Name this band, win a prize.

Tonight is St. Joseph’s Night, and that’s a big deal in New Orleans... because the Mardi Gras Indian tribes will take to the streets in their elaborate costumes and strut.

So I’m doing a contest, like the ones I used to do. Click here and listen to a mystery track on my Vox blog. The first person to correctly name this band – in the comments section here – will win a prize. (Please, only one guess per person.)

That prize is a beautiful little picture book, “Eyes of Eagles,” by New Orleans photographer Christopher Porché West. It’s all about the Mardi Gras Indians. Here’s one of the photos:

Name this singer, win a prize.

Ready for another contest? Click here and listen to a mystery track on my Vox blog.

The first person to correctly name that singer – in the comments section here – will win a prize. (Only one guess per person, please.)

That prize is a new CD featuring Miles Davis in his boppish prime, alongside John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans and other all-stars. The “Broadcast Sessions” album contains performances recorded for radio in 1958 and 1959. (Click here to hear one of those tracks.)

UPDATE (02/04/09): Well, no winner this time. Contest is over. The song is called “Miles,” and the singer is Frank Holder, an esteemed jazz vocalist in the U.K.

Holder also used to be a Calypsonian. He was born in Guyana.

Name the singer, win a prize.

Another contest, y’all. Click here and listen to a mystery track on my Vox blog.

The first person to correctly identify that singer – in the comments section here – will win a prize. Only one guess per reader, please.

The prize is a brand new DVD: “A Good Day To Be Black and Sexy.” This DVD will be available in stores and online next week.

“Black and Sexy” is the debut feature by a young filmmaker named Dennis Dortch. The trailer is below.

UPDATE (01/29/09): We have a winner. Woe correctly identified the singer as Molly Johnson, the pride of Canada. She also happens to be Clark Johnson’s sister. I blogged about her here.

Name this singer, win a prize.

Another contest, y’all. Click here and listen to a Christmas song. The first person to correctly identify this singer – in the comments section here – will win a prize.

Here’s a hint: She had a big hit single in the early 1970s.

Only one guess per reader, please.

The prize you’re playing for is a factory-sealed copy of the 2003 CD “Borders of Disordely Time” by jazz poet Jayne Cortez.

Cortez is a national treasure. And this album includes music from Ron Carter, James “Blood” Ulmer, Bobby Bradford, Frank Lowe and T.K. Blue. Click here to hear one of the pieces... a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.

UPDATE (12/23/08): We have a winner. RP correctly identified the singer as Denise LaSalle. The track is called “Santa’s Got the Blues.”

Click here to hear her 1971 gold record, “Trapped By a Thing Called Love.”

Name this funky whiteboy, win a prize.

Haven’t had a contest in a while. This seems like the right week for one.

So... click here and listen to a mystery track on my Vox blog. The first person to correctly name that singer – in the comments section here – will win a prize.

That prize is a brand-new pack of 36 “Heroes of the Blues” trading cards (such as the one pictured left). They’re illustrated by R. Crumb, the legendary underground artist.

(Crumb’s not a funky whiteboy. He’s a craaazy whiteboy.)

Only one guess per reader, please.

UPDATE (12/17/08): We have a winner. RJ Smith correctly identified that singer as Mark Stewart.

“Faith Healer” is from Stewart’s 1990 album “Metatron” (produced by Stewart and Adrian Sherwood).

The thwacking bass part was provided by Doug Wimbish (now with Living Colour). Wimbish, Keith LeBlanc and Skip McDonald, veterans of the Sugar Hill Records house band, collaborated with progressive English musicians on a number of funky projects under the group names Tackhead, Maffia and the Dub Syndicate.

Mark Stewart put out a new album this year, his first in a dozen years, called “Edit.” (Click here to hear “Secret Suburbia.”)

Filmmaker Toni Schifer is working on a documentary about Stewart. A 6-minute preview is up on YouTube:

Name this movie soundtrack, win a prize.

I haven’t had a contest here in quite a while. So let’s do one.

