Ted Lucas
self-titled ("The Om Album")
scum stats: limited quantities (400?) on green vinyl. the rest on black. should be in print for all eternity
Ten years of emails and phone calls, contractual negotiations, in person meet-ups, the physical relocation of a mess of tapes and probably a bunch of shit I'm forgetting. This is what it took to get Ted Lucas released on Third Man. And for me, spiritually, it was absolutely worth it.
There is so much I could write about this record, but at the moment it feels best to point you to an interview I did with local NPR station WNXP....
There's audio of me flapping my gums as well as fairly insightful text excerpts of said gum-flapping at that link. If I can further belabor maybe just two points touched on in the interview there, it's as follows:
- there is SO MUCH more Ted Lucas music to sift through and to share. LIke, it might be more that 100 reels worth of material. Across every and all iterations of bands and styles that Ted embodied, from commercial jingles he wrote on spec all the way down to field recordings and answering machine tapes, Ted chronicled and saved just about everything. And film footage? You better believe it. Thank god.
- the digital bonus track of "Love Took A Trip" is just magnificent in every way. I cannot stop listening to it even now, months after first hearing it. This is the song that overwhelmed me and brought me to tears in the Turnip Truck (Iocal grocery store) parking lot. As a raga, as a blues ramble, as an acoustic paean to the twists and turns that are inherent to the nature of "love" as it were...this song inhabits at least three different personas and each one of them is independently brilliant. But married together they take on a profile larger than the sum of its parts.
Here's how you win a green vinyl copy of this record. Just go to whatever your preferred method of streaming is and listen to the entire album, including the four bonus tracks. Once you've done so, just come back and post a comment here. You can say you loved it, say you need it, whatever. You can also say nothing, maybe just "i listened" and I will randomly select from that pool of commenters. Get in before midnight Thursday February 27th.
You really gotta listen though. If you're gonna lie, what's the fucking point? My job, my goal here, is to use my enthusiasm to help convey to you why something is important. So...pony up kiddos.
Yep – someone said Nick Drake vibes – I hear that.
My unadulterated first reaction was alternating haunting / hypnotic. Or sometimes both at once.
Giving me Nick Drake vibes. Will definitely be listening again!
Wow! To be honest, I hadn’t heard of him. He’s great. Thank you Ben and Third Man for continuing to expand my musical horizons!
First listened on streaming. Now i absolutely have to listen on vinyl, especially that Sonny Boy Blues track. A green vinyl would be so much better than the standard fare.
Good stuff!!!
The only reason this album came up was how heavily promoted it’s been. The last album I gave a listen because of Third Man was Big Sugar and I absolutely loved it so much that I grabbed a copy and spin it every so often. I gave this a listen and was pleasantly surprised that it was another album that I’m glad I was introduced to. Thank you for highlighting albums that can easily be overlooked.
Really enjoyed the mix of instrumental and vocal tracks across the album.
Enjoyed the listen! Thanks for getting this one out!
Loved it!!! Thanks for the opportunity to win a green copy.
First listen – enjoyed it. In the rotation now.