Teddy Thompson & Kelly Jones 

"Don't Remind Me"

Okay; I myself would never have known about this album (Little Windows, 2016) if it hadn't been for songwriter Bill DeMain -- who co-wrote every track -- plugging the thing on Facebook. But knowing Bill's talent, I took a chance -- and wow, was I gobsmacked by this record. So I'm urging you to check it out; you won't be disappointed, In the fractured music biz of these dark dark days, a Facebook post is sometimes the only way you'll find out about these gems. 

Teddy, as it happens, has musical DNA up the wazoo, being the son of the gifted British musicians Richard and Linda Thompson (erst of Fairport Convention, and on and on from there). On the other hand, Kelly is just a gal from Virginia with pipes to die for. Note: this isn't the Welsh Kelly Jones, the guy from Stereophonics. No disrespect to him, but I think if he were involved in this project it would be something entirely different.

From the outset, the purpose of this album was to riff on the 1950s "countrypolitan" style that snuck pop influences into Nashville C&W. Strings, lush legatos, movie-music emotions -- the whole nine yards. That's the sound that my girl Patsy Cline was moving toward before she died in that awful plane crash in 1963, and Ray Charles did his own part in bringing R&B into the same camp. ("Georgia"? "Cryin' Time"? There's got to be some reason why these are my favorite Ray Charles tracks.)

But the track this most reminds me of is "Since I Don't Have You," a doo-wop hit in 1958 for the Skyliners, which Guns and Roses also (bizarrely) covered in 1994. The version I'm most familiar with, though, is Ricky Nelson's, from his 1965 album Best Always. It's drop-dead lovely -- and you can't tell me that Teddy and Kelly aren't channeling that ripe emotion here.  

Oh, yeah, it's a mood piece. He's thumbing through his memories, and coming up with mostly broken dreams. That shuffling tempo is drenched with regret and lassitude, and Teddy and Kelly's harmonies are plangent as hell, sliding in and out of crunching dissonance.

I adore how the chorus modulates into that winsome plea -- "Don't remind me." Stevie Elliot's electric guitar draws out the tremulous emotion, spinning the web of regret.

Oh, please don't rub salt in the wound. Or, if you must --

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

All things considered, I've decided that Amazon is not really so evil -- which is why I'm adding a widget for you to sample, or even buy, the music I'm writing about here.  (Always looking for a way to post mp3s easily without ripping off the artists.)  Let me know what you think...

1.  No Baby I / The Old 97s 
From Blame It On Gravity (2008)
The twangy roots of this alt.country band keep drifting closer and closer to pop -- an intersection I love.  Rhett Miller has that husky good-boyfriend earnestness down just right. "Blame it on gravity, yeah / Blame it on being a girl" -- ooh, we ladies LOVE a man who understands. 

2.  "In My Life" / The Beatles
From Rubber Soul (Remastered) (1965)
This is one song I often forget to add to my Favorite Beatles Songs list -- why? Tender nostalgia for "people and friends that went before" might seem odd, coming from musicians in their early 20s -- but I bet their Liverpool past truly seemed like another lifetime by the time of this masterpiece album. Love that Bach-like twiddle in the middle eight!

3. "Ram On" / Paul McCartney
From Ram (1971)
Not more Beatles, but pretty damn close. I do love the lounging, slightly scruffy vibe of this song. Despite the naif mandolin strumming (or is a uke?), this song is layered, jazzy, hazy -- stoned, man. 

4. She Gets Me Where I Live / Al Kooper
From Easy Does It (1970)
This spangly, synthy soul-rock track swims in its own psychedelic haze, with some seriously cool-cat horns spinning out of control (not to mention oceans of strings, sometimes with spiky little plucked notes).  When Kooper was on his game -- and he was really on his game with this album -- he was like a painter, slapping sounds onto his canvas.  