I’m on the East Coast, and I’ve been going through my vinyl LPs. Click here and listen to a mystery track. It comes from a movie soundtrack album. The first person who correctly names that movie will win a prize.

The prize is five Obama buttons. MoveOn.org sold or gave away more than 2 million of these buttons.

They’re small – like, silver-dollar sized – but they’re cool.

So... write your answer in the comments section. Only one guess per person, please.

Name this preacher, win a prize.

Sean Hannity continues to mention Jeremiah Wright’s name every night on Fox News, as if convinced that this eventually will destroy Barack Obama.

But if Hannity is truly shocked that a resentment of America’s racial past would be expressed in black churches, he’s stupider than he looks.

Here’s a contest. Click here and listen to a black preacher preach.

The first person to correctly name this preacher in the comments section here will win a prize.

The prize is a double CD from Smithsonian Folkways: “Voices of the Civil Rights Movement: Black American Freedom Songs, 1960-1966.”

One guess per person.

UPDATE (03/28/08): We have a winner. Lolo figured out that this preacher is the Rev. Jasper Williams.

The sermon, titled “I’m Black and I’m Proud,” is for sale at eMusic. It was recorded in the late 1960s.

I present it here to make the point (for those who need it explained) that talking about “white oppressors” from the pulpit didn’t start with Jeremiah Wright.

A James Brown contest

To honor the passing of James Brown one year ago on Christmas Day, I decided to mess around with my GarageBand software and do a J.B. memorial mix.

Then I decided: Let’s make this interesting.

So here’s a contest. In my 6-minute J.B. memorial mix, there are pieces from eight different tracks by James Brown or his band. The first person to name all eight tracks will win a prize.

That prize is a double-CD called “Funky Good Time: The Anthology” by the J.B.’s (Mr. Brown’s backing band). The J.B.’s featured at various times Maceo Parker, Bootsy Collins, Fred Wesley and “Pee Wee” Ellis. This is ’70s funk at its finest.

Put your answers in the comments section. Guess as many times as you like. What I need are eight correct song titles.

Now, to hear the 6-minute mix, click here.

UPDATE (12/26/07): We have a winner. Andre Alexander identified all eight tracks in the comments section of my Vox blog. Here they are:

“The Funky Side of Town”
“Make It Funky”
“It’s the J.B.’s Monaurail”
“Hot Pants”
“Don’t Tell It”
“Talkin’ Loud and Sayin’ Nothing”
“Funky President”
“Hot Pants Road”

Name this recording artist, win a prize.

A quick reminder: The documentary “Mr. Untouchable,” about former Harlem drug kingpin Nicky Barnes, opens tomorrow in and around New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

This puts me in a nostaligic 1970s headspace. So... time for another contest. (Haven’t had one in a while.)

Click here and listen to the mystery track... an obscure one from the early ’70s.

The first person to put the recording artist’s name in the comments section will win a prize.

That prize is the official promotional “mix tape” for “Mr. Untouchable.” It includes vintage music by James Brown, Isaac Hayes, Bootsy Collins, Willie Hutch and others. Hip-hop producer Hi-Tek did the mix, overseen by Damon Dash. This CD will not be available commercially.

Have fun. (Only one guess per person.)

UPDATE (10/27/07): I’ll have to give away that “Mr. Untouchable” mix tape some other way. This track is “Scoop” from the 1973 LP “The Man From the East” by Red Buddha Theatre. I would’ve also accepted Stomu Yamashta, whose brainchild this was.

Yamashta went on to contribute music to the David Bowie film “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” and he collaborated with Steve Winwood, Al DiMeola and others on the 1976 concept album “Go.”

Another round of Name That Race Difference

You guys up for another contest? I want to give somebody the brand new Cornel West CD, “Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations.”

So here’s the game: See that chart above? It presents data for one year (1995) from one American state (I won’t say which).

What do those numbers represent? What statistical race difference do they illustrate?

The first person to correctly guess the meaning of that chart, and put the answer in the comments thread, will win the prize. Only one guess allowed per person, so make it a good one.

