The Fat Angel Sings

“Key To The Highway” is one of those many blues songs with murky origins and controversy about who exactly penned the lyrics. Though the song is associated with Big Bill Broonzy, it was first recorded by piano player Charlie Segar who was known as the “Key Board Wizard Supreme” in February 1940. A few months later, Broonzy played guitar on a version by Jazz Gillum before recording his own version in 1941 (with Gillum returning the musical favour and playing harmonica on that cover). All three claimed a hand in the authorship of the song, though Broonzy’s acoustic eight-bar-blues version (the original was 12-bar) became the standard-bearer.

The song is about an itinerant bluesman who leaves home to travel the highways after splitting from his lover. Mance Lipscomb, who recorded a version in the 50s, said that the phrase “key to the highway” referred to a person’s feet. Broonzy told historian Studs Terkel that the melody he used was the one he first heard as a young boy in Arkansas, played on the banjo by his uncle. Broonzy is credited as co-writer (with Segar), and he told Terkel that all blues writers took songs and made others from them by “changing a little bit.” Of “Key To The Highway” he said: “Yeah, I wrote it, yeah. In a way I’ll say I wrote it; and Charles Segar he was in it too.”

As well as a lament about leaving a lover to roam the US, the song was praised as an “anthem of the homeless” when Broonzy’s original version was inducted into the Blues Hall Of Fame in 2010. Broonzy also recorded a remarkably moving adaptation on The Big Bill Broonzy Story, the record he cut months before his death in 1958.

Among the dozens of leading blues musicians who have subsequently recorded versions are John Lee Hooker, BB King, Freddie King, Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, Buddy Guy, and Muddy Waters. Yet despite its status as a blues classic, the song has only made the charts once, in 1958, in a stunning version by Little Walter.

Harmonica maestro Little Walter adapted the song for the Chicago blues sound, playing with a talented band that included Otis Spann on piano, revered songwriter Willie Dixon on bass, and Muddy Waters on slide guitar. Walters’ sizzling, gnarly version spent 14 weeks on the charts and influenced a host of musicians, including Keith Richards. The Rolling Stones’ guitarist chose the track as one of his BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs songs in 2015, saying, “It’s top-of-the line rhythm’n’blues by Little Walter. If I’m on a desert island, where’s the highway?”

The Rolling Stones recorded a highly credible version of “Key To The Highway” at Chess Studios in November 1964, though it remained unreleased for years. In addition, their album Dirty Work features a “hidden” track with Ian Stewart playing 30 seconds of the song, while Richards has also revisited the song live with Eric Clapton.

“Key To The Highway” has appeared in different genres over the years (including an accordion version by Clifton Chenier and a big-band-style take by Dinah Washington). Arguably one of the finest versions is by Jimmy Witherspoon, with gorgeous tenor saxophone accompaniment from the jazz giant Ben Webster.

Perhaps, the most interesting version of “Key To The Highway” appeared in a landmark rock album from 1970: Derek And The Dominos’ Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs. The album features a nine-minute jam version of the song, as Eric Clapton and Duane Allman take dazzling turns with beautiful chord changes. It has a hypnotic power.

Clapton has returned to the song numerous times over the years, including separate duet versions with BB King and The Allman Brothers. “When I was about 14, I saw Big Bill Broonzy on TV and that was an incredible thing,” Clapton told Guitarist Magazine in 2003. “This was a real blues artist and I felt like I was looking into heaven. That was it for me, and then, when I went to explore his music, the song that always came back to me was an incredible version of ‘Key To The Highway.’ That was the one that I thought somehow would, like ‘Crossroads,’ capture the whole journey of being a musician and a traveling journeyman.”

One of the many blues songs with murky origins, ‘Key to the Highway’ remains a touchstone for blues fans and musicians everywhere.

Featuring one of Blondie’s most famous, endearing and successful singles, “Sunday Girl,” originally released in 1979, was the follow-up to the band’s #1 hit, “Heart of Glass,” and was #1 in the U.K. and Top 10 around Europe. Taken from the band’s multimillion-selling album, Parallel Lines, the success of these two singles pushed the album to #1 (several months after its initial release) and helped Blondie become the first New Wave act to reach platinum status. Double 7” single set housed in a stunning, bespoke gatefold sleeve featuring rare photos from the period.

