The new Swamp Dogg is great particularly "family pain" and "please le me go round again". A true American Legend.
― Saxophone Of Futility (Michael B), Friday, 6 March 2020 00:35 (four years ago) link
Indeed. This thread seems to omit the salient fact of his co-writing “She’s All I Got.”
― Lipstick Traces (on a Cigarette Alone) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 6 March 2020 00:51 (four years ago) link
With Gary U.S. Bonds!
― Lipstick Traces (on a Cigarette Alone) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 6 March 2020 00:52 (four years ago) link
Hey, hmm...
Ooh, need to listen to that song, plus new album
― curmudgeon, Friday, 6 March 2020 16:02 (four years ago) link
Just heard him interviewed on NPR last night. He’s a character
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 10 March 2020 17:43 (four years ago) link
props to this revive/C.Grisso upping this guy's discography over on Horrible 70s album titles like I've Got My Own Album To Do . i'm most of the way through Total Destruction of the Mind and I love it - great playing, great voice. kinda reminds me of Funkadelic's Osmium in the musical variety and some of the humor. gonna have to start collecting his wonderfully titled LPs.
― Doctor Casino, Sunday, 15 March 2020 18:20 (four years ago) link
oh, there is a thread for him! great. looks like a bunch of his stuff has popped up for streaming on youtube recently and i'm planning to check more of it out!
― Kate (rushomancy), Sunday, 15 March 2020 20:16 (four years ago) link
Total Destruction is def the one to start with, but these are pretty consistent too:Gag a Maggott, Have You Heard This Story?, Best of (the one on War Bride), I Called for a Rope and They Threw Me a Rock , Best of 25 Years: F*** the Bomb, Stop the Drugs---but Surfin' in Harlem and several others, prob all of 'em, are worth some cherrypicking time. And, usually(?) as Jerry Williams, he's produced several other artists.
― dow, Sunday, 15 March 2020 22:08 (four years ago) link
He has a really inneresting way with covers too!
― dow, Sunday, 15 March 2020 22:09 (four years ago) link
NPR asked him what his early 70s albums like Total Destruction to Your Mind were about and he said he didn't know, he was taking a lot of LSD.
― Why, I would make a fantastic Nero! (PBKR), Sunday, 15 March 2020 22:12 (four years ago) link
"Have You Heard This Story?" is my favourite
― Saxophone Of Futility (Michael B), Sunday, 15 March 2020 22:19 (four years ago) link
Synthetic World when it speeds up is awesome.
― Why, I would make a fantastic Nero! (PBKR), Sunday, 15 March 2020 23:42 (four years ago) link
The Swamp Dogg productions on other artists that I know of, this done from the top of my head :
Doris Duke: 2 LPs - I'm a Loser and A Legend In Her Time. The first one's an absolute classic. the second nearly as good IMO. (Incidentally I assume either Lee Perry or Susan Cadogan was listening to I'm A Loser when preparing for Susan's solo LP, a few songs turn up there). Freddie North: 2 LPs - Cuss The Wind and Friend. The latter is a long-time favourite of mine, the former I've never heard but good old Edd Hurt (of the famously impeccable taste) said nice things about it on here a while back. Raw Spitt / Charlie Whitehead: the Raw Spitt LP is a solid companion piece to the early Swamp Dogg LPs I think, it really depends whose voice you like more.Irma Thomas: In Between Tears - the best of all, IMO, though I have it in my head that several versions with different mixes have emerged over the years, with competing claims to authenticity and or to be the preferred version of someone or other. The version I grew up with was the version Charly reissued in the 80s. I once owned a lovely clean copy of the original version but then I needed a birthday present for a good fried in a time of no cash and I mourn that loss from time to time. Solomon Burke: Sidewalks, Fences and Walls - bit of a mixed bag IIRC, I love the title track as much as anything in the Dogg catalogue. think some of the other songs are a bit on the ordinary side, don't recall liking the version of "Hold On, I'm Coming" much. Charly seem to have have reissued this countless times over the years under various titles and sleeves. Wolfmoon: S/T - I picked up a copy of this a few years ago and never warmed to it,. perhaps I should give it another spin., I seem to recall my copy was really badly / quietly mastered. Z Z Hill: The Brand New Z Z Hill - I've never heard this but I bet it's good.
