Okay, so I’ve been listening to Le Show as a podcast for about a year now, and I’m in love with the music clips I hear on the show. But I am totally unexposed to that kind of music (the Blues I assume? See, that’s how much of a neophyte I am) and I would like to hear more. I know that the playlists are published, but rather than hunting down individual songs, I was hoping maybe someone could recommend a Harry-esque (WWHR*) compilation album or two that would make for a good introduction to the broad genre for me and help put me on the road to finding specific styles and artists to get even more of.

Thanks in advance!

WWHR: What Would Harry Recommend?

He plays a lot of New Orleans-influenced music, so I’d recommend that you find a nice local music shop (not one of the chains) and talk to the proprietors about your interest. If they’re at all decent, they’ll help you out. I’ve had a lot of luck with my funky local outlet, Lou’s Records in Leucadia, California. Just tell them about some of the artists or tunes you like and they’ll probably point you in the right direction.

Personal aside: there used to be a tiny little used record, tape, and CD store in Pacific Beach (part of San Diego) called the Hall of Records, sadly now long gone. It was built in the alleyway between two other buildings and was almost literally a hallway. I once went in there and found an album by a fairly obscure artist named Tonio K (“Life in the Food Chain”). When I went up to purchase it, the owner just looked at me, smiled, and said “cooooooool”. Made me smile for a week.

Some of the music aired on “Le Show” is probably out of print, since I have it on good authority that Mr Shearer never throws anything away (musically speaking—I have no knowledge of any of this other personal habits). I mean, who else could come up with a copy of Glen Yarborough’s “Listen to the Warm” (written by everyone’s favorite hippie “poet” Rod McKuen, no less).

I still mourn the day that I had to give up my vinyl collection when I moved from Monterey to San Diego, lo these many years ago.

I’d heartily recommend pandora for finding new music. Visit pandora.com and enter a few of Harry’s artists or songs, then let it play you stuff that’s similar.
Alternatively, go to last.fm and have a browse through it. It’s sort of the same but more complicated.

(ps – does Harry read these?)

I don’t want to get on a rant about supporting local businesses, so let me say that while web resources are great for finding a lot of stuff, don’t cut your neighborhood shop out of the loop.

Local record shops (again, not the big chains) are generally run by folks who actually love what they’re doing and selling. Most of them are not in it only for the money, and they employ your friends and neighbors.

It’s always more fun to talk music (or art or whatever) with someone who really digs the subject than with some random order-taker or, worse yet, some random server.

Heck, you might even make a new friend with whom you can hang out.

Hard to do that with a web site.