It sure was a hot summer. One that didn’t bring much rain or relief in my area. The good news is that some great music was born this summer. The best of which came from artists like Jason Isbell, Grace Potter, Peter Case and Ryan Adams in my opinion. But that shouldn’t downplay artists like Mark Knopfler, Kelly Willis, Lori McKenna and Ben Harper who also had amazing albums. All of them make appearances on my latest playlist accompanied by some lesser known greats like Elliot Randall, Eilen Jewell, Peter Karp and Stephen Kellogg. And of course one cannot forget the godmother herself, Bettye LaVette, whose collaboration with the Drive-by Truckers bookends either side of this playlist with DBT members and alum (Jason Isbell). The beginning of this playlist is a little heavy on the pop music but I promise its really good stuff. And no, I didn’t forget Steve Earle. His release, though the same week as Bettye Lavette came at the end of Summer. Expect to see him surface again in Fall. It was a tough choice but I didn’t want to sacrifice any of the other artists to keep the playlist down to a single disc and the Lavette song is just a great tune to end on.

• “Try”, Jason Isbell
• “No Dreams”, Oakley Hall
• “Stop the Bus”, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals
• “The Underdog”, Spoon
• “To the Dogs or Whoever”, Josh Ritter
• “My Rights Versus Yours”, The New Pornographers
• “Hard Breaks”, Alberta Cross
• “Invasion”, Eisley
• “Punish the Monkey”, Mark Knopfler
• “Don’t Stop Now”, Crowded House
• “Sweet Sundown”, Kelly Willis
• “Unglamorous”, Lori McKenna
• “All I Really Want”, Peter Karp
• “How to Get Old”, Elliot Randall
• “Underneath the Stars”, Peter Case
• “Too Hot to Sleep”, Eilen Jewell
• “Everybody Knows”, Ryan Adams
• “Sweetest Goodbye”, Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers
• “Fool for a Lonesome Train”, Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals
• “You Don’t Know Me At All”, Bettye LaVette

So that you can preview the songs, I’ve posted a Best of Summer ‘07 iMix to the iTunes store. Enjoy!

Tue, Oct 16, 2007 @ 10:51 pm |