By now, those of you who follow Hawaiian music know that the
winner in that music category is Masters
of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar, Volume 2. But the story shouldn't end here if
you love Hawaiian music or are curious about it. Most of the voting members of
the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences - scores of producers, performers,
and engineers -- are not likely to be Hawaiian music aficionados; therefore, it
would be unwise to accept their judgment of "best." In the past four years,
they have voted slack key compilations as "best," ignoring solo albums, both
instrumental and vocal, such as Amy Hanaiali'i's gorgeous Generation Hawai'i album (which I actually prefer to her 2010
entry). I thought that this year the voting members of the Academy of Recording
Arts and Sciences would not once again ignore artist-driven albums in favor of
compilations.
Western Music Association
Co-Founder, Makes His Last Ride
Bill Jacobson passed away this week after a brief illness.
Bill was a founding member of the Western Music Association. At the initial
meeting in Las Vegas in 1988, volunteers were needed to launch a publication
that would pick up where the Sons of the Pioneers newsletter left off. It would
broaden the scope of coverage to include new music releases, articles of
historical interest, and help bring together musicians and fans who were
interested in preserving and continuing Western music.
Huun-Huur-Tu come from the former Soviet Autonomous Republic
of Tuva, a sparsely settled region of grasslands, boreal forests, and mountain
ridges that lies 2,500 miles east of Moscow Russia, situated at the center of
Asia, north of Mongolia. This indigenous music highlights rare instruments and
preserves what is arguably some of the world's oldest form of music making. The
best known genre of Tuvan music, xöömei (throat-singing), comprises what one
might call a lexicon of musical onomatopoeia in which natural sounds are mimetically
transformed into musical representations. Their past collaborations range from
Ry Cooder to The Kronos Quartet. The current album "Eternal" is a
collaboration with electronic musician & record producer Carmen Rizzo
(Niyaz, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Oakenfold, Seal) to form a unique blend of ambient
electronic and sonic textures compared to a Brian Eno style album. The album
takes you through a lush cinematic journey of almost dream like sequences of
deep happiness. Forty minutes of a thrilling ride from start to finish.
Buffy Sainte-Marie was a graduating college senior in 1962
and hit the ground running in the early Sixties, after the beatniks and before
the hippies. All alone she toured North America's colleges, reservations and
concert halls, meeting both huge acclaim and huge misperception from audiences
and record companies who expected Pocahontas in fringes, and instead were both
entertained and educated with their initial dose of Native American reality in
the first person.
On Just Us Kids,
James McMurty follows up his critically acclaimed Childish Things with a dozen new, sharply drawn illuminations as he
continues to hone and expand his considerable gifts. And the self-produced opus
(James' fourth venture pulling strings on both sides of the glass)
unquestionably represents his most ambitious, accomplished and ass-kicking
presentation to date.
Just Us Kids will
be the first release for Nashville-based Lightning Rod Records; label president
Logan Rogers previously worked as Vice President of A&R for Compadre
Records on McMurtry's previous two albums.
The Texas native long has been known as an astute,
clear-eyed observer and concise, no-holds-barred chronicler of the human
condition, but a growing socio-political edge fairly exploded just prior to the
2004 elections when his scathing, palace-rattling We Can't Make It Here was made available online as a free download.
T
Hossein Alizadeh is considered an inspiration to an entire generation of Iran's musical culture. He was born in Tehran in 1951, and has studied with various masters of traditional Persian music including Ali Akbar Khan Shahnazi, Nur Ali Borumand, Abdollah Davami, Mahmood Karimi and Houshang Zarif.
The 11th annual San Francisco Bluegrass & Old-Time
Festival (SFBOT), a nine-day festival occuring at various locations around the
Bay Area, will happen February 12-21, 2010. Featuring the most talented
musicians on the Americana and roots music scene today, the Festival comprises
over 30 shows at numerous small clubs around the Bay Area, welcoming more than
5,000 attendees each year.
Mythili Prakash is recognized as one of the world's leading
young exponents of Bharata Natyam - the classical dance of South India. Her
inventive approach to classicism revitalizes Bharata Natyam and awakens the
physicality, musicality and expressive theatricality of the dance to create an
exceptional style that is distinct and meaningful to audiences across the
world.
Rosie hails from the rural town of Church Point, Louisiana,
and learned to play the accordion by watching her husband and then practicing
on his accordion while he worked during the day With her self-penned tunes,
Ledet provides a unique female presence in the male-dominated zydeco world. She
sings in both Creole French and in English. Her songs are often sly and lusty
and combined with her natural good looks and distinctive, bluesy singing voice,
she wows audiences wherever she goes.
In a career that has already spanned a half-century, Jorma
Kaukonen has been the leading practitioner and teacher of fingerstyle guitar,
one of the most highly respected interpreters of American roots music, blues,
and Americana, and at the forefront of popular rock-and-roll. He was a founding
member of two legendary bands, The
Jefferson Airplane and the still-touring
Hot Tuna, a Grammy nominee, a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
and the most in-demand instructor in the galaxy of stars who teach at the Fur
Peace Ranch Guitar Camp that he and his wife operate in picturesque
Southeastern Ohio.
A lot media time has been spent lately documenting some
famous rock group that is re-forming many years after they imploded or
exploded. That can be important news, but it does tend to overshadow those
bands that don't have to re-form because they never broke up. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is one of those.
