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Oasis Disc Manufacturing: Acoustic Radio Sampler (Volume XV, #1).
Email: info@oasisCD.com — Toll-free phone — (888) – 296-2747
Where do I start…. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, OK? The deal with Micah Solomon’s Oasis Disc Manufacturing Company — as far as I know, being outside the company — is that every artist who has their disc manufactured by Oasis also gets a spot on the appropriate radio sampler, sent out to DJ’s…. The way I know this is that, as a college radio DJ from 1978-2013, playing “folk” (broadly defined) on my show, “Roots & Wings*’ on a couple of different college stations, I’d get a lot of these discs come through the mail, over the years, and I’d play them quite a bit – Micah Solomon has great ears, lemme say that right now. Most if not all of the other DJ’s were interested more in rock & rap, some in things like — believe it or nor — Benny Goodman/Glenn Miller swing-jazz — so I was essentiality told to hold on to these for my show (college radio doesn’t have Master Music Directors who assign strict playlists, come on! — we’re all basically unpaid volunteers on most college radio stations, doing it ‘cause we’re sorta crazy, as far as I ever heard)
After a while, having accumulated a bunch of these discs, covering a lot of different (acoustic) genres, I decided one day to have a bit of fun. I lined up a pile of them. For my Scots/Irish, mostly traditional segment, with which I opened the show each week — after, of course, my theme tune, Dave Van Ronk’s version of “The Pearls,” natch — I went to a couple of particular Oasis CDs which happened to have maybe half-a-dozen Scots/Irish cuts on them…. OK. Then I went to the blues segment, which usually came next — blues from ‘way back, Ma Rainey, forward to Guy Davis…? And I grabbed a couple more Oasis CDs, which had a bunch of blues tunes and songs on them.…. After that., I normally went to singer-songwriters (most of those guys, one way or another, learnt their songwriting from the blues, when they weren’t trying to be the next Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell (and that job was already taken, am I right?). OK – another couple of Oasis CD’s…. I was having fun that day, lemme tell you!
To close up the show — last segment, next guy was almost certain to play rock or rap, right? — I’d do bluegrass — from the early mountain stuff – Dr Ralph Stanley absolutely gets his hawk’s feathers ruffled right up if you call his material “bluegrass,” lemme warn you! — on up through Bill Monroe to newgrass and jazzgrass,,,, I mean, The Newgrass Revival? Bela Fleck…? And of course there’s that gorgeous bluegrass – I mean, mountain! — gospel, with that lovely “brothers’ harmonies” — The Gibson Bros, etc. Maybe I’d start with the gospel music, maybe I’d start with the strict-time dance-music from the mountains. Usually I’d work up to the crazy pickin’ the guys learned from years of standing around in parking lot sessions — I’d just blow the next guy’s show outta the waterer, heh heh…. ! Anny-how…. I turned to my Oasis stack, and guess what? Sure. I was able to put together a whole closing segment from just Oasis discs alone…. Amazing. Lotsa fun all around.
So I told you that to tell you this, as somebody from one of the bands once said: I just got this new Oasis Acoustic sampler, and guess what? Same high standard, same fine compositional work, the same intricate picking, the same in your ear worm it goes…. H’m…. This time around, it’s 18 cuts on one CD — none of them can be too long, right there, right? – and it just rolls right along… It starts – for easy example — with Chappell & Dave Holt – been around the block, this lovely duo — with a real ear-popper, “Bohemian Moon,” a cut from their new release, *Stone & Fire.* So the CD goes on with Andrew Corbett — I never heard of him before, I think a lot of people will be doing so down the line — with a song, “Bright Blue Ball,” about the view from space of tiny Mother Earth, inspired by one of the astronaut’s retelling of his flight ‘way up there, and appearing on Andrew’s new, *Moments of Grace* — I really like that title, don’t you? Next are The Mad Andersons — the who? The Mad Andersons, c’mon — and “Let it Go,” a kinda art-song? — from their new release, “Light Through Glass.” (And — BTW — these guys all have websites, phone numbers, contact info — no flies on these guys, they are just tres hip)! And next up — The Better Halves, with a song from their new disc, *All Over the Map* — they’re from Texas, watch it — called, “Olden Days” — just a sweet, sweet piece of music…
What can I say? It just goes on and on like this (Sorry guys – I gotta get outta here soon — my apologies!) — and it’s just darn hard to pick a favorite from this disc, as per usual with Oasis. Oh – I just *do* have to mention Dee McPherson, and an instrumental based in — excuse me — Scotland, “Of Singing Swords In the Highlands,” from the new CD, * The Spa Dee Collection… * and also there’s “The Dink’s Song,” one of the oldies from the beginning of recorded music (John Lomax got it in 1904), in this case from Marienne Kreitlow’s new *Like Noah’s Dove,* marking, as it notes, her return to her folk roots, and very welcome too….
Somebody has got to stop me. There is so much here — Micah Solomon does it one more time — and there’s not a bad cut on the CD. You don’t believe me? Well, c’mon — put yer cash on the dashboard — give a listen, why doncha? You’ll agree with me, I’m telling you….
Oh: BTW – I just love this note: Underlying rights copyright the individual owners…. What can I say? What can I add? Support the musicians, y’hear?
—John McLaughlin, March 26, 2015.