The Long-Awaited Rick Monroe EP: “Gypsy Soul”

June 20, 2017; Nashville, TN.  My man Rick and the band present six tunes that will linger in your musical mind long after you turn your player off. If you remember, I covered his performance in Ladson, South Carolina at the “Honky Tonk Saloon” last February (I still can’t believe there is really a venue with that name! lol)  This CD sampler dropped last month.  I mentioned to Rick that, since I do not have a CD player in my new apartment, that I could only review it while driving in the car and he said the trips might have to be short because it is an “EP”. you know what?  I took many  pleasurable “short trips” to listen again and again…

Here are the tracks. In reverse order, they are:

The bluesy and soulful with Memphis-like horns, “Rage On”; a Country-rocker, the first one I would play on my ‘Pajama Bar’ radio show, “Moment Like This”; a great title song, “Gypsy Soul”; the mid-tempo with sexy-delicious lyrics, “Ease On Down”; another C-Rocker (rock-her) in “Better” and his romantic smash from the winter of 2017, “This Side of You”.

I dig the many metaphors on “Better”!  “She’s like that first sip of coffee/that first drag on a cigarette…”  Great word-pictures! I once had one whose kiss was “like that first sip of an ice-cold Heineken” lol

Cut four is the title track, “Gypsy Soul” and some of those lyrics could be part of my personal theme song; I really identify with it! No non-rebels need apply.

From one “Gypsy Soul” to another, I believe, as a man who is nomadic as a “gypsy”, if you ask some of my peers who don’t know I know how they feel about me, there is certainly nothing wrong with that theme nor this diverse set of songs encompassing it.  I do want to mention the late, great Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions who sang the R&B hit, “Gypsy Woman” because of the title and lyrical neighborhood point of reference herein.

While Rick Monroe’s core audience is Country music, he surly can cross over into other genres.

This is a five-acoustic guitar EP!  I rage that you bring on the full album, Rick! Safe travels, Pioneer.  Cheers.

(I’ll update the video when he releases the feature-length scenes, K?)

Please leave your comments! Thank you.

(be sure to check out the mothership, https://achilliad.wordpress.com)

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Today’s Musikal “Cloud” Crowd Computing

I like to be honest  and admit that I am not perfect all of the time.  More of us should embrace this policy- especially the politicos.  Regardless,  I will let you know that I did not understand the lyrics of every hit record that sounded great, or was a hit back in the glory days which defined my youth. This is what “tune wedgies” are for!  If you have lived two score and more, these tunes will gin-up into your brain if at all you were or are musically “insane”, like I am admittedly.

A horse named “Crowd Computing” won this year’s second leg of The Triple Crown, The Preakness Stakes. It did not last long and was maybe a sore name – yet of this generation.

Therefore, as Thoreau might have said, “music is of utmost importance, the very essence of life itself. According to him, music links humankind to nature, to the universal divine, and it offers to those who listen closely the potential for transcendence.

Fast-forward with diligence to the lyrics of The Rolling Stones and even further into today, I find that we often do not hear at first all of what the singer is saying, but in due-time, The Creator marries our ears to hear the originally intended message at the appropriate time in our lives – it becomes crystal-clear (with the help of on-line lyric translations, of course, lol!)

Thus is my latest “tune wedgie” and a few British lines that I never understood until I had to get up out of a light sleep, in the middle of last night to see on my computer. It was awesomely inspired by a SKYLINE t-shirt about “cloud computing”.  So, “Get off Of MY Cloud!” racked in my mental jukebox.  It is funny how that works, a ginned-up favorite song from my comeuppance!

(Actually, I loved this song, but due to the British accent, I never knew exactly what Mick was saying!)

“I live in an apartment on the ninety-ninth floor – of my block
And I sit at home looking out the window
Imagining the world has stopped
Then in flies a guy who’s all dressed up – like a Union Jack
And says, I’ve won five pounds if I have his – kind of detergent pack

I says, Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Don’t hang around ’cause two’s a crowd
On my cloud, baby

The telephone is ringing
I say, “Hi, it’s me. Who is there on the line?”
A voice says, “Hi, hello, how are you?”
Well, I guess I’m doin’ fine
He says, “It’s three a.m., there’s too much noise
Don’t you people ever want to go to bed?
Just ’cause you feel so good,
Do you have to drive me out of my head ?”

I says, Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Don’t hang around ’cause two’s a crowd
On my cloud, baby

I was sick and tired, fed up with this
And decided to take a drive downtown
It was so very quiet and peaceful
There was nobody, not a soul around
I laid myself out, I was so tired
And I started to dream
In the morning the parking tickets were just – like a flag stuck on my window screen

I says, Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Don’t hang around ’cause two’s a crowd
On my cloud, baby

I says, Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Don’t hang around ’cause two’s a crowd
On my cloud, baby…”

Below, is the original  performance that I will always remember seeing on TV as a boy!  Remember to check out my “mothership” blog since 2009 at http://www.achilliad.wordpress.com please and Comment!

Cheers.

 

“on my cloud, baby…”