Dan Tyminski

MercylandOne of the things to come out of a collection of music like Mercyland is that I am introduced to new musicians. Dan Tyminski is featured on Mercyland and his song is a standout, although they’re all very good.

I will be purchasing Tyminski’s recordings this week. I can’t wait to hear them. Bluegrass is fine by me.

Mercyland

MercylandNow and again, well, perhaps somewhat more often than that, I purchase some new music. Sometimes it’s by someone or a project that I am unfamiliar with.

Yesterday I was listening to Shawn Mullins’ Light You Up and heard The Ghost of Johnny Cash. The song was written by Phil Madiera. I knew I’d heard that name before, but couldn’t place it. Mullins’ web site had an album note about the song and a link to Madiera’s web site.

I bopped over there and read the bit about how the song came about. I was hooked. Anyone who can write (much less write a lyric like that) will get my eyes now and again.

I decided to check out some of his music and decided to purchase a copy of Mercyland, with the subtitle Hymns for the rest of us. It arrived this afternoon and is now ripped and in my iTunes library. (I have flacs too, in case I want something of higher quality.)

Phil used to play with Phil Keaggy (among others). I think that’s where I heard the name. The recording is going to take a few plays to settle in, but I really think this is some excellent material and the variety of songs and players is also a joy.

New Music

GoI love new music. Vertical Horizon is a band I discovered many years ago while restoring my house in Lubbock. I listened to the radio quite a lot while cleaning up the house for sale.

Everything You Want was quite popular during that time. I found the song interesting and picked up a couple of the group’s recordings. They are quite good. A few days ago I was working through my music collection and realized there are a couple more recordings by Vertical Horizon that are not in my collection. I found them via Amazon and picked up some of them used and a couple of them new.

This is good music and I’m enjoying it. The CDs are ripped to flac and MP3 and are now in my iPod. Music is good for me. This is good stuff.