Review of Carín León’s Album Boca Chueca, Vol. 1

I have a new music review posted on Barn Raiser, “Your independent source for rural and small town news” (because you know how rural I am). I talk about the great Mexican singer Carín León. The first paragraph of my article:

“Thirty-five-year-old singer Carín León won the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Regional Mexican Music Album for Boca Chueca, Vol. 1. To that, León says: ‘F*ck Regional.'”

You can read the article here: https://barnraisingmedia.com/carin-leon-says-theres-nothing-regional-about-his-music/ .

Lee’s Favorite Cover Songs of 2024

Every year I post a list of my favorite songs – you can see that list below. This year, stealing an idea from my friend David Isaacson, I am also posting a playlist of my favorite cover songs of 2024, that is, versions of songs originally done by someone else. Here are the liner notes for the favorite covers 2024 playlist.

  1. Count the Days – Swamp Dogg with Jenny Lewis. This is a cover of a 1967 R&B hit by Inez and Charlie Foxx. Swamp Dogg was involved in the original, at least arranging it and perhaps writing (it was credited to his wife) and/or producing (Swamp Dogg has said he produced lots of records he didn’t get credit for). I have loved this song since I heard a cover of it on Stephanie Finch’s great but unsung 2010 record (Finch is the wife of Chuck Prophet, who produced her album).  Jenny Lewis, at one time from the band Rilo Kiley, sings lead, but that is Swamp Dogg literally counting out the days.
  2. Jardin d’Hiver – Waxx and Ibeyi. Jadin d’Hiver (Winter Garden) was written by Keren Ann (one of my favorite singer-songwriters) and Benjamin Biolay and brought to prominence by Henri Salvador. The song has become a French standard, recorded by tons of singers, including a nice version by Stacey Kent. This version is by Ibeyi, a duo of Cuban singers, along with somebody or somebodies called “Waxx.”  I saw Ibeyi at the Hollywood Bowl, and they have been favorites of mine ever since.
  3. Compared to What – Robert Flack, Angela Davis, Kassa Overall, and Terri Lynn Carrington. The original of this song was written by Gene McDaniels. The first recorded version of the song was by Les McCann in 1966. It was also the first song on the first album by Roberta Flack in 1969. Neither of those two versions were a hit, and Compared to What became widely known through the live version recorded by Les McCann and Eddie Harris later that same year. The version on this playlist is a remix of Flack’s original 1969 version. How can you not love a great song featuring the words of Angela Davis?
  4. I Will Survive – Melanie and Beau Jared. We lost the singer-songwriter Melanie a year ago. She was best known for her 1971 number one hit Brand New Key, but she continued to make good music up until her death. I like the way Melanie here undercuts the grandiosity of the Gloria Gaynor original, making you feel she really believes the lyrics.
  5. Let’s Get Happy Together – Jim Kweskin and Maria Mudaur. These old folkies and friends played together in the 1960s and reunited for this cover of the 1938 song by Lil Hardin Armstrong, singer/songwriter/pianist/bandleader and wife of Louis Armstrong.
  6. My Sweet Lord – Parlor Greens. An organ trio version of the George Harrison song. The organist Adam Scone comes from Daptone Records while the guitarist Jimmy James comes from the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio.
  7. Don’t Let Me Down Again – Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham. Before they joined Fleetwood Mac, Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks released a duet record Buckingham Nicks. The duet record was a commercial failure, but has since become a cult favorite, even though it has never been remastered or released on streaming or CD. Bird and Cunningham cover the entire album in 2024, and this is my favorite song from that cover album.
  8. Black Haired Girl – Billy Joe Armstrong. The Green Day frontman covers rocker Jesse Malin’s 2022 song. It comes from an album of covers of Malin songs, a fundraiser for Malin, who had suffered a stroke in 2023.
  9. Psycho Killer – Miley Cyrus. A contemporary-sounding, dance-rock cover of this Talking Heads classic.
  10. Für Elise – Jon Baptiste. A solo piano, bluesy cover of this Beethoven song from his 2024 album Beethoven Blues.
  11. Everybody Hurts – Al Green. One of my top-ten favorite singers records a version of this REM hit. Will Al Green record a full album again before it is too late?
  12. La Mer – Caetano Veloso. Another of my all-time favorite singers covers this French song written by Charles Trenet who had a hit with it in 1946. You may know the song from its English version “Beyond the Sea,” first recorded by Harry James in 1947 and later covered by Bobby Darin among many, many others.
  13. My Cherie Amour – Cherise. The London R&B singer covers this 1969 Stevie Wonder song.
  14. Jeanne Seely – Suffertime. Jeanne Seely was a huge country singer in the 1960s and early 1970s. Though she hasn’t had a hit in decades and has largely faded from memory, she is still in good voice. She recorded this cover of the 1966 Dottie West song as a single “at Historic RACA Studio B.” There is more Jeannie Seely at this playlist. She should not be forgotten.
  15. Blackbiird – Beyonce and friends. Paul McCartney wrote this song in response to the civil rights movement in the American South in the 1960s, and has said that “blackbird” in the song should be understood as “Black woman.”  How appropriate then that Beyonce covers the song backed up by four other African American country singers: Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy and Reyna Roberts. Beyonce samples the Beatles version, taking the spare percussion (is it a foot tap or a metronome?) and perhaps the acoustic guitar, but she makes it her own.
  16. Someone Like You – Lukas Nelson with The Travelin’ McCourys & Sierra Ferrel. A great country cover by Willie Nelson’s son of the massive Adele 2011 hit.
  17. (Lying Here With) Linda on My Mind – Carson McHone. This is a perfect song, right from the parentheses in the title, and I could listen to it over and over again all day. The original 1975 country version of the song by Conway Twitty is fine. but this 2024 power-pop version by the Austin, Texas singer-songwriter Carson McHone is as good as it gets.
  18. Rhapsody in Blue(grass) – Bela Fleck. Fleck has taken Gershwin’s classical-jazz concerto and transposed it for banjo and bluegrass ensemble. It is brilliantly done and makes me happy every time I listen to it.

