After walking with my son and his dog around Greenlake yesterday afternoon (Jesus! Can you believe that weather?) I took them to Sonic Boom in Fremont to hang out and look around for some records to spend a birthday gift certificate on.

First things first: Sonic Boom Fremont’s selection is too well managed. Where are all the crappy records from one hit wonders? Where’s the bad disco? Where’s the cases of second rate singer/songwriters? They must be very selective at Sonic Boom, because every record is, like, a precious collectable, with numerous hits, or brand spankin’ new vinyl by today’s indie sensations…. Whatever, just a gripe.

(Confidential to the guy behind the counter: When I asked, “If you had records by Pilot, where would they be?” Your response of, “Did you look under P?” was lame and unhelpful. Did you think I was retarded? Of course I looked under P. See above for what I really meant.)

Anyways. The one record I found that was of any interest to me was this gem by Jose Feliciano called, Feliciano!.

This was his second album in the english language (his sixth overall), and it is a stunner from start to finish. If all you know of Jose Feliciano is his Xmas song, Feliz Navidad!, then you are totally missing out. The production work on Feliciano! fantastic. Jose’s guitar doesn’t overpower the proceedings, he shows great control over his voice, and the orchestrations by George Tipton are totally mellowing and absolutely perfect.

My favorite track is his cover (well, the whole album is covers) of The Mama’s And The Papa’s hit, California Dreaming. It starts with solo guitar and his voice, then thirty seconds later when the orchestra and drums come in, it sends shivers down the spine. When he sings, “I went to a church I passed along the way.” this totally over the top organ swells up and pushes the song forward like a rogue wave. It’s such a great moment. And at the end there’s this little latin jazz bit as he scats in spanish, and the strings in the orchestra whine back and forth. Bliss. I think I listened to this 10 times yesterday. It feels even more pertinent with today’s shitty weather.

I guess some people might think of this as lounge-y or KIXI-esque. It’s not. So don’t deny yourself the pleasure of listening to this amazing track.

The download can be found at my blog, here.