Music Mondays - what sounds good?

So I decided over the weekend that Mondays would now, and henceforth, become Music Mondays on this blog. Why? Uh, well, because "Music Tuesday" just doesn't have the same ring, and because I like having set topics associated with specific days. I've got Music Mondays, and Flash Fiction Fridays. Hm, now to come up with something for every other day of the week...

My iPod holds about 30GB of music--not as large of a collection as some of you, but more than a lot of people I know. I've been doing this country music thing for about 7 years, so easily 1/3rd of my collection is country. Having said that, I've got a lot of obscure stuff, too. So Music Mondays are my chance to write about a song, or an album, or a snippet of something or other, that's either really moving me, is on my mind, etc.

So for this week, I've really been digging on the new Robert Plant/Allison Krauss project called Raising Sand. A friend bought it for me for Christmas. It's one of those records that, from the time you first put it in, it grabs you.

I've always loved Plant's voice, as well as Allison Krauss'. He's got the quintessential rock 'n' roll voice, and her voice is so delicate and ephemeral. It's a great mixing of vocal styles. The other thing that's interesting about this record is the music. Usually, you have a lead guitar or some other instrument playing the melody. On this project, though, their voices are the melody and a base guitar and drums are the backup (beat, harmony, etc), along with a couple other instruments here and there.

It's great mood music--good for driving, good for thinking, and good for creative work. I have a friend who likes to have it on when he's doing photography shoots.

It's produced by T-Bone Burnett and, as the Wikipedia.org article on the record notes, he is credited with giving the album it's "skeletal, and somewhat haunting, musical style." There are also several great songwriting legends whose work appears on this record--the Everly Brothers, Jimmy Page, Tom Waits, and Mel Tillis to name a few.

It's a fantastic record, and I highly recommend you go out and get it. I know what I'm listening to on my drive home tonight...

More later...