Music Gourmets Presents 60 Years of Great Music - 1963

[Zeeba Neighba]

If it's Friday, it must be the MG's "60 Years of Great Music" series. Welcome to 1963!
Here's the rules:

Each Friday, I'll introduce a new year from 1957 through 2016. Each member selects an album released in that year with a few lines (or more) on why you picked it/enjoy it. Your selection does not have to be the most important release or the most admired release of that year (though it certainly can be), simply an album that grabs you and that you really love.

However, once an album is selected by a member, you must choose a different album.

Together we will compile quite the canon of "Great Music" and, who knows, maybe inspire each other to check out some new artists (or to revisit old forgotten classics).

This week - the albums of 1963

And now the weekly Axo post helping me out with a RYM link as I can't pull it up at work

 

[axolotl]

For the truly awesome among us:

https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/1963

 

[Nickyboy]

Cannonball Adderly with the Bossa Rio Sextet of Brazil- Cannonball's Bossa Nova

 

[Ojai Sam]

^ That's a new one on me.

Spotify playlist is here:

 

[Nickyboy]

^ That's a new one on me.

It's a great listen!

 

[patrikc325]

The Beatles -Please Please Me

The start of the British Invasion! Most of these songs are the basis for Beatlemania!

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

^
True Beatlemania is timeless. As opposed to phony Beatlemania which has bitten the dust

 

[axolotl]

^
True Beatlemania is timeless. As opposed to phony Beatlemania which has bitten the dust

Well done. : oh hercules:

 

[Worm]

The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem - In Person at Carnegie Hall

I have fond memories of singing every song on this album with my dad and sibs when I was a kid. We must have played this record a thousand times.

 

[axolotl]

Kenny Burrell ~ Midnight Blue



Awesome. Turn it up to #11 for 1962.

Meditate and drool over the blissed-out performance of Burrell's smooth electric guitar.

Did Hendrix really say: “Kenny Burrell, that’s the sound I’m looking for”? I don't know, but if he did, it was probably after absorbing Midnight Blue. A must-own.

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

Yay! Worm and Axo chose two albums on my list.

Still have three more though

 

[Markonomicon]

Kenny Burrell ~ Midnight Blue



Awesome. Turn it up to #11 for 1962.

Meditate and drool over the blissed-out performance of Burrell's smooth electric guitar.

Did Hendrix really say: “Kenny Burrell, that’s the sound I’m looking for”? I don't know, but if he did, it was probably after absorbing Midnight Blue. A must-own.

Well, that helps narrow mine down. Haha. Top notch album!

 

[Unsomnambulist]

Link Wray - Jack The Ripper



Primitive, but catchy.

 

[earcartoons]

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (Release date: May 27, 1963)

I was a tot at the time, knew nothing of this. Not even a Dylan fan till the 90's. Now a die-hard.
It's influence on music can't be overlooked though.

 

[Popperline]

The Patsy Cline Story (release date June 10, 1963)



My Dad played this non-stop when I was a kid -- and I hated it!
Now I think she has one of the most perfect voices I've ever heard ....

 

[lpfreak1170]

Various Artists - A Christmas Gift For You From Philles Records


Yes, it's a Christmas album. Yes, it's that damn good.

 

[Ojai Sam]

Ray Price - Night Life

Might as well get this one in early. I haven't picked many country LP's until now because they are generally lousy - 1 or 2 singles and a lot of filler. Ray Price fractured that paradigm in 1962 with San Antonio Rose, his Bob Wills tribute, and busted it wide open with Night Life. Both are fully realized concept albums, complete with spoken word intro and outro. Night Life presents a dozen honest stories of men who deal with lost love by taking to the bars and honky tonks. The title cut is one of Willie Nelson's finest writing efforts but there isn't a weak song in the bunch.

Wiki is wrong - Ray didn't record this record with his stellar road band, the Cherokee Cowboys (which included Nelson as front man at the time). However, among the Nashville A-Teamers he did use his own steel player, Buddy Emmons. I'll post more about Emmons in the future but suffice it to say he was a trendsetter who not only added elements of jazz but also created his own unusual tunings and then invented an instrument (the Emmons steel) capable of playing them. Listen to his solo on the title song and you'll hear why he was considered the best.

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

The Beatles - With the Beatles

Well, with Dylan, The Clancy's and Spector's Christmas album picked, many of my big albums from 1963 have been aptly chosen. Sure, Dexter's Our Man in Paris is on the outside looking in (as is Back at the Chicken Shack), but hey...this is With the Beatles and needs to be here!

PatrikC picked the first one Please Please Me (and Patrik, tell MissusC she needs to pick ), but I've always loved this one better...in fact, I listen to it more than A Hard Day's Night. So much energy from the opening "It Won't Be Long". Sure there's a number of covers but "Money" and "Please Mr. Postman" are just as definitive as their originals (with "Roll Over Beethoven" pretty close). Only two singles from this one ("Beethoven" and "All My Loving"), true, but the lesser know album cuts of "Not A Second Time" and "All I Got to Do" are strong.

Of course, U.S. fans would have Capitol's Meet the Beatles which has 9 tracks from this (the 8 originals) plus singles like "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "I Saw Her Standing There" so next year's pickers (it's a '64 release) might go for that as a better album. I'd disagree because it does lack the three killer covers listed above.

 

[earcartoons]

I Saw Her Standing There

That song alone might make an argument for being a better album. Definitive early Beatles original. A flip side to boot. But we're still in '63..........

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

That song alone might make an argument for being a better album. Definitive early Beatles original. A flip side to boot. But we're still in '63..........

Sure, but you don't want to waste your '64 pick on a Capitol slice-and-dice job after I picked the original