1000 Recordings Sampler Episode 1

1000 albums (give or take a few) is a lot of music to get through. I've been working my way through the book for 3 years and I'm just past halfway - if you're a casual listener, it could be overwhelming. So today I am doing the first of a new installment: the Recording the Recordings Sampler. This is a way for me to feature some entries I enjoy without everyone having to sit through a whole album. If you don't like a track, you can skip to the next one; if you do enjoy it, you can pull up the full album on Spotify.

In the past month we've lost an astonishing amount of world-class musicians, many who are household names. This week's playlist is a tribute to those we lost. Stream the playlist here.

1. Isaac Hayes - "Theme from Shaft"
Charles Pitts, 65, guitarist for Hayes. The intro with the "wah" is played by Pitts on this track

2. Chuck Brown - "Midnight Sun"
Chuck Brown, 75, the "Godfather of Go-Go." If you want to hear more about Brown, the 1000 Recordings Podcast guys just reviewed his work last week

3. The Beastie Boys - "The Sounds of Science"
Adam Yauch, 47, aka MCA of the Beastie Boys. This is one of my favorite Beasties songs and I never noticed before that MCA says "Yeah, that's right, my name's Yauch."

4. Booker T. & the M.G.'s - "Melting Pot"
Donald "Duck" Dunn, 70, bassist for Booker T, and a member of the Blues Brothers.

5. The Band - "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"
Levon Helm, 71, drummer/singer for the Band, who also put out two great comeback albums after temporarily losing the ability to sing due to throat cancer.

6. Gram Parsons - "She"
Chris Ethridge, 65, bassist, co-wrote the above track with Gram Parsons

7. Donna Summer - "I Feel Love"
Donna Summer, 63, known for her disco-era hits, this is the only track that made it into the 1000 Recordings.

*Update*
8. Bee Gees - "You Should be Dancing"
After I wrote this last night Robin Gibb, founder of the Bee Gees, died of cancer at age 62. It's been a rough month for music.

If you like the music, buy the tracks on Amazon: Shaft, Brown, Beastie Boys, Booker T, the Band, GP, Summer, Bee Gees

Related Posts

• NEWS: Beastie Boys' MCA aka Adam Yauch Dead at 47
• NEWS: Levon Helm, Drummer for the Band, Dies at 71
• COVER: Counting Crows Rock Out on Gram Parsons

NEWS: Beastie Boys' MCA aka Adam Yauch Dead at 47

Adam Yauch, better known as MCA, one of the trio of rappers from the recently Rock Hall-inducted Beastie Boys died today. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2009. He was 47, and as far as I'm concerned they were still at the top of their game. 2011's Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 (stream it here) made my top ten list last year, and their seminal Paul's Boutique, included on the 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die (as well as Rolling Stones' 500 Greatest Albums of All Time) is still an amazing listen. A sad day for music fans. (Thanks to Stu for the head's up)

Stream Paul's Boutique here.

NEWS: 2Pac is Back

When it rains it pours. I hate going weeks without updating the blog and then doing multiple updates all in a row, but this is just too.... weird/good/really freaking weird to pass up. 1000 Recordings artist Dr. Dre closed out the Coachella music festival on Sunday night, and he evidently had a slew of guest stars (including 1000RTHBYD artist Eminem) but the most surprising was late rapper (and 1KRTHBYD included artist) 2Pac. Folks have been recording with 2Pac for years now since his untimely death in 1996 (a fact Dave Chapelle and 1KRTHBYD artist ?uestlove riff on here and that I wrote about on this Pink Floyd cover), but this has to be the first time he showed up in 3D for a gig. In fact, is this the first time anyone has come back from the grave as a hologram? Is this awesome, creepy, or just sad? You have to tell me, because I can't make heads or tails of this. It's certainly groundbreaking. Watch "2Pac" do his thing in the video below.



Listen to 2Pac's All Eyez on Me here.
Listen to Dr. Dre's The Chronic here (an album that helped launch Snoop Dogg's career).