Lee’s Favorite Songs of 2024

Every year on my birthday (January 10), I post on Facebook a playlist of my favorite songs from the previous year. Here are the liner notes for that playlist:

  1. Stevie Wonder – Can We Fix Our Nation’s Broken Heart.  A powerful new song by Stevie Wonder. I started and ended this playlist with songs that were a salve for me during difficult times. Can we fix our nation’s broken heart?  Spoiler:  no.
  2. La Santa Cecilia – Alma Bohemia. Another amazing song by this great LA band featuring the powerful vocals of La Marisoul.
  3. The Black Keys – Beautiful People (Stay High). A catchy blues-dance song by the Akron, Ohio band, fronted by Dan Auerbach.
  4. Librarians with Hickeys – Hello Operator. Infectious power pop from another Akron, Ohio Band. Librarians with Hickeys are on the great LA powerpop label Big Stir Records. They deserve to be better known than they are.
  5. Hermanos Gutiérrez – Barrio Hustle. Atmospheric instrumental guitar music by two Ecuadoran-Swiss brothers. It is if The Good, Bad and the Ugly were scored by a surf rock band from somewhere in Latin America.
  6. Shelby Lynn – Over and Over. I have long loved the country-soul singer-songwriter Shelby Lynn, who put out another a great album in 2024. The horns on this song are amazing.
  7. Pink Sweat$ – Bloom. Acoustic R&B that recalls Bill Withers while always sounding contemporary. Thanks to my nephew Ben for turning me on to Pink Sweat$.
  8. Kasey Chambers – Backbone (The Desert Child). This Australian country singer-songwriter is another longtime favorite of mine. Her 2024 album is all equally as good as this song.
  9. Moreno Veloso – Brasil Pandeiro. Brazilian superstar Caetano Veloso’s son releases a gentle samba in the tradition of his father’s music. I love this song.
  10. Beyonce – Texas Hold ‘Em. There is no doubt that Beyonce’s album Cowboy Carter is the record of the year. The only problem for me was choosing which of the great songs on that album to put on this playlist. I considered Ya Ya and Bodyguard, but ultimately went with Texas Hold ’Em in part because it was the most country sounding of the three songs.
  11. Market – Well I Asked You a Question. This catchy, quirky rock song is by Brooklyn singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/engineer-/producer Nate Mendelsohn. I am proud to have known Nate his whole life. He is making great music. Check out his 2024 album Well I Asked You a Question.
  12. Margo Price and Mike Campbell – Ways to Be Wicked. This rocker is by the country singer-songwriter Price and the guitarist Campbell from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Ways to Be Wicked Sounds like it could be a lost Heartbreakers song.
  13. Aaron Frazier – Payback. The drummer and vocalist from the soul band Durand Jones and the Indications has a smooth falsetto and usually sings pretty soul ballads. Not this time. Payback rocks.
  14. Maria Bethania – Sabado em Copacabana. Caetano Veloso’s sister Maria Bethania is a star and a great vocalist in her own right. This is a beautiful Brazilian torch song.
  15. Chetes and Calexico – Polvo de Estrellas. Mexican Rock-En Español Singer Chetes – aka Luis Gerardo Garza Cisneros – sings with the Tucson, Arizona “desert noir” rock band Calexico. Povlo de Strellas is a bitter-sweet song about endings. The title of the song means “Stardust,” so it gets extra credit for the Hoagy Carmichael reference.

