I recently “discovered” the already long discovered, multi-award-winning songwriter and humorist, J.W. McClure, when I was hosting a showcase at the 2011 FAR-West Folk Alliance Conference in Eugene, Oregon. From the minute I heard the first few measures of his popular new cat song, Blue, I knew I was hooked. And my McClure “addiction” has only gotten worse since then.
McClure plays an irresistibly smooth and engaging blues guitar, seasoned with an old-time jazzy sound. Better still, in his third album, Cowboys on the Skyline, this rhythmic, acoustic styling is accentuated by the brilliant multi-instrumentalist, Thaddeus Spae. Spae brings a big 6-string guitarron – played as an upright jazz bass – to 12 of the 14 tracks. In addition, he adds a variety of lead guitar, harmonica, back-up vocals, trombone, banjo and tuba to the album. That’s right, tuba. As I am about to tell you, this album is big fun.
The Gothard Sisters are three siblings from Edmonds, WA who perform traditional and contemporary music and dance. Highly skilled musicians and dancers, Greta (25), Willow (23) and Solana (16) have been performing and recording together for much of their lives and this comes through strongly in their music and arranging. Their new album, Story Girl, features many of the ideas and pieces the girls have developed over the last few years of a rigorous touring schedule across the U.S and Canada. All three sisters trained from an early age in the violin and while trio string arrangements are a hallmark of their playing, they are all multi-instrumentalists and singers as well as champion Irish step dancers. Because they come from a background steeped in many influences, the new album doesn’t fall strictly into any one genre but instead features both Irish, Scottish, Americana and Classical ideas intertwined in a number of self-composed tunes along with a few fresh takes of older traditional material.
Singer/songwriter Lucy Billings’ second folk/Americana CD, No Other Road, provides a wonderful combination of “shine” and substance. From the opening measure, the “shine” – emanating from Billings’ clear inviting voice and a stellar cast of studio musicians – makes the album an instant winner. But it is the substance – the melodic flow and refreshingly honest lyrics – that makes the album enduringly enjoyable. Laced with engaging personal stories, thought-provoking themes, instrumental nuances, and interesting chord progressions, No Other Road never loses its appeal, no matter how many times I listen to it.
Released in January 2011, No Other Road was produced and engineered by multi-instrumentalist/producer, John Jennings (best known for his work with Mary Chapin Carpenter), and it boasts some exquisite arrangements. Jennings has brought together some of the top studio musicians in Americana music to play on these songs. In addition to his own acoustic and electric guitar, piano, bass, and percussion, and Billings’ acoustic guitar, the album features: .
With her new second album, Let the Storm Roll In, Claudia Nygaard is enjoying one of the most richly deserved success stories on the folk/Americana scene today. After years of honing her craft – performing at over 150 fairs and festivals in 47 states and across Europe, and working as a full-time staff songwriter on Nashville’s Music Row – Nygaard has emerged as an award-winning singer-songwriter whose new album has swept the Americana, Roots, and Folk Charts (actually staying on the Folk Charts for three months now).
Produced by Nygaard in 2011, Let The Storm Roll In provides an excellent showcase for her multiple talents and mastery of several styles. From quiet country/folk story-songs to old-time country roots…from upbeat love-and-heartache songs (delivered by self-described “torch singers in cowboy boots”) to social commentary…from personal ballads to laugh-out-loud humor, Claudia is a consummate storyteller. And her rich, warm voice is well suited for all these styles.
Listening to Catch the Sunset, the sixth album of Minnesota singer-songwriter, Barb Ryman, I can’t help thinking she really has caught it….in all the ephemeral beauty, the simultaneous sadness and radiance, of every sunset since the dawn of time. This is one profoundly beautiful and beautifully profound CD.
Catch the Sunset is primarily a collection of story songs in the folk tradition, and Barb Ryman is a consummate story-teller. Drawing inspiration from real life (often her own), her songs are laced with detail but never boring; never too long, and never overly dramatic – a quality that allows room for the listener to call up his or her own personal experiences. She sings them all in a high, pure voice that reminds me of the clarity I used to love in early Joan Baez recordings.
From touching songs such as Soldier’s Daughter (about the loss of her father, a navy pilot, when she was four years old)...to incisive political songs like Nursery Rhymes, there is a stunning sincerity in her voice; an unflinching truthfulness and brave vulnerability that immediately command attention.
October 4, 2011; the much-anticipated release of The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams, spearheaded by Bob Dylan for Hank William’s estate, had to take a back seat today to more urgent news about Hank Williams, Jr. Bocephus crashed the party by getting booted off of Monday Night Football, where his sun-glasses tough guy persona has reigned supreme since 1989, due to his unfortunate comparing of President Obama to Adolph Hitler in an ESPN interview over the weekend.
So instead of waking up to cheering news that major contemporary artists Alan Jackson, Merle Haggard, Sheryl Crow, Jack White, Levon Helm, Vince Gill and Rodney Crowell, Patty Loveless, Norah Jones, Lucinda Williams, and Bob Dylan had rescued a dozen of Hank Sr.’s lyrics that he had never had time to set to music, and created a masterpiece of a tribute album to the “Shakespeare of Country Music,” all of the attention on AOL’s Huffpost this morning went to his jackass son, who has never been shy about calling attention to himself. After all, as he put it in an old song, it’s a Family Tradition.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the acapella group Anonymous 4. They are team of four singers specializing in, though not always limited to, medieval music. During that time they have released a number of recordings including two collections of music by Hildegard von Bingen, and have been recognized as among the foremost interpreters of the music of this period; but they have also ventured into American gospel and rural folksong (Gloryland with Darol Anger and Mike Marshall). Though they had considered retiring the team in 2004, they have continued touring and recording and they are far from wearing out their welcome. If you are not familiar with their work, their website www.anonymous4.com is well worth a visit. The latest release from Anonymous 4 “Secret Voices: Chant & Polyphony from the Las Huelgas Codex c.1300” is a collection of music from the Cistercian Abbey of Santa Maria la Real de Las Huelgas near Burgos in northern Spain.
Double strung instruments have not been staples of Irish music for very long, perhaps only becoming popular since the late sixties and early seventies, spread by the likes of Johnny Moynihan, Andy Irvine, Donal Lunny and Alec Finn, but they have become emblematic of the resurgence and ensuing worldwide commercial success of traditional and folk music. Today, bouzoukis, mandolins, and octave mandolins, citterns, blarges, mandolas and mandocellos are found in folk groups across Europe and in the USA. Despite this success it is rare to find a recording that features only such instruments. Jimmy Crowley, Irish balladeer par excellence, and early adopter of the bouzouki, and Marla Fibish, San Francisco Bay Area based mandolin wonder, have released an album that is all double strung, all the time. And it is magnificent. Featuring the Gibson A model mandolin Marla was given by her grandfather, her mandola, and Crowley's bouzouki, mandocello, mandolin, and Dordán (a mighty bouzouki like creature with a deep and powerful bass), this recording captures the power, the rhythmic intensity, the heavenly harmonics and the sheer joy that flows from these instruments, when in the right hands. Marla and Jimmy are old friends, having toured and played together over the course of some years, and shows by this duo are always a delight.
Susie Glaze & The Hilonesome Band and the venerable Berkeley venue the Freight and Salvage. Sounds like a good match, and this recording made in July of 2010 proves it.
These folks are known for mixing folk, mountain music and bluegrass with just a smidgen of pop sheen. Susie and the band are high energy talented musicians who make great recordings, and as this recording shows, are also high energy talented live performers.
The set list mixes some songs associated with Susie’s mentor Jean Ritchie, and also originals from band member Rob Carlson. Carlson plays lead guitar, resonator guitar and provides harmony vocals. Glaze plays guitar and mountain dulcimer. Husband Steve Rankin adds mandolin, guitar, harmony vocals and lead vocals on the set closing version of Steve Earle’s Pilgrim. Fred Saunders plays bass and adds harmonies, and Mark Indictor plays fiddle. Banjo player extraordinaire Bill Evans guests on two songs. This is one hot band.
If this tangled, modern world has got you down and you yearn for the simpler, good ole’ days, tune into Caleb Klauder for the most authentic reincarnation of Traditional Country, Honky Tonk and Old Time music you’ve ever heard....and a guaranteed, high-energy pick-me-up.
In the course of the past year, Klauder has given us two new CDs that sound as if they were recorded back in the days when albums were made of vinyl and recording artists didn’t have the luxury of overdubs and digital enhancements. In fact, both his albums - Western Country, released in Fall 2010 with his 6-piece country band, and Sud de la Louisiane, released in 2011 as part of the Foghorn Trio (see accompanying review) - were recorded live in the studio. Rich with tight harmonies, honky tonk rhythm and twang, the result is visceral: both albums capture the foot-stompin’ excitement, raw vitality and spontaneous joy of a live band.
For a slice of bona-fide old-time Americana -- or, as they describe themselves, the kind of “ass-kickin redneck stringband music” you’d expect to hear on some front porch in Appalachia in the 1930s -- there is no better contemporary band than The Foghorn Trio. The Trio is an offshoot of The Foghorn Stringband, which has been together for ten years. Based in Portland, Oregon, with four albums to their credit, the up to 7-member band (depending on availability) has long been one of the brightest stars on the thriving Old Time Music Revival scene in the Northwest.
The Foghorn Trio is a distillation of this stellar group, comprised of founding members Caleb Klauder and Stephen “Sammy” Lind, and the recently-added French Arcadian bassist, Nadine Landry. All three are accomplished multi-instrumentalists and excellent singers in their own right. And they show it off accordingly: Klauder on hard-driving mandolin, fiddle, guitar and vocals….Lind on high-octane fiddle, guitar, banjo and vocals….and Landry on guitar, upright bass, and vocals. The result is pure joy.
Blame Sally is a band based in the San Francisco area. This quartet of talented women singer-songwriters came together in 2000, putting their individual careers on hold to form a group that is far more than the sum of the parts. They perform a passionate and melodic mix of acoustic folk-rock tinged Americana music with rock, Latin and even occasional Celtic flavors.
