Voice

Had a nice walk with Loki this morning, and a sweet concatentation of some of my favorite voices on the iPod shuffle. So here is a little stretch of music which accompanied us (well, Loki couldn't actually hear it, but let's say he picked up on the groove) through the Golden Gate Park stretch of the walk:

Alison Krauss: Oh Atlanta
Rosemary Clooney: Brazil
Incubus: Just a Phase
Old and in the Gray: Victim to the Tomb
Ray Charles: This Love of Mine
David Bowie: Song for Bob Dylan
Joni Mitchell: Barandgrill
Red Allen, Jim Buchanan, David Grisman, Herb Pederson: Love Please Come Home
Dixie Chicks: Baby Hold On
Joni Mitchell: You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio
Neil Young: After the Gold Rush
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: Be Wafa

My ability as a music critic is pretty limited ... the "I know what I like" sort of criticism. So pardon the obviousness of this: I like the foregrounded voice more than the arranged voice. So that Rosemary Clooney song is almost my national anthem, and the early Ray Charles does a lot more for me than the later. I love bluegrass voices, whether the rough and ready traditional stuff or the sweet clarion Alison Krauss.

No point to this post other than that ... some voices that I love to hear in the early morning, a cold wind blowing, the dahlias in bloom, the dog leading and following by turns.