CD set from Fremeaux, this time from the King of the Calypso World, The Mighty Sparrow

God's Jukebox Sessions - Rock n Roll style

Posted a few days ago by Croydon's very own Bill Smoker on his Rockabilly DJ page, comes the first of three podcasts featuring great tunes recorded for God's Jukebox.  A full list of all the sessions can be found here, but its great to be able to listen again to just some of the excellent artists who recorded for the show.

Featured Artist - Tom T. Hall (Part Two)

More stories from the musical blogger Tom T Hall:

Live Session - Chris Smither

Chris Smither currently playing gigs in US & in the UK from the end of February.  Great songs and guitar playing.

Featured Album - Trinidad - Calypso (1939 - 1959) (Part One)

This month's album is a 2CD set from French label Fremeaux, released in October last year and featuring more than 40 calypso classics from the golden age.

Below are tunes from Lord Kitchener included in the set - other artists covered in later posts.

Also added is a short clip from 1948 of the man himself arriving in England.

Featured Artist - Tom T. Hall (Part One)

Last July saw the first Tom T. Hall release in a long time, and if anyone needed reminding what a talent this songwriter is, then the album did just that.  Tom enrolled as a journalism student before moving to Nashville to pitch songs. Whatever he learned at college wasn't wasted.  During a purple patch of quality song writing, in the late 1960's and early 1970's, Tom filed back reports on lives observed in a string of tunes that still delight.

Through this series of posts come a number of his classic country tales from small town America.

Aural Massage - Gene Chandler - A Song Called Soul (1964)

Remembered for the 1962 hit Duke of Earl, in his prime Gene Chandler turned in many a fine soul performance.  This tune was released as first an A, then a B side in the same year. Written by Billy Butler, younger brother of Impressions star Jerry, it has the light, melodic hallmark of 1960's Chicago song writing and production.  No surprise as a production credit goes to Johnny Pate, long time Impressions producer and key figure in the development of Chicago Soul.

Also included is the French singer Dean Cooper's cover version from 1965...pour reason ne particular pas.