Songs Of The Week, 2019: 7/13-7/19

The Tide Is High-  The Paragons
Takes A Lot Of Loving- Roscoe Gordon
Living In The Material World- George Harrison
Kill Your Sons- Lou Reed
London's A Lonely Town- Dave Edmunds
Francis - Gary Leeds & The Rain
Run On For A Long Time- Blind Boys of Alabama

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Two and a half new discoveries this week:
First up, a benevolent blogger uploaded a 6 CD set called Curt Boettcher: The Complete Singles, and as you may know from past posts here, I have an on again off again obsession with Boettcher, The Millennium, Sagittarius and any of the sunshine pop and psych bands he either sang for or produced. I was surprised to see Dave Edmunds on Disc 6, with a cover of the Trade Winds hit, "New York's A Lonely Town," with a slight variation of location. Digging deeper, it appears Edmunds also cut it straight as "New York's A Lonely Town," and hid it away on the b-side of the "Where Or When" single. Anyway, that's that.

Then, checking out more of the Perfumed Garden psych collection, a terrific track called "Francis" by Gary Leeds & The Rain caught my ear. How this one got by me, I'll never know? One album on Philips, which fetches a grand or two, Gary Leeds, is of course, Gary Walker of the Walker Brothers, and The Rain, features a young, pre-Badfinger Joey Molland. And, that is also that.

And while I've owned Roscoe Gordon's final recording, "No Dark In America" since it's release in 2002, and have loved most of it, including the track included here, this bit of info was new to me: "Gordon is widely regarded as the true source of ska reggae's heartbeat, based on the unique rhythmic pattern of his R&B tunes in the 1950s, like "No More Doggin'." His tunes have been recorded by luminaries such as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and Jimi Hendrix."

The four remainng tunes that fill out your Songs Of The Week, popped up at various times for various reasons--the opener, because I am still on a half binge of early reggae and ska, and the closer, because someone told me this brilliant Blind Boys record from 2001, "Spirit Of The Century," was getting a new deluxe vinyl edition and it made me want to hear it. Sadly, I could find no such information about the reissue. The old CD will have to do.