I am now a professional music critic

I am now a published author! My review of R&B artist Swamp Dogg’s great 2024 country album Blackgrass is on the online magazine Barn Raiser. They even paid me for the review: I got a check in the low three figures (to steal a joke from Calvin Trillin). There is a career-spanning Swamp Dogg playlist at the end of the article. Please check it out. I hope this is the first review of many.

How RAC-CA Can Contribute to the Progressive Movement Winning Governing Power in 30 Years

I haven’t been posting for the last few years. I am still reading (my favorite recent novel is The Bee Sting by Paul Murray), listening to music (my favorite recent album is Speak to Me by jazz guitarist Julian Lage), and watching movies (my favorite recent film is The Beast, a French film directed by Bertrand Bonello), but I haven’t had time or energy to write about them here. Hopefully, I will resume posting soon. But no promises.

I wanted to note here that I posted a paper I wrote for an organizing seminar run by Hahrie Han’s P3 lab. The paper discusses three things: 1) what the progressive movement should do to win governing power in California in 30 years, 2) what RAC-CA, the social justice arm of the Reform Jewish movement in California should do to contribute to that thirty-year project, and 3) a look at a new housing campaign that is a model of what I propose in the first two sections.

You can find this paper by clicking on the link above entitled “Writings About Community Organizing.” Happy reading!

Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau

Here is another book recommendation. I find myself drawn to three types of books during the pandemic, as I seek solace and escape. I am drawn to science fiction and fantasy novels that allow me to escape this world and show me that other worlds are possible. I am also drawn to mystery novels where an able detective navigates a dangerous and corrupt world, living up to his moral code and resolving the case in the end. And I am drawn to contemporary novels “where good people reliably find happiness in a somewhat amusing fashion,” to quote Elinor Lipman, one of the best practitioners of the genre. Favorite authors in this last genre include Lipman, Nick Hornsby, and Stephen McCauley. I just read a great new book in the genre, and I am ready to add that author to this list of favorites.

Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau is a delight. The narrator and lead character is a 14-year-old girl growing up in a very conservative house in a Baltimore suburb in the mid-1970s. Her mom lets her become a “summer nanny” for a young girl in the neighborhood because the father is a doctor. Little does the mother know he is a psychiatrist and a bit of a hippy. He may even be Jewish. Mary Jane is taken aback by the chaotic, informal, and warm Cone Household – so different from her own. And then the chaos and the warmth increase as a rock star and his movie star wife move into the house so Dr. Cone can treat the rock star for heroin addiction.

The joy of the novel is Mary Jane’s voice, as she encounters a way of life so different from how she has been raised and starts to rethink who she is and how she should live in the world. I also love the novel for how kind it is, even to the characters who should be unsympathetic.

