THE LEAGUE OF DECENCY: Swing, Soul & Rock 'n' Roll

The League of Decency

Swing, Soul & Rock 'n' Roll

© 1995 Music Mint Corp.

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Title tells it--Jazz, Blues, Roots Rock'n'Roll, and Soul. Recorded live @ mythical Gate City Lounge. Same MC as Herndon Field concert for recording of Ray Charles' "What'd I Say"

tracks

1 Intro By Alley Pat
2 All She Wants to Do Is Rock
3 At the Time It Seemed Like the Thing to Do
4 Further Up the Road
5 Intro: My Beloved Aunt Corny...
6 Big Red Caboose
7 Caldonia
8 Is It True What They Say About Dixie
9 When East Meets West
10 300 Pounds of Joy
11 Intro: My Life As a Geek...
12 Thermos Greenwood
13 The Dance of Love
14 Radar Love
15 Happy Trails

notes

(Liner notes by Ed Carney)
I had heard that the annual Radio Zombie Barbecue was the hip place to be for electronic-media types. It's a fund-raiser for those who suffer from Tourette's Syndrome, attended by night-time radio personalities, broadcast crews, local music press people and assorted creatures of the night. Doreen had dragged me out to the Gate City Lounge to see what she referred to as her favorite band. I didn't want to go but Doreen's got the cure for what ails me.

What a place! The first thing I noticed were the giant politcal posters of Herman Talmadge and Lester Maddox on the same wall with big pictures of Muhammed Ali, Malcolm X, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. there were autographed photos of everybody...Elvis Presley, Roland Kirk, Jackie Wilson, Ella Fitzgerald, Jerry Lee Lewis, Tony Bennet, Willie Dixon, Sarah Vaughn; I mean everybody. And the smells... soul-food scents of smoldering swine, corn bread and turnip greens, mixed with the seductive traces of Escada and Bijan.

Doreen pulled me upstairs. Through the blue haze and the dark, I could tell the crowd was electric; beautiful black sisters with their solemn ebony escorts dressed to the nines, brown-and-white couples, multi-cultured college kids in dreadlocks, bottled black or burred heads, a few fugitives from a Dead concert, some Latinos, several suburban fashion victims in black leather with pierced extremeties and a couple of good 'ol boys out for a big time. What a mix! Talking and drinking and digging on Mose Allison tunes coming over the sound system.

The band was introduced while I was trying to get two beers and a Jack Black, and as I tipped the bartender, I heard this mongrelized, half-redneck, half-black, mixed-up voice from somewhere in the mosquito infested, hog-callin', coastal South yell "Hold back the dawn...Stop all the clocks" and time stood still.

I turned around and saw eight on stage. The guitar player was the only one who looked like he hadn't served time in the state pen. The horn section(two saxes and a bone at a collective eight hundred pounds, at least)had just hit me between the ears. I reeled with the rhythm section, and the whole thing took off.

It was some sort of ritual the crowd was familiar with. Doreen grabbed a cowboy and hit the dance floor. I looked around and it felt like every inch of the place was moving. I drank both beers, threw down the Jack and waded into the sweating, swinging, swarm to be baptised into some sort of happening rhythm-cult. At some point I ended up with Doreen on the dance floor where we shook it till our hearts were pounding and we were soaking wet.

That band could really blow!

I wondered, "How long have they been doing this stuff?" I mean, from Louis Jordan to Howlin' Wolf, to some twisted swing version of Radar Love. They weren't teenagers, but, God, it was scary to think of adults working like this. It was like a crazed pack of road-worn semi-truck drivers, dressed in quasi-zoot suits, chasing me down to work me over with musical instruments.

The vibe in this place was so hip, so much about music and passion and joy. The crowd was so together. The scene was so right. I don't exactly remember how we got to Doreen's place that night, and I never got the name of the band, but when I came to, Brother, I was healed.

reviews

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  • Had the pleasure to see them live
    author: logan

    This CD is great. Everyone I play it for loves it. The original tunes are truely the hilight of this album.

  • GREAT!!!
    author: Tina

    Great CD! 'Caldonia' is the BEST!! Also, one of the best versions of 'Radar Love' EVER!! Great Music, Great Fun, all wrapped up in one!!!

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