Any recommendations for any that I've missed, forgotten or never knew about?
― Tim, Monday, 16 March 2020 12:21 (four years ago) link
Thanks Tim! Was thinking he produced an album for a P-Funk-associated female singer, first name might start with J---?
― dow, Tuesday, 17 March 2020 20:40 (four years ago) link
Not sure! I did forget “Brown Sugar” by Ruth Brown (the actual proper r&b Ruth Brown, but in the mid 70s). I haven’t played this in years but remember it being brilliant and unusual, RB was middle aged at the time of recording and the music sounds like it’s by and for grown-ups.
― Tim, Wednesday, 18 March 2020 07:45 (four years ago) link
not sure where to put this but somewhere in my brain i heard swamp dogg covering "Here we go again on our own" and now i really need that to happen
― Heez, Friday, 11 February 2022 16:26 (two years ago) link
Whitesnake, meet Swamp Dogg!
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 11 February 2022 16:36 (two years ago) link
Anyone listened to the Alive Records reissues of his catalog from 2013? I'm generally wary of recent vinyl, but original pressings of his classic stuff in decent shape go for big $$$.
― The creator of Ultra Games, for Nintendo (Doctor Casino), Friday, 11 February 2022 17:05 (two years ago) link
I'm curious as well. Folks on Steve Hoffman seemed to like it
― Heez, Friday, 11 February 2022 17:17 (two years ago) link
From my Nashville Scene ballot comments re 2019 picks:
Swamp Dogg's Sorry You Couldn't Make It is a slightly, yet appropriately weirder return of Memphis-Muscle Shoals country soul, like some of the Stax Country collection. I wasn't expecting his proto-alt.r&b milestoneds like Total Destruction To Your Mind, but at first this seemed like mainly for digging the formal pleasures of vintage style, incl. this version of "Don't Take Her (She's All I Got)," which he co-wrote with Gary US Bonds; it was a Johnny Paycheck hit in the early 70s---main prob on these first tracks is mild-mannered vocals, settling down into the ballads for a snooze (although got some lines, like "Good, Better, Best" keeps sounding like "good, better in bed,"which fits the context better, and might grow on me)---then he picks up the tempo with "Family Pain" ( houseful staying together, "smokin' crack and doin' cocaine"), and when he slow it back down for "I Lie Awake," his voice is still awake and then some: this is true country soul, Doggedly climbing Insomnia Mountain in compulsive country self-torture---Otis Redding and George Jones could sing the shit out of it, but Dogg does it fine.
"Memories," featuring John Prine, is where the appropriate weirdness first appears (I think), with Doggtronics swirling around Prine's jaunty heels (as he repeats the chorus again and again, like old folks sometimes do), even distorting his voice towards the end, like memories sometimes do.
"Billy" I'd seen referred to as a tearjerker, but differently interesting than expected: he's got nice musical flowers, but "The neighbors think I'm crazy," so apparently not a normie gravesite? "You should see Billy, he looks just like you, he doesn't remember you, but I guess that's just as well." Like with Opie's Mom? Memories can be too paniful, I reckon--anyway it leaves a few more little such gaps to fill in, not overselling.
Rude retinue of soundz around the edges of "I'd Rather Be Your Used To Be," which is otherwise vintage Willie-style graceful indignation, but maybe louder.
"A Good Song" ("has universal appeal"), then back to riding the swirl with Prine, for "Please Let Me Go Round Again," where they agree that, "I could build a better mousetrap, from a far mo'better plan." "Hey John, could you build a better mousetrap?" "I gotta better mousetrap right here in my mind!" Also wonders if Somebody might put them on a 2-for-1 plan.
