Or Someplace Shining

6 Jul

kentmcdanielwrites's avatarkentmcdanielwrites

I’m posting a different kind of Christmas story. I won’t claim it’s got sex, drugs, & rock & roll, but two out of three ain’t bad. I wrote “Or Someplace Shining” about year and a half ago, and it appeared originally in Downstate Story, 2012 .

OR SOMEPLACE SHINING

            christmas treeIn the early evening McDermott stood before the Christmas tree in the sanctuary,where everything was quiet, the tree’s lights the only luminescence. It rose eight feet, and the lights were old fashioned, shaped like tiny bulbous cones, green and blue and red and gold, their glow warmer than an LED’s. Ornaments of many sizes, some frosted with white or glitter, sparkled and glinted. Strands of tinsel spiraled up around the pine needles, and a haloed angel gleamed at the top. Gazing at it, just for a moment he felt that this season was somehow a…

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Jammin’ with Rudy

6 Jul

kentmcdanielwrites's avatarkentmcdanielwrites

stormy xxiv !I’m posting video of Rudy Negrete sitting in with our band. The song we were playing is classic roots rock, but Rudy pretty much stole the show. Which is no real surprise, I guess. For my money Rudy Negrete is the most exciting roots rocker currently working out of Chicago’s south side. The real thing. Of course, I could be biased. Way back when, I was Rudy’s fifth grade teacher.

Around seven years back, he saw some comment I put on Stevie Ray Vaughn’s My Space page and sent me an email inviting me to catch his trio. I did and was amazed. The rhythm section was rock solid, and Rudy’s guitar work and vocals were something to behold. He just keeps getting better, too.

Anyway, I was playing with Alpha Stewart on drums and my wife Dorothy on bass that night. The show was going pretty good already. But…

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“Stagger Lee”

6 Jul

kentmcdanielwrites's avatarkentmcdanielwrites

ds bacoverI’m posting video of a live performance we did of “Stagger Lee,” one of the great songs in American roots music. I first heard the Lloyd Price version way back when, but the song’s been recorded by everyone from Ma Rainey to Sonny Terry, to The Clash to Dylan, and about a zillion others. I never actually tried to learn the song; I just started singing it one day and found out I knew all the words. The three versions that probably most affected how I play it are by Lloyd Price, Johnny Rivers, and Taj Majal, just because I’ve listened to them the most.

No one knows who wrote the song, but whoever did, it was a long time ago. “Stagger Lee” was first published in 1911. It’s about an actual bar room murder: In St. Louis at Christmas, 1895, “Stag” Lee Shelton shot one Billy Lyons. I’ll let…

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If You Need Somebody

6 Jul

kentmcdanielwrites's avatarkentmcdanielwrites

I’m going to post video here of the song “If You Need Somebody,” the lyrics to which I scribbled down one night long, long ago in PKs down in Carbondale, before a show. A few months later, that summer up at my sister Linda’s place in Naperville, I got around to putting the words to music, and maybe fifteen years later, I got around to recording it for my About Time album.

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Like the lord, I work in mysterious ways. Especially to me.

l-r: Dorothy, Kent, Paul l-r: Dorothy, Kent, Paul

The video was recorded around a decade later at The Glenwood Arts Fest in Chicago’s cosmic Rogers Park neighborhood. Our show that day was a  family affair. My wife Dorothy was on bass. Our son Paul was on drums. And our buddy Josh Davis was on harp. That’s me on guitar. We were all feeling pretty good that afternoon and having a good…

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Zombies Stink (& Vampires Suck) from show at Silvies

6 Jul

kentmcdanielwrites's avatarkentmcdanielwrites

The live version of Zombies Stink (& Vampires Suck) below was recorded Saturday, April 19–the night before Easter–at Silvies on Chicago’s north side. Alpha Stewart is on drums, Dorothy McDaniel on bass, John Temmerman on Sax, and that’s me on guitar. It was a fantastic night.

If you’d like to  compare the live version with the studio version, just click on the icon below, which will play the studio recording:

"cover" which we provided to the various mp3 download sites. “cover” which we provided the various mp3 download sites.

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