Jam of the Day | Luke Winslow-King - Swing That Thing

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Luke Winslow-King's The Coming Tide was a gorgeous and overlooked gem of a record, his first for Bloodshot Records, last year; if the first two tracks from his follow-up Everlasting Arms, due out 9/30, are any indication of the rest of the album, it's going to be another gorgeous gem, and hopefully not quite as overlooked. "Swing That Thing" is a rollicking, R&B-tinged rocker of a love song. It's not complicated, or lyrically complex, but Winslow-King growls and shouts with the best of them, all over a wailing guitar line.

It's Detroit soul via Memphis blues and Winslow-King's current hometown of New Orleans, and it's about as different from the spitting Riot Grrl punk of my last JOTD -- in every best possible way. It'll make you want to swing that thing yourself, so have an office chair dance on me and Luke Winslow-King this afternoon.
 

Jam of the Day | Luke Winslow-King - You Don't Know Better Than Me

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Photo courtesy of Bloodshot Records

New Orleans singer/songwriter Luke Winslow-King is getting ready to drop his debut album with Bloodshot Records, and he lead off with this great track. Winslow-King's whole album fuses a number of New Orleans musical traditions together, and this is a slight sounding song, with light guitars and distant drums and Winslow-King's drawl, but when you listen closely, it's a song about the trials of living in New Orleans, and how to live with them.

The whole record is lovely, but I particularly adore this track, a quietly serious paean to making your own way that shuffles its way in a modest sort of way, right up to the ending, which is rich with horns and slide guitar, and a force in Winslow-King's voice that says he means what he sings.

Stream "You Don't Know Better Than Me" below, and pick up The Coming Tide next Tuesday.