Eric Lindell: "Tried and True" (2009)

Eric Lindell was born in San Mateo, California, working as a baker by day and playing guitar and bass at night.

After producing his own first album in 1996, he won the prestigious John Lennon Songwriting Competition with a song called "Kelly Ann."  He would briefly live in New York before landing in New Orleans where he found a funkier sound and was signed by Alligator records.

His music is defined many different ways including Creole funk fusion, swamp pop, blues funk and blue-eyed soul. His 1996 debut on Alligator was "Change in the Weather" and that album saw the song "Give it Time" get considerable radio airplay and was featured on Boston Legal. 

Eric Lindell has a reputation for his live performances that seems to eclipse his studio work much in the fashion of the J. Geils Band and The Nighthawks.

He has at least eight albums to his credit and his latest release is the outstanding "Sunday Morning" which teams him with legendary Texas blues guitarist Anson Funderburgh and covers a selection of old R & B and country songs that are favorites of theirs.

Lindell is playing an average of 100 gigs a year and his current tour frequently features Funderburgh.

But our favorite song by him is "Tried and True" which, is from 2009's "Low on Cash, Rich in Love". The song doesn't bother with a long intro that builds to the hook (a technique used WAY too much these days). It grabs you from the first guitar note and moves right into a funky blues groove we can all get  behind.

Tell me what more can I say
What more can I do
Baby where, where did I go wrong?
What more could I do to prove myself?
What more can I say?
What more can I do
To prove my love? 
Baby it's tried, tried and true.


So give this song a listen and you will likely want to track down all of his recordings. You can catch him in Jacksonville on August 8th at the Mojo Kitchen (Beaches).

Funk Monk: Beach Bongo Part I (2006)

Not familiar with this one? No surprise. We dug this album up off of a European website several years ago. We like this song so much that we posted it to YouTube ourselves so it could be featured on monahanssong.blogspot.com.

If you don't feel like dancing to this when you hear it, get in the car and go to the emergency room as you may be dead.

Beach Bongo Part I has very little information attached to it, and nothing about the artist Funk Monk.

It all appears to start with a series of books written by Herbert Ypma called "Hip Hotels". The series was a big hit and sold over a million copies. several times out selling "The Da Vinci Code" which was out at that time.

According to Amazon (and they capitalized all the words, not us):
"Hip Hotels" is More Than Just a Bestselling Book Phenomenon. It Was, and is the First Book to Recognize a Fundamental Shift in the World of Travel, Where the Decision on Where to Stay is Governed by the Experience Offered and the Style of the Environment. People Now Want Something to Talk About – They Want to Be Challenged and They Want an Experience. Travel is Not Dictated by Pragmatism Or Practicality, It’s Dominated by Emotion, and Hip Hotels, Whether it Be Music, Books Or on the Internet, is Set Up to Trigger that Emotion."

So apparently in 2006 to accompany a book in the series called "Hip Hotels: Beach", an album was released of various artists using a matching cover to the book. These were hip songs of the beach.

The song uses bongos throughout and there are no less than eight separate solos on a wide array of instruments. Only Funk Monk could pull off matching a banjo with bongos!

So give this a listen and we assure you you will be adding this to your playlist...