TOMORROW ON THE MORNING JOLT: GILLIAN, FLORENCE, IMELDA

Tomorrow on SiriusXM OutQ's The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick I'm bringing in some of my favorite albums of 2011, but the theme is that all of these records feature lead vocals by women.


Gillian Welch's The Harrow and The Harvest is definitely one of my favorites of the year. I'm not the only one who feels that way: Mojo magazine gave it a five out of five star rating. Whenever I listen to it, I find it odd that it's just her name on the cover: it seems that her and her partner David Rawlings are equally vital to the music.

Florence + The Machine's Ceremonials is an "epic" album.  That word gets overused these days, but everything -- the songs, the performances, the arrangements -- it's a work of art.

Imelda May's Mayhem came out in Europe last year, but in the U.S. this year. She is really talented: a great singer, very charismatic, great sense of style, and she writes great songs.   You may have heard her singing on Jeff Beck's recent albums Emotion & Commotion and Rock & Roll Party. In fact, if *I* wanted to have a rock and roll party, I'd never be able to afford Jeff Beck, but one day if I'm pretty successful, I might call on Imelda May and her great band to rock my party!

Other records I hope we'll get to: Shelby Lynne's Revelation Road, Allison Moorer's Crows (which actually came out last year), Joss Stone's LP4 and The Tedeschi Trucks Band's Revelator. (That band features married couple Derek Trucks of The Allman Brothers Band and singer-songwriter Susan Tedeschi.) And maybe I'll give another shout out to The Make Out, who have one of my favorite songs of 2011, "I Don't Want Anyone Who Wants Me."

A TRIBUTE TO BILLIE HOLIDAY

This album hasn't gotten too much hype - I actually just noticed A Tribute To Billie Holiday on iTunes last week. I'm not an expert on her or her era of music.  But I do have lots of her music, and I think her singing was so beautiful, while also being sad.  I think she's one of the greatest singers of all time.  Sinatra was supposedly influenced by her, and I know he sang a lot of the same songs.  I like Billie better.

I downloaded three of the songs.  Shelby Lynne, who is seriously underrated, does "You Changed," and it's excellent. I also checked out Esperanza Spalding's "I'll Look Around" which I love.  I was intrigued by the idea of Babyface singing "Strange Fruit."  While Babyface participated in the "Vote For Change" tour some years ago, he generally hasn't been the most political artist, so I thought this was a very unusual choice for him.  It's cool that he tried it, but I don't think it really works.  No disrespect, it was an interesting choice and a tough song to take on.

Those are the songs that I checked out, and two out of three ain't bad, as the man says.  Boz Scaggs and Deborah Cox are other singers on the album.  I haven't heard their songs yet.  I know a lot of people "hate" on tribute albums. I like the idea of them, and I often enjoy the final results.  My favorite thing about them is the idea that they may lead people to check out the original artist and if some new music fans get turned on to Lady Day because of this collection, then mission accomplished.  

TOMORROW ON OUTQ: CHRISTMAS SONGS AND LAST MINUTE GIFTS

For those of you who are new to No Expiration, every Wednesday morning I go on the SiriusXM channel OutQ as a guest on The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick (and co-host comedian Keith Price) and talk about music. Well, today was Wednesday and I spent my time on the show talking about the 2011 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Tomorrow I will be making a rare Thursday morning appearance to talk about some important stuff. Namely, some new rocking holiday jams!  And speaking of jams, some last minute gifts that may get you out of a jam if you've been procrastinating on your shopping!

First off, and most importantly to me, The Cocktail Slippers. They have a new digital single, "It's Christmas," which is a tribute to the great Wall of Sound Christmas songs (and holds it own next to those classics).  No Expiration readers know that I love this band, their last album, St. Valentine's Day Massacre, was one of my two favorite albums of 2009. They've gone through some lineup changes, but I think this single features the same people who were on St. Valentine's Day Massacre.  Changing members is scary, but I definitely look forward to hearing their new music, it will be one of the albums I most eagerly anticipate in 2011, along with Social D's new one.

It turns out that David Bowie and Bing Crosby's incredibly uncomfortable looking "Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy" made a big impact on comedians. I have a new version of it by Jack Black and Jason Segel. See a cartoon video here. Meanwhile, Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly did a new version for Funny Or Die.

Annie Lennox has a new album called A Christmas Cornucopia. For some reason I can accept this kind of thing more from her than I could from Sting. It's like, she's hard to criticize, and she does a great job on the songs I've heard so far.

I've been a fan of The Indigo Girls forever, but I was surprised for some reason to find out about their new album Happy Holly Days. It's cool.

Shelby Lynne is a great singer, despite winning a weird Grammy a few years ago (Best New Artist, although she'd released a number of albums by then) not a lot of people know about her. Or not enough people. I like her song "Ain't Nothin' Like Christmas" from her new album Merry Christmas (most of the  album is covers, but "Ain't Nothin'" is an original).

Paul Simon just released a new single, "Getting Ready For Christmas Day." It's actually a great song, it reminds me of his upbeat but still very lyrical '70s stuff. It's modern sounding, because it features samples of a gospel preacher recorded decades ago.  It's a great song, and I haven't enjoyed much of his recent material.

If you're a scroogy type, you may love Corey Taylor's single "X-M@$." He's the guy from Slipknot and Stone Sour, but this song sounds more like The Reverend Horton Heat. Watch the video here.

But let's end this on more of a positive note, kind of.  You know I love me some Ms. Sharon Jones. She has a new single, "Ain't No Chimneys In The Projects."  She's just great, and this is a really fun song. Check it out!

Even though Hanukkah is over, I have to give it up to Matisyahu, whose music I don't generally enjoy.  But his Hanukkah single, "Miracle," is fantastic, and so is the video.

PETER WOLF DUETS WITH SHELBY LYNNE ON NEW ALBUM

Former J. Geils Band singer Peter Wolf returns with a new album, Midnight Souvenirs, in April. Dude gets insanely great reviews in Rolling Stone magazine, but somehow he is still kind of underrated. I dig some of his old J. Geils stuff, but what I really dig is his last solo album, 2002's Sleepless. It has this amazing song with Mick Jagger, called "Nothing But The Wheel," and Mick really sounds like he means it when he's singing. Another song features Keith Richards, "Too Close Together." I mean the fact that he can get Mick and Keith on an album, come on! Peter is a great frontman, a great singer and has great taste.

Anyway, this new album has a duet with Shelby Lynne, "Tragedy," which is on iTunes, and it's another great song.  There are also duets with Neko Case and Merle Haggard, so I guess it's an Outlaw Country kind of vibe.

SHELBY LYNNE: "SPIN THE BLACK CIRCLE!"

Despite winning Best New Artist at the Grammys a few years ago (despite having released six albums by then), Shelby Lynne is always a bit overlooked. She's a great singer, I enjoyed a lot of her records , especially Identity Crisis, Suit Yourself and I Am Shelby Lynne.

She has just posted an essay on her website arguing the merits of analog over digital and vinyl over iPods. I'm with her on this one. Check it out. And while you're at it, check out her music too, she's great.