Monica Pasqual (piano, keys, accordion, melodica, vocals), Renee Harcourt (guitar, bass, banjo, harmonica, vocals), Jeri Jones (guitar, bass, Dobro, mandolin, vocals) and Pamela Delgado (percussion, guitar, vocals) have found an infectious energy together, which combined with their great songs has led them to develop an ever-expanding and intensely devoted audience.
It's rare that a studio album is able to capture the vitality and exuberance of a band that is best known for their dynamic live performances. Too often, the interaction between band and audience doesn't survive the transition to the starkness of the studio. Yet, after a very successful collaboration with Grammy-nominated producer Lee Townsend on their last studio CD, Night of 1000 Stars (2009), Blame Sally opted to self-produce this time, striving to capture the magnetic energy of their live performances on the CD. I'm happy to say that they have succeeded.
During the Bicentennial in 1976 there were a plethora of patriotic gestures on every front, a flag-waving resurgence of national pride after the recent debacle of Watergate and the ignominious end to the Vietnam War. Even the staid National Geographic Society got into the act, deciding to make a simple statement of enduring American values by releasing an album of cowboy songs. So whom did they get to represent the American Cowboy? Not Gene Autry, not Roy Rogers, and not Tex Ritter; they dug deeper than the silver screen, and roped Berkeley cowboy Larry Hanks into their cause.
Good choice; Larry Hanks sturdy, reliable earthy voice captures as well as anyone can the spirit of the American west—when he sang about Billy the Kid you found yourself looking over your shoulder, to make sure the Kid hadn’t snuck up behind you with a drawn six-gun. And when Larry wrapped his deep bass voice and guitar around The Brazos River, you had no trouble dreaming your way back to the anonymous hired hand from whom Irene Castle learned the song in 1921, who recorded it for Vance Randolph.
The luckiest fans of acoustic music on the night of January 7th, 2011 in Los Angeles were smack dab in the audience of McCabe's Guitar Shop for a concert from one of this country's landmark and pre-eminent songwriters of our generation, the great Ernest Troost. As an opener for Kenny Edwards in 2010, Ernest impressed, and this year yielded up a night unto himself, a very aptly deserved reward. Now in hand as Ernest Troost LIVE at McCabe's, this stellar new CD is the wonderful take-away from that evening's performances of Ernest's brilliant songwriting, amazing guitar work and fabulous accompanying players and singers.
As I previously wrote in these pages, "2009 Kerrville New Folk Winner Ernest Troost's newest album, the aptly titled Resurrection Blues, is a brilliant new piece of songwriting art. Its thirteen Piedmont-blues influenced songs tell stories of passion, lost love and regret-filled lives at a cross-roads, looking for a modern-day answer to 'how did things ever get this far?' and 'when did the darkness fall?'
Freebo is best recognized for the decade or more that he recorded and toured with Bonnie Raitt. In fact, Freebo is a genuine folk, rock and blues icon. For more than 30 years, Freebo has played bass and tuba on recordings and toured with some of the great artists of our time: Bonnie Raitt, John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, Crosby Stills & Nash, Maria Muldaur, Ringo Starr, Michelle Shocked, Neil Young, Loudon Wainwright III, Dr. John, and many others. He has also appeared on Saturday Night Live, Midnight Special, Muppets Tonight, and in concert with the legendary Spinal Tap.
When I first met Freebo back in 1997, he had just released his debut solo album, The End Of The Beginning, and was just learning to step into the spotlight as a headliner after decades as a consummate side- man. That CD featured appearances by many of his talented friends including Bonnie Raitt, Paul Barrere, Catfish Hodge, Albert Lee, Sam Clayton and others. That CD has a variety of styles and showed great promise for Freebo's future solo career including some clever song writing, good rock and pop sensibilities developed over decades of working with some of the best artists around, and fine production by Freebo and Michael Jochum.
Reprinted from the Songmakers Bard Chord with permission
Forget the banjo jokes. If you’ve ever heard him play live, you know: Dan Levitt can make a banjo sound like nothing you’ve ever heard before. And this gem of a CD captures it all. With his debut CD, Fancy That! Banjo Artistry Of Dan Levitt, “the man with the golden banjo” has produced an amazing treasure trove of beautiful music, both original and traditional. On some of the tracks – if you did not know what you were listening to – you might not even realize it was a banjo!
Levitt achieves this sound with an instrument that is like nothing you’ve ever seen before, either.
A master craftsman as well as a classically trained musician, Dan Levitt worked on this 5-string banjo – on and off – for 25 years. Completed in 2003, it contains approximately 300 pieces of inlay, 800 pieces of marquetry, and numerous intricate carvings. It is, in itself, an incredible work of art.
All Wood and Doors by James Lee Stanley and Cliff Eberhardt is one of those CDs that sounds both new and familiar at the same time, and for good reason.
The origins for the new All Wood and Doors collection go back a couple of years to when a mutual friend introduced James Lee to John Densmore of the Doors. John commented that he enjoyed the All Wood And Stones collection that was released back in 2004 by James Lee Stanley and John Batdorf. Densmore offered to participate in the project if James Lee ever did the same type of folk treatment to the Doors songs.
(All Wood and Stones is a collection of Rolling Stones songs that James Lee Stanley and John Batdorf lovingly created in an acoustic, guitar and harmony driven style. Imagine an early 1970s Crosby, Stills & Nash tackling the Rolling Stones catalog. The CD was well received and got great reviews.)
James Lee Stanley has been a staple of the Los Angeles area singer- songwriter scene for more than 40 years, releasing 25 albums since his self-titled debut album in 1973. In spite of the fact that his 1998 album Freelance Human Being was listed by Fi Magazine as one of the top 200 recordings of all time, he remains one of the great undiscovered talents in American pop music.
By "undiscovered," I mostly mean that he hasn't sold quite as many albums as he'd like! For truly he has had a stellar career with early albums on both the RCA and MCA labels and later releases on his own Beachwood Recordings label which has also released albums by other well respected artists such as Laurence Juber, Hamilton Camp and Peter Tork.
For those who have followed James Lee Stanley's career for any length of time, it is obvious that he continues to grow as an artist. His voice seems to get stronger with each release while his composition and arranging skills continue to advance. This has never been more true than with his most recent solo studio releases The Eternal Contradiction (2007) and New Traces of the Old Road (2008). I'm happy to say that his new CD, Backstage At The Resurrection (2011) continues this trend.
I've long thought that contra dance bands would make great performance bands. Actively blending popular traditions from Celtic to Cape Breton, old-time to bluegrass, with hints of Scandinavian and French- Canadian influences, contra dance bands should have laser precision and the ability to turn on a dime. Of course, the problem is that most contra dance bands are used to playing 15 minute long medleys of highly repetitive tunes, so some work has to be done to adapt a contra dance band to a concert stage. Here are three bands that have developed musical styles so tight and compelling that if they're not playing concert venues now, I hope they will soon.
It seems inevitable that the most talented of songwriters will sooner or later be compelled to do an album of cover songs. This offering by Fur Dixon and Steve Werner is a wonderful testament to the musicians that have inspired them.
The selections — legends Doc & Merle Watson and Woody Guthrie; folk heroes Jim Ringer, Mary McCaslin and the late Blaze Foley; talented local friends Randall Lamb and Dan Janisch — show not only the kinds of songs Fur and Steve like to perform and listen to but those that showcase their considerable talents.
Fur and Steve’s harmonies have always been highlights of their work. The arrangements are tight and the instrumentation just right. Steve’s guitar leads and runs add a pleasing dimension to the vocals, always tastefully applied, never overdone. On Dreary Black Hills and I Cannot Settle Down, Steve adds banjo, I imagine the one that his friends chipped in to buy him for his birthday a couple years ago, The banjo work is subdued and effective.
Johanna Divine’s Mile-High Rodeo is an instant Americana classic. Just like that! Every song gleans from a different roots music genre and adds what appears to be a Divine touch. She possesses a real knack for melodic hooks, a skill honed, perhaps, from writing jingles for local merchants in Lafayette, Louisiana, her hometown of the past several years. Then there’s the voice; not a seductive Crystal Gayle soprano, nor a lean and stern Tammy Wynette croon, but an up front mid-range that gets the most out of her Knoxville, Tennessee delivery. Divine does not shy away from any style from the Americana catalog. All songs are originals, but you know she’s been around the jukebox of country, swing, jazz, rockabilly, honky-tonk, and torch songs, absorbing a lot of that true grit from the 1930s to the 1960s eras.
I took one look at the cover of this CD and concluded that it was a shoe-in for the 2011 Grammy for Best Hawaiian Music Album. After five years of awarding it to compilations of slack key guitar music, the mucky-mucks could enjoy a refreshing twist on their love affair with slack key. Celebrated vocalist, Amy Hanaiali’i, who has lost out to slack key at the Grammies more than once, had teamed up with five masters of the beloved guitar tradition: Cyril Pahinui, Sonny Lim, Dennis Kamakahi, Jeff Peterson, and Chino Montero. It’s a dazzling collaboration and thoroughly enjoyable listening. Did it win the Grammy? No! This year the award for Best Hawaiian album went to a vocalist of more limited gifts than Amy and no hint of slack key guitar on the cover. Go figure! We move on...
Although it was recorded in a studio, Amy Hanaiali’i and Slack Key Masters of Hawaii has the flavor of a live concert. The musicians each get a turn being center stage, accompanying Amy, in some cases singing with her or playing slack key with one another. Not only do they display their gifts as musicians; in some cases, they showcase their own compositions.
The sun had just risen over Mount Haleakala when we mounted our bikes. Encased in a hooded ski jacket provided by the tour service, I could still feel the bite of the icy air, which began to sting my cheeks as we gained speed. But an hour later, the moonscape of the Haleakala crater seemed worlds away and the lush ranch lands of its slopes came into view. I shed my jacket and enjoyed watching horses calmly grazing in the distance. I will never forget this view of verdant Maui.
