2006 Part I

That time of year again when work has almost reached completion on the eagerly awaited compilation cd; "Carty's Best O' 2006", the third in a series. Trying to narrow down the year's music to 80 minutes is never easy but when the final track list is reached, it'll be up here. So far we've found room for tunes from Beyonce to Bruce Springsteen. Records and gigs of the year are also being mulled over. In the meantime, how about a song of the week? Let's go all the way back to 1953 for one of the first, and still one of the greatest, electric groups as we'd recognise them today. As recently featured on one of Bob Dylan's excellent radio shows (see last month's posts), here's "Blow Wind Blow" by Muddy Waters. If you want more, and you really should, I recommend Hoochie Coochie Man: Complete Chess Masters, Volume 2 1952-1958, which boasts the best sound of any Chess recording I've heard, although it's pretty bloody hard to get a hold of in this part of the world.