Victor
With each album, the Derek Trucks Band just keeps on truckin’ — not only in terms of evolution but also each disc’s uniqueness: the improvisational jazz/blues of their self-titled debut; the Southern folk/blues bent of “Out of the Madness”; the Latin and fusion forays and expanded Indian influence on “Joyful Noise”; the mostly jazz leaning of “Soul Serenade”; and the melting-pot maturity of “Songlines.”
Manatee
Talk about a well-kept secret: Brown has gone from recording a fluke single for Checker Records to fronting Doug Brown & the Omens (who counted Bob Seger among their ranks) to engineering the Righteous Brothers to producing Del Shannon to being a member of country-rock outfit Southwind (along with Moon Martin and which almost had an Apple Records deal) to fronting Fast Fontaine to chillin’ for about 20 years in Laguna Beach just writing songs.
Dead Oceans
OK, so it came out six months ago. But this secret needs to be let out of the bag: These Beach (Boy) combers from the coastal town of Charleston, S.C., are happening! Forget what the label’s press release says about traces of ELO, Apples in Stereo, McCartney, etc. The Explorers Club draws comparisons to those bands because those bands were influenced by the Beach Boys!
Oglio
After a brief cinematic prologue, “Destination Space” blasts off with the title track — a “Hang ‘Em High”-esque theme with the most-natural-sounding guitar, bass and organ sounds ever to come out of a synthesizer. About a minute in, the truly synthetic sounds take over, but only for a while before backing out into Spaghetti-Western Land again.
Rhino
One of these days, someone’s gonna do the 4-CD box set Cooder deserves — with early Rising Sons and Captain Beefheart material, session work, solo stuff, soundtracks, world music collaborations … But until then, this double CD culled from studio albums and soundtracks will have to do.