Slack key guitarist Jeff Peterson pays tribute to the place where he grew up with his Grammy-nominated CD, Maui on My Mind. The son of a paniolo (Hawaiian cowboy), Peterson has distinguished himself as a versatile soloist, sought – after accompanist- working with established talent such as vocalist, Amy Hanaiali’i – and, most exciting of all, as a composer.
Hard to define, eclectic, versatile... are the frequent descriptions Lawrence Lebo has received during and after her three volume set of releases, American Roots, which has now been fully realized with the release of last year’s final recording in the series. That’s she not he, hence the Don’t Call Her Larry proclamation and album sub-title.
After exploring Big Band blues of the 1930s and 1940s in volume 1 and then displaying her songwriting and arranging skills via the live album in volume 2, in the concluding recording, that versatility is reconfirmed in a simple yet elegant setting with Ms. Lebo accompanied, for the most part, by bassist Denny Croy (Doug MacLeod, Brian Setzer Orchestra). This is song production de-constructed and built back up for the sake of the singer and the song, i.e., it’s not about Spector’s Wall of Sound.
Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yes, they’ve been around for a long, long time. Ian Dury wrote a song about the lifestyle. Eric Bogosian did a one-man show on it. Too many hair bands have worn it on their sleeve or inked it on their ____ (fill in the first thing that comes to mind). But back when hooch, a snort of stardust, and carnal pleasures, were sold under the counter, down the alley, on the wrong side of the tracks, and in the back seat, songs about said vices were sung with a very thin negligee of metaphor and without the help from high definition video accompaniment. Because of strict censorship, there was a thing called imagination (read: dirty mind) which made this music titillate ones cerebellum as it traversed the tenderloin district.
The Grammy category for Cajun and Zydeco music is only three years old. A young musician from San Felipe, Texas had his first solo album nominated in 2008 and his second effort made the list in 2009. This year, he’s back again as if it’s as sure a thing as his birthday. At 27 years of age, Cedric Watson, a relative newcomer to the scene, has reached the heights of the recording arts, sharing the charts and accolades with established Cajun and Zydeco giants such as Buckwheat Zydeco, Terrance Simien and Beausoleil.
Ignoring for the most part the trend of other young Zydeco artists to lean heavily, if not exclusively into hip-hop, smooth R & B, and funk, Watson honed his skills by keeping within the guidelines established by the old school legends of Creole and Cajun music.
If you take the accordion out of Cajun music and take the Cajun music out of the dance hall, what will you get? Ace fiddler, David Greely, an original member of the Mamou Playboys, lets us in on a secret most Cajun music aficionados know about, but rarely get to hear, at least in recordings or outside of Louisiana. With Sud du Sud (South of South), the fiddle has a life of its own and in a setting such as this, one gets to experience the instrument away from the din of the Fais dodo.
With help from local Louisiana talent: Joel Savoy, Sam Broussard, and Gina Forsyth, to name but a few, we get to sit on the front porch or in the kitchen, and listen to the fiddles carry the melodies and the tune without the backbeat, the accordion, a rub board, or even a triangle, dividing our attention. Only one waltz features his vocals. Greely shares with us his interests and influences by playing relatively obscure but no less compelling songs some re-tuned, others rearranged for fiddle.
Three Mile Stone are three musical compatriots playing and singing sweet, soulful Irish music in the San Francisco Bay Area. Friends for many years, mandolinist Marla Fibish, fiddler Erin Schrader, and guitarist Richard Mandel formalized their musical comradeship as Three Mile Stone several years back, and music lovers are the better for it. There is an easy, trance inducing lilt to everything on this recording, even the driving (and they do drive!) tunes. Lots of love in these notes.
Lots of chops, too. Erin is a rare fiddler of taste and emotional tone with a sense of space and roots in her playing that is quite beguiling. And Richard is her match on guitar, with a lightning right hand and spot on chord choices. He is also a precise and powerful tenor banjo player.
For obvious reasons, I should not be reviewing Uncle
Ruthie's new double CD; full disclosure: we have been friends for twenty-five
years, she has cooked noodle kugel for me, I have sung at all of her husbands'
memorial services, she has confided in me about each of her boyfriends and
assured me that the only reason she was interested in them is because I wasn't
available, and I have been a guest on her classic KPFK radio program Halfway Down the Stairs for more times
than I can remember-usually losing a nights' sleep to get there at 7:00am to
prepare for her 8:00am start time.
Thus, not only is objectivity out of the question; I am not
even able to be impartial, or anything less than avowedly pro-all things-Uncle
Ruthie, due to the simple fact that I love her.
The ‘ukeke is a small, three-stringed Hawaiian instrument
made of koa wood, plucked while held in the mouth, which acts as a resonating
chamber. Its otherworldly pulsating sound would not bring to mind John Lennon.
But in the first 12 beats of Keola Beamer
& Raiatea, a lone 'ukeke
ushers in the opening notes of Imagine.
Played by Moanalani Beamer (Keola Beamer's wife and ensemble member), it keeps
solemn time while Keola Beamer and Raiatea Helm perform the song in beautifully
intertwined Hawaiian and English. Keola accompanies their vocals in his
signature slack key (ki ho 'alu)
guitar style and the Spring Wind Quintet enriches the arrangement. Hawaiian
chanting (oli) by Charles Ka'upu
brings this unique version of Imagine
to a close. The effect is of a universal hymn.
Neil Young is always willing to take things a little further along than the rest of the pack. While many roots artists are still catching up with the Cash/Rubin era of bare-to-the-bone acoustic recordings which began in the 1990s, Young has released Le Noise with the considerable visionary support of Daniel Lanois (even the album's name seems to echo a tribute to the great producer who has recently recovered from a life-threatening motocycle accident) and has given us a singular stripped-down distortion-driven album; lyrical and vulnerable, with studio effects commonly used to shield rather than expose. The success of La Noise hinges on the writer's ability to engage and the artist's willingness to risk, something Young has been doing for decades with sometimes stunning successes and failures
By the time I realized I wasn't listening to a Segovia
record, I remembered what a masterful finger-style guitar player Craig Lincoln
is. Seconds later, I remembered the beautifully tight harmonies that I have
come to expect when Sabrina and Craig sing, and the opening song, Sabrina's Make You Mine demonstrates that
wonderfully.
Craig's humor abounds in Little
White Lies and the painfully cute Cats
& Dogs, while Sabrina's shines in Help
Wanted and her car song, Mine All
Mine.
The title track is hauntingly melodic and the lyrics parse
the Chinese symbol for love. "愛" consists of a heart, inside of "accept,"
"feel," or "perceive," and it may also be interpreted as a
hand offering ones heart to another hand. A very imaginative message as well as
a beautiful composition.
You haven't experienced the full aesthetic potential of If I Were a Rich Man from Fiddler on the Roof until you have heard The Temptations' rendition of the Broadway favorite. You can dig-a-dig-a-dum this and 14 other recordings of Black artists interpreting Jewish content in Black Sabbath: The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations, a CD released this September by the Idelsohn Society, an organization dedicated to collecting and preserving precious old recordings with Jewish content and exploring their significance.
This collection, packaged in a handsome mock-book with ample liner notes, can be appreciated on many levels. There are masterful interpretations by luminaries such as Billy Holiday, Alberta Hunter, and Cannonball Adderley. There are songs that stir memories of an era of American history or a state of American race relations that seems long past yet resonates emotionally. Some cuts may even provoke a negative reaction.
The ever chameleonic Fishtank
Ensemble have once again added more colors to their palette, spilling over
into a pastiche of songs, traditional and new, retaining their own style, but
honoring the sources. This is an epic musical variety show except all the
performances are performed by four talented musicians and some added guests.
Their third recording, propagated from a group pared down
from 2007's Samurai Over Serbia, is Woman in Sin. There's nothing like a
live show by Fishtank Ensemble, but if studio production loses some of the visceral
of the powerful group's 3D presence, it does allow for insightful listening
where one can bear audible witness to the group's attention to detail on each
of the twelve tracks, not to mention the wide range in which they can operate.
CD Review originally appeared in FolkWorks V4N5 Sep/Oct 2004Â
Fans of the Vermont-based trio Nightingale have had to wait a long time for Three, the band's third CD. It has been eight years since the last recording (Sometimes When the Moon is High; the first CD was entitled The Coming Dawn). Three is worth the wait. Bottom line, here's what you should know about this CD: it is a musical feast, full of thoughtfully crafted medleys, excellently played. Becky Tracy's fiddling is strong and expressive, whether she's singing out a melody, weaving in a harmony or providing a rhythmic riff. In Jeremiah McLane's inspired accordion and piano playing, you can hear evidence of his study of styles such as Quebecois and French music, as well as his masters degree in Contemporary Improvisation. Keith Murphy not only plays superbly on mandolin, guitar, piano, and on his feet (providing foot percussion); he also has a fine singing voice.
Are you happy?" inquires the tall imposing figure of
Bassekou Kouyate at a concert earlier this year at the Getty. As if insecure
about the effects of his music which should evoke this sense of elation, he
repeats this question at the end of every other song. And as the set
progresses, you decide, yes, I am happy, regardless of the language barrier and
the actual content of each song. The layperson can appreciate the technique and
the rolling wave of sound, not to mention the energy radiated by each of the
musicians who go from stoic self-conscious performance to playful dancing and
contagious smiles. Hints of 60s-era jamming weave in and out of the melodies
which retain the griot spiritual sensibility. This is not uncommon in much of
Malian music, and especially that of the stringed instrument variety.
At any given acoustic jam that might include musicians of
old time, Celtic, Appalachian, or any other form that serves up songs of a
traditional disposition, you might hear a certain similarity between old
ballads, folk blues, lullabies, and church music. There might be a twist in the
lyrics that bends an old Irish lament into something akin to an American blues
tune or a harmonica melody might remind you of some doleful dirge from a
concertina heard in a nameless pub you fell into one night.
