Damn Fine Coffee! - 22 Caffeinated Tracks

Over the years I must have heard more than a few songs singing the praises of coffee, whether in Dutch (Rita Corita’s Koffie) or English (Squeeze’s Black Coffee in Bed, Bob Dylan’s One More Cup Of Coffee) and the idea of putting a coffee compilation together had begun.

A great example of such a collection was made by Bob Dylan, his Theme Time Radio Hour season 1 Episode 5: Coffee is fantastic, not at least by his great commentary. 

Other albums mention coffee in their titles but none of the songs concern this magic brew, some examples:

 

Martin Winch – Espresso Guitar

Tony Levin Band – Double Espresso

Bob James Trio – Espresso

Mental As Anything – Espresso Bongo

Morton Gould And His Orchestra – Coffee Time

Al Kooper – Black Coffee

The Sting-Rays – Cryptic And Coffee Time

Saint Etienne Present Songs for the Fountain Coffee Room

 

Even Starbucks released a few coffee themed CDs such as Blue Note Blend but the (admittedly excellent) music consisted of more mood enhancing instrumentals than songs praising coffee… Same for countless gutless Coffee Jazz collections or Barrista Beats, just aural wallpaper, suspiciously close to lounge muzak.

 

This year though Bear Family Records released a terrific collection: Meet Me At The Coffee Shop

Other bloggers have been active as well with posting similar themed collections, therefore I had to be careful to avoid duplications.

I also listened to contemporary hits, such as Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso and Kelly Rowland’s Coffee, but (unlike a good shot of caffeine!) these didn’t do anything to me… ‘COFFEE is about embracing your individuality, sexuality, or imperfections’ Seriously? Give me a break!

 

The end result is pretty good I thought, ranging from vintage blues, smokey jazz, raw funk, groovy instrumentals, cool country, weird shit, and more.

Included flavors are wide-ranging; we got black, hot, cold, Turkish, espresso, cappuccino, with cream/cigarettes/nicotine/gasoline/cocaine and even burnt toast! And to finish it off the final song seemed obvious:

Max Woiski singing the reasons why we all should be drinking Nescafé in Dutch!

 

Note that I made a coffee related post on my photo blog here: 

https://www.art58koen.net/single-post/a-magic-brew