Oh, but we're only half of the way there. Daptone and the Tofu Hut are also giving out what will be the B-side of the upcoming 7" vinyl single release, a thorough re-thinking of "This Land Is Your Land."

The label describes it as "heavy soul." That seems fair enough. Again, the arrangements of this bear close listening. The horn section just kicks ass.

They've re-thunk this song to the point that, unlike Woody Guthrie, they've really pretty much written a new melody for these words. I don't know that it's necessarily superior to the original on that count, but I bet you won't mistake it for the Carter family.

Put the new tune and the skillful and soulful arrangement and performance together, and this will probably come to be regarded as one of the best recorded performances of this song ever.

Also, for bonus points, they include the verse about "private property" that is rarely performed. I consider it to be the most interesting part of the lyric, so this is double cool. Again, check out John's write-up at Tofu Hut and download the song.

This Daptone label sure has some kind of interesting marketing going on here. For starters, they're putting this out apparently in a week or two as a 7" vinyl single. I don't know about paying $6.20 for such a thing. How many people can even play vinyl now?

However, giving out these songs for free as mp3s might well convince some folks to buy an album on CD which will presumably be forthcoming. Hey, this is something actually worth spending money on.

Also, for promotion they have positively embraced not just blogs, but absolutely the sub-phenomenon of MP3 blogs, which routinely put up copyright mp3s in legally marginal ways. You'll not likely see the majors going to the likes of John at the Tofu Hut for promotion, though I bet he's actually selling some records for them.

But perhaps they should. Someone like John is JUST the person you would want all enthusiastic about your new record. He's one of them there what they call "opinion maker" types. On top of which, Daptone is distributing their promotion using other people's bandwidth. All the better for them.