I am so glad to discover Blau. If her other books are half as good as this one, I have a lot of good reading to do.

The Sweetness I Need: New Soft Rock and Power Pop Records

Nashville Tears by Rumer (2020)Cooking Vinyl. Long Overdue by Librarians With Hickeys (2020) Big Stir Records.

In these dark times, we need a little sweetness in our life. New records by Rumer and Librarians With Hickeys revive two music genres – soft rock and power pop – that give us that sweetness we so desperately need right now.

Rumer is a British singer who brings back the soft rock sound of the late 1960s and first half of the 1970. That smooth sound combined strong melodies with sophisticated, lush orchestrations.The Carpenters may be the most famous and one of the best examples of soft rock. I lapped it up back then. Soft rock was powerful, emotional stuff for 15-year-old me. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent alone in my room mooning over my unrequited crush and listening to Barry Manilow sing “Could It Be Magic.”

All the edges are sanded off soft rock music, resulting in a smooth, delicious sweetness that is comforting and easy to listen to. For me, soft rock is like a rich chocolate truffle: a little bit makes you happy; too much has you reaching for your insulin shot.

I put together a playlist of classic soft rock from the late 60s and early 70s. If you were around and listening to the radio then, you will recognize the songs, though you may not remember the groups (Firefall? Poco? England Dan and John Ford Coley?). And if you weren’t around then, you can catch up on what you missed. I cheated a bit and put three post-1970s, soft rock artists on the playlist, including Alison Kraus who I think of as Flatt and Scruggs crossed with Seals and Crofts. Take a listen to the playlist. You might find the sweetness gives you the comfort you need in this dark time.

The second sweet record here is by Librarians with Hickeys, a group from Akron, Ohio that just released their first album. I cannot get enough of the lead off song on the album “Until There Was You” with its chiming guitars and catchy melody.

The Librarians recall the glory days of power pop, a genre that combines sweet melodies and strong guitar chords. The genre has roots in the 1960s British guitar bands in British bands like The Who and The Kinks. Power pop thrived in the 1970s and revived in the 1990s. Power pop combines the strong, catchy melodies of soft rock and bubblegum with hard rock guitar. Check out this playlist of classic power pop.

The great Los Angeles Indie Label Big Stir Records is the home for great power pop music today. Big Stir holds concerts in Burbank (or at least they did before the pandemic), publishes a journal, puts out great collections of Power Pop singles, and also releases albums, including the new release from Librarians With Hickeys. They are run by a husband and wife team who also make up the band The Armoires. If you order CDs or vinyl from them, your music comes with a nice handwritten note from one of the two of them. I highly recommend ordering one or all of the CDs from their Big Stir Singles series. This playlist features songs by Big Stir artists, along with a song by the Rookies from my other favorite indie label Bloodshot Records.

I find power pop irresistible, unlike soft rock whose unalloyed sweetness is too much for me in large doses. I am hooked by the sweetness of the melodies of power pop, and I am sustained by the power of its guitars.

The two genres – soft rock and power pop – have a clear affinity in their sweetness. They came together in the 1990s, when indie power pop artists covered classic soft rock songs. Check out “If I Were A Carpenter, ” featuring covers of The Carpenters’ songs by indie bands, and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, featuring covers of songs like Leaving on a Jet Plane and Country Roads. Almost nothing makes me happier than listening to Shonen Knife’s cover of “Top of the World” or Me First’s cover of Loggins and Messina’s “Danny’s Song.”.

Time Loop Movies

August 6 2020 – Palm Springs (2o20) Hulu. Happy Death Day (2017) Amazon Prime Rental

I am a sucker for time loop movies, where people relive the same day or few moments over and over again. Groundhog Day of course is the first and still the best in this genre, but there are other entertaining time loop movies.

I am not sure why these movies appeal to me so much. I guess I have always been attracted to alternate worlds. There is something comforting in knowing that our world is not the only possible world, that alternatives to our messed-up world are out there somewhere. The time loop movie is the most comforting kind of alternative world movie. I like the idea that you can learn by trying different things, that you don’t need to fear messing up because no matter what you do, everything resets tomorrow.

