1. Woke Up This Morning
2. I'm Gonna Make It Alright
3. The River
4. One for the Lonely
5. Something to Make You Happy
6. My Adorable One
7. When I'm Gone
8. Lullaby
all songs by Paul Pena
Paul Pena
Capitol : 1972
[I grappled with this for a hot minute, but I'm going to post the entire album here. I think it's only right, considering it's been tied up and out of print for what seems like decades. Pena died in late-2005, leaving no significant estate, and out of respect to him and his memory, this music needs to be heard. It's that good, and I believe in it.]
Paul Pena could have been something. Paul Pena's music was captured briefly in precious few recordings, considering his legacy in music spans over three decades. And yet, his soul lives on in this, his first album, one that's been out of print for as long as I can remember.
Overall, it's a seamless, gorgeous, glorious blend of blues, classic rock, and soul, sung with the smokiest baritone and clearest electric guitar. Pena's playing and arrangements are sunny and bright, richly layered with chorus voices and slide guitar. His lyrics are full of hope and curiosity for the world around me, and read like a road map to understanding and maturity. Where are we going in the world? What is my place? What do I have to offer? What can I give back? Where should I go next?
As we enter the summer months, and an endless tangle of FmGT posts aiming to pin down the elusive summer sound, this album screams June, July and August. The airy arrangements and shimmering guitar riffs work tirelessly and breathlessly in the sunshine. This is true "larger than yr headphones" music; you'll sing along without really knowing the words, you'll hum the melodies, you'll pick at yr air guitar, you'll subconsciously break out the handclaps, the adoration, the adulation and the uncensored joy in Pena's music.
Choice cuts include the opening track, "Woke Up This Morning", a shimmering expression of Pena's determination to transcend his obstacles and get where he wants to be. "Gonna Make It Alright" is a breezy, bright song that grows out of a very Meters-esque riff into a nasty, deep groove. "Something to Make You Happy" is seven minutes of gritty, shuffle blues, anchored by a frenetic bassline and soulful B-3. "When I'm Gone" is another meditation on the meaning of his life and the value of his existence, presented in his unmistakable style.
Pena's music is as good as any coming out of this era in American music. The seamless blending of so many genres is a joy to listen to, especially when wrapped in Pena's virtuosic guitar-playing. If he was better-known, he'd surely stand in the pantheon of great blues players, but as it is, he's still relatively-unknown.
Download this, and enjoy it. Spread it around. This music is too good to keep under wraps.
Pena's life was defined by several layers of misfortune, sadness and tragedy, but in listening to his music, you'd never know it. I hope you get as much enjoyment out of Paul Pena as I do.
==================
I wrote about Paul Pena a few months ago, after randomly re-watching the superb documentary Genghis Blues and being reminded of his genius.
His second album, New Train, did make it to CD finally in 2000, and is widely available. This album is circulating around ebay and other online vinyl-hunting sites, but is out-of-print to the best of my knowledge. It's a damn shame, in my mind, considering the sizable pile of horseshit that does make the airwaves nowadays. Check out New Train on CD, and check out the documentary Genghis Blues for more about Paul Pena. Also, read a wonderful, respectful obituary to Pena here if you get the chance, one that helps to explain his mythology a little better than I've managed to.
On the web:
www.paulpena.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Pena
http://www.fotuva.org/friends/paul_pena.html
19 comments:
Thanks for the posting. I only discovered Paul Pena by reading a post here that included the tune "Gonna Move". Great tune. And the little bit I've listened to in this post is also killer. What a shame such talent goes unnoticed while garbage rules the popular taste. By the way, I think the fourth song "only the lonely" would not download. Thanks again.
Got turned on to Paul Pena when The Derek Trucks Band made Gonna Move part of their live shows in 2004.
I only wish I had known it earlier. Good move and good message in this post, JT.
Correction.
"when the Derek Trucks Band made Gonna Move part of their live shows in 20002."
That's what I get for giving up coffee and commenting early.
Anon -- track 4 is re-upped and should work now.
Mingus -- yeah, a lot of people have been rocking "Gonna Move" lately. I found a bunch of random covers, including a guy from American Idol recently [maybe last year] who covered it. Even though I loathe that show, I had to respect him choosing to revive such a fantastic song.
