PLAY WITH FIRE

Listen to PLAY WITH FIRE by Barbara & Ernie.

That low rumbling is the sound of me pulling out the big guns today. Play With Fire is the most well known cut from an album reissued last year for the first time since it was released (and mostly ignored).

Barbara (Cat Stevens) & Ernie (Harry Belafonte) were both session musicians who for reasons obscured by time and space, recorded this one album together. It's soul, jazz, folk all rolled into one.

For those of you that have never had Play With Fire appear on one of your compilations or otherwise, you're in for such a treat. It's a great song, and the performance and recording is brilliant. On the performance, my single favorite thing is how the drummer plays these over-simple turnarounds leading into the choruses. He leaves so much space so that the snares and toms come down like hammers.

...You'll note that the banner this week is a little funkier this week too. That's what a digital camera does when it no longer works right! We got a good run out of that little guy, but it's time to go camera shopping.

Photo: Prop plane.