5.  "Mr. Reporter" / The Kinks
From The Great Lost Kinks Album(1973)
Dave Davies' early stab at satire (the Kinks never did have an easy relationship with the press).  On this album of bootleg tracks, the tinny quality of this song -- not to mention Dave's quavery vocals -- are more like a demo, but it's still a spunky bit of fun.  

6. Elizabeth Jade  / Robyn Hitchcock
From Jewels for Sophia (1999)
Talk about music as painting -- sometimes Robyn Hitchcock's lyrics are almost like Cubist art, layering cryptic fragments of description onto a boppy track of bouncy punk-pop that is way too danceably fun to resist.

7. Steppin' Out / Joe Jackson
From Night And Day (1982)
Jeez, I love this album. Joe Jackson steered New Wave music daringly far in the direction of George Gershwin and Cole Porter. A gorgeous champagne cocktail tribute to Manhattan, and just about as far from punk music as you could get.

8. Stop / Lizz Wright
From Dreaming Wide Awake (2005)
A beautifully languid, deeply sexy track. Wright's voice has an almost Nina Simone-like richness, with all those dark tones underscoring the desire that simply saturates this song.

9. Hit The Road Jack / Ray Charles
From Genius -- The Ultimate Ray Charles Collection (2009)
Soon as you hear that descending riff from the horns, you know it's this sassy bit of R&B. Those finger-wagging back-up singers are half the show; I love their saucy interplay with Ray, his slightly craggy vocals full of exasperated pleading. 

10. This Is How I Know / Ron Sexsmith
From Exit Strategy of the Soul (2008)
With every album, Ron Sexsmith dares to get more and more explicitly spiritual, while his folk pop takes on more jazz tinges.  I suppose this track doesn't have to be about sensing God's presence (are you kidding?  that would be pop suicide), but that's the level where it works best for me.

"Crying Time" / Ray Charles

And while I'm down there in the vault, I have to pay homage to this 1966 track by the master, Ray Charles. (For the record: I was a Ray Charles fan long before that movie Ray came out.)This was always my favorite hit of his, even when I was a kid. It never occurred to me, of course, that as a black R&B artist he shouldn't sound so much like a country & western crooner (in fact the song was recorded first by Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, but I didn't know that). It certainly never occurred to me that the track was loaded with schmaltzy strings, in a way that no self-respecting R&B song ever should have been. All I knew was that the song was supposed to be about lonesomeness and heartbreak, and it simply oozed lonesomeness and heartbreak. It got the job done.

I love the hesitant way he launches into those first few notes, like he can't bear to broach the subject with his woman: "Oh oh it's cryin' time again, / You're gonna leave me." There's something sweet about how much attention he's been paying to the signs, too -- "I can see that faraway look in your eyes / I can tell by the way you hold me darlin' / Oooh / That it won't be long before it's cryin' time." Those woozy harmonies on "faraway" and "I can tell" are so grinding, so miserable -- so perfect.

He lets a velvety hoarseness creep into his voice as he pleadingly repeats all the old adages, with that mocking little back-up echo: "Now they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder (fonder)/ And that tears are only rain to make love grow / Well my love for you could never grow no stronger (stronger) / If I lived to be a hundred years old." He makes himself sound about a hundred years old, too, weary and croaking and worn out. Ray Charles was such an expressive singer, and such a storyteller, he never forgot what the song was about.

Just hear how he begins to fumble the rhythm as he regretfully reminds her of what she's done: "Now you say you've found someone that you love better (better) / That's the way it's happened every time before / And as sure as the sun comes up tomorrow ('morrow) / Cryin' time will start when you walk out the door." She should feel guilty, she really should, and yeah, he's playing for sympathy. But he's also feeling doggone sorry for himself -- and he should.

We don't know anything about this woman, why he loves her, where they've been together (except that she's left him before, and come back, apparently). We're in the moment with him, negotiating as hard as he can for her to stay. This song is pure cornball emotion -- but Ray Charles never was one to back off from emotion. Let's just go for it; why not? And if it makes you get a little choked up, well, good -- that's the way it's supposed to work.

Crying Time sample