Songs from the Atlantic Fringe, a collaborative effort from three musicians, collectively known as The Unwanted, calls attention to this common ground where music has infiltrated one continent and then returned, altered here and there, often colored with regional lyrics or instrumentation.Â
When Pete Seeger was charged with Contempt of Congress for
not answering House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)'s questions on
August 18, 1955, he began a long sojourn as an underground artist, after having
headed the most successful pop folk quartet in music history just five years
before. That would be The Weavers,
which crashed and burned less than one year after soaring to the top of the hit
parade in 1950, with their two-sided hit record of Tzena Tzena Tzena and Goodnight
Irene. They were blacklisted before the year was out, and had two years
worth of bookings cancelled on them overnight.
Los Angeles was the home of the invention of country rock in
the late 1960s, and for almost a decade this genre flourished and made millions
of dollars for the major record companies. The Eagles were probably the most
famous of the groups that played country rock, although only their first record
and portions of the next few really mined this genre.
The original release of Silver
Meteor (on Sierra as well) was back in 1980. It served not only as a great
overview of LA country rock music including some now almost forgotten artists,
but it also featured the four songs that the late Clarence White recorded for
his first solo album. Sadly, this project was not completed since a few weeks
after these recordings were done, White was killed by a drunk driver while
loading his equipment following a gig in Palmdale.
Having just ended a year that saw Pete Seeger's 90th
birthday celebrated by rock and folk royalty at the Madison Square Garden,
after being awarded his first competitive Grammy for the album Pete Seeger:
At 89, it is chastening to be reminded what all the fuss was about with
this brand new release of an extraordinary concert that Pete gave 45 years ago
on February 20, 1965-recorded live but only now released for the first time.
If you think you have heard the best of Pete Seeger with his
Grammy-winning album, or even with the moving and memorable performance at
Obama's Inaugural Concert last January 20, think again.
Tom Corbett's new CD, Tonight I Ride, is the kind of fun, quality album that those who have worked with him in the Southern California music scene for many years always knew he was capable of putting together. This is Tom's third solo release and -- with no disrespect meant to his first two efforts -- it is his best album so far.
Tom's mandolin, guitar and harmony vocals have graced the recordings and performances of a numerous assortment of Southern California's folk and bluegrass community. He has been one of the most versatile acoustic artists on the West Coast Americana scene for a number of years now, including a regular stint with John McEuen's String Wizards.
Inspired is a CD of elegant Scottish music by David Brewer,
the piper and whistle player in the Celtic band Molly's Revenge, and Rebecca
Lomnicky, a young fiddler from Oregon. "Elegant" or perhaps "stately" seem to
be the best words to capture the atmosphere, in particular the fiddle style. It
is slower and more refined than old-time or Irish fiddling, but it is not classical
music either. If you are not familiar with this genre, this CD is a good
introduction. If you are already a fan Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas, Inspired will be an enjoyable addition
to your CD collection.
Evie Ladin, step dancer, banjo player and singer in the
Stairwell Sisters has just released her first collection of songs, Float Downstream. From the opening
track, I Love My Honey, with its
stripped down banjo, rhythm and voice, she shows you where she's from-- "a girl
who ran barefoot through muddy festivals, soaking up traditional American music
and dance." Although this tune (from fiddler Santford Kelly) and the album have
those late night acoustic elements of fire and firewater, its overall sound has
a more global, contemporary singer-songwriter blend.
It's hard not to like Pokey
La Farge and the South City Three. For want of a better term, Pokey and the
boys play "good time music." If you're old enough to remember the Lovin' Spoonful or the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, then you have some
idea of what type of music Pokey plays. Maybe you're a blues fan and know about
the Memphis Jug Band. Maybe you're a
folk fan and you like The New Lost City
Ramblers. You know that Pokey does. But perhaps you don't like upbeat
music. Perhaps you can't abide by humor in music, or even just plain silliness.
Perhaps you have no fondness for straw hats and spats. If so, then read no
more.
Pokey La Farge is a St. Louis based musician, all of twenty
six years old.
The package is so gorgeous it grabs you right away. Big bold
southern colors and Latin looking iconography. gives you a warm feeling that
this might be a special recording. First off the sparkling harp of Celso Duarte
takes you right to Vera Cruz. But wait, there are the Chieftains - with Sonny's Mazurka. So Irish. Will this
work? Then Lila Downs hypnotic vocals take command, and the whole thing gels in
a most marvelous way, with the pipes, whistle, flute taking decidedly Latin
lines, and seemingly having a ball. Then back to the Mazurka in the end, and
you realize, this is going to be gooood.
It's been four years since cancer took Ali Farka Touré, but
the gentleman farmer, Niger River bluesman, and former mayor of Niafunké has
left us with one last sonic memento. Ali
and Toumani finds the guitarist teaming up again with countryman and kora
virtuoso Toumani Diabaté (with whom Ali won a Grammy for In The Heart of the Moon) and a few special guests, including Ali's
son Vieux and the late Cuban bassist Cachaito Lopez. (In a sad irony, these
were the Buena Vista Social Club sideman's last recording sessions as well.)
The album's 11 cuts, recorded over three days in June 2005 at a London studio,
manage to be both spontaneous and contemplative, a timeless slice of pan-Malian
musicology riven with a laidback acoustic intensity reminiscent of the best
back-porch jam sessions (albeit a very well-recorded one).
Two things hit me from the first, listening to Natural Angle, Grada's latest release on
Compass Records. First, this recording just sounds fantastic, and second, these
great players have carved out a unique sound amidst the proliferation of
fiddle/accordion/flute/guitar.female vocalist Irish bands now showcasing Irish
music on the world's stages. Grada's music is rooted and strong, with a sense
of humor and it is quite emotionally powerful without losing an truly engaging
sense of spontaneity.
Abe's Axe, a set that links a trad tune with one of the band's own composition, leads with David Doocey's lovely focused flying fiddle, then Stephen Doherty comes in with breathy percussive effects on flute that work perfectly, all respect to Jethro Tull, before joining the fiddle in a duet that sounds both traditional and fresh, and, as in the best trad duets, more than the sum of two very good parts.
There's no folk like Quaker folk. On the cover of Carrie
Newcomer's new CD, Before & After, she is illustrated in warm sunset
colors on a train. The window shows a scene outside; a golden sun and several
birds in flight. And there is Carrie, busy writing on a pad of paper with book
in hand, her feet relaxed on the seat across from her. It is a serene portrait
of an artist at work with her inspirations around her.
And what is inside the album demonstrates a quality equal to
the cover art. An artist at work in her element, deepening her art, fine tuning
her observations of the ordinary and always with her hand on the pulse of the
spiritual cravings of the human soul.
Sylvia
Herold is probably the best folksinger you've never heard of. This dynamic
and sophisticated vocalist, from the East Bay area of San Francisco, is leader
of the folk ensemble known as Euphonia.
The group also features mandolinist Paul Kotapish, box player Charlie Hancock,
and double bassist Chuck Ervin, and guests. Their material ranges from acoustic
swing to traditional Celtic, and anything goes in between, but it's all pretty.
Euphonia's latest release is The Old
Jawbone, which as far as I can tell is their second offering, although
Sylvia has other recordings on her website.
at The Echo 1822 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
213 413-8200
In the category of children's music, dozens of musicians
have made their entire careers writing and performing music exclusively for
tykes and pre-teens. A handful of acoustic musicians who usually write
sensitive adult songs will occasionally make the foray into a children's album
as their own offspring or those near to them can often be the catalysts for
creating kid choruses. Some well-known performers have crossed-over for a stab
at creating a songbook of tunes palatable to the little ones. Leadbelly, Johnny
Cash, and David Grisman are just a few that come to mind. And a few years ago,
even the alt-country guys and gals took some time away from songs of dark love,
dark roads, the dark before light, and whiskey, and contributed some bouncy
rhymes to The Bottle Let Me Down: Songs
for Bumpy Wagon Rides.
Shout Monah is the
first album by The Haints Old Time String
Band. Featuring Erynn Marshall on fiddle, Jason Romero on banjo and vocals,
and Pharis Romero on guitar and vocals, the Haints are anchored near Victoria,
BC, where Erynn (now of Galax, Virginia) hails from, and where Jason and Pharis
now live. The Haints channel the energy and often-overlooked versatility of
old-time Southern music. Yes, this CD is squarely in the old-time tradition --
no experimental blending with other genres or taking off in new directions
here. But, no, these songs and tunes don't all fit into a single mold or follow
the same groove. The Haints explore the many twisty by-roads of Southern
mountain music, pulling together an album that is novel and enticing, all the
while hewing close to traditional roots.
If you enjoy Scottish
bagpipe music and wanted to get a CD featuring this amazing instrument, the CD Turning Pages by David Brewer is a good
place to start. David is the piper and whistle player of Molly's Revenge and
the Scottish Highland pipes is his main instrument. The CD contains a mix of traditional pipe tunes, airs,
marches, jigs, and reels.
The Scottish
bagpipe is a somewhat odd instrument and there is not a huge amount of recorded
music that has broad appeal because recordings tend to fall into two narrow
camps. The better known camp is marching bands featuring pipes and drums, the
minority camp is a solo style that can appear rather monotonous. Very rarely bands
like Molly's Revenge or the Battlefield Band integrate Scottish bagpipes with
other instruments, but the pipes are secondary on their recordings.
Beth Wood is an artist you should know about. A powerful
singer/songwriter of new contemporary folk music, her newest project, her
eighth independent release Beachcomber's
Daughter, is a gorgeous musical joy ride, vividly and movingly brought to
life via a confident and kick-ass country rock and roll, at the same time
tender, poetic and painful, with a wicked and wonderful humor to top everything
off.