UPDATE (08/22/07): We have a winner. (I’m not stumping anybody with this game.) BlackinUSA revealed that the chart represents the percentage of pregnancies terminated by abortion in Oregon in 1995. You’ll find that chart here on an Oregon government webpage. (Figure 3-5.)

That means more than 40 percent of black pregnancies in Oregon that year were terminated by “legal induced abortions,” compared with about 25 percent of white pregnancies and about 15 percent of Hispanic pregnancies.

I don’t know about you, but it’s news to me that there are so many abortions among black folks nationwide. In 2000, black people were 12 percent of the U.S. population, but had 35 percent of the abortions.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, “The abortion rate for black women (30 per 1,000 women) was 3.1 times the rate for white women (10 per 1,000 women).”

There’s also something called the “abortion ratio” – the number of abortions compared with live births. The CDC says: “The abortion ratio for black women (503 per 1,000 live births) was 3.0 times the ratio for white women (167 per 1,000 live births).”

What does this mean? Is it something we should be talking about?

Name this band, win a prize.

Y’all know how this works: Click here and listen to the audio track. If you can name that band, and you’re the first person to put the band’s name in the comments section of this thread, you will receive a cool prize.

The prize is a book I mentioned on Friday: Tim Brooks’s “Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919.” The paperback is 800 pages of delicious yet little-known pop culture history.

UPDATE (07/20/07): No winner this time. The band is 8 Bold Souls out of Chicago, led by Edward Wilkerson, Jr.

The track is “Brown Town,” from the 2000 CD “Last Option.” It’s available through iTunes.

Name this singer, win a prize.

It’s contest time again, my friends. Simply click here and listen to the mystery song. The first person to put this singer’s name in the comments section will win a prize.

That prize is a copy of a new book, “Black Women and Music: More Than the Blues,” published by the University of Illinois Press. It’s a scholarly anthology, coming out of a feminist-black studies-ethnomusicology bag, and its articles deal with gospel, concert music, avant-garde jazz, hip-hop and electric blues.

“Black Women and Music” is edited by Eileen M. Hayes and Linda F. Williams. I look forward to sending a copy to somebody.

UPDATE (07-07-07): No winner yet. And I guess I should’ve specified... please post your answers on the comments thread here, not on Vox. Anyway, Leon Perry and Ria, it’s not Sister Rosetta. (I assume you guys were responding to the contest, not just to the question marks on the Vox post.)

UPDATE (07-08-07): We have a winner. Queenjustine identified this singer (after a hint) as Dorothy Love Coates. Don’t feel bad; I never heard of her till a few weeks ago myself, despite the fact that she was a big gospel star in the ’50s and ’60s. It is said that her vocal style influenced Little Richard.

Rock critic Dave Marsh calls Mrs. Coates “perhaps the most underrated gospel vocalist and songwriter of black gospel’s golden age.”

This track – “The Railroad” – is available on the CD “Get On Board,” a hits collection by Coates and the Original Gospel Harmonettes.

Name this singer, win a prize.

If it ain’t one addiction, it’s another.

I put my blogging addiction on hold for a long weekend and returned to my poker-playing addiction. (Did pretty decent, too.) Even the drive to Laughlin, Nev., across vast stretches of nothing was semi-therapeutic.

My most longstanding addiction was to P-Funk music. George Clinton’s funk mob cast a spell on me 30 years ago, and I turned into a hardcore collector of anything related to Parliament-Funkadelic. (Most precious of all, a few pieces of original artwork by album-cover visionary Pedro Bell!)

This addiction culminated in a slender but potent little paperback I co-wrote with Larry Alexander, Thomas Stanley and Aris Wilson back in 1996, “George Clinton and P-Funk: An Oral History.”

I’ve got an extra copy laying around, and I’d like to give it away. (I’ll even autograph that bad boy.) So… time for another contest.

Begging the pardon of RJ Smith and Dougfp, I am disqualifying them from this particular contest. Not because they’ve each won twice already, but because I think they probably know this one.

The rest of you who want to play, just click here, listen to the track, and identify the singer.

