Paul Newnum's Ten List

10. Live at Town Hall, Josh White. The first blues I ever heard. My dad, in the late Fifties, went to a medical convention in Chicago and, on a night out on the town with some doctor friends, saw this fellow named Josh White. A few years later, as a little kid, I heard this album . It was like nothing I had ever heard before. For a Top Ten listenin' buzzcut boy growin' up in 1960s' southern Indiana, this was the sound of an entirely different world.  Do a google search on Josh White -- his life story is amazing. (NOTE: This song is not in the stream at this time)

9.  Pink Cadillac, Bruce Springsteen.  Basic balls-out 12-bar blues fun. Honey we don' t have to drive it, we can park it out in back and have a party in your pink Cadillac.  An exuberant celebration of America -- big cars, cute girls and that knowing wink at soon-to-be-naughty behavior.  Sing it out loud and you'll invariably find yourself groovin'.

8. Get Your Lies Straight, Terry Evans. Bill Coday, I believe, wrote this song that went to # 14 on the R and B charts in 1971. Terry Evans' 1995 version is full of growling, smoking, cynical, seething anger. Being a lawyer, sometimes I would like to play this in the courtroom.  Being a host on Smokestack Lightnin', I smile whenever anybody even mentions the song.

 7. How Long (Has This Been Goin ' On), Ace, from Five a Side. This may be the best embodiment of a blues-incorporating pop single. Plaintive, understated, resigned.  Good old semi-blue eyed (British) soul.

6. Women Be Wise (Keep Your Mouths Shut), Sippie Wallace and Bonnie Raitt. Bonnie and Sippie teamed up and each of them really complemented the other in sound, in tradition, and through generations. This song is indeed as wise as it is fun.  "Don't advertise your man (Don't do it!)"  If you don't smile while you listen to this, you are, as Snooky Pryor once said, "like a roach on your porch in the winter -- too cool to move."

5. Another You, The Midnight Creepers.  Knowing Bob Greenlee was one of my great privileges in this life.  We miss him.  Bob was a true friend to the blues and to our show, and his King Snake Studio in Sanford became a home away from home for many great talents.  One day, we'll do a Smokestack Lightnin' show dedicated exclusively to "The King Snake Sound."  Until then, this beautiful ballad carries the flag.

4. Fat Man in the Bathtub, Little Feat. The band's famous opening song from Waiting for Columbus, it first appeared on Dixie Chicken in 1973. Somebody once said Lowell George's voice was "white boy got the wah wah blues." Yeah.  Not long after Lowell died in 1979 and the group disbanded (until 1988), Bonnie Raitt said, "I miss Little Feat more than I miss being eight years old."   That's a lot.

3. Hound Dog, Big Mama Thornton. The original. Nobody did it better than she did, and I think even Elvis would agree. (Make the comparison) * With an additional nod to Hound Dog, Elvis Presley. The song that blended blues and new found rock 'n' roll. The pivot upon which a whole new sound turned. (Also performed by a pretty decent but little-known and short-lived band in 1972 called Peanut Butter and the Jellies, who brought down the house using this as their opening tune.

2. I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues, Sarah Vaughan. This 1932 song by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler has been covered by many, but this legendary artist known as "The Divine Miss Sarah" proves how she earned her title. I was privileged to see her once in person. Inspirational. Awe-inspiring. The beautiful instrument that was her voice had a four-octave range and limitless expression.

1. All Along the Watchtower, Jimi Hendrix. The single most perfect recording in modern music. Quintessential. The four minute apex of the blues' union with rock.  There is nothing close.  It burns.

Hope you find something here you really like, too.