Derek Trucks' version is top-notch too, but for me, the magic is in the vocals. Pena had such a distinctive voice, and it brought all his music to life.
From what I can hear of these tracks, Pena's stuff sounds killer but many of the tracks cut-off before the song comes to its expected end (Woke Up This Morning, The River, I'm Gonna Make It Alright, Something To Make You Happy, and My Adorable One).
Hey White Silk,
yeah, it's our servers, I swear. If they do cut off like that again, try again. They will play/DL the whole way through after a couple of attempts. Our servers are annoying the piss out of me when they do this.
Sorry for the angst.
A musician who needs to be known better. I assume his estate pulls in a regular check from Steve Miller's cover of Jet Airliner.
thanks so much for sharing this...I've been listening (and telling anyone who would listen) to Pena for a while now but never knew this was out there...although I had heard about the seemingly neverending album release problems...who knew it was more than one album? So I naturally begin to wonder...what else is floating around out there by this amazing musician?
Anon 2 -
yeah, I believe they do. It was only really the royalties from that track that kept Pena from being entirely destitute, as his legal issues with his record labels left him contractually unable to make music anywhere else.
Folds Rubber Sled -
yep, this was his 1st of 2 albums. And that's it. His fight with the ego maniac "Kingmaker" Albert Grossman [who owned Bearsville Records, the for whom he wrote/recorded that 2nd LP "New Train"] robbed us of much more great music.
To the best of my knowledge, there is nothing else out there by Pena. Unless he recorded under aliases [which we'd be hard-pushed to find out about given the illegality], there's really only this LP, "New Train", and any/all recorded materials connected to Genghis Blues.
Such a genius, and only 40 or 50-odd songs with his name on them. So sad.
Thanks for commenting.
Fantastic - thanx jt. "pure joy" indeed.
Wonderful stuff for the summer! Mr. Kravitz must've had his ears down these grooves. Can't seem to DL track 8 though, tried 7 times.
Love this stuff!!! Can't get the whole songs though. Can you move them to another server perhaps? Thanx for the post, nonetheless
Michael & Anon -
I was able to DL the tracks from our servers, but on the second try. I know it's giving you trouble, but I promise, it should DL properly. We are trying to find new and better servers, but unfortunately this is what we're stuck with for the time being.
If you're still having trouble, email me at the address in the sidebar to the right and I'll send you whatever you're missing.
So so sorry!
Cheers,
JT.
who do i email? i tried to download these tracks, but they cut off. i need this cd in my life-and this is my only hope. can you make it happen?
JT i LOVE you. I was looking for this album for years now - years! And finally when I almost lost hope I'd never hear Penas first album it pops up on google.
Thank you thank you thank you! Also for the superb quality of the record.
I only wished Pena would have been able to get the recognition he deserved when he still was alive - in my book he's one of the best and most revolutionary blues artist of all time.
And for those not being able to download the files i took the liberty of uploading it onto a free file hosting service:
http://rapidshare.com/files/68782627/Paul_Pena_-___Paul_Pena____Capitol__1972_.rar.html
Unfortunatly i used a rar format to pack it so you might need to download winrar (http://www.winrar-rog.com/eindex.html)to unpack it. But considering how hard it is to find this album it shouldn't be much of an obstacle. ;)
Enjoy
Greetz
Swiss Pena Fan
Paul Pena is one of the great American artist of all time. I feel for the people that have never heard Paul.
"There is so much I wanna do..."
- Paul
"If you need a friend tonight, I'll be your friend..."
God Bless Paul. I hope he's looking down on us now.
I LOVE YOU GUYS FOR POSTING THIS!!!!!!!
for any mac users that need to expand the file posted (http://rapidshare.com/files/68782627/Paul_Pena_-___Paul_Pena____Capitol__1972_.rar.html), I used this download and was able to expand the file and save them in my ITunes music folder.
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Compression-Tools/RAR-Expander.shtml
I'm still going to hunt down this LP but for now at least I can listen!!!
~Brook
welcome to the wow gold, cheap WoW Power Leveling, service site,wotlk gold buy cheap wow gold,wow gold,world of warcraft power leveling buy wow gold
Post a Comment