The first person to put the singer’s name in the comments section will win the P-Funk book.

UPDATE (06/12/07): A quick winner. Cheers to Chris for identifying the singer of “Cocaine Blues” as Rev. Gary Davis, a tremendously influential blues and gospel guitarist. Want to hear more? Click here for “Cross and Evil Woman Blues.”

Both tracks – and many more by Rev. Davis – are downloadable via iTunes and eMusic. “Cocaine Blues” is from the CD “Blues & Ragtime”; “Cross and Evil Woman” is from “The Complete Early Recordings of Reverend Gary Davis.”

A whiter shade of jazz (or, How conservatives play the race card)

I’m unfamiliar with Thomas Lifson and his conservative group blog, The American Thinker. But as a Harvard Ph.D. in sociology and a former faculty member of the Harvard Business School and Columbia’s Graduate School of International Affairs, Mr. Lifson is certainly much smarter than me.

Still, he was way off base with his post last Saturday, “Jazz Succumbs to Racism.” Here’s a quick backgrounder:

Yoshi’s Jazz Club in Oakland – one of the premiere jazz spots in America – recently released a compilation CD to honor its 10 years at its current location.

There are no black artists on this CD.

There are two Marian McPartland tracks, two from Joe Pass, two from Joey DeFrancesco, two from Poncho Sanchez, and a track apiece from Madeleine Peyroux and Robben Ford.

Yeah… not the mix I would do to showcase the best of American jazz. Or even the best of what’s to be heard at Yoshi’s.

Consider a few other musicians who’ve performed at Yoshi’s in recent years: Oscar Peterson, McCoy Tyner, Anthony Braxton, Elvin Jones, Mulgrew Miller, Bobby Hutcherson, Wallace Roney, Joshua Redman, Branford Marsalis, Sonny Fortune, Taj Mahal.

Anyway, some folks complained about the blacklessness of Yoshi’s 10th Anniversary disc.

"What I immediately felt when checking out this CD was disrespect and insult,” wrote radio host Greg Bridges to Bay Area jazz critic Jim Harrington, “for again this majestic music that was created by Black musicians from their own life experiences and ideas is being presented as if there’s not even been a contribution from black musicians…”

Last week, Yoshi’s announced it was pulling the CD off the market so as to overhaul the mix. You’ll find this note on the club’s website: “We at Yoshi’s are profoundly aware of the unfortunate oversight in the omission of African American artists on our first ever CD. We apologize to anyone who feels slighted by this omission…”

Thomas Lifson, that’s your cue.

“Jazz has now fallen to the level apparently requiring affirmative action,” Lifson blogged on June 2. “The word ‘tragedy’ leaps to mind. We are moving in the opposite direction from a society where everyone is presumed equal and race is an irrelevant criterion. So much for Dr. King’s ‘content of our character’ hopes.”

A tragedy is it?

“Apparently in this day and age, especially in the ‘progressive’ Bay Area, one must always devote time and effort to racial bean-counting and careful allocation of everything on the basis of race,” Lifson went on. “Today, the ‘enlightened’ minds demand a racial consciousness that puts the old apartheid regime of South Africa to shame.”

The man is heartsick over this. “Silly me, silly Yoshi’s. We thought jazz was about music. It turns out that it is about racial grievances,” he wrote. “And I cannot describe how sad I feel about it.”

Ignore the rhetorical tactic of invoking Martin Luther King and apartheid in order to make black people look like hypocrites. The Yoshi’s CD is not about an allocation of resources. Nor is it (to recall the Age of Reagan) about “quotas.”

It’s not Buggin’ Out in Sal’s Pizza… How come there ain’t no black people up on the wall?!

Yoshi’s put out a CD in order to promote itself and promote jazz music. You don’t have to be a PC bully to wonder how the hell Yoshi’s could promote jazz while ignoring the artists who constitute so much of the top tier of American jazz. The black ones.

Colorblindness – a term so often misapplied by the right – doesn’t mean we’re supposed to look at this CD and simply not notice the absence of black people. (That would be plain blindness.)

