Name your lame duck artist........

TT: we must be the Black Irish, due to our taste in hip hop.

Bongp

Ah Kelly's - Bongo, you are making me homesick, you have actually been in my old watering hole, god, it's a small world. I love the pub culture back home with all the non-stop banter that goes along with it and I never realized how much we really do drink back there until I left and got among normal people out here.
Things are changing for the better too re. the troubles.
Have you been reading about Mrs Robinson? Google "Mrs Robinson" for a giggle - amazing that a a shag on the side could (and is) bring a country to its knees.
When I lived there. around the time for last orders more often than not, the bar would turn into a scene from an old John Wayne movie with fists and bar stools flying everywhere. Glad to say things have mellowed out a bit now.
Related story - when I was at university I was dating an aristocrat and being working class ( but pretending not to be) I brought her to Belfast and checked into the Europa Hotel, Belfast's top hotel at the time to impress her. The hotel is right opposite the oldest bar in Belfast (possibly Ireland) and It was my regular. She was very excited to see the inside of the bar and get a glimpse of my background so we got showered and dressed and crossed the road to go in. Just at that moment the windows came crashing out and a huge brawl emptied out into the street, bar staff in aprons with sleeves rolled up and fists flying like windmills, there were probably fifty people involved. My cover was blown.

buffett at the top of the list followed closely by john cowen

Grateful Dead - ok, I'll spot them the first go-'round cause it was the 60's and all. Free love, drugs, communal living, 2 hour extended jams, etc.

But, by the time we got to the 80's and they were the top grossing tour year in, year out, staying strictly at the Four Seasons hotels and flying in by jet helicopter, while a new generation of upper middle class kids were sleeping in the parking lot pretending at the 60's, the hippy thing was a $70 million a year sham. Unwashed Spinners ripe with the biting smell of acrid sweat and Petruli oil is enough to make anyone with a nose vomit.

And the $24.99 Jerry Garcia ties at Macy's and JC Penny?

Wait, I haven't even discussed their music...Then again, why would I? I loved taking acid and mesc, nitros balloons, etc. as much as the next guy, but their music still bored me. How many different ways does the world really need "Dark Star".

And was Jimmy Buffet ever actually good? He should be taken out behind the woodshed just for making Tommy Bahama shirts popular.

J Buffet has always been lame, and I have never understood the attraction. But back to an earlier post regarding Norah Jones-Diana Krall-et all(very similar). Yes their music is boring, I agree, but the first Norah Jones album was something different to me, especially with the crap that's been on the radio the last 15 or so years. I still enjoy her first album, and it made me pick up Diana Krall (really like The Girl in the Other Room, her other albums are elevator music), Madeliene Peyroux (love Careless Love), Jane Monheit (not a fan at all), Melody Gardot (nice, like her) Teirney Sutton (one great album, Dancing in the Dark, what a voice, the rest has been forgetable) and that led me to other places:

Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone, and on and on. Man, my parents and grandparents had some great singers. I would have never found these recordings without their lesser modern day equivilants.

So yes, many of these contemporary light jazz singers are pretty limited, and just re-hasing material previously released by the masters, but in many instances it can lead you to the well of great material.

I really didn't know much about Ella or Billie Holliday before Norah Jones or Diana Krall, and now they are constant and well loved companions.