Back in a Cadillac . . . .

Listen here to this week’s show:

Well, amidst all the commercial hype, there seems to be just a stirring of genuine seasonal goodwill and we’ve heard from many of the Cruising Crew over the past week, which has added to the good cheer around here. The Spinmeister was sharing his ‘Dylan in New York’ adventure, Joe Duckworth was swapping cruising stories and plans for a world cruise, Phil Tyler was showing off his new guitar and The Vikster stopped by with an extravagant present and plans for a Three From Me. In the midst of all this, The Cruisettes have been keen to see the festive decorations going up around Cruise Control, so there will be plenty of activity around the place the days ahead. We may be fast running out of days in 2013, but it hasn’t deflected us from our rummaging in the Cruising Library for some great music that we know you expect to hear on Cruising with The Commissioner.

We took the opportunity to mark the birthdays this week of John Mayall and Berry Gordy. We just couldn’t let Mr Gordy’s pass without playing something from the vast Motown catalogue. On this occasion, we let our fingers do some walking along the shelves of the Cruising Library and we picked out the very first Motown record, which appeared on Berry Gordy’s Rayber record label and this is now a rare and much sought after 45 titled ‘I Can’t Concentrate’ by Wade Jones.

This past week we caught a London gig by Vancouver based rock/blues band ‘No Sinner’, who were making their London debut appearance and put on a first class show. They are fronted by a quite exceptional vocalist, Colleen Rennison, who has an impressive vocal range from sweet soulful through to raunchy powerhouse. We decided to pick out something from the band that showed a more soulful style, ‘Love Is A Madness’.

Our cheery postman continues to call by with the occasional juicy gems for the Cruising Library and we’re always pleased to hear from the Cruising Crew with comments and suggestions for our future playlists. Some of them were in our thoughts as we started pulling together another selection of rock, soul and real rhythm and blues for this week’s adventure. We kicked off with an early hit from The Isley Brothers and their 1959 RCA single, ‘Respectable’ and we followed on fast with Little Joe Cook and his enticing invitation to ‘Meet Me Down At Soulsville’ . . . . so we did!

Cruising with the Crew
Respectable – The Isley Brothers                                           
Meet Me Down At Soulsville – Little Joe Cook
Must Be Love – Tommy Williams
Barking Up The Wrong Tree – Freddy King
Just A Little Bit Of Your Love – The Fortune Tellers
Hurry On Back To Love – Johnny Kidd
Everything’s Alright – The Mojos
Strawberry Shortcake – Jay & The Techniques
Believe It – Marie Hanninen
I Got Mine – Pink Anderson
Rough Rider – Lloydie & The Lowbites
Love Is A Madness – No Sinner

Killer Diller Korner . . . . with Johnny Alpha
I Want To Love You Baby – Peggy Scott & Jo Jo Benson

Cruising with friends . . . . .
Long Way From Home – Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimmy Vaughan & Double Trouble
Back In A Cadillac – Coco Montoya
Vanishing Girl – The Dukes Of Stratosphear
Never An Everyday Thing – The Radiators From Space
The Jungle Speaks – Jay Epae
I Can’t Concentrate – Wade Jones
Don’t Blame The Children – Junior Walker & The Allstars
How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) – Marvin Gaye
Soulful Dress – Maria Muldaur
Black Diamond – Roy Brown

Our adventure into some scratchy blues this week was encoraged by our good pal Arfa Pinetop, who suggested we might turn our spotlight on Pink Anderson. He was born in South Carolina and having learnt to play the guitar, he used to entertain the crowds at various medicine shows. He became a pretty good blues singer and guitarist and gained a reputation as an exponent of the Piedmont school of blues and ragtime. He is perhaps to be remembered not only for his music, but also for being the inspiration for Syd Barrett to choose the name for his new group. It was Syd Barrett who noticed the names of Pink Anderson and Floyd Council in the liner notes by Paul Oliver on a 1962 Blind Boy Fuller album and decided upon the now famous name Pink Floyd.

For our Girls & Guitars slot this week, we focused on Finnish multi-instrumentalist, Maria Hanninen. As well as playing guitar, bass, keyboards, drums and violin, she writes her own songs and we chose one of them from her 2009 album called ‘Not Only But Also’, a slower bluesy number called ‘Believe It’.

Now this past week brought the sad news of the passing of actor and musician Lewis Collins, who some will remember from his TV role in The Professionals, others with longer memories may recall that earlier in his career he was the bass player for UK band The Mojos. So, we needed little persuasion to play The Mojos’ big hit ‘Everything’s Alright’, as a tribute to Lewis Collins

In the end, it was Roy Brown who brought us home safe and sound from our cruise and, apart from the tidying up after the Cruisettes dangerous dancing, there was a little extra work in store, because we were anticipating putting up the festive decorations around Cruise Control and perhaps, not surprisingly, Mr Merlot has insisted on taking charge of hospitality. Hopefully, we’ll be ready for some more of your good company next week, when we’ll be happy to call by for you in the Cruise Mobile, same time, same place, to take you Cruising with The Commissioner. So, until then . . . . have fun!