Colorblindness, let us remember, is a metaphor. In the civil rights context, it was always a metaphor. A metaphor for fairness.

Does Mr. Lifson believe that Dr. King was naïve enough to wish for a world in which we’d look at each other and, literally, not be able to distinguish a Negro from a white man from a Mexican from a Chinese... the way the colorblind can’t tell pink from blue?

Dr. King didn’t devote his life to blissed-out utopian fantasizing. He laid his life down to bring about a society where black people – and all people – would be treated fairly. With race and color prejudice being the primary impediments to fair treatment in the ’50s and ’60, “colorblind society” was a useful metaphor. But fairness was always the goal.

Now, what do notions of fairness have to do with a jazz CD?

Simply that a jazz sampler without black bandleaders doesn’t accurately reflect the world of jazz, or the history of Yoshi’s. Just as an all-black CD wouldn’t accurately reflect the reality of this nightclub or jazz in general. (A majority of the musicians booked at Yoshi’s are white, as are most of its patrons.)

I have a feeling some white jazz fans would not’ve been “colorblind” if the Yoshi’s CD had featured nothing but black musicians. Hey! What about Joe Pass? I can imagine them thinking. Some might’ve even blogged about such blatant igging of white jazz artists.

Back to Lifson. Bizarrely, he injects the meritocratic argument into this thing, proclaiming that Yoshi’s has “been ‘shamed’ by its failure to judge the worth of jazz musicians on the color of their skin, instead of the content of their artistry.”

What’s silly about that is – as the San Francisco Chronicle explained it – the tracks chosen for the 10th Anniversary disc had little to do with “the content of their artistry.”

The club decided only last March to release a CD. It had to move quickly. Various record companies own master recordings of live performances at Yoshi’s. For the sake of “expediency” – and cheapness – it cut a deal with only one: Concord.

But some of the great “Live at Yoshi’s” recordings – such as the two by Mulgrew Miller and one by Dee Dee Bridgewater – are on other labels. Which will now mean “more elaborate negotiations for rights and licensing fees,” Lifson writes.

Now, I’m not the type who would’ve raised a stink about the original 10th Anniversary disc. There are more important things to get worked up about. And Yoshi’s only produced 1,000 copies of the doggone thing (for sale through its website). Truly this is a tempest in a trumpet mute.

But if some black folks went overboard in their objections, how about Lifson with his counter-objections? He actually wrote:

“Are we going to hear cries that the CDs must be destroyed? … Should they be treated the way Hitler treated books by Jews, and burned in a public bonfire?”

Like I said, I’m unfamiliar with Lifson’s writing. Maybe this is his brand of irony. But dang, did he have to go and drop the H-bomb?

Can’t we all just get a long-playing record of MJQ (or Brubeck… whatever) and chill?

(Surprise! I’m sneaking another contest in on y’all. I really want to give away a copy of RJ Smith’s jazz book. The following track was recorded live at Yoshi’s. The first person to put the pianist’s name in the comments section will win the prize. Just click here and go for it!)

UPDATE (06/05/07): Contest over, just that quick. Dougfp guessed correctly; it’s Jessica Williams. Who is white. Not that I ever really noticed it before...

Name this saxophonist, win a prize.

Contest time again. This one’s for the jazz heads.

Simply click here, listen to the audio track, and identify that sax player… if you can. The first person to post the musician’s name in the comments section will win a prize.

That prize is “The Great Black Way: L.A. in the 1940s and the Lost African-American Renaissance.” This 2006 book is by RJ Smith, senior editor of Los Angeles magazine. (And he is a proud reader of UBM).

It’s about the golden age of the Los Angeles jazz scene… Mingus and Ornette, Dexter Gordon and Buddy Collette, Redd Foxx and Slim Gaillard…

So give it a shot, why don’t you?

UPDATE (06/04/07): No winner this time. Yo, I said this was one for the jazz heads.

The reed man is Wolfgang Puschnig, the pride of Vienna, Austria.

