Every day would be a holiday.....

Ironing Board Sam [aka, Sam Moore] played at Jazz Fest yesterday. It was his first appearance in a very long time. I read something about it being 41 years since his last. Good for him.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the show. No free passes have come our way this year and we just sent the I.R.S. virtually everything we had in the savings account.

Too bad, as the Jazz Fest line-up is really very good this year. The most interesting I've seen since getting my degree.....and thus finally being able to attend. [As I've pointed out before, the scheduling of the festival conflicts with final exams.]

Anyway, Mr. Moore is now affiliated with the fine folks at the Music Maker Relief Foundation and that association appears to be doing him a boatload of good. Here's a link to his page on the Music Maker site where you can see a few video clips [the vodka ad is a hoot] and also listen to several mp3s ["Life Is Like A See Saw" is particularly nice].

Ya'll should def go see him if he comes to your town. On May 11, he'll be playing in both Durham and Hillsborough North Carolina.

Mostly you get to hear the funky flip-side of this 45, but I'm a fan of this ultra-nice cover of a tune originally recorded by Johnnie Morisette [I think that's right], on which Mr. Moore really gets to show off his vocal chops. Those horns are pretty sweet too.

Hope ya'll enjoy.......

Everybody can do it.....

Often associated with New Orleans, Ironing Board Sam's only real ties to the city are that he lived here off and on for a number of years [possibly even still does]. By the same measure the city could claim Alex Chilton, who lived here half his life.

For the real scoop, Jeff Hannusch has written a nice piece about Ironing Board Sam for Blues Access. You can find it here.

And here's a superb clip of the man from back in the day. I'd post it except it's prefaced with an ad so obnoxious I don't even want it on the blog. So grit your teeth, click on over, and watch the thing. It's awesome. [I just tried the link and the ad was gone, so maybe you're in luck]

I'm not 100% sure how many Ironing Board Sam 45's there are. I only know of this one on his own Board label, another on Holiday Inn, and two on Styletone [one of which was picked up by Atlantic].

There's also a couple of albums, the exceedingly rare "The Ninth Wonder Of The World Of Music" [the cover of which features the self-built contraption used to tilt his keyboards so he could play them "guitar style"], and "Human Touch" recorded in the early 90's.

Now, given the title of these two songs you'd be forgiven for thinking this is pure disco cheese. And to be truthful, the record does have a slight touch of novelty about it, but no more so than any other slightly screwy dance craze 45 recorded by a noted eccentric and issued on a custom label.

Mostly what ya got here is non-screwy straight up funk, backed by an instrumental version of the same tune heavy on the mini moog???...or is it something he built???....I don't know enough about keyboards to say for sure. Regardless, it's a very cool sound.

Hope ya'll enjoy...

Let's Streak

Space Streaker