In no particular order, here's stuff I listen to in the car:
- John Martyn, in particular, "Solid Air," "One World Grace,"
and "Danger, Sunday's Child"
- Nic Jones: "Penguin Eggs" and "Unearthed"
- Peter Bellamy: "The Transports," "Barrack Room Ballads"
any of his; I love his stuff
- Nick Drake: "Complete Recordings," though the compilation "Way
To Blue" is a great place to start
- Robert Johnson: "Complete Recordings"
- Carter Family: anything by them
- Huddie Ledbetter anything "Bourgeois Blues" is a killer
- The Goon Show: The Complete BBC Recordings, particularly "The Treasure
of Loch Lomond" and "Tales of Old Dartmoor"
- Van Morrison: even the bad stuff is out of the park
- The Amadeus Quartet recording of Haydn's "Emperor Concerto"
- Ani Difranco: "Living in Clip" and "Dilate"
- Beyond the Fringe Peter Cooke, Dudley Moore, et al
- Billy Holiday: Complete Recordings
- Nat King Cole early trio recordings
- Greg Brown what can I say? Beyond belief. My favorite songwriter;
my good friend.
- Jimi Hendrix everything
- The Beatles everything. Except for "Let it B" and "Abbey
Road"
- Bob Dylan nearly everything.
- The Rolling Stones that period between "Beggar's Banquet"
and "Exile on Main Street." Keith was more fun when he was a junkie.
- Richard Pryor everything particularly "Live on the Sunset
Strip." Speaking of junkies.
- Paul Brady and Andy Irvine that one incredible album.
- Dick Gaughan: "Handful of Earth"
- Archie Fisher: "Sunsets I've Galloped Into." I produced it,
the grammar's wrong; I don't care. A wonderful record.
- The complete live recording of Martha Stewart's can being slammed behind
bars; I can't wait.
- Dire Straits: "Live Alchemy." Best recording for going from point
A to point B in the least time.
- Van Halen albums "One" through to "1984" inclusive:
the David Lee Roth years. One of my guilty pleasures. Roth's book, "Crazy
From The Heat," is a riot. Read it.
- Cyndi Lauper everything the greatest hits "12 Deadly Cyns"
is incredible. Great driving music.
- The complete Deutche Grammaphone recordings of Herbert von Karajan conducting
the Beethoven symphonies. Driving through the Redwood Highway with the Eroica
blasting and the sunroof open.
- Handel's Water Music, the Royal Fireworks Suite, the Messiah
- Anything by Thomas Tallis, particularly "The Tallis Scholars Live at
Oxford," Hwy 1 from Mendocino north to Crescent City, California.
- Ralph Vaughn Williams' "Variations on a theme by Thomas Tallis,"
the English Suite. I'm constantly trying to replicate his string arrangements
on my own recordings.
- Richard Thompson where to begin? Terrifying.
- Gordon Lightfoot the first 3 or 4 albums. Try driving across the Prairies
on a frosty October morning listening to those early records and drinking
tea from Tim Horton's; the complete Canadian experience.
- Kiri Te Kanawa: Mozart Arias
- Cecilia Bartoli: same
- Stan Rogers: "Between the Breaks Live". "Northwest Passage"
"Delivery Delayed" and "Lies" are killers. Anything
except that fucking "Barrett's Privateers."
- Glen Miller, the Dorseys, all those incredible wartime bands
- Django Reinhardt with the Hot Club Quintet.
- "The Screwtape Letters," by C.S. Lewis, read by John Cleese
- Fred Astaire singing from the RKO pictures. Great songs, great arrangements,
great voice. Perfect.
- Louis Prima voice like a saxophone.
- Eugene O'donnell "Slow Airs and Set Dances" - my fiddle
hero. I used to know every one of the tunes from that record. I got to play
them one night with Eugene at the Ann Arbor Folk Festival. Available on Green
Linnet, I believe.
- Fritz Kreisler - The Beethoven and Mendelson recordings. Wonderful.
- Pablo Casals solo Bach
- Dylan Thomas the Caedmon recordings
- The Red Clay Ramblers: "Merchant's Lunch" but anything.
The Beatles of the string band world
- Ferron: "Phantom Center"
- Itzak Perlman: "Encores"
- Elvis the Sun years only, please.
- Living Color: "Vivid"
- Billy Idol: "Rebel Yell" (sorry about this one; I love the guitarist)
- Jethro Tull: "Thick as a Brick" and "Passion Play."
Lyrics that walk the fine line between hopelessly pretentious and incomprehensible;
2 and 3 time signatures at once; I spent my lonely teen years learning the
guitar, flute, and bass parts. No wonder I never had a girlfriend.
- Fred Neil: "Little Bit of Rain"
This is by no means a complete list, just stuff I've had in regular rotation
in the car over the last few years.