Keith Moon’s 1975 solo album Two Sides of the Moon has been described as “the most expensive karaoke album in history,” and even as that, it was a colossal failure, the perfect expression of drunken self indulgence, and it was so fascinatingly bad that it has assumed a certain cult status. But make no mistake, it was a horrible album on all counts made by a brilliant drummer who chose barely to play drums on it (he appears behind the kit on only three tracks) but instead chose to sing, even though he was tone deaf by his own admission. The presence of seemingly every musician then in LA at the sessions, an impressive list that included Dick Dale, Spencer Davis, Bobby Keys, Rick Nelson, Harry Nilsson, John Sebastian, Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh, and countless rumored others, failed to redeem Two Sides of the Moon. Even taken as kitsch, it sucked.

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Eddy Arnold’s approach to country and his rich, expressive baritone voice always seemed closer to pop singers like Bing Crosby and Perry Como than it did to more rustic country stars like Hank Snow and Ernest Tubb, and he worked with pop songwriters out of New York as much or more than he used Nashville ones. His approach reaped dividends, certainly, and he charted countless hits in an a truly astounding seven-decade career, and if he was never fully embraced by the public as a pop singer, he brought a kind of urbane dignity and grace to country music in the bargain, prefiguring the so-called Nashville countrypolitan sound as early as 1955.

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Vee Jay Records was the most successful black-owned independent record label in the pre-Motown era — Berry Gordy actually used Vee Jay as a template when he set up Motown. Maverick to a fault, Vee Jay placed records in the charts in an amazing diversity of styles, from blues and urban R&B to doo wop, straight pop, jazz, and gospel. Formed in Gary, IN in 1953 (the label moved its base to Chicago soon after) by the husband-and-wife team of Vivian Carter and James Bracken (the company name was an extension of the pair’s first initials), and blessed with the assistance of Vivian’s bother, Calvin Carter, a gifted and visionary A&R man, Vee Jay had an aggressive recording, licensing, and marketing approach that saw them selling records to black and white audiences alike, and it worked so well that the label frequently had difficulty meeting the demands of its distributors, which meant that Vee Jay was often facing cash flow problems. Still, when the label finally closed its doors in 1966, it had outlasted most of the other black-owned record companies of the era, a list that included Exclusive, Excelsior, Duke-Peacock, and JVB.

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2009 was a busy year for Meaghan Smith. The songwriter toured with k.d. lang, recorded an album, joined Lilith Fair’s 2010 lineup, earned comparisons to Norah Jones, and spent several months promoting her folk-jazz debut, The Cricket’s Orchestra. When the holidays came along, however, she decided to reward herself with something different: a few days at home.

Old habits die hard. Before her homestay was up, Smith had begun working again: jotting down ideas for new songs, painting, and scheduling tour dates for the new year. She also found time to talk to AMG about The Cricket’s Orchestra and her plans for 2010.

All Music Guide: You’re a painter as well as a musician. Are the two related?

Meaghan Smith: They are. When I go on tour, I have my normal merchandise for sale – usually CDs and t-shirts – but I’ve also been selling paintings at each show. They’re really small oil paintings, maybe 3 inches by 3 inches, and they feature different characters like robots or animals wearing clothes. I’ve been traveling with my own miniature art show, basically. I sold them last year and ran through my entire stock, so I’m taking some time right now to stock up again.

AMG: When did you realize you could combine the two?

MS: My manager asked if there was anything else I’d like to be selling at the shows, any unique item that the fans might like. I thought I might try to do little paintings, so I bought 10 frames, painted 10 pictures, and sold them all at one show. I realized that it’s a special thing to go to a person’s show and buy an original piece of art that they’ve done themselves.

AMG: You’ve also animated some of your own music videos.

MS: I have. We’re actually shooting a video in four days for the song “Heartbroken,� but there won’t be any animation this time. I did the storyline and came up with the video treatment.

AMG: Tell me about working with Greg Kurstin and T-Bone Burnett during the Cricket Orchestra sessions.

MS: I did most of it with Les Cooper, but Greg and T-Bone did one track each. They’re kinda opposites in a way. T-Bone has a crew of people he works with all of the time, and Greg works completely by himself in a little studio. He likes to record digitally, while T-Bone does everything to tape. Greg uses samples and T-Bone doesn’t. I got to experience opposite ends of the spectrum with them, and both of the songs that came out of it are just as good as the other. I like working with different producers; I’ll probably work with someone different on each album I make.

AMG: Your husband, Jason Mingo, is part of your touring band. Have you worked with him on any new music?

MS: We did “Heartbroken� together, not that the song’s lyrics say anything about our relationship! That was the first time I’d co-written with anybody. Most of the time, though, I need to be totally alone in a room, completely devoid of any sign of human life. I have to let everything go and just throw out any idea that pops into my head, regardless of what it may be. A lot of the time, I’ll throw something out and think it’s the dumbest thing ever, but at least no one else heard it.

AMG: I saw recently that you’re going to be touring with Lilith Fair this year.

MS: I have the same manager as Sarah McLachlan and I’ve done a few concerts with her. She’s amazing and I look up to her a lot, not to mention the other amazing artists on the bill. We’ll be doing the Chicago and Minneapolis shows. Can’t wait.

