Pick Six is a half-dozen cool things in music, from two points of view.
Barb Abney, KFAI morning host:
1 #Timstwitterlisteningparty. I begin each morning by learning the featured album on Charlatans UK singer Tim Burgess' Twitter feed @LlSTENlNG_PARTY. Then I watch the tweets roll as I listen to an album on my lunch break. I owe that bit of daily sanity to Tim.
2 Covers. I am always a sucker for a good cover. When the boss isn't looking, I sniff around music blogs. Recently Amanda Shires delivered with Genesis' "That's All!"
3 Wussy livestream. At the end of each workweek, I habitually check into this Cincinnati band's concert stream to wind down and connect with my Ohio roots. You never know which band members will perform and what the set list will be, but it always sounds like the start of my weekend.
Jon Bream, Star Tribune critic:
1 John Fogerty, "Weeping in the Promised Land" video. Sitting outdoors at a grand piano in a guitar-shaped sandbox, the voice who railed about "Fortunate Son" and "Who'll Stop the Rain" reflects on the disheartening events of the past year, calling out the unnamed "Pharaoh" in the White House with this gospelly protest hymn.
2 Vagabon featuring Courtney Barnett, "Reason to Believe." The Cameroon-bred New Yorker's largely unadorned treatment of the oft-covered Tim Hardin classic is a much-needed, understated salve at this time.
3 "Jimmy Carter: Rock 'n' Roll President." With testimony from Bob Dylan, Nile Rodgers, Jann Wenner and others, this film makes a case for how the Georgia governor used his love of American music — from gospel to country — to fuel his 1976 presidential campaign. The Allman Brothers and Jimmy Buffett performed fundraisers. At the White House, Carter presented jazz stars, invited Gregg Allman and Cher as his first dinner guests, and discovered that Willie Nelson smoked weed there with the Prez's son. To paraphrase Dylan, Carter, a gracious one-term president, welcomed the counterculture into the establishment.