Beth has achieved an impressive array of awards for her
work, from winning the Kerrville New Folk Contest in 2005, the 2006 Sisters
Folk Festival Dave Carter Memorial Songwriting Contest, the 2004 Wildflower
Festival Songwriters Contest, and was a finalist in the 2007 Telluride
Troubadour Contest among others, along with a big list of festival appearances
and college touring. It's a resume that makes you want to sit up and listen.
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.
Boulder Acoustic Society has been called a mini-orchestra
rather than your basic rock and roll band. They are a lively musical caravan
made up of four Colorado-based musicians who burn up stages across the country
to many a sold-out venue. The varied backgrounds of BAS allow them to give a
kaleidoscopic performance that is impressive, but without any hint of pretension.
With Punchline, they transfer some of variety to a digital package. The
ambitious nature of the packaging of the CD, although no enhancement to the
music nor insightful to the songs (no lyric listings), adds a dimension
(literally 3D!) of the band as both poseur and provocateur. It will stand out
musically, as well as literally, on your CD storage shelf.
I recently became acquainted with the Appalachian folk music
duo of Jeni Hankins and Billy Kemp (they bill themselves as "Jeni &
Billy") when I met and played alongside them at the FAR-West (Folk
Alliance Regional) Music Conference in Irvine in early November. We shared a
discussion panel on Appalachian music, and later we shared songs in a roundtable
showcase room. It was, by virtue of the close confines of the room, a wonderfully
intimate experience of their work, but also intimate by virtue of their art, their
writing and performance style, and their honest, loving, warm and authentic
presence.
Some precious gifts are wrapped in delicate tissue papers of
many colors, a layered rainbow of sorts that you would not want to tear but
would want to keep and cherish along with the gift. Unwrapping the meaning of an
exquisitely crafted Hawaiian mele can give you this feeling, especially if you
approach it as one who doesn't know the language. Mele is often translated to
mean the word song and perhaps it is most quickly understood that way. But the
Hawaiian mele evolved from ancient poetic chants that often were accompanied by
dance.
"If you remember the 60s you weren't there," insisted Wavy Gravy, one of its iconic counter-cultural heroes, but as Johnny Cash replied in his early gospel masterpiece, "I was there when it happened, so I guess I ought to know"-the "it" in this case being the folk revival. And all of us who were there know, what was the most reliable source for accurate information about that on-going odyssey through America's bedrock music. That would be The Little Sandy Review, which was edited and published by Paul Nelson and Jon Pankake, in the same state from which came the folk revival's most astonishing artist. That would be Minnesota, home to both Bob Dylan and Jon Pankake-and thereby hangs a tale.
Pankake was generous with the artists he championed from the pages of his and Nelson's journal-often to a fault. When the young, still-unformed, busking would-be troubadour had no place to stay, Jon put him up on his couch.
An up-and-coming phenom in mid-1960s Los Angeles, he was poised to hit it
big; everyone who heard him was blown away. Listening to these two recordings,
it's easy to see why. But it never happened. His story is sometimes compared to
that of the Nobel Prize winning mathematician John Nash, which was made into
the movie A Beautiful Mind a few
years ago. Like Nash, Steve Mann's mental illness became the dominant force in
his later life, overshadowing his earlier promise.
Happily
though, we do have these two recordings. Most of these cuts are from the 1960s
when Steve was at his peak and still performing in concert. There is also one cut
on Alive And Pickin' that was
recorded in 2004.
Alive and Pickin' is a compilation of cuts from a
number of sources. It starts off with a live set (recorded by his old friend
Stefan Grossman) that offers a fine sense of Steve's range and power. Starting
with a fine Jelly Roll, it moves to
Mose Allison's If You Live, a jazz
tune - indeed, Steve always said he did a lot of jazz. For example, his Amazing Gospel Tune, also in this set,
is pure Ray Charles.
Banjo player Fred Sokolow brought a blues guitarist
friend to the Ash Grove one night in 1967 to see Steve Mann. As Steve launched
into a Blind Lemon Jefferson tune, 99
Years Blues, Fred noticed his friend unbutton the top button of his shirt.
By the time Steve finished the song, 2 and ½ minutes later, Fred's friend had
pulled out a handkerchief and started to daub some beads of sweat that had
formed on his forehead.
Steve then turned his attention to a Ray Charles classic Drown In My Own Tears, and miraculously
recreated on six strings Charles' 88 keys piano accompaniment, complete with
his jazz chords. Fred's guitarist friend's underarms were starting to pour
sweat all over his new cotton twill shirt, leaving massive stains that were
starting to overwhelm his neat tie in the middle.
Double Play is the second album from Liz Carroll and John
Doyle as duo. Following their first duo effort, In Play (2005), Double Play
is work of outstanding musicianship, arguably the best traditional Celtic CD of
the year.
Liz Carroll occupies an interesting position among
contemporary Irish fiddlers. Unlike, Kevin Burke or Martin Hayes, most of the
tunes she plays, on this CD and others, are generally not traditional tunes
from the public domain, but rather her own compositions. She's a prolific
tunemaster.
Before you put this CD in your playback machine take a look
at the small package this good thing comes in. Every touch has meaning, and was
attended to with more than a modicum of thought. The front cover has what looks
like-though it may only be simulated-a 19th century Currier and Ives
print of a couple riding a sleigh being pulled by a team of energetic horses,
charging out of the circular frame in which there is a lovely winter scene with
a snowy landscape. It looks like they are heading out of this bygone world into
your postmodern living room. The typeface for the title-Christmas In the
Heart-is also studiously old-fashioned, derived from many a 19th
or early 20th century theatre poster.
2009 Kerrville New Folk Winner Ernest Troost's newest album, the aptly titled Resurrection Blues is a brilliant new piece of songwriting art. Its thirteen Piedmont-blues influenced songs tell stories of passion, lost love and regret-filled lives at a cross-roads, looking for a modern-day answer to "how did things ever get this far?" and "when did the darkness fall?" Ernest Troost's existential questions run rampant in his first three songs; and then, the stories begin.
Haberdashery is a new group from Los Angeles and just released their first CD. And what a fine first project it is! Haberdashery is hard to classify stylistically, but if you like Astor Piazolla, you'll enjoy them. Maybe it could be described as a mixture of Tango, Jazz, Folk, Gypsy, and French music, but that is not too helpful either. You just have to hear it and you can get samples on their website.
The musicianship is very impressive, the technique of classically trained musicians with the energy and drive of folk music and the improvisational skill of jazz. They are a classy band (not to mention a very well dressed band).
Maria Muldaur has had a somewhat schizophrenic career. Her early work was totally roots oriented, working with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, singing, playing fiddle and serving as a sort of folk music sex symbol. But by far her biggest success was as a pop jazz chanteuse warbling Midnight at the Oasis. To some, she's the iconic hippy chick with the long thick hair, dancing to Bob Dylan at Newport. To others, she is an almost Mae West-ian entertainer, as known for her repartee and cleavage as her song selection. Midnight has become, like it or not, a standard, at least judging by Wal-Mart and recent elevator investigation.
The combination of British guitarist/producer Justin Adams and Gambian spike fiddle (ritti) master, Juldeh Camara, produces a sound that either completes the circle of Africa-to-America and-back-again musical history or, at the very least, takes a part of the arc and intersects it with a new kind of Afro-blues genre.
On their newest recording, Tell No Lies, the obvious riffs from classic blues tunes weave in and out of many of the songs. Echoes of Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker and Slim Harpo resonate throughout, but Camara's Fulani vocals (a nomadic people of Gambia and other countries across West Africa) and ritti sawing cut deeply through Adams' thick guitar lead lines.
We last left Peter Joseph Burtt with Sunken Forest. It was a treasure trove of African influenced blues,
folk and pop. The interim years have not found Burtt resting on his laurels,
and so we come to Hand To Mouth.
As with Sunken Forest,
Burtt called upon his friend Corey Harris to produce. Harris provides guitar
and vocals. Chris Cox is on keyboards, and Ben Isaacs does percussion. Burtt
plays kora, guitar, mbir, vocals and wrote six of the nine songs on the
project.
Expectations are high around here when Ronny Cox releases a new album. And fair disclosure is due: this reviewer named him among FolkWorks' "Top Ten / Best of 2008" male singer-songwriters in L.A., two years after he earned "Listener Favorite" status on radio's "Tied to the Tracks" for his original song, Sanctuary, about a newborn wild horse. And even before this review and another due this month in Dirty Linen magazine, Songs... with Repercussions was the number one album on the "Folk DJ" play list for the month of June, and Happy Father's Day, a track on the album, was the number 4 song of the month.
Love of the Land
is the first solo CD by Christa Burch,
a Southern Californian who has contributed her many musical talents to a variety
of West Coast music projects, playing bodhran with the Syncopaths and
Blackwaterside, singing as one-half of the a capella group Lintie. Love of the Land is a vocal CD, a
collection of Celtic songs, some traditional pieces, mostly from Scotland and
Ireland, but also some new compositions in the Celtic tradition. The CD is
produced by Dennis Cahill, best known for his haunting, sparse guitar-playing
with Irish fiddler Martin Hayes. Fans of the Hayes-Cahill recordings will find
some of the same sweet, evocative and exploratory playing here.
The Turning of Clocks is an album of original and traditional flat picked blues by Shaun Cromwell. Although released in 2007, the impetus for reviewing the album here stems from his solo performance at the Fourth Ever Los Angeles Old Time Social in May of this year. The reality, and I'm not being trite, his performance knocked everybody's socks off--an audience largely full of discerning American roots musicians. As stated on his Myspace page, it was recorded with one microphone, a couple of beat-up guitars and many short sessions over a period of several months, is his first release and is a meditation on death and impermanence.