AMG: Apart from that, what else is on the horizon for you?

MS: There’s a bunch of touring in the works. I’ve been asked to start writing for my next record, too, so I’ve been writing down some ideas here and there. More videos, more appearances, and more songs… Just keeping busy as always.

By all accounts, Tom Darby and Jimmie Tarlton were an acrimonious duo, thrown together more by opportunity than any pressing desire to play music together, but in spite of the tension between them (or maybe because of it), the body of work they recorded together for Columbia Records between 1927 and 1933 is as singular and distinctive as any in early country or blues. Both were fine guitar players, with Darby generally handling the lead vocals and Tarlton the harmonies, but the difference maker was Tarlton’s striking slide guitar style. Tarlton played with the guitar in his lap Hawaiian style, and reportedly fretted it with a wrist pin from a car. His slide lines give everything the duo recorded an eerie, exotic presence that, coupled with their impeccable vocals, makes them utterly unique.

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Although marketed as a surf band, Minnesota’s Trashmen were decidedly landlocked by geography, but not by spirit. The group’s odd mix of surf, R&B, sneering garage pop, and psychotic instrumentals made them one of the most eccentric and interesting of the groups that sprang up around the surf craze of the early 1960s. Essentially a northern cover band that wasn’t afraid to take chances, the Trashmen played every gig like it was Saturday night. Sundazed’s Live Bird ‘65-’67 collects several rare live tracks of the band in action on the dance circuit, and it captures the kind of offhand, humorous dementia that they channeled into their shows, climaxing in a near-six minute version of the group’s wacky masterpiece, the manic “Surfin’ Bird.” But this was a surprisingly versatile and nimble band, and their live versions of Booker T. & the MGs’ “Green Onions” and James Brown’s “Mashed Potatoes” spotlight a funky little R&B groove, while “Same Lines” sneers along with the best of 1960s garage punk, and “Keep Your Hands Off My Baby” is skillfully executed faux doo wop. Two of the songs in the Live Bird set, “Bird Dance Beat” and “King of the Surf,” were recorded at the Home School for Girls at the Saux Centre in Minnesota in 1966, and the mere thought of young, impressionable girls listening to this band of goofy maniacs is a sobering one.

Lonnie Johnson was best known for his tonally beautiful guitar playing, but he was also a fine singer and songwriter, and pretty adept on violin, piano, banjo, mandolin, harmonium, and bass as well. Equally at home in the blues or the jazz world (he worked with artists as raw as Texas Alexander and as polished as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington), Johnson’s life as a professional musician began in the mid 1920s and stretched all the way into the 1960s, when his career was given an autumnal boost during the folk/blues revival.

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Blind Arvella Gray’s real or imagined life story is, in some respects, a more complete creative statement than the actual music he made. Born Walter Dixon in Texas in 1906, he lost his eyesight and two fingers on his left hand due to a shotgun mishap (Gray’s account of the incident involved several different plot possibilities), and he turned to street singing to keep things afloat. At some point in the 1940s he landed in Chicago, where he became a fixture at the Maxwell Street open-air flea market, playing his National Steel guitar and singing a mixed bag of blues, gospel, spirituals, work songs, and field hollers. By the early 1970s he had released three 45s on his own Gray Records label, had four songs on a British import album called Blues from Maxwell Street, and had been featured in the video documentary And This Is Maxwell Street.

On September 22, 1972 he recorded his only album, The Singing Drifter, at Sound Unlimited Studios in Harvey, Illinois. The LP was issued on the tiny Birch Records label that same year, and quickly sold out its limited run in the Chicago area, where Gray’s Maxwell Street presence had made him somewhat of a local celebrity. The CD reissue of The Singing Drifter on Conjuroo Recordings contains the complete original album, and adds four bonus tracks (plus an unlisted fifth bonus track, an alternate take of “Standing by the Bedside of a Neighbor”). Gray was hardly a skilled guitarist, as the missing fingers on his left hand limited him to slide playing, and he wasn’t a particularly distinctive singer, either. What he had working for him was a certain joyful élan, which is why seeing him in person was undoubtedly more powerful than hearing him on record. The rhythms and vocal lines are very similar here track to track, which gives The Singing Drifter the illusion of being one long street song. The exceptions are a spirited rendition of what was Gray’s unofficial theme piece, “John Henry,” and a pair of field hollers, “Arvella’s Work Song” and “Gander Dancing Song,” where Gray sings accompanied only by his light handclapping. As an embodiment of the old street singer and songster tradition, Gray was undoubtedly a delight to see and hear at the market on a fine summer’s morning, but a good deal of his presence is lost when all we have is his voice and guitar in the speakers. The Singing Drifter is certainly a valuable archival release, and those who saw him perform on Maxwell Street (Gray died in 1980) will treasure this disc for the memories it provokes, but it is truthfully a rather so-so musical document. In the end, it was Gray’s physical presence as he stood playing that National Steel on the corner, and the long, storied journey (embellished or not) he took to get there, that was the real creative act. This album is the memento.