Otis Rush - "I Can't Quit You Baby"

The blues scale is blue in a number of senses. It might be literally blue for the synesthete, for instance. It’s dark and depressing, of course, but also filthy and unspeakable. It’s as sloppy as the band who plays this song. Here the scale is employed by several instrumentalists simultaneously, who sound like they’re playing together (or, more accurately, against each other) for the first time, and after a long night of debauchery. Each instrument is insistently pointing to Rush’s pain, squawking and honking and harping on the blue notes. When Rush sings “You know it hurt me way down inside” at 2:54, the band brings us closer to the nerve centre, the very source of the blues, with dense unrestrained runs of the scale: a seriously blue moment that causes even the pentatonic scale to blush. [Buy]

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Paul Newman - "Plastic Jesus"

This song is part of the film Cool Hand Luke, which I haven’t seen in years and so can’t remember the context in which Newman performs it. But even without context, there is something oddly captivating about "Plastic Jesus."

Newman begins his song with the line “I don’t care if it rains or freezes,” and he sings it perfectly. He’s cautious and languid and sweet. It’s about all he does perfectly in his minute and a half of recorded musical output, but there’s something fitting about his stops and starts, his fumbling vocals, and his out of tune banjo. It’s his best shot - a modest and honest rendition. [Buy the DVD]

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See you all next year, I hope!