Da Goddess

LD and I had a long wait for my prescriptions and we spent the time listening to one of my favorite CDs ever — Zucchero & Co. The above song is the last on the album and it’s gorgeous beyond belief on a real stereo. It reaches places inside you that you didn’t even know existed. The one video I’d love to share, doesn’t really exist. But the song is available on YouTube, just not with actual footage of John Lee Hooker and Zucchero. There is a live version, though, with JLH’s vocals added in.

This was the first song I’d heard from the album and it laid me flat. I still get goosebumps when I hear it. It’s as though each note is meant to wring out every last bit of pain from you. It’s visceral. “I Lay Down” is the sort of song you listen to over and over again. And when you’ve purged yourself of whatever needs purging, you celebrate.

The version of “Diavolo in Me” on the album with Solomon Burke is awesome, but there’s nothing like that available on YouTube. Regardless, this is the sort of song that makes you dance. It simply compels you to do so. As LD says, “it’s like something out of the Blues Brothers”, and he’s not entirely wrong in that comparison. In fact, Zucchero joined Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi (as the Blues Brothers) on stage during a party for the late John Belushi in 1995. Just close your eyes and imagine the church scene when Jake is moved by the preacher, and well…you get the idea.

I could go on and on for hours about this album, but really it’s the sort of experience one needs to have for oneself. I thought I’d done a review of it years ago, but apparently it never made it online. It’s likely sitting in a file on a dead computer. Anyhow, the whole CD is chuck full o’ music that will make you take a step back and re-examine your idea of music. Zucchero collaborates with just about everyone under the sun, from B.B. King to Sting to Miles Davis, from Macy Gray to Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli, from Eric Clapton to Paul Young (of “Every Time You Go Away” fame), Dolores O’Riordan (of the Cranberries), and artists who aren’t familiar to most Americans, artists like Mana and Cheb Mami. This is the perfect introduction to them and I heartily recommend you head over to YouTube, type in some of those names, and settle in for a special treat.

Zucchero may be relatively unknown in this country, but that doesn’t mean he’s destined to remain that way. I’m only sorry I hadn’t written about him before. While you’re over on YouTube, check out his performance in the to Freddie Mercury.

I’m so glad I found my CD. I’ve thought of it many times over the last few years, wondering where it’d run off to and lamenting the fact that my other computer had died, taking the music with it. I’d camped out on YouTube and added all the Zucchero vids I could into my favorites, even creating a special category just for him. I know most of you think of me as blues obsessed…and I am…but first and foremost is my love for good music — Period. And Zucchero delivers. Go enjoy.