February Seven

We are now four days into March, which must mean that it is time for me to do my regular recap of the previous month. February was a short month in terms of posts as well as days – I managed just seven, almost all of which were music based. I’m aiming to do better in March, but who knows where the month will take me?

The non-musical offering was last month’s review, entitled appropriately enough The Month Of January. As usual, I gave you a review of that month’s posts, plus the tune whose title I had borrowed for the piece. This was a rather lovely version of a song that is regarded as traditional in both England and Ireland, from Blair Dunlop – an English folk musician – and Larkin Poe, two sisters from the US who are usually bracketed under the roots/Americana banner.

There were four Tuesday Tunes posts last month, neatly matching the number of Tuesdays in the month. It’s as if I planned things, isn’t it! In order, starting with the one that came at you on 1st February, these were:

Tuesday Tunes 89: Themes, in which I took a look at songs which had been used as theme music for TV programmes that I had watched over the years. As I said at the time I had collected quite a list of them, so I may well be revisiting the themes theme at some point. For now, I contented myself with music from The Allman Brothers Band, Frankie Laine, The Monkees, Booker T And The MGs, Fleetwood Mac, The Rembrandts, Gary Portnoy, and CCS, though as I’m not a huge fan of that last one I added in the original song from which it was ripped off, by Led Zeppelin. If you are curious as to which programmes the songs introduced, just follow the link back to the post and all will be revealed.

Next up was Tuesday Tunes 90: Party, which was prompted by the big news story of that week about the investigations into revelations that while the rest of the country had endured many deprivations during the various lockdowns, Boris Johnson and his staff and friends had ignored the rules he had set for us, and had enjoyed many a party. This became known as ‘Partygate,’ and for a time it looked as though it might bring Johnson’s time as PM to an end. Sadly recent events have dominated the headlines, and it looks as though he will be able to weasel his way out of it. Understandably so, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine is clearly a far more serious issue. The party tunes were provided by The Beastie Boys (plus a wonderful parody version by the guys at Politics Joe), Rick Nelson, Nanci Griffith, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Kacey Musgraves, Dire Straits, and World Party (ok, I cheated).

I then continued my trawl through the days of the week, with Tuesday Tunes 91: Sunday. Five down now, but the remaining two are proving to be a little difficult! I’ll get there in the end, though. The Sunday music came from The Small Faces, Kris Kristofferson, U2, Matraca Berg, 10,000 Maniacs, Steeleye Span, Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs, and Blondie.

The final February Tuesday saw me sharing Tuesday Tunes 91: Storm, which was my response to the proliferation of storms from which the country was suffering. Like many countries, we have a storm naming system here, and we went through three of them in a week! The music came from Bob Dylan, Kings Of Leon, Fleetwood Mac (second time last month), Donovan, Little Big Town, Mary Chapin Carpenter (I never miss an opportunity!), Rod Stewart, and The Doors. The end of another month of music I like, and hope you did too.

Aside from Tuesdays, I also gave you two further musical pieces. The first of these was Some New (And Older) Music, in which I shared three songs which had just been released to YouTube, and gave you the first song that had attracted me to each of the acts. These were from Walk Off The Earth, Nina Nesbitt, and First to Eleven.

As two of those are bands who post a lot of cover versions, it prompted the thought that maybe it was time to revisit one of my occasional series, which I duly did in Going Back Under The Covers, which included music by Otava Yo, The Hound And The Fox, The Good Lovelies, Hildegard von Blingin’, and Postmodern Jukebox featuring Morgan James. As you can see, I tend to avoid the mainstream with these!

So, that was my February. As always, I wanted to give this review a title either borrowed or adapted from a song. Last year I used the Foo Fighters, but the only other February song in my Apple Music library was the one I chose for today, as by an amazingly coincidental stroke of luck it matched perfectly with the number of February posts I gave you:

You may not be familiar with The Avett Brothers. They are from Concord, North Carolina, and comprise two brothers, Scott and Seth Avett, along with Bob Crawford and Joe Kwon. To date they have released ten albums, and this was a track on the seventh of those, The Carpenter, which was released in September 2012, and reached #4 in the US and #8 in Canada. Only one of their albums has ever made it into the UK charts, at a lowly #72, so I’d guess that British and European audiences won’t know them very well. Their influences are quite wide ranging, and Wikipedia says they “combine bluegrass, country, punk, pop melodies, folk, rock and roll, indie rock, honky tonk, and ragtime.” I rather like them.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this look back at my February and will join me again. There has already been a Tuesday Tunes post in March, and its theme may give you a clue as to why I chose the cartoon at the top of this piece. Stay safe and well 😊

Advertisement