The Silver Seas, golden harmonies

+ This Nashville band, led by the multi-talented Daniel Tashian, made the catchiest album of the week.

+ I have had this song in my ears for the whole week. With their effortlessly breezy harmonies and indelible hooks, the members of Nashville’s Silver Seas dispense an abundance of beautifully rootsy pop.

+ Their latest album “High Society” is like a soft rock (in a good way) record out of the 70’s that is so pleasant, it’s kind of impossible not to like. They’ve been compared to James Taylor, Jackson Browne, The Eagles, The Beach Boys, and Van Morrison. In fact, tell me if you recognize a Van Morrison song in the country life.

* Listen to The Country Life.

* Listen to Imaginary girl.

James Taylor' sweetest songs live

+ Hey, if you plan to motor west, exactly to West Hollywood, CA, around november 28-30, you better try to get tickets to see this man, James Taylor and long time friend Carole King at the legendary The Troubadour. Oh, boy, I wish I could be there!.

+ Do not get fooled by his hat. The man is as bald as myself. James is already about to jump to 60, but believe me, his musical abilities are at his best.

+ James just released a wonderful set of CD/DVD for those of you that still sing fire and rain, you've got a friend, shower the people, and so many others. The title of the set is funny. One man band. But the guy is not playing alone. Almost. But, he's supported by keyboardist Larry Goldings, whom Taylor calls his "one-man band" in the liner notes. The album, recorded at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, MA during July 2007, is an intimate and predictable one. This is my opinion, of course, but it looks to me that Taylor is playing his songs more about the same way all of his life. Is this a capital sin? No, please!, it is a trademark. Think about Dylan! or Atlantic City in the Live in Dublin' Springsteen records.

+ I know, you want some music:

* Shower the people (with The Dixie Chicks).

* Fire and rain.

* Sweet baby James.

* You've got a friend.

* Handy man.

* Carolina in my mind.

U2 remasters The Joshua Tree

+ It was 1987. I heard that record dozens of times, over and over and over and over again. U2 got the circle quadrature!.

+ Now they tell me that U2's The Joshua Tree has been meticulously re-mastered from the original analog master tapes to mark 20 years since its release and will be available on November 20, 2007.

"There has been continuous demand from U2 fans to have The Joshua Tree properly re-mastered," says Paul McGuinness. "As always, the band had to make sure it was right, and now it is."

In 1987, The Joshua Tree reached Number 1 around the world and won a Grammy for Album of the Year, while U2 won the Brit Award for Best International Act and Time Magazine put the band on its cover, proclaiming them "Rock's Hottest Ticket". Including the singles “I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For,” “Where The Streets Have No Name” and “With Or Without You,” The Joshua Tree went on to sell in excess of 20 million.

The album will be available in four formats:

• A standard CD featuring liner notes from Bill Flanagan, lyrics and unseen photographs from long time collaborator Anton Corbijn.
• A double 12" gatefold vinyl format, with the original album pressed across two 180 gram audiophile discs.
• A deluxe edition including a second CD of b-sides and demos from the original album sessions.
• A limited edition box set containing two CD's and a DVD featuring The Joshua Tree Tour live from the Hippodrome in Paris and other rare video footage.

The CD track listing (sure you remember it) is as follows: “Where The Streets Have No Name,” “I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For,” “With Or Without You,” “Bullet The Blue Sky,” “Running To Stand Still,” “Red Hill Mining Town,” “In God's Country,” “Trip Through Your Wires,” “One Tree Hill,” “Exit” and “Mothers Of The Disappeared.”

+ Now, I know you want to listen to some of the stuff:

* You can go to their space, but some cheap guy does not let to listen to whole songs!. Come on, guys, you listen to these songs on the radio EVERYDAY!

* Listen to where the streets have no name.

* Listen to bullet the blue sky.

* Listen to with or without you.

* The guys are superstars, but the music they did is today's mark.

Raul Midón, soulatin pop

+ This man you have to discover. The first song in his new job, a world within a world, called pick somebody up uses
arrangements lost two decades ago. Those violins recall us of real soul music. His blend uses that old soul music adapted to today's pop taste. I am sure his producer, son of legendary Ariff Mardin, has hit the target with those wonderful songs.

+ Raul Midón, a New Mexico-born, New York-based writer/vocalist/guitarist burst onto the scene in 2005 with his audaciously original debut album, State of Mind, and he's followed it up with an even more memorable song cycle, one that substantiates the depth of his talent and the degree of his dedication. A World Within a World, the title of the new album (Manhattan Records, Sept. 25), might refer to the status of pop music within the culture as a whole; it could also describe the expansive interior realm that this single-minded artist, blind from birth, has created with his imagination.

+ Midón was born in Embudo, N.M., to an Argentinean father and an African-American mother. A passionate music lover for as long as he can remember, Midón started playing drums at age 4 before shifting his focus to the guitar. He turned down a scholarship in creative writing offered by the University of New Mexico after being selected by the University of Miami for its highly regarded jazz program. Staying in Miami after graduating, Midón became an in-demand backup singer, working primarily on Latin projects for artists like Julio Iglesias, Shakira and Alejandro Sanz, while moonlighting as a club performer, sprinkling the requisite cover songs with the original tunes he was starting to write.

+ In 2002, when Midón felt he was ready, he walked away from his lucrative profession in order to pursue a solo career in New York City. “I wanted to become an artist and do what I wanted to do instead of being someone else's hired gun,” he explains. When Midón performed for the legendary producer/arranger Arif Mardin, fresh off the recording of Norah Jones’ breakthrough album, Come Away With Me, he offered the newcomer a deal on the spot-it would be the final signing of Mardin's long career. Raúl readily accepted, eager to form a partnership with the highly skilled veteran and with Arif's multi-instrumentalist son Joe. Father and son co-produced State of Mind, which garnered critical accolades for its heady fusion of old-school soul, timeless pop, Latin, jazz and the singer/songwriter idiom. Intrigued by what the youngster was cooking up, Wonder himself appeared on one track.

+ For A World Within a World, recorded after the death of the elder Mardin, Midón and Joe Mardin tightened the focus, with Joe laying down the grooves and playing additional instruments behind Midón's vocals and guitar parts on the majority of the tracks. “Like his father, Joe is a producer in the old-school sense of the word,” says Midón. “He's interested in how a record sounds; he can do arrangements and conduct an orchestra-which he did on 'Pick Somebody Up.' Joe brought the value of making an album to the project, as opposed to just a collection of songs.”

+ This is not your average pop record-not by a long shot. With A World Within a World, Midón has fashioned an album that is at once audacious and accessible, of the moment and suffused with history; it's personal yet universal, uncompromising yet inviting. This is that rare sort of pop album that could actually make a difference, and as such, it stands right alongside the pivotal works of the artists who inspired it.

+ Please, visit his space to listen to some of his songs.