I figured somebody might peg the bass player as Jamaaladeen Tacuma and track it down that way. The tune is Ellington’s “Caravan.” It’s from a Tacuma-Puschnig CD titled “Gemini-Gemini.”

I’ll have to give away a copy of RJ Smith’s book next time.

Name these performers, win prizes.

Comedy is fun. Laughter lifts your spirit, etc. But I likes my comedy with teeth in it.

One man or woman, alone onstage with a microphone, can lead you on twisty explorations of American society or human nature or language itself.

This contest is a two-fer. I’ve uploaded a couple of amusing audio files. The first person to name either of these two performers will win a prize.

The prize is your choice of DVDs: either “Bill Hicks Live – Satirist, Social Critic, Stand-Up Comedian” or “Paul Mooney’s Analyzing White America.” (Hicks and Mooney being two of the bitingest, twistedest comics of all times.)

After the first winner wins, the contest ain’t over. Whoever names the other performer will also receive the DVD of his or her choice. If you can name both of ’em, you get both DVDs! (But I think one of these guys will be easier to figure out than the other.)

Simply post your answers (or best guesses) in the comments section. Please, no telegrams.

Click here to hear Performer #1.

Click here to hear Performer #2. (Warning: R-rated language)

Have fun.

UPDATE (05/23/07): One down, one to go. Dez correctly identified Performer #2 as Eric Bogosian. The piece (titled “Stud”) is from his 1990 show “Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll.”

UPDATE (05/24/07): We have our second winner. RJ Smith, that pop-culture savant, identified Performer #1 as Dick Davy. The audio clip comes from his 1966 LP, “You’re a Long Way From Home, Whitey: Live at the Apollo.”

Davy is one of those interesting untold stories. A Manhattan Jew who crafted the persona of a drawling, naïve redneck, Dick Davy was a civil-rights progressive, and he won over black audiences in places like Watts and, of course, Harlem.

Until Martin Luther King was assassinated. Then the hardcore black militancy kicked in, and Davy’s subtle left-wing bohemian wit was instantly out-of-date.

Kliph Nesteroff wrote a fantastic post about Dick Davy in January for WFMU’s blog. He points to places on the Web where you can hear “Live at the Apollo” and Davy’s 1967 follow-up album, “Stronger than Dirt,” in their entirety.

Name this band, win a prize.

The last contest was over so quick, let’s have another. This one’s in honor of the television industry’s “upfronts week,” when the networks announce all their new fall shows.

(Me, I can’t wait to see the one about the vampire who’s a private detective, can you?... Oh, you can?... Well, yeah, I guess I see your point… he’s a fucking vampire, and he solves crimes… No, no, you’re right…)

Anyways, click here, listen to the music track, and name that band. The first person to put the band’s name in the comments section will win a prize.

The prize is your choice. Either a DVD set of the HBO miniseries “The Corner” (written by David Simon and me), or a DVD set of the NBC limited series “Kingpin” (created by me). Now that’s kick-ass TV!

UPDATE (05/17/07): We have a winner. RJ Smith identified that band as Church of Betty, led by Chris Rael. The track is “Movie Star Blues” from the 2003 album “Revenge of the Hippies.” It’s available for download at eMusic.

Name this singer, win a prize.

With so many new eyes checking me out this week, it’s time for another contest. Here’s how it works: you click here, listen to the streaming mp3, and tell me who that singer is.

The first person to put the singer’s name in the comments section will win a prize. That prize is a copy of “Hating Whitey: and other progressive causes,” a 1999 book by big-shot neocon David Horowitz.

A view of America’s racial landscape from his unique lapsed-leftist perspective, “Hating Whitey” contains harsh words for Toni Morrison, Cornel West, Charles Rangel and other enemies of the state… including Camille Cosby!

And, oh… what’s this? On page 44 of “Hating Whitey,” Horowitz proclaims: “In 1994, there were twenty thousand rapes of white women by black men, but only one hundred rapes of black women by white men.”

Uhhh… really?

Horowitz vaguely cites “Justice Department statistics,” but he provides no footnotes. Nary a clue as to where those numbers came from exactly.

