Ray Charles - Kitchen Listening

Ray Charles - Kitchen Listening. The Birth of Soul: The Complete Atlantic Rhythm and Blues Recordings, 1991. A 3 CD box set of his years recording with Atlantic Records 1952 to 1959. We've been listening to this collection over the past couple of days and just finished it this evening.

I was surprised at how many of these songs were so familiar. He had a tremendous amount of crossover hits during his career. Becky and I both really enjoyed listening to this collection which ran for about two and a half hours.

Ray Charles was a musical icon during my early years of listening to the radio. We heard him all the time. He was also on a lot of TV variety shows like Ed Sullivan.

I'm looking forward to a couple of additional sessions. One with a 2 CD Rhino collection that covers his career through the 1990's and another collection of his country western albums.

The Swerve - A History

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern - Stephen Greenblatt, 2011. A book I came across while browsing in the stacks of an academic library. It was a fascinating story of an ancient book, "On the Nature of Things", and it's influence on writers, thinkers, artists, etc. during the Renaissance after being lost for a thousand years. The return of the book changed the course of history and revolutionized the understanding of the modern world. It also made a huge impact on religion. It was like a trip back to 1417. 

Dinner @ Shango

Wonderful dinner tonight at Shango. Blackened Catfish Po Boy with Cajun Remoulade, Fried Shrimp Po Boy. Both with Creole Slaw and incredible Sweet Potato Fries too. And of course Chicken and Andouille Sausage Gumbo with White Rice to start.

I had a nice glass of Broken Heels IPA from New Trail Brewery.

We always love going to Shango and this evening was no different. We've had this particular dinner many times and we looked forward to having it again when we decided to come here.

When we were leaving our house we were surprised by the amount of traffic on our street. It really took us a lot longer than usual to back out of our driveway because of the traffic. Then we saw that there was heavy traffic all throughout the neighborhood and all the streets were parked up. We had forgotten that today was the Corporate Challenge in Delaware Park and every year on a Thursday evening in the middle of June we have to deal with this situation in our neighborhood. It's crazy. Well, we got out of the driveway and made it over to Shango for our nice dinner anyway.

James Blood Ulmer - Kitchen Listening Blues

Another set of James Blood Ulmer - Kitchen Listening. Starts out with a live album from 1984 and then gets into his serious blues playing. 

• Part Time, 1984
• Blues Allnight, 1989
• Forbidden Blues, 1998
• Memphis Blood: The Sun Sessions, 2001
• No Escape from The Blues: The Electric Lady Sessions, 2003
• Rock In Blues, 2015

Camilla Trinchieri - Authors List

Camilla Trinchieri - Authors List. I've read 5 books in her Tuscan Mystery series over the past few years. 

I especially love the food and wine aspect of this murder series and the ex-NYPD detective turned amateur chef involvement in the local scene.

They're all great and I'm looking forward to another one. 

• Murder in Chianti, 2020 - Jun 2023
• The Bitter Taste of Murder, 2021 - Nov 2023
• Murder on the Vine, 2022 - Feb 2024
• The Road to Murder, 2024 - Aug 2024
• Murder in Pitigliano, 2025 - Nov 2025

James Blood Ulmer - Kitchen Listening

Spent some time over the past couple of days listening to James Blood Ulmer from albums in my collection including some vinyl. These were from his early years 1979 to 1983. I saw him in 1983 at The Tralf, a small rock/jazz/folk club, in downtown Buffalo. He was awesome. I've always loved his unique guitar playing.

This set of music ran for nearly three hours.

• Tales of Captain Black, 1979
• Are You Glad To Be In America?, 1980
• Free Lancing, 1981
• Black Rock, 1982
• Odyssey, 1983

James Blood Ulmer RIP - Vinyl Spins

James Blood Ulmer RIP. Vinyl Spins. I was sad to hear of his passing this week at age 86. I first started collecting his albums in the early 1980's and I have a bunch. Becky and I saw him perform at the Tralf in 1983. It's time to go upstairs and listen to his amazing guitar on vinyl. I'll start with a couple favorites... Tales of Captain Black, 1979 and Black Rock, 1982.

Terry Pratchett - Authors List

Terry Pratchett - Authors List. I read the 5 books where he collaborated with the author Stephen Baxter for the Long Earth parallel universe series. I read the entire series between March and November 2016. I was always interested in parallel universe science fiction.

Pratchett is primarily known for writing the Discworld fantasy series that consist of 41 novels. I have not read any of that fantasy series but I may try one.

The Atlantic magazine had an article about Pratchett this week... I Am Begging You to Read Terry Pratchett.

The Long Earth series I read:

• The Long Earth, 2012 - Mar 2016
• The Long War, 2013 - Jun 2016
• The Long Mars, 2014 - Jul 2016
• The Long Utopia, 2015 - Oct 2016
• The Long Cosmos, 2016 - Nov 2016

The Hidden History of the Supreme Court - MAGA Dystopia

The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America - Thom Hartmann, 2019. MAGA Dystopia.

I just finished reading this incredible shocking account of the Supreme Court and their conservative MAGA betrayal of America. The hard thing about reading this was that it was published in 2019 and now in 2026 the Court is worse than ever. The book was informative and depressing. We really need to do something to fix this growing problem and the author here has documented ways to do that.

One of the amazing accounts was his description of when John Roberts, the current Chief Justice, worked for Ronald Reagan and came up with a theory of how Congress could go around the Supreme Court.

Subterranean - A Novel

Subterranean - A Novel by James Rollins, 1999. I just finished this science fiction thriller adventure novel which I read in a week. I recently came across a reference to it somewhere and looked it up on my library e-book app and sure enough there it was ready to download. I did and then I couldn't put it down although I was reading a couple of other books at the same time.

This book was about an archeology exploration into a subterranean world full of dangers, mysteries and revelations. A sort of "hollow earth" novel. It was my first time reading this author and was it was very entertaining. I may read another of his novels.