Back in 2018, Numero Group announced the release of “Blondie’s The Complete Studio Recordings 1975-1982” box set, collecting the group’s first six albums plus two other discs containing rarities.  A new 12-inch vinyl version of their smash 1979 “Heart of Glass” was released then as an appetizer, featuring six versions of the song and tracing its development.  But there has been no sign of the box and several release dates have come and gone.  It is now unofficially scheduled for this year and perhaps this RSD release is a sign that may happen.  “Sunday Girl” was the group’s follow-up single to “Heart of Glass” and went to No. 1 in the U.K. and Ireland and reached the Top 10 in other European countries (it was not released as a single in the U.S.).  This new release comes includes two 7″ vinyl singles.  The first features the single version of the song and the French version, which was included on the original 12″ single.  The second 7″ debuts two unreleased renditions of the song: the demo and a live version from Portland, Oregon on January 4th, 1979. 

Side One features the original Single Version, plus the French Version, pressed on red vinyl. Side Two features 2 previously unreleased tracks – a demo from 1978 and a live version recorded at the Paramount Theatre in Portland in January 1979 – pressed on yellow vinyl.

Side 1
1. Sunday Girl (Single Version) 3:01
2. Sunday Girl (French Version) 3:01

Side 2
1. Sunday Girl (Demo) 2:50
2. Sunday Girl (Live) — recorded at the Paramount Theater, Portland, OR. January 4, 1979 2:58

Punk and indie devotees will be delighted by this new Blondie exclusive, one of the most influential bands to a limited edition EP featuring one of their most famous, endearing and successful singles, “Sunday Girl.”

Taken from the band’s multi-million-selling album “Parallel Lines”, “Sunday Girl” was originally released in 1979 and was the follow-up single to the band’s number one hit single, “Heart of Glass” and was a UK number one and a top 10 hit around Europe.

The package comes in a bespoke gatefold featuring period photos and the first single is coloured red, while the second is coloured yellow.  It is limited to 3,000 copies.

Nilüfer Yanya’s new album, “Painless”, is shaping up to be pretty great given the quality of singles she’s been sharing ahead of its release. “anotherlife” is a lush, ethereal slow jam that keeps that anticipation up. We don’t have much longer to wait to hear the whole thing, thankfully “Painless” is out March 1st via ATO.

“anotherlife” is an ethereal, midtempo track with layered synths, guitar, and weaving vocal melodies. Nilüfer shares about the meaning, “At the core of the song it’s just about being OK with things and accepting that this is where you are at. However, the ‘I’ll do anything’ line hints at a desperation of wanting to let that be known.” Directed by Nilüfer’s sister, Molly Daniel, visuals for “anotherlife” find Nilüfer on holiday in Sri Lanka wearing beautiful garments in a prismatic and lush location in the sun and moonlight.

Every Nilüfer Yanya song is an exercise in restraint. Interlocking tendrils of spidery guitar flicker like simmering flames around the edges of her beguilingly minimalist compositions, always threatening to explode and pulling back at the last second. She’s an expert at building tension, which makes the rare moments of release in songs like “midnight sun” and “belong with you” all the sweeter. “Painless” is colder and moodier than her debut but also sharper and more focused, an immaculately constructed portrait of numb heartache that can make you feel a lot with a little.

“Painless” due out March 4th, 2022 via ATO Records.

Chicago trio Dehd will release their third album, “Blue Skies”, on May 27th via Fat Possum Recordings. It’s their first album for the label, and they produced it themselves, with Grammy-winning engineer Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, Rolling Stones) mixing.

The first single from the album is “Bad Love,” a real stormer that singer Emily Kempf says is about “recovering from love addiction and making a decision to stop choosing and aligning with people who aren’t your energetic match.” She adds, “I wrote it for myself and for everyone who needed to hear a song about choosing new forms of love. it’s about chasing a relationship with oneself rather than an unhealthy one, one that just doesn’t quite fit, or a co-dependent one. everyone experiences loneliness and everyone needs connection. I wished to reclaim loneliness for myself and others as something not embarrassing or to be a kept dark secret. I wanted to embrace loneliness and being alone, alchemizing it with friendship and behaviours with self that don’t involve romance or sex.”

All songs written by Emily Kempf, Jason Balla, and Eric McGrady. Produced by Jason Balla.

Official music video for Dehd’s new single “Bad Love,” off of their upcoming album “Blue Skies,” out on Fat Possum Recordings May 27th.

Fontaines D.C.’s “Skinty Fia” is one of the most anticipated albums of the spring ( limited edition, transparent red vinyl), and after having chewed on “Jackie Down the Line” for a month or so, we now have a second single. Using layered, shimmering guitars, the band lay down a dark mood on “I Love You” before the song builds to a full-on roar.