Besides Groundhog Day, my favorite time loop movies are Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow (the action-adventure version with Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt), Source Code (the thriller/mystery version with Jake Gyllenhaal) and Day Break (the noir version, a 2006 one-season ABC show with Taye Diggs – let me know if you find it streaming somewhere because I couldn’t).

Palm Springs is the latest in this genre, a new romantic comedy starring Adam Samburg and Christina Milioti with nice turns from J.K. Simmons, Peter Gallagher, and Jane Squib. This is an amiable if not entirely memorable movie, a nice way to spend a couple of pandemic hours. Though many of the familiar time loop tropes are present, this movie breaks new ground in two ways.

First, Palm Springs doesn’t start on Adam Samburg’s first day in the time loop – he has been there years, maybe even decades, when the movie starts. Palm Springs omits my least favorite part of time loop movies, the first time a day repeats and the protagonist is confused and angry about what is happening. On the first day of a time loop movie, we the audience are way, way ahead of the protagonist.

The second way Palm Springs departs from previous Time Loop movies is by bringing a second person into the Loop. The dynamic of isolation and loneliness is transformed when someone else is in the loop along with the protagonist.

Palm Springs made me want to watch more time loop movies, so I also watched Happy Death Day, which I had never seen. Happy Death Day is the slasher version of the time loop movie, as the character played by Jessica Roth struggles to figure out who keeps killing her over and over again. The tone of the movie is similar to the Scream movies – tense and violent at times, but also funny. I love the scream movies so Happy Death Day was right up my alley. I look forward to watching the sequel when it becomes available on one of the streaming services.

There is one moment in every time loop movie that never makes sense to me. The protagonist eventually tries to explain their situation to a friend or lover, that they are living the same day over again. The person they confide in doesn’t believe them initially of course – it is a confusing situation to explain. But it would be so much easier to explain if they just said: “it is like the movie Groundhog Day.” How come no one in time loop movies has seen or even knows the plot of Groundhog Day? It makes no sense. Happy Death Day has an amusing coda where it finally acknowledges this weird selective amnesia about Groundhog Day.

Today’s Chore

One thing that gives life meaning and structure during this pandemic is to have an ambitious chore to do each day. To begin today’s chore, I got out my saw and surveyed the branch I was to cut down. I brought out a 30-foot ladder and leaned it securely against the tree. I looked up again at the 25-foot -high branch, the hard concrete underneath the branch, and the ladder against the tree that all of a sudden did not seem so secure. They say it is helpful to visualize a task before doing it. I visualized me climbing the latter and successfully cutting down the branch. Then I visualized me falling off the ladder and plummeting 25 feet onto the hard concrete. I thought better of the whole thing and put the saw and the ladder away.  

There is nothing like the satisfaction of a job well done.

Opened Up by Sadness

July 5, 2020 – Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (2017) Bloomsbury Publishing

Lincoln in the Bardo is the first novel by the acclaimed short story writer George Saunders. It won the Mann Booker Prize — I almost always love the novels that win the Mann Booker Prize. It is a great novel for our times — funny, quick to read, and uplifting. I liked Lincoln in the Bardo a lot.

The novel is the story of the days after the death of Willie Lincoln, President Lincoln’s son, who died during his presidency. Willie is in the Bardo, a transitionary state of being between death and what comes after death, much like the Christian idea of Limbo. The novel reads almost like a film script or play. It is a series of quotes from Willie and the other spirits in the Bardo alternating with a series of quotes from real and imagined historians and diarists telling what was happening in the physical world at this time. Apart from these quotes, there are no descriptions or stage directions. It takes a few pages to get used to this device and to learn who is speaking (the speaker is identified at the end of each quote, so when reading the longer quotes, you have to look ahead to understand who is speaking). Once you are used to it, the reading is quick and pleasurable.