They've re-invented themselves a few times, and only two of the original
members remain in the band, but they have a long and happily continuing legacy
of providing excellent roots music.
Johnny Rivers' Shadows on the Moon Offers Fresh New Acoustic
Music
By Terry Roland
There are voices that have followed us through our lives.
We've heard them on our car radios as we've raced through the decades of our
childhood. They have played like a soundtrack for our lives through the
beaches, valleys, deserts and prarie roads we've traveled on our way to our
present. Johnny Rivers carries such a voice. So much so, when he sings, we sit
up and listen. We take notice because of our common history. When he first
emerged in the mid-sixties at his now legendary engagements and live recordings
at the Whiskey A-Go-Go, he created a tour de force that helped to break down
the wall between pop and folk music. With recordings like Where Have All The
Flowers Gone, Midnight Special and Memphis he did what it took The Byrds five
people to do; bring folk-rock to the musical stages of L.A. in the mid-sixties.
By now, those of you who follow Hawaiian music know that the
winner in that music category is Masters
of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar, Volume 2. But the story shouldn't end here if
you love Hawaiian music or are curious about it. Most of the voting members of
the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences - scores of producers, performers,
and engineers -- are not likely to be Hawaiian music aficionados; therefore, it
would be unwise to accept their judgment of "best." In the past four years,
they have voted slack key compilations as "best," ignoring solo albums, both
instrumental and vocal, such as Amy Hanaiali'i's gorgeous Generation Hawai'i album (which I actually prefer to her 2010
entry). I thought that this year the voting members of the Academy of Recording
Arts and Sciences would not once again ignore artist-driven albums in favor of
compilations.
Huun-Huur-Tu come from the former Soviet Autonomous Republic
of Tuva, a sparsely settled region of grasslands, boreal forests, and mountain
ridges that lies 2,500 miles east of Moscow Russia, situated at the center of
Asia, north of Mongolia. This indigenous music highlights rare instruments and
preserves what is arguably some of the world's oldest form of music making. The
best known genre of Tuvan music, xöömei (throat-singing), comprises what one
might call a lexicon of musical onomatopoeia in which natural sounds are mimetically
transformed into musical representations. Their past collaborations range from
Ry Cooder to The Kronos Quartet. The current album "Eternal" is a
collaboration with electronic musician & record producer Carmen Rizzo
(Niyaz, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Oakenfold, Seal) to form a unique blend of ambient
electronic and sonic textures compared to a Brian Eno style album. The album
takes you through a lush cinematic journey of almost dream like sequences of
deep happiness. Forty minutes of a thrilling ride from start to finish.
Buffy Sainte-Marie was a graduating college senior in 1962
and hit the ground running in the early Sixties, after the beatniks and before
the hippies. All alone she toured North America's colleges, reservations and
concert halls, meeting both huge acclaim and huge misperception from audiences
and record companies who expected Pocahontas in fringes, and instead were both
entertained and educated with their initial dose of Native American reality in
the first person.
On Just Us Kids,
James McMurty follows up his critically acclaimed Childish Things with a dozen new, sharply drawn illuminations as he
continues to hone and expand his considerable gifts. And the self-produced opus
(James' fourth venture pulling strings on both sides of the glass)
unquestionably represents his most ambitious, accomplished and ass-kicking
presentation to date.
The 11th annual San Francisco Bluegrass & Old-Time
Festival (SFBOT), a nine-day festival occuring at various locations around the
Bay Area, will happen February 12-21, 2010. Featuring the most talented
musicians on the Americana and roots music scene today, the Festival comprises
over 30 shows at numerous small clubs around the Bay Area, welcoming more than
5,000 attendees each year.
Rosie hails from the rural town of Church Point, Louisiana,
and learned to play the accordion by watching her husband and then practicing
on his accordion while he worked during the day With her self-penned tunes,
Ledet provides a unique female presence in the male-dominated zydeco world. She
sings in both Creole French and in English. Her songs are often sly and lusty
and combined with her natural good looks and distinctive, bluesy singing voice,
she wows audiences wherever she goes.
In a career that has already spanned a half-century, Jorma
Kaukonen has been the leading practitioner and teacher of fingerstyle guitar,
one of the most highly respected interpreters of American roots music, blues,
and Americana, and at the forefront of popular rock-and-roll. He was a founding
member of two legendary bands, The
Jefferson Airplane and the still-touring
Hot Tuna, a Grammy nominee, a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
and the most in-demand instructor in the galaxy of stars who teach at the Fur
Peace Ranch Guitar Camp that he and his wife operate in picturesque
Southeastern Ohio.
There are voices that have followed us through our lives.
We've heard them on our car radios as we've raced through the decades of our
childhood. They have played like a soundtrack for our lives through the
beaches, valleys, deserts and prarie roads we've traveled on our way to our
present. Johnny Rivers carries such a voice. So much so, when he sings, we sit
up and listen. We take notice because of our common history. When he first
emerged in the mid-sixties at his now legendary engagements and live recordings
at the Whiskey A-Go-Go, he created a tour de force that helped to break down
the wall between pop and folk music. With recordings like Where Have All The
Flowers Gone, Midnight Special and Memphis he did what it took The Byrds five
people to do; bring folk-rock to the musical stages of L.A. in the mid-sixties.