Frontman Grian Chatten says it’s “the first overtly political song we’ve written,” adding, “It’s standing in the center of our beloved home country as a multitude of things are brought to tragic ends in an apocalyptic state of affairs. That’s how it feels to me, and what I felt when I wrote it.” “And I loved you like a penny loves the pocket of a priest, and I’ll love you ‘til the grass around my gravestone is deceased”.

the video, directed by Sam Taylor and featuring an intense, magnetic performance by Chatten,

“Skinty Fia” is due out April 22 via Partisan Records 

Oceanator, the project of Brooklyn indie rock musician Elise Okusami, has announced her Bartees Strange-co-produced sophomore album, “Nothing’s Ever Fine”, due 4/8 via Polyvinyl Records, and first single “Bad Brain Daze” also features Jeff Rosenstock on saxophone; gang vocals from members of Groupie, Bad Moves, Maneka, The Sonder Bombs, Long Neck, Late Bloomer and Alright; and a video directed by Chris Farren. With a lifetime of playing in and alongside so many bands of friends, it makes sense Okusami would seek communal joy on this record, especially from musicians in the Brooklyn scene that has given Oceanator its home and the DC scene from which she got her start.

Lonely feelings can skew apocalyptic when compounded with mental health struggles and an ever-frightening planet, but Okusami’s exuberant song writing and brawny arrangements manage to form a complexly coloured and auspiciously bright sunset on the horizon. On “Nothing’s Ever Fine“, the world might end. But it might not. And while we wait to find out, Oceanator delivers a revitalizing smack of sound and energy, helping us to remember that even if things don’t turn out fine, we can make our time here worth it.

Co-produced by Elise Okusami (Oceanator), her brother & long time bandmate Mike Okusami as well as her friend Bartees Strange “Nothing’s Ever Fine” is powerful, absolutely dialled in and frankly kickass!!

“Bad Brain Daze” is taken from Oceanator’s new album, Nothing’s Ever Fine, out April 8th, 2022. Starring Elise Okusami and Jeff Rosenstock as “Saxophone Man”

Bands releasing songs in different languages is not a new idea The Beatles released a few of their early singles in German — but rarely do they do it in nine different languages. Enter Bodega, who’s great new single “Statuette on the Console” is out in English, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Ukrainian. The French version is particularly good, as it really brings out the inherent “Ca Plane Pour Moi” vibe in this ultracatchy two-minute mutant punk ripper.

BODEGA’s album “Broken Equipment” is out March 11th on WYR?

Released February 16th, 2022

‘Flicker’ is the second album from Ride guitarist and songwriter Andy Bell. Written almost as a conversation with his teenage self, it follows the triumphant solo debut that was 2020’s ‘The View From Halfway Down’. This 18-track double album finds Andy moving towards classic song writing, notably on the reflective lead single ‘Something Like Love’, the strident harmonies of ‘World of Echo’, the joyous refracted loops of ‘Jenny Holzer B. Goode’ and the fuzz-laden late-’60s balladeering of ‘Love Is The Frequency’. Stylistically, the four sides of ‘Flicker’ take in everything from modern psychedelia to fingerpicked folk, whimsical baroque pop, and Byrdsian 12-string beauty.

Andy Bell‘s new album is a bit of sonic time travel. You notice even before listening: the album cover features a blurry but clearly much younger Bell, a portrait taken during the shoot for Ride‘s 1990 debut, “Nowhere“. And the songs are ones Bell had started but never finished from throughout his career, including a few that date back to the early ’90s. He dusted them off during lockdown, brought them into focus and recorded them at his friend and onetime Oasis/Beady Eye bandmate Gem Archer’s studio. “When I think about “Flicker“, I see it as closure,” says Andy. “The cognitive dissonance of writing brand new lyrics over songs that are 20-plus years old makes it feel like it is, almost literally, me exchanging ideas with my younger self.”

What a treat “Flicker” is. The songs have a youthful energy, with a melodic style that feels very ’90s but Bell has brought maturity to them, as well as the blissed out sound heard on 2020’s “The View from Half Way Down” to them as well. It’s the best of both worlds: an 18-track double album that breezes by, full of jangly Britpop (“World of Echo,” “Love is the Frequency”), groovy psychedelia (“Riverside,” “Jenny Holzer B. Goode,” “Sidewinder”), ethereal melodies (“It Gets Easier,” “The Looking Glass,” “The Sky Without You”), contemplative folk pop (“Gyre And Gimble,” “We All Fall Down”), and more. There’s also “Something Like Love” that sounds like a first cousin to Ride’s “Vapour Trail” that takes an entirely different, dreamy orchestral path. On it, Andy sings, “Lost in a reverie of future days,” a phrase that’s also a good description of this album.

The Ride singer-guitarist reworks unfinished songs from throughout his career on this excellent double album

released February 11th, 2022

All tracks written and performed by Andy Bell