I found Saunder’s vision of the afterlife to be comforting, though he offers only glimpses of what lies beyond the Bardo. The spirits that are trapped in The Bardo are unable to move on because of their attachment — or you could say obsession — with their past lives. These spirits fixate on the wrongs that were done to them, their desires that were never met, and the possessions, accomplishments, or people they are unable to leave behind. These attachments prevent them from transitioning to the world beyond.

The clearest glimpse of one afterlife we see is a particular hell: spirits that are trapped in vine-link tendrils that can swallow up spirits, particularly the spirits of children, that stay in the Bardo too long. These vines form a hard “carapace” or shell that encases these spirits.  These vines and carapaces are made up of spirits that committed wrongs while they were alive; they killed their lovers or babies, or they molested children, or they massacred an entire regiment of an opposing army. But it becomes clear that is not the destructive action alone that dooms these spirits to hell, but the failure to take responsibility for these actions and feel genuine remorse. As one spirit from the carapace says:

We were as we were! How could we have been otherwise? Or, being that way, have done otherwise? We were that way, at that time, and had been led to that place, not by any innate evil in ourselves, but by the state of our cognition and our experience up until that moment.”

A key dialogue starts with a spirit trapped in the Carapace who speaks in a bass voice with a list talking with other spirits who are not trapped in the Carapace. This spirit explains that he killed his baby because it would

remove the negative influence that was that baby (by dropping him into Furniss Creek), would free us up; to be more loving, and be more fully in the world, and would relieve him of the suffering entailed in being forevermore not quite right; would, that is, free him up from his suffering as well, and maximize the total happiness. It seemed that way to you, the Brit said. It did, it truly did, the bass lisper said. Does it seem that way to you now? the woman asked. Less so, the bass lisper said sadly. Then your punishment is having the desired effect, the woman said.

I was moved by the portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in the novel. Lincoln’s greatness comes not from his clear moral vision or his ideaological certainty — he after all was a late supporter of the abolition of slavery who looked for a compromise position. His greatness comes from his empathy, his willingness to listen to the experience of others and to change his views because of what he heard and learned. This approach is the opposite of today’s widespread attitude that dismisses anyone who holds a different view as racist (if you are on the Left) or “Marxists, anarchists, agitators, looters” (if you are on the right). It is worth a long quote from the novel to show how the sadness Lincoln experiences at the death of his son opens him up to understand the sadness of those enslaved. To set the scene: a number of spirits — some from whites and many from African Americans who had suffered the brutality of slavery — entered the body of President Lincoln who was visiting his son’s grave. Lincoln was not consciously aware of the presence of these spirits, and they all left or fell out of Lincoln’s body, except for one spirit of a former slave who stayed with Lincoln as he left the cemetery. This is that spirit talking.

And suddenly, I wanted him to know me. My life. To know us. Our lot. I don’t know why I felt that way but I did. He had no aversion to me, is how I might put it. Or rather, he had once had such an aversion, still bore traces of it, but, in examining that aversion, pushing it into the light, had somewhat, already, eroded it. He was an open book. An opening book. That had just been opened up somewhat wider. By sorrow. And—by us. By all of us, black and white, who had so recently mass-inhabited him. He had not, it seemed, gone unaffected by that event. Not at all. It had made him sad. Sadder. We had. All of us, white and black, had made him sadder, with our sadness. And now, though it sounds strange to say, he was making me sadder with his sadness, and I thought, Well, sir, if we are going to make a sadness party of it, I have some sadness about which I think someone as powerful as you might like to know. And I thought, then, as hard as I could, of Mrs. Hodge, and Elson, and Litzie, and of all I had heard during our long occupancy in that pit regarding their many troubles and degradations, and called to mind, as well, several others of our race I had known and loved (my Mother; my wife; our children, Paul, Timothy, Gloria; Rance P., his sister Bee; the four little Cushmans), and all the things that they had endured, thinking, Sir, if you are as powerful as I feel that you are, and as inclined toward us as you seem to be, endeavor to do something for us, so that we might do something for ourselves. We are ready, sir; are angry, are capable, our hopes are coiled up so tight as to be deadly, or holy: turn us loose, sir, let us at it, let us show what we can do.

May the sadness we experience open us up somewhat wider.