What is so wonderful about old time music now is that the generation of players who picked up fiddles and banjos and guitars in the 1960s and 1970s had kids. And man, are we lucky to be the beneficiaries of the stuff on which they were raised. Never Seen the Likeis an album of "old time fiddle, banjo, guitar tunes and songs" from fiddle/banjo legend Rafe Stefanini and daughter Clelia. Recorded, mixed and mastered by Joel Savoy, Cajun fiddler in the Red Stick Ramblers (son of Marc and Ann Savoy) at Studio Savoyfaire in Eunice, Louisiana and produced by Rafe and Clelia, this album is one great product of Dynasty and I'm not talking about the TV show. Jillian Johnson, at Work Agencies designed the artwork and took the photographs for the packaging.I love the cover photo of Clelia with the fiddle and Rafe a banjo and the inside cover shot with the twin fiddlers sitting.
If a Nobel Prize could be given for the best box set anthology in release, The Life and Music of Richard Thompson would win hands down. How's that for fan-like hyperbole? Spreading out over five CDs, it covers the years from 1971 to 2006 where Richard is still a dynamic and innovative force in popular music today. One of the clear highlights of this box-set is the demonstration of how hard-to-categorize Richard has become over the years. Is he British folk, American rock or a Celtic balladeer? For those who have recently been introduced to or the veteran fans who date back to the salad days of Fairport Convention, this anthology will prove essential in that it not only yields a valuable and engaging look at the artist himself, but like the best releases of the last 50 years, it opens the doors and windows of the music and songs the singer-songwriter, like a modern Pied Piper, leads us to. While many of his peers have had pockets of phenomenal success, seasons of retirement or creative dry spells, Richard Thompson has moved steadily ahead, consistently exploring and deepening the art of his music, lyric and performance style. He is the uncommonly rare songwriter's working man showing up to the job everyday for the last 40 years and he has yet to disappoint.
The state of contemporary Bluegrass
is in an interesting position: the genre has become a new melting pot, an
amalgam of styles and sounds encompassing Old Time, Folk, Blues, Country, Jazz,
Pop and, of course (hopefully!) Bluegrass -
the original sounds of Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys. Why this is
interesting is because Bluegrass at its creation was a monumental evolution of
gathered sounds, from Tin Pan Alley, Blues, Black Gospel, Appalachian ballads,
Irish dance music, set to a blindingly fast pace, with high lead vocals and
group harmonies tighter than a drum. So now, it's gratifying to watch it
growing again and changing with this new generation, called "a Bluegrass youth
revolution" by some, all the while reaching back to grab, with love and
reverence, the old sounds of driving Bluegrass, George Jones-type country
music, Western Swing and mountain fiddle, melding with pop-flavored
contemporary sounds.
The last time I saw Dr. Guy Logsdon, former Head Librarian at the University of Tulsa, he was singing dirty cowboy songs. I don't mean dirty as in dusty, or straight off the trail, I mean dirty as in unprintable in a family magazine, daily newspaper, or any media outlet controlled by the FCC. His classic book, "The Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing" and Other Songs Cowboys Sing, was the result of a lifetime fascination with the songs that John Lomax missed when he pioneered the field. Lomax's late Victorian sensibility had some blind spots when it came to appreciating the less cultivated aspects of the folk.
There are a dozen collections of cowboy songs wherein you will find The Strawberry Roan, for example, but if you want to learn The Castration of the Strawberry Roan you will need to find Logsdon's book.
You probably know the back story on Guy Davis: parents are actors/writers Ruby Dee and the late Ossie Davis, little Guy was bounced on somebody famous' knee. He has produced and acted with success. He's recorded nine CDs for Red House. And his ninth is named after a Bob Dylan tune Davis has recorded once before. And what a cover it is.
It starts with that Dylan familiarity, the blend of the organ, drums and guitars. Is it from Blonde on Blonde? No, wait, that's a newer song, and wait again: that ain't Bob singing! It's a huskier, fuller voice, but the voice wraps around Bob's tale of small town bravado and longing with even more conviction than Bob mustered for his version.
Davis has never sounded better, even though this lively trip through Bob-land is not too much like what we've come to expect from Davis: acoustic blues played with feeling and gusto. If that's what brings you back to Davis' CDs, you will not be disappointed. There's plenty of 12 string, slide guitar and grit. He throws a nice curve by doing Can't Be Satisfied on banjo.
From the opening, Journey to Another Side, imaginatively set in a Mexican cantina, to the closing, Friends Around the Fire, singing under the moonlight with good friends, this is the album that we expected from the venerable down-home Van Nuys duo. It's imaginative, entertaining, melodic, beautiful and humorous; and it's a cover-to-cover sing-along, my favorite kind of musical entertainment.
Similar to their first collection, The Pearl and the Swine, the selections alternate between those written by Fur and those by Steve, except that this time two of Fur's were very effectively co-written by Ric Taylor. And it's also similar to the first CD, in that the ones about asphalt, dirt, engines and campfires are Steve's, while the pretty song department is well covered by Fur with If I Was Free (with Ric), My Blue Yodel and the gorgeous Summer's Gone Again.
Tuesday is the cruelest day. On Mondays, everyone at work is strung out, wondering how the weekend went by so fast. By Tuesday, we're supposed to be in the groove again. I'm not. Driving my 30-mile commute to work, I curse the impending layoffs announced on our e-mail network (who's next???). I surf the radio stations for relief but instead hear station after NPR station dissecting the disaster known as our economy. I ride the dial in search of a musical antidote to the recession blues -- from classical to jazz to norteño to reggae. Sometimes I'm lucky.
Last Tuesday I wasn't. The talk was more dismal than usual and the music ranged from bland to sheer noise. Then I remembered the CD I still had to review for FolkWorks. Something called La India Canela. I fed it in to the morose mouth of my Corolla's CD player and.... Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Wow! Go! Yeee! Ha! The cascading keys of an accordion nearly swept my Corolla and me off La Brea Avenue. My shoulders started rolling and my hips swaying to the fast-paced, driving rhythms of tamboro and guira. Suddenly I was smiling ear to ear and the mouth of my CD player seemed to be smiling with me. Merengue tipico had rescued me from my recession(and Tuesday) blues.
Buena Vista proves to be another excellent piece of work in a long line of successful efforts by this veteran team and their very fine groups. The eternal kids from the deep south, routed through Lake Wobegon, have done it again, producing a well-crafted and constructed collection of entertaining, easy-to-listen-to original music.
Their, count ‘em, 20th album, from the front to the back was enjoyably, pretty much what we've come to expect from R&L. The opening cut Going, Going, Gone gets you bouncing, smiling and happy to be listening. Then, just as you get comfortable paying attention to the musicianship, arrangements and quality engineering, the knockout song Maybelle's Guitar and Monroe's Mandolin gets you thinking about and appreciating the origins of a lot of great music that has come our way over the years.
"Here I go again..." begins Emmylou Harris on her luminous new
album, a fitting beginning for this great artist's first new recording since 2003.
Produced by Brian Ahearn, with the title taken from the lyrics of the Billy Joe
Shaver song offered here, this listening experience is like coming home to an
old friend you thought you'd lost: loving, gracious, soulful and full of gentle
understanding.
No one who has ever heard Emmylou can ever forget her
stunning sound. Whether in the middle of a rock and roll track, a country
standard, or simply with lone guitar, she can command the listener with a pure
emotional presence. You feel as though she is singing just to you, and all
expressions are intimate.
The facts first: Foghorn
Duo's Lonesome Song is an album
of duets from Stephen "Sammy" Lind
and Caleb Klauder of Foghorn Stringband. The songs are a
first-class collection of traditional, classic country and original pieces of
music drawn from the old time fiddle tunes, ballads and songs--the roots of
American "roots" music. There's even a tune penned by Caleb and without looking
at the cover, you'd never know. Foghorn Stringband may be in a transformative
stage, but once you hear this album, you'll not doubt that these two fellas, at
least, never stop playing. I mean never. And, Oh! Their voices! By far their
two voices ringing together in song is so good I can think of none better
today.
Initial disclaimer:
This gentleman records for the same label that I do. However, I did not meet
him until this release, nor was I familiar with his music. I stand to gain no
financial improvement should his project prove profitable or not.
There is a wave (pun intended) of new "soft folk pop"
artists who have surfing somewhere near their core. Though he resides in San
Clemente, CA and has lived on a boat and lifeguarded for a living, John Sotter
is not one of these surfing soft folk pop artists. His music has a strong
flavor that resists comparison to other artists, but one might peg the
production style of Alone to be Harvest- era Neil Young. It's all acoustic
guitars, some occasional melodic electric bass, harmonica and unobtrusive
drums. And it's all John Sotter. All the music, lyrics, instruments, the
recording, production, mixing, mastering and even the artwork is all John Sotter.
Merlin Snider's first album Between came out in 1999 and to say the
encore was a long time coming would be an understatement. Of course, to say it
was well worth waiting for turns out to be belaboring the obvious. Right Here is captivating from the opening,
picturesque, Central California love-song tour of Santa Cruz, to the
thought-provoking hidden track No Advice
at the baker's dozen point.
He
has assembled an outstanding group of musicians, authored a tremendous
collection of songs, engineered an ultimately pleasurable listening experience
and produced an album that will be a "must-have" for connoisseurs of the
singer-songwriter, folk genre.
Grammy-winning singer of such classics as 18 Wheels and A Dozen Roses, Where've You
Been, Kathy Mattea says that her new album offered her a "re-education" in
singing. Produced by Marty Stuart, COAL is an important work, in that Mattea brings
the heartbreak and tragedy of the Appalachian coal-mining culture to the fore. And
for some, especially die-hard Mattea fans, this will be an eye-opening journey
into a land not heretofore travailed.
Mattea chose the perfect producer in Stuart, whose understanding
of traditional country stems from his familial connection to the original
Carter Family. He is also a commercial country star and now a producer, and
he's put together this album with Mattea's strengths in mind -more contemporary
songs are mixed in with the old, offering Mattea a chance to shine in her
pop/folk blend while giving her a chance to stretch with older classics from
the early part of the 20th century.
