Mark
Knopfler, "Sailing to Philadelphia"[Music Profiles Home Page] [Music Home Page]
Nimbus Records
Just in time for Halloween , and any other frightenly-honored event, this CD is a remarkable collection of cree[y and eerie pop, jazz and swing classics from the 1920's, 30's and 40's. Reproduced in compatible stereo and surround sound, the CD contains 20 tracks including Black Cat Moan, Dry Bones, Skeleton Jangle. The music of Fats Domino, Louis Armstrong and Tommy Dorsey & Co. are featured. Expert sleeve notes are provided by Dr. A. Cula, noted necromancer and world authority on vampires. This 63-minute CD makes any Halloween Party or even a dreary, stormy evening thriller an extraordinary event.
No Halloween Party is complete without a rendition of "Dry Bones" or "Skeleton Jangle," a piece of New Orlean s jazz recorded in 1936 and performed by the Original Dixieland Five. Originally, it was a hit in 1917. Other chilling titles include: "The Haunted House," from the New Mayfair Dance Orchestra, "You've Got Me Voodooed" and "The Skeleton in the Closet" by Louis Armstrong, and Bing Crosby with Vic Schoen's Orchestra and the Rhythmaires performing "The Headless Horseman."
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Mark
Knopfler, "Sailing to Philadelphia"Warner Bros.
Twenty years of music only makes Mark Knopfler better with age. This new release, "Sailing to Philadelphia" has the traces of his former crib, Dire Straits, but it has his own distinctive style as well. Guest appearances by Van Morrison on "The Last Laugh," James Taylor on the title track, and Squeeze's Glenn Tilbrook and Vhris Difford on "Silvertown Blues," adds to the magical vocals of Knopfler. Four and a half years ago, his full-fledged solo debut, Golden Heart," was a UK Top 10 album of spring 1996.
The core feeling that ignites the stirring, vivid title song came from a book Knopfler was reading, Thomas Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon." This is the epic fictionalized tale of 18th Century English adventurers Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, an astronomer and a surveyor, who turned into transaltantic frontiersmen who surveyed the land in Pennsylvania and Maryland that lead to the boundary line that eventually bore their name.
"There's something in human endeavor that always attracts me, breaks my heart," relates Knopfler who didn't notice any real theme of the CD until the recording was just about donw. The tracks touch on perserverance, aspiration, and strong-jawed determination.
Morrison and Knopfler have known each other for many years and collaborated before on Morrison's 1982 album "Beautiful Vision." "Van has been so much a part of my life, since I was a kid in school" Knopfler says, "It's a thrill to hear him singing a song I've written, because of what Van's music has meant to me over the years, and I hope we can do some more."
Warner Bros.
Music from the new album by singer/songwriter Paul Simon, "You're the One," will be accompanied by a fall tour. This release, one of his most accesible and melodic in more than a decade features Simon's 10-pience band with whom he has worked over the years, and whom he toured with on last summer's hugely successful outing with Bob Dylan. The release is followed by a tour on October 16 starting in Stockholm, Sweden. The tour covers 29 shows in 13 cities across Europe and the U.S. and will include material that spans Simon's entire career. Through December 9, the tour ends at The Neacon Theater in New York.