How y’all are? I hope you find some good tunes here. It’s what I’ve been listening to this past year. I might make more playlists on each of my birfdays. I can’t really stomach updating you on my life; for as the last pretenses of my youth prepare for the abattoir, you can tell I’ve been a bit of a musical hermit, dangerously on the verge of adult contemporary and yacht rock—that is, since college I’ve been out of the loop of anything novel and hip. I have no idea who the latest indie star in nuthuggin jeans is. I kind of want to know, but… there’s so much old music that still needs a second spin. So here you go.

1. “Lujon” — Henri Mancini

  • Palatial, inviting, pure Mancini.

2. “Ain’t Nothin’ Like the Real Thing” — Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell

  • First of several Motown inclusions. If you don’t have this song already, I think you should. Sorry to be so bossy.

3. “Let Me Down Easy” — Derrick Harriott and the Crystalites

  • And the first of a few reggae/dub tracks. Beyond Bob Marley, I find most folks woefully unacquainted with other reggae and dub artists.

4. “Jesus on the Mainline” — Ry Cooder & The Moula Banda Rhythm Aces

  • Ry Cooder, formerly of Captain Beefheart, has a penchant for gospel, and playing electric slide mandolin (no that’s not a misprint).

5. “Too Busy Thinkin’ ’bout My Baby” — Marvin Gaye

  • Classic Marvin Gaye. The Temptations had an earlier version, but this one is my favorite.

6. “Cruisin’” — Smokey Robinson

  • If you’re in a position to make love, you might wanna grab this tune.

7. “Let Down (feat. Toots and the Maytals)” — Easy Star All Stars

  • I’ve never heard Radiohead and felt so happy.

8. “I Wanna Little Sugar in My Bowl” — Nina Simone

  • Quite possibly the dirtiest song she sang.

9. “These Eyes” — The Guess Who

  • I keep thinking of that scene in Superbad where Michael Cera sings this song for a passel of twittering cokeheads. Classic performance.

10. “It’s a Family Affair” — Sly and the Family Stone

  • Speaking of cocaine… does it seem like Sly forgot to memorize the words before he recorded this? Not that I care, but.

11. “Still on the Move” — The Dingees

  • Best new song from the Dingees’ Rebel Soul Sound System, whose subterranean sound has resurfaced after a ten-year recording hiatus.

12. “Spraypaint (We Won’t Carry Over)” — The Dingees

  • A rocking-er song for those inclined (Jack Hittinger) toward hearing loss.

13. “Up Above My Head (I hear music in the air)” — Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight

  • Best female guitarist I’ve ever heard with an equally impressive set of pipes. Shout, sister, shout!

14. “Heat Wave” — Martha and the Vandellas

15. “Down Home Girl” — The Coasters

  • I had heard the OCMS version, but I like the harmonies in this better.

16. “Berta Berta” — Branford Marsalis

  • If you were stuck at Parchman Farm, you might’ve sung this with the likes of Bukka White or R.L. Burnside.

17. “Illinois Blues” — Skip James

  • Something haunting about this. August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson introduced this song to me in its epigraph.

18. “The Third Man Theme” — Anton Karas

  • Fantastic noir set in Vienna. Karas tune plays throughout the whole film.

19. “Alabama High Test” — Old Crow Medicine Show

  • Is a kind of weed, in case you were wondering. While this song is hardly biographical, this feller has got himself into a morass with the law, and just wants to smoke. This song also reminds me of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” by Bob Dylan.

20. “Saginaw Way” — Gillian Welch and David Rawlings

  • Not the first country song to mention Saginaw, Michigan. Lefty Frizzell also wrote “I was Born in Saginaw, Michigan”—which is a lie, by the way.

21. “Mama Don’t Allow No Music” — Doc Watson

  • In case you didn’t have any barn burners, Doc Watson’ll set you straight. Did you know he’s blind?

22. “Dignity” — Bob Dylan

  • Older Bob, though in prime voice for the late-eighties chapter of his career.

23. “Ramblin’ Man” — Hank Williams

  • Something about this song chills me. I think it’s the pedal steel and the yodeling. That’s how country music used to distinguish itself before “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” and “Thank God I ain’t Queerrr (titties and beerrr).”

24. “Hong Kong Blues” — Hoagy Carmichael

  • Another tune ripped from a noir sound track. I think it’s from To Have and Have Not, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. This song came back when people told stories about getting caught in an opiated stupor in the darkest East Orient

25. “Fiona” — Lyle Lovett

  • Weird as ever with a voice like velvet, Lyle Lovett really delivers on this one. Did you know he plays a drug dealer, selling LSD at a club in the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?

26. “Done Left Here” — Mississippi Fred McDowell

  • Lastly, here’s a blues song everybody who likes the blues oughtta have.