Sunday, March 7, 2010

Cosmic American Music


Daaron Lee - Who's Making Love b/w Long Black Train is one of the coolest, most random 45's I've ever happened upon. It's on the Hip label, which I'd never seen or heard of before. I'd also never heard of "Daaron Lee" before. I bought it because by the printing on the label and feel of the vinyl it appeared to be somehow related to Atlantic/Stax of the late 60's, and of course I could see that it contained a cover of Johnny Taylor's huge Stax hit "Who's Makin' Love", and a Lee Hazelwood song on the other side. I figured it'd be a dollar well-spent at my favorite Princeton record store.

I put it on my turntable, and low and behold, it's a country version of the Homer Banks-penned Stax hit, and the expected sorta funky soul Hazelwood-penned tune to boot. SCORE. It's that late 60's "Cosmic American Music" sound Gram Parsons was aiming for with International Submarine Band (produced by Lee Hazelwood) and Flying Burrito Brothers, which I have a MAJOR thing for. I couldn't find ANY information on anyone named Daaron Lee or a Hip record label, but then seeing it was produced by Billy Lee Riley, I looked further and found out Daaron Lee was a name Billy Lee Riley recorded under for about 5 minutes in 1968. Riley was one of the absolute heros of Sun Records, who really kinda got screwed out of blowing up like Jerry Lee Lewis or Elvis Presley by a shrewd Sam Phillips who wanted to use Riley's skills and backing band in the studio to blow up other artists' careers.
So anyway, this is a funky country-soul crossbreed from the late 60's. NO-BRAINER, awesome music, and apparently rare. I know I haven't posted on here in a while, so I figured I'd come with some extra-good stuff for you. Download and enjoy!

http://www.mediafire.com/?q4ivkzjzyjj