― dow, Saturday, 12 February 2022 17:23 (two years ago) link
That album, and a bunch more, incl. classicks, are on his Bandcamp. Likewise an advance track from his Feb. 25 full-length:
Hey there!Wanted to give you a heads up that Don Giovanni will be releasing a new single from Soul / R+B legend SWAMP DOGG this Tuesday, Feb 15th. The song is called "I Need A Job." It is the partially-titular second single to be released ahead of his new album titled I Need A Job... So I Can Buy More Auto-Tune which is out Feb 25th.“I need a job worse than a dead man needs a coffin,” belts a desperate, auto-tune drenched Swamp Dogg. Swamp details his battle with unemployment over a deep funk. Saxophone licks cascade over stomping drums, and slapped bass fills poke through in between Swamp’s financial woes. Despite the virtuosity of his backing band, Swamp Dogg remains the show stealer, especially as his performance spins off into a talk-sung resume, explaining that he is a singer and a musician but clarifying “I can do things other than that, I have done things other than that, before I was a singer and a musician,” all filtered through his iconic auto-tune.
Would be great if you'd consider coverage with a dedicated news post to the release of the single. Also, please reach out if you're interested in feature and/or review coverage around the album's release on Feb 25! thanks so much.Mike Campbell / Don Giovanni Recordshttps://www.dongiovannirecords.com/
― dow, Saturday, 12 February 2022 17:43 (two years ago) link
A live show by Swamp Dogg is one of my indelible memories.
― Johnny Mathis der Maler (Boring, Maryland), Saturday, 12 February 2022 18:55 (two years ago) link
Information please!
― dow, Saturday, 12 February 2022 19:16 (two years ago) link
Scored a copy (Charly Records '81 issue, which doesn't have the amazing cover of the original, unfortunately) of Irma Thomas's In Between Tears yesterday. Fantastic album
― willem, Sunday, 13 February 2022 18:11 (two years ago) link
I saw him at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival one summer outdoors on the National Mall. The concert ended with him endlessly vamping the last chorus of I can’t remember the name of the song (except each chorus ended with “How long, how long”), while he went into the audience and shook hands with every person in the audience, maybe a couple hundred. Also he was wearing an amazing red suit.
― Johnny Mathis der Maler (Boring, Maryland), Sunday, 13 February 2022 18:21 (two years ago) link
I Need A Job...So I Can Buy More Auto-Tuneby Swamp Dogg is now here (along with many previous):https://swampdogg.bandcamp.com/
― dow, Friday, 4 March 2022 19:41 (two years ago) link
_I Need A Job...So I Can Buy More Auto-Tuneby Swamp Dogg_ is now here (along with many previous):https://swampdogg.bandcamp.com🕸/🕸
― Otto Insurance (Boring, Maryland), Monday, 4 April 2022 22:50 (two years ago) link
dude is the patron saint of every "Worst Album Covers" group I'm in. no one does it better
― frogbs, Tuesday, 5 April 2022 02:12 (two years ago) link
hadnt heard about the new one but spotted it in the store the other day and grabbed it without a second thought, loving it this week.
poking around that bandcamp page, i just grabbed the Sorry You Couldn't Make It Demos - i hadn't realized that most of those songs seem to have been written in the 70s and 80s!
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 5 April 2022 12:35 (two years ago) link
https://swampdogg.bandcamp.com/album/pre-order-blackgrass-from-west-virginia-to-125th-st
Bluegrass album coming. First single "Mess Under that Dress" is out now
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 5 March 2024 15:12 (one month ago) link
Automatic pre-order for me. The man is a national treasure and a master of all genres and a Virginian!
― from a prominent family of bassoon players (Boring, Maryland), Tuesday, 5 March 2024 16:07 (one month ago) link
disappointed in the album cover, I expect much worse from this man
― frogbs, Tuesday, 5 March 2024 16:31 (one month ago) link
Ha ha
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 5 March 2024 16:32 (one month ago) link
I'm Not Selling Out, I'm Buying In
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, 5 March 2024 16:32 (one month ago) link
Swamp Dogg is one of the interviewees in the episode on Johnny Paycheck in Mike Judge’s Tales from the Tourbus.
Definitely worth checking out.
― The Artist formerly known as Earlnash, Tuesday, 5 March 2024 17:37 (one month ago) link
he also randomly appears on a Mouse on Mars album
― frogbs, Tuesday, 5 March 2024 17:39 (one month ago) link
New Swamp Dogg film doc at s x SW gets a good review here
https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/screens/2024-03-09/sxsw-film-review-swamp-dogg-gets-his-pool-painted/?
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 12 March 2024 19:28 (one month ago) link
Hopefully it will get distributed and shown elsewhere
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 13 March 2024 19:34 (one month ago) link