It's not easy being Randy Newman. You spend years as a
singer-songwriter only to find you've ended up being banned in Boston and having
an army of Short People on your tail. You have classic albums like Sail Away and Good Old Boys, but does the public remember? No. Then, you
disappear into the world of movie soundtracks and songs that appear at the end
of movies like Toy Story. So you have
two uncles who are legendary in the movie soundtrack business, Lionel and
Alfred, respectively. For 25 years you write beautifully glorious soundtracks
to movies like Ragtime and The Natural.
But does the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences award you the coveted
Oscar? No. After 14 or 15 nominations, you finally get the measly naked bald
headed statue for one of those songs that comes in during the credits at the
end of some kid's movie. So why you should return to your roots, the singer
songwriter alone on his piano with a ragtime orchestra behind you? Because,
you're Randy Newman and I'm not!
If you've ever studied Scotland's poetry, music or theatre,
the name Robert Burns will linger in your memory and consciousness as a bright
flame of genius. In the liner notes to this wonderful recording of selections
from the show Simply Burns, Robert
Burns' poetry, prose and songs are presented as a fine project. "In January of
2008, four talented individuals came together to create an evening of song,
poetry and readings in celebration of Scotland's best-loved bard, Robert Burns.
Their aim was to offer an eclectic collection of material written by and
inspired by Burns...designed both to entertain, and to simplify the man and his
works for those who find it all a bit daunting." Simply Burns was intended
originally for just a one-night show (at the Watermill bookshop in Aberfeldy,
Scotland to be specific). However, after that spectacular night in the packed
bookshop, they were surprised to find the show being requested through the
countryside.
On any night of the week, you can find a club where couples are dancing salsa with frenetic energy. But when was the last time you saw a couple performing salsa's honored ancestor, the rumba? The dance involves overtly flirtatious interplay between a man and a woman, the woman alternately enticing and protecting herself as the man tries to catch her off-guard with a vacunao -- tagging her with the flip of a handkerchief or by throwing his arm, leg or pelvis in her direction in an act of symbolic sexual contact. It makes salsa look like a minuet.
If you're a lover of Cajun music and especially of one of the two
instruments synonymous with the genre, then get your hands on From Now On, close the doors, sit back
and listen to a truly comprehensive exploration of the renowned fiddler and his
music. Yes, it's Michael Doucet recorded live in the studio, stripped down, for
the most part, to just the man and his fiddle and yes, he even picks up that
other musical symbol of the bayou, the diatonic accordion. Throw in another
seasoned fiddler and a crack guitarist and this live unrehearsed recording
comes alive. Doucet often compares Cajun music to the piquant dishes of the
culture and like the ubiquitous gumbo, there is truly a different rendition
recipe for many a tune.
Don't believe it when someone tells you "If you remember the
1960s you weren't there." I was there and I remember. I remember vividly. I
don't remember the 1970s very well and I put all the effort I can muster into
forgetting the 1980s. But I remember the 1960s and what I remember was the
music. Those were the days before music became a corporate commodity. Of course
there was formula pop music, but even the big labels were signing and recording
bands that were playing music that sounded like nothing you ever heard before.
The new FM radio stations became the way to hear that music. There was folk,
there was rock, there was jazz, there was folk-rock, there was jazz-rock, there
were sitars and bouzoukis, ragtime and jug bands - sometimes all on the same LP
(for you youngsters, that's an antique vinyl platter with grooves that vibrated
a needle to make sounds).
The Pine Leaf Boys latest CD Blues de Musicien is the real thing. This is old style, high energy Cajun music at its finest. The collection of songs ranges from original compositions by the various band members to classics of the Cajun and Zydeco tradition.
The band members have a significant history as well. Band member Wilson Savoy, accordion, fiddle, piano, singer and songwriter, is the son of Marc and Anne Savoy -- two-thirds of the Savoy Doucet Cajun Band. Marc is a well-known accordion maker in Eunice, Louisiana, and was one-third of the trio (along with Dewey Balfa and D.L. Menard) that recorded En Bas d'un Ch
What a terrific album, and how appropriate that it comes to us this way. Forty-odd years ago it was Rosalie Sorrels whose singing brought Bruce "Utah" Phillips to the attention of so many people, so it's somehow fitting that Sorrels has now recorded this heartfelt and beautiful tribute to the songs of her old pal. Phillip's recent death makes it a bittersweet occasion, and surely Sorrels didn't plan for the release to be timed in quite this way. But like the hobo who finds out where the train is going only after hopping on, when you're already aboard and rolling you might as well enjoy the ride.
Driving up Angeles
Crest Highway en route to the Haramoknga American
Cultural Center,
I popped Louie Gonnie's Songs of the Sacred Circle: Harmony in Eight
Parts into my CD player. It seemed fitting to listen for the first time to
his collection of peyote songs just before attending a performance of Native
American flute players, part of the World Festival of Sacred Music. The
fast-paced of shaking of a high-pitched gourd rattle opened the first song, Dreamscapes. I gazed dreamily at the
craggy San Gabriel Mountains and blue sky
while Louie Gonnie sang in his native Dine language, his heartfelt voice moving
up and down within a small range of intervals. As I rounded the bends of the
mounting highway, the music harmonized with the natural landscape.
Lissa Schneckenburger is probably best known as one of the
finest New England contradance fiddlers in the
country. If you should happen to have the opportunity to dance to her playing
you are in for a treat.
Her lively fiddling has a magically unique way of energizing
the dancers and driving the dance.
Having said that ... this album is named Song; it isn't named Fiddling. That's because the focus here
is on Lissa singing old and traditional songs from Maine where she grew up. Now, the
instrumental work, by Lissa and others, is very well done, tastefully and
inventively modern, quite listenable stuff. But the playing serves mostly to
support the lyrics, not to stand on its own.
Any old-timey country album that starts out with chords that echo The Who's Talkin' Bout MyGeneration signals to me that here's a band that's talkin about mine and with that opening track Wild Old Nory from Kansas City quartet The Wilders'Someone's Got to Pay I sat up straight and pushed my hat back. The twin fiddles of the second tune Broken Down Gambler had me scratching my head, "What's this fiddle tune?" Why it's from the Skillet Lickers, and the twin fiddles of Betse Ellis and Dirk Powell certainly grab that feeling and even reminded me a little of the Red Hots complete with the "yeah" that just had to be hollered right at the end.
From its opening seconds of energetic fiddling, For Love and Laughter uplifts the spirit
and re-enforces the reputation of Solas
as a pre-eminent Irish-American band. Starting with three rousing reels in
succession, the album attests to the superb musicianship of Seamus Egan (flute,
tenor banjo, mandolin, whistle, guitar and bodhran), Winifred Horan (fiddle),
Mick McAuley (accordion and concertina) and Eamon McElholm (guitar and
keyboards). Their first album in four years, the 12-year old ensemble has
enriched several numbers with instrumentals and backup vocals by the Canadian
group The Duhks, who include Sarah
Dugas, Tania Elizabeth, Jordan McConnell, Leonard Podolak as well as Scott
Senior, Natalie Haas, Chico Huff, John Anthony and Dirk Powell.
To the dilettante, bluegrass is just one flavor of country.
The truth is far more intertwined, though in today's radio market bluegrass is
considered too country for country. Apparently no one told Ralph Stanley II about this, so he's just released a great
country/bluegrass recording.
Ralph Stanley IIis
the son of Ralph Stanley, the
reigning patriarch of bluegrass. He's travelled and performed with his father
and his father's band The Clinch
Mountain Boys since he was old enough to stand, and has served as the lead
singer of the group since the age of 16, filling the shoes of former leads Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, Larry Sparks
and of course Carter Stanley.
With the name, Molly's Revenge you might be fooled into lumping this band in with the likes of Flogging Molly or Dropkick Murphys - dishing out aggressive bar anthems and such- and you would be far from accurate. The revenge to which they refer in their cryptic name is what I tend to think of as "traddiction", or an inability to be temperate with one's desire to play Just One More Set of Tunes Before Going Home. Stu Mason (guitar, vocals, mandola) lays this out in poetic and graphic form on their website, www.mollysrevenge.com so go have a peek , if you wish...but I digress...this band plays traditional Irish and Scottish tunes along with recently composed numbers that fit well into the traditions in question. With their most recent CD The Western Shore they reveal how much they have matured as a group, and the injection of Moira Smiley on vocals is just what they needed.
Maybe there are two ways of getting to the essence of the blues. You could be born along the Mississippi, under a bad sign, and wind up standing at those crossroads with your guitar named Lucille. Then again, you could have dedicated your life to studying the music and playing with the musicians who generated the groundwork of the genre and thereby got under the skin of the subject. Well, Bernie Pearl isn't a denizen of the delta and as far as we know he didn't sell his soul to the devil to get him farther up the road. What he did do was commune with the blues and with many a bluesman to get to the heart of what it is and all about. True, the blues come from the African American experience, the diaspora of people who lived a life under duress and then developed a sound and lyric that reflected not only the hardship of the day, but also the comedy and error of love, work, and faith. However, communing with another's art form is also part of the American experience. And it's been said many times that the blues is a state of mind. If that's true then Bernie Pearl has had the blues on his mind and in his fret-full fingers.
Soul Science is what happens when you mix a British electric blues guitar dude, best known for pop/rock work with Robert Plant's post-Led Zep solo band, with a Gambian rifti (one-string fiddle) hotshot who's a griot from Africa but clearly conversant with mainstream Western tunes. Unobtrusive bass and percussion fills in the picture. The vibe is African, yet the supporting undercurrent is easily accessible Western-familiar pop blues. Nice stuff, well worth a listen.
I suppose you'd call this "fusion music." Fusion music is seen as a separate category, but really, it's not. In fact, it's all there is, anywhere. Face it, all the best musicians listen to anything they can wrap their little ears around, and always have. Somebody hears something good, goes all like wow that's cool, and suddenly they incorporate those licks and sounds into whatever they do.
