Your Daily Song Fix

South Memphis String Band are an acoustic blues-folk-country supergroup comprised of Alvin “Youngblood” Hart, Luther Dickinson of The North Mississippi Allstars, and Jimbo Mathus of the Squirrel Nut Zippers (yes, those Squirrel Nut Zippers). Their debut album, Home Sweet Home, is an old-fashioned, foot-stompin’, moonshinin’ good time that feels like it was recorded on a hot July night on someone’s front porch well below the Mason-Dixon line. Check out “The Carrier Line,” their rendition of a railroad ballad by old-time Mississippi multi-instrumentalist Sid Hemphill.

Yusuf Islam, commonly known by his former stage name Cat Stevens, is a British singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist, and prominent convert to Islam.

His early 1970s albums Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat went Triple Platinum in the United States. His album Catch Bull at Four sold half a million copies in the first two weeks of release and was Billboard’s number-one LP for three consecutive weeks. He has also earned two ASCAP songwriting awards in consecutive years, for “The First Cut Is the Deepest”, which has been a hit single for four different artists.

Cat Stevens converted to Islam at the height of his fame in December, 1977, and adopted his Muslim name, Yusuf Islam, the following year. In 1979, he left his music career to devote himself to educational and philanthropic causes in the Muslim community. He has been given several awards for his work in promoting peace in the world, including 2003’s World Award, the 2004 Man for Peace Award and the 2007 Mediterranean Prize for Peace. In 2006, he returned to pop music under the name Yusuf, with his first album of new pop songs in 28 years, entitled An Other Cup. His newest album, Roadsinger, was released on May 5, 2009.

This guest post is from Marcus James, a music producer based in the UK.

For the last 3 months I was lucky enough live in New York City and experience a great music scene!

I was turned onto this 3-piece indie/rock band by my hugely enthusiastic roommate, who also happens to be their lighting specialist for live shows. The Chicago natives, currently signed to Wind-Up Records, have been gaining a strong reputation in America through heavy touring. They won the 2007 New York’s Songwriting Circle contest for the song “Oscar Wilde.”

After listening to their debut album Ordinary Riches I was immediately blown away by Genevieve’s voice. It is beautifully charismatic, moving from delicate to forceful moments and hitting everything in between. My favorite tracks from the LP are “Even In The Dark”, “New Letters” and “Pressure.” The excellent production nicely blends delicate moments with powerful ones and crafts a sound which ebbs and flows throughout the record. Ok, not every song totally blows me away, but the ones that do, really do!

After spending much of 2009 touring, Company of Thieves appear to be gaining a solid fan base. I’ll be excited to see them over in Europe and I have a hunch they’ll make a fairly big splash if they can play a few high profile festivals next summer. One key factor about Company Of Thieves’ music is that it can quite easily appeal to the kids as it can the kids parents; this line was coined off… you guessed it, my roommate.

This song is about a relationship between two best friends. Stephanie and Paulette are references to characters in Grease 2. From what I have read, everyone fights over Stephanie whereas Paulette tries hard and craves approval from the other characters. I guess that says something about the friendship described in this song…