with John McLaughlin & Paco de Lucia playing an acoustic version of "Lotus Feet". And in this they are joined by Larry Coryell, and blast through "A Meeting of The Spirits", two great Mahavishnu Orchestra tracks. You may also follow a previous music post on John and The Mahavishnu Orchestra.

By the way, the original track of "A Meeting of Spirits" from the album "Inner Mounting Flame", for me personally embodies a real life meeting some six summers ago that I consider one of the high points of this sufficient life. And after such a meeting how does meeting again or not, in this life or the next matter?

As Kurt Vonnegut puts it in "A Man Without A Country":

"That specific remedy for the worldwide epidemic of depression is a gift called the blues. All pop music today - jazz, jazz, swing, be-bop, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Stone, rock-and roll, and on and on - is derived from the blues.

Murray think this was because slaves had a way of dealing with depression, which their white owners did not: They could shoo away Old Man Depression by playing and singing the Blues. He says something else which also sounds right to me. He says blues can't drive depression clear out of a house, but can drive it into the corners of any room where it is played. So please remember that."

So here is some great blues:

John Lee Hooker playin'

1. I am Leavin'
2. Hobo Blues
3. The Healer with Santana
4. It Ain't Gonna Change with Santana
5. Baby Please Don't Go with Van Morrison
6. Gloria with Van Morrison

Hound Dog is 7) killing the slide guitar

T-Bone Walker plays the guitar and sings 8) Blues Ain't Nothing But a Woman 9) Don't Throw Your Love On Me So Strong

Howlin Wolf howls in 10) Love Me Darlin'

I first heard Peter Gabriel's music about four years ago on the radio when his very famous love song "In Your Eyes" was played late one summer night. Apart from the straight up love song that it was, what floored me was how he had managed to seamlessly weave soaring vocals of the Senegalese musician Yousoou N' Dour into that track. This transformed what would have been a love ballad that one routinely hears on the radio into a marker that would remain embedded in one's internal soundscape, to which one will return to often. So check out a similar live version of this song. This is another live version (and Part 2) performed during the Amnesty International "Human Rights Now" tour way back in 1988, which also features L. Shankar playing the violin. And finally , this version features Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

What I also like about Gabriel's music are the points of departure it offers to someone who wants to explore sonic geographies. Take the collaborations between Gabriel and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan or Baaba Mal (who also can be heard on the soundtrack of "Black Hawk Down") in the excellent soundtrack for the movie "The Last Temptation of Christ" - someone who might have been totally unaware of the mode of esctactic singing either Fateh Ali Khan or Baaba Maal embody can use the music in this album to venture into South Asian qawaali or African music.

"Shaking The Tree" is another collaboration between Yousoou and Gabriel that I liked. Also thanks to Gabriel, I also discovered the silken singing of Salif Ketia. Gabriel also shows up in the soundtrack of the movie, "The City of Angels", with this digre like song, "I Grieve".