Great Album

January 2: Merle Haggard released Sing Me Back Home (album) in 1968

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

Sing Me Back Home is the fifth studio album by singer and songwriter Merle Haggard, released in 1968 on Capitol Records.

“Sing Me Back Home follows the blueprint of Merle Haggard’s first three albums, balancing a hit single with album tracks and a couple of covers, but there is a difference. Where the previous album Branded Man was a transitional album, hinting that Haggard’s talents were deepening substantially, Sing Me Back Home is the result of the flowering of his talent.”
– Thomas Erlewine (allmusic)

Merle Haggard appeared on Austin City Limits nine times over the course of his legendary career. Here’s “Sing Me Back Home” from his appearance in 1978:

A little slowed down beautiful version! Continue reading “January 2: Merle Haggard released Sing Me Back Home (album) in 1968” →

Dec 14: The Clash released London Calling in 1979

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in
Engines stop running and the wheat is growing thin
A nuclear error, but I have no fear
London is drowning-and I live by the river

I walked home from the local grocery store, Ringdal grocery store, exactly 38 years ago today with a plastic bag containing this double album by The Clash. It was priced as a single LP but had two vinyl records tucked inside. It was a frosty day, and when I was half way home I had to take off the plastic wrapping. To this day I can remember the smell, that wonderful smell of new vinyl on a frosty day.

The inner sleeves had “hand written” lyrics and it has to be the lyrics I’ve read most often. As a 13 year old boy from norway this was much more important in learning the english language than any class at school. Both historically and personally  The Clash, London Calling had a profound impact.

Continue reading “Dec 14: The Clash released London Calling in 1979” →

December 6: Rolling Stones released Beggars Banquet in 1968

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

Beggars Banquet is the seventh British and ninth American studio album The Rolling Stones. It was released 6th December 1968 by Decca Records in the United Kingdom and London Records in the United States. The album was a return to a more rootsy rock for the band after the psychedelic “experiment”, Their Satanic Majesties Request.

The Rolling Stones – No Expectations (live Hyde Park, 1969):

In 2003, the album was ranked number 57 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In the same year the TV network VH1 named Beggars Banquet the 67th greatest album of all time.

Continue reading “December 6: Rolling Stones released Beggars Banquet in 1968” →

December 1: The Jimi Hendrix Experience Axis: Bold as love was released in 1967

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen


Axis: Bold as Love is the second studio album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. It was recorded to fulfill the Experience’s contract, which stated that they must produce two records in 1967.

Axis: Bold as Love was first released in the United Kingdom by Track Records in December 1967, as the follow-up to the band’s successful debut Are You Experienced, which had been released months earlier in May. It was not sold in the United States until 1968 because of the record company’s fears that it might disturb the sales of the first album. Axis: Bold as Love charted at number five in the UK and number three in the US.

Continue reading “December 1: The Jimi Hendrix Experience Axis: Bold as love was released in 1967” →

September 27: Neil Young Released Prairie Wind in 2005

Posted on by Egil Mosbron

neil young Prairie Wind

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Since Prairie Wind is a return to the soft, lush country-rock sound of Harvest; since Neil Young suffered a brain aneurysm during its recording; since it finds the singer/songwriter reflecting on life and family in the wake of his father’s death; and since it’s his most cohesive album in a decade, it would seem that all these factors add up to a latter-day masterpiece for Young, but that’s not quite the case.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic.com) – 3,5/5[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The Painter:

Continue reading “September 27: Neil Young Released Prairie Wind in 2005” →

September 22: The Band Released Their Second Album “The Band” in 1969

Posted on by Egil Mosbron

the_band_huge

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]“It is full of sleepers, diamonds that begin to glow at different times. As with the Beatles and Dylan and the Stones and Crosby-Stills and Nash, the album seems to change shape as you continue to play it. The emphasis shifts from song to song and songs prominent in the early listening will retreat and be replaced in your consciousness by others, only in later hearings to move to the fore again.”
– Ralph J. Gleason (Rolling Stone Magazine)

“Perhaps the best album by any Rock and Roll group ever. Timeless, soulful, seamless, a work that goes far beyond and yet is front-porch friendly.”
– M.E. Cooper (author)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The Band is the eponymous second studio album by the Band, released on September 22, 1969. It is also known as The Brown Album. According to Rob Bowman’s liner notes for the 2000 reissue, The Band has been viewed as a concept album, with the songs focusing on people, places and traditions associated with an older version of Americana. Thus, the songs on this album draw from historic themes for “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)” and Richard Manuel’s “Jawbone”.

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (from The Last Waltz):
Continue reading “September 22: The Band Released Their Second Album “The Band” in 1969″ →