So at lunchtime I came out to a beautiful day, low temperature, low humidity, it made me look forward to this evening’s run! And it must have helped, along with the fact that I was 95 percent pain free, because after running at a 10 minute per mile pace over the last several runs, I ran at a 9:30 clip tonight. I finished the 4.2 mile run almost 2 minutes and 30 seconds faster than last week over the same course. Oh, if would only stay 71 degrees with 27 percent humidity!
The soundtrack for the run was an album that is currently number 12 on the Roots Music Report’s Blues Chart Just A Little Bit More… by Gary Primich. When I saw that there was a tiny harmonica on the album cover, I thought I was going to like this album! After listening to a few minutes of the first track my suspicions were confirmed! I have listened to several of the tracks over the last week but this is really the first extended listening of the album. There are 22 tracks on the album and I only go through 13 tracks and I tell you over all the music helped make the miles fly by. I liked the vocals some from Gary and many from Omar Dykes, and Primich’s harp work is great. So I was saddened when I went to his website to get some background on Primich and discovered that Primich died in 2007 at the age of 49 a herion overdose. The album is a tribute album released by his family. From the press release for the album:
Just a Little Bit More … with Omar Dykes features 24 cuts of prime Gary Primich recordings that range from 1994 to 2006, the year before Primich passed away, and represent such CD titles as Travelin’ Mood, Mr.Freeze, Doghouse Music and Ridin’ the Darkhorse, as well as several previously unreleased tracks. Also included are several songs that first appeared on such Omar & the Howlers albums as “Muddy Springs Road”, “Swingland” and “World Wide Open” and highlight Gary Primich’s unique talents as a harmonica player. The musicians on the CD represent a veritable “who’s who” of Austin’s finest, including Gary Clark, Jr., Derek O’Brien, Sarah Brown, Wes Starr, Mark Korpi, Dave Biller, Jay Moehler, Nick Connolly, George Rains, Mark Rubin and Billy Horton. A number of the players were regular members of Gary Primich’s band through the years, either on record or on tour. As the album’s title indicates, the CD showcases the special musical relationship Gary Primich had with Omar Kent Dykes, who sings and plays guitar on many of the tracks. One of the special previously unreleased cuts is “Down in Mississippi,” which features just Dykes on vocals and guitar and Primich on harp.
While I enjoyed all of the tracks two stood out on the run, probably because it’s at least the second time I’ve heard the songs. The first song was “Hoo Doo Ball” featuring Omar Dykes and the other was “Caravan” an instrumental that creates the feel of a Caravan. So while I don’t have any new Gary Primich albums to look forward to there are nine albums to discover and it seems to me that Just a Little Bit More... was a good place to start! Here’s some of Gary’s music with Jim Starboard on drums, Dave Wesselowski bass, and Nick Curran on guitar.