They sure do smell like bullshit, don’t they?

Let’s call up the 1994 version of the Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Click on chapter three, “Victims and Offenders.” Here we go…

The NCVS estimates that 313,000 white women were raped or sexually assaulted in 1994. In how many cases was the attacker perceived to be black? Around 31,600. That’s 10 percent of the total (for you Auster fans who need help with mathematics).

The NCVS also estimates that 53,700 black women were raped or sexually assaulted that year. In how many cases was the attacker perceived to be white? Around 5,400. That is also 10 percent.

Now, the NCVS points out that the white-on-black estimate is unreliable because of the small sampling. But however unreliable that 5,400 figure may be… Horowitz’s claim of “only 100” white-on-black rapes is insanely wrong.

Of course, the striking thing about the 1994 data is that the supposed “phenomenon” of black men “targeting” white women for rape – which Horowitz’s boy Lawrence Auster is still trying to sell – dissolves away into dust. Going by the ’94 numbers, the rates of “interracial rape” cut the same both ways; 10 percent of white victims attacked by blacks, 10 percent of black victims attacked by whites.

I guess it’s no surprise that Horowitz published Auster’s gross misinterpretation of government rape statistics 10 days ago. Horowitz has a history of doing the same thing. Under his own name.

Anyway… have fun with the contest, y’all!

UPDATE (05/13/07): Well, this one was over in a heartbeat. Steven Rubio correctly identified the singer as English folk revivalist Shirley Collins. (Well done, mate.)

The song – a good ol’ fashioned Caucasian “murder ballad” – is called “Murder of Maria Marten.” Collins is backed by the Albion Country Band. (Gotta love that hurdy-gurdy solo!) The tune appeared on her 1971 album “No Roses,” which is available for download at iTunes.

Now, somebody tell me why in hell white folks wrote so many songs about death and murder. I would hate to rush to any untoward conclusions.

FYI, to hear an old-school version of this traditional tale, sung a cappella by one Freda Palmer, click here. Maddie Southorn also recorded a sprightly, contemporary arrangement; it’s here.

Name this guitarist, win a prize.

I’ve got a feeling I’ll give away the “Mingering Mike” book this time.

Here’s the contest: Click here, listen to the audio track, then tell me who that guitar player is.

The first person to put the musician’s name in the comments section will win a copy of the great new book about D.C.’s imaginary soul superstar, the one and only Mingering Mike. (There’ll never be another one like him… because he never existed in the first place!)

Have fun.

UPDATE (04/26/07): We have a winner. Pandyora correctly identified the artist as Bill Frisell.

This track, “Blues Dream,” is from his 2001 CD “Bill Frisell with Dave Holland and Elvin Jones.”

Feels like it belongs in a David Lynch movie, doesn’t it?

Name this band, win a prize.

In the mood for another contest? Then click here and listen to the audio track. The first person to post the correct name of this band in the comments section will win a prize. (For this contest, I will also accept the name of the singer. So you have two ways to win!)

The prize is a funky new coffee-table book titled “Mingering Mike.” It tells the true, peculiar and intriguing tale of an imaginary recording artist in Washington, D.C. … a soul superstar in his own mind.

Mingering Mike never released any actual music. But his dozens of hand-crafted, hand-drawn LPs, for a variety of self-invented record labels, have garnered attention as “folk art” since being discovered by a crate-digger named Dori Hadar.

Believe me, this book is a stone trip. I look forward to giving one away.

UPDATE (04/10/07): No winner this time. I’ll have to give away that “Mingering Mike” book at a later date.

The name of this band is Nine Rain. The singer/front man is Steven Brown from San Francisco, best known as the co-founder of Tuxedomoon, an avant-garde art-rock band dating back to 1977.

The song, titled “The Way,” is from Nine Rain’s self-titled debut CD (1999). Lyrically, it seems to be an extrapolation of the old Marvin Gaye hit “That’s the Way Love Is,” though the Motown writers aren’t given a songwriting credit.

I’ll have more to say about Nine Rain in the future, because I love this band. Meanwhile, thanks for playing!