I'm driving down Route 66 with my 14 year-old twin daughters in tow. I insert this new CD into the player. I ask the girls, "How do you like this?" They roll their eyes and say, "Very retro, Dad!" I wonder...is retro an accumulation of music that has caught with us? This one sounds to me like what a Zen monk once called, "beginner's mind." I pray..."Lord, let me not take myself too seriously and help me to make less sense more of the time."
Xuefei Yang is a classical guitarist with a twist. Yes, she has a clear affinity for the Spanish classical repertoire, and this album includes well-executed performances of works by Isaac Albeniz, Francisco Tarega, and Enrique Granados. Very pleasant stuff, this.
But then there's that twist, and that's where things get interesting.
About a third of the selections here are solo classical guitar arrangements of music of her native China. Xuefei Yang is originally from Beijing, and moved to Britain to study only after rising to the highest levels of Chinese classical guitar circles. Her hybrid musical training gives her the properly solid background for the re-envisioning of the Chinese repertoire she does here and on her other recordings.
This is very nice stuff. Jim Stubblefield plays sizzling
flamenco-infused guitar, with extra helpings of steam. Who knew that this level
of intense, sexy energy could come from a nylon string acoustic guitar? But
Stubblefield can play him some fine tunes, hey.
I have to confess, I didn't expect to like this as much as I
do. The slickly packaged CD shows a hunky young blond rock & roll
surfer-looking dude, and has a credit line for his makeup artist.
Makeup?? And it was recorded in Castaic. Castaic??
Well, looks can be deceiving, and as it turns out Jim
Stubblefield really does have a thing or two to offer here. Yes, Guitarra
Exotica's take on flamenco definitely has a rocker's sensibility, but living in
LA, and exposed to all the great sounds available in this musical melting pot
... how could it not?
This second effort by the urban cowgirl from Carpenteria
shows the maturity that comes with dedication, hard work and much more than a
little talent. Jackie's first commercially available offering, Where the Legends Grow Like Weeds was
well received and had a few jewels like the tribute to her mother, Louise, the
engaging story of The Gold Country's
Turning to Wine and the beautiful songs Moth
to a Flame and Right as Rain.
Money to Burn
offers its own variety of stories, tributes and enchanting melodies. The
humorous and upbeat departments are well represented by Everybody Needs Some Salsa, the wry Real Short Leash and the crowd-pleaser Solitary Socks, while her father is remembered this time around in The Writing on the Wall. However, the
real attractions for lovers of beautiful music are Some Things Time Can't Erase and the gorgeous Lady in Waiting.
The intent of a recording project is usually established
well before the first note is recorded. Even if all the songs haven't been
composed or all arrangements finalized, there is a reason for the artist to
begin. But sometimes that intent, or the result, can be changed by activities
well beyond the artist's control. Thus begins Holy Roads.
Tim Dismang is a San Juan Capistrano, California
based singer songwriter. Tim's work has been very influenced by one of his
idols, John Stewart. So much so that
Dismang includes four of Stewart's songs on Holy
Roads. So much so that Dismang uses Bob Hoke on drums and Dave Batti on
bass. Both worked as Stewart's rhythm section. And Bob Hawkins, the gentleman
who plays remarkable guitar on Holy Roads,
ended up connecting with Stewart through Hoke and Batti due to his work with
Dismang and was recording and gigging with Stewart prior to John's untimely
death in January of this year.
Hot on the heels of the Gram Parsons & The Flying Burrito Brothers Live at the Avalon Ballroom 1969 release last autumn comes this import re-release of Last of the Red Hot Burritos, featuring a remarkably different Flying Burrito Brothers. These tunes were recorded live at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire and Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio in 1972.
The Flying Burrito Brothers band on Gram Parsons & The Flying Burrito Brothers Live at the Avalon Ballroom 1969 consisted of lead vocalist/writer Gram Parsons; Chris Hillman vocalist, writer and guitarist; Chris Ethridge writer and bass player; Sneaky Pete Kleinow on pedal steel guitar and Mike Clarke on drums. By 1972, FBB personnel had been altered remarkably, and the direction of the band had altered as well.
On her new CD Beautiful World, Eliza Gilkyson lets go
with her jitters and assurances on our times and the times to come. Her first
new studio recording in 3 years, she still writes a line that cracks like a
whip with rhythm and meaning delivered with catchy music and an expressive
voice that's a pleasure to have in the ear. These are songs you can't get out
of your head, and you're glad they've nested there.
Susie Glaze is relatively new to the Southern California bluegrass scene, but her rise to the ranks of nationally known talent has been fairly well documented here in the pages of FolkWorks. Glaze was raised in Tennessee, and first chose the artistic path of theater. After some success in the New York stage scene, she discovered a love for bluegrass music and moved to California. First she became a member of The Eight Hand String Band, and then began her solo career. Green Kentucky Blues is her fourth solo project, and most likely the one that folks will look back to as her "breakout" recording. Don't be surprised if Green Kentucky Blues finds its way to a nomination at IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) music awards.
Tumbatú Cumbá is fronted by brother and sister Nicolas
Falcof (guitar,vocals, percussion) and Magalí Falcof (vocals and percussion)
and includes members Julian Solarz (piano, percussion and vocals), Cecilia
Fraiman (vocals), Sebastian Dezeo (electric bass) and Bernardo Ucha
(percussion). The group describes itself as "Buenos Aires musicians who fuse Latin
American styles and rhythms from the wide-ranging folk traditions from every
corner of the continent." In their 2007 eponymous recording, Tumbatú Cumbá
gives a contemporary feel to traditional Afro-Latin rhythms and explores genres
that have gone through many re-births as each Latin-American generation has
searched for its musical roots.
The CD opens with Ê-emoriô, a song based on a traditional
Afro-Brazilian chant, but attributed to Brazilian legends Gilberto Gil and João
Donato who popularized it. With several guest percussionists and vocalists, the
track is a call and response between the chorus and the rich vocals of Magalí
Falcoff.
The thinking man's country ensemble, who seem to soar ever higher over the vast wilderness of hyphenated roots music bands, have released another recording, Hallowed Ground, and it admirably adds to the existing evidence that they deserve their previous acclaim.
Yes, there is some indication that they have some kind of preternatural flower power at their disposal. However, you could eschew the acid folk, biorhythm and blues, hippie-hop, and eco-country tags because the songs that they offer are still just under the good music umbrella, psychedelic-imbued or not.
The Rob Waller-Paul Lacques writing partnership excels at a variety of styles, covering the landscape with the eccentric to the epic. Yes, it's counter-country done with poetic flair but also digs in with relevancy and depth akin to short story collections. That they have become so good at writing and playing songs that cover such a wide variety of subject matter is now no surprise. Hallowed Ground is the fourth CD from the band and reaffirms the consistency of their efforts and expands the repertoire even more.
Singer-songwriter Dave Travis is an undiscovered gem. Working as an independent artist has provided him with artistic freedom, allowing him to develop both his style and lyrical content. His new release, 12-String Crazy, is a diverse collection of songs yielding a unique, fresh and original style of Americana music combining folk, country, blues, soul, gospel and rock. His influences are clear throughout this stream of songs, but his distinctive instrumental, vocal and writing style demonstrate an artist who has a strong sense of his own voice and vision.
Some hear the clarion call of the bagpipes and the ears perk up, the heart races, and the sonority reverberates through the core. Even if you don't have a molecule of Celtic DNA in your spittle, everyone has a reaction to the echoing exhalations of the unique bag, chanter and drone instrument. When combined with the sonorous beating of drums and the unique bellow of the didgeridoo, something primal and immediate hits the psyche. Whether it's your cup of tea or mug of grog, Wicked Tinkers provide an invitation to explore those internal rumblings, subtle or undiscovered though they may be.
With RANT, Wicked Tinkers offer up one of their most colorful recordings. And, although there is no substitute for a live performance, pushing the volume control throttle of your sound system when listening to this recording will provide a close rendering of the group, at least sonically.
JACKSON BROWNE SOLO ACOUSTIC VOL. 2 (released on March 4, 2008 on Inside Recordings) is the second in a series of solo acoustic albums by the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Famer. Though with new songs, the format is identical to the first volume, released in 2005. Vol. 2 showcases the same sense of intimacy and live energy at Jackson's recent solo acoustic concerts: he's singing to you.
The collection begins with a stripped-down version of Never Stop from his 2002 album, The Naked Ride Home, with Jackson on guitar. The acoustic arrangement emphasizes the words and it comes across as a beautiful love song. When Jackson sings “And when you make me smile, I'm the richest man I know,
The album is designed to honor that tradition while
revealing it as an evolving genre of music. During the 1950s and 1960s, for
example, some of the brass bands began incorporating rhythm and blues, jazz and
funk into their sound. On Cut 5 of New Orleans Brass, the Dirty Dozen Brass
Band's infectiously rhythmic rendition of It's all Over Now, featuring Dr. John in fine form, demonstrates
this trend with verve. Kermit Ruffins represents the 1980s generation take on
the tradition with his Rebirth Brass Band with Treme Second Line (Blow Da Whistle).
The word He’eia refers to He’eia Bay on Hawai’i
Island’s Kona coast, a place where King David Kalakaua used to enjoy on a day
at the beach. In the opening musical selection of the same name, Cyril Pahinui
evokes the setting with a powerful, lush interpretation of the name chant (meleinoa) for Kalakaua, with music attributed to J. Kalahiki. He’eia is
one of three traditional songs for which he has created exquisite arrangements
for slack key guitar.
One of the fascinating aspects of this third solo album is
the way it showcases Cyril’s stylistic gifts. He plays an instrumental version
of He’eia on Cut 1 with his 12-string guitar in the C Mauna Lua
tuning (C-G-E-G-A-E). Later, in Cut 6, he plays it in Atta’s C Major
(C-G-E-G-C-E), creating a different mood with the change in tonal coloration
and adding his own vocals. Similarly he plays O Kamawailualani (the
ancient name for the island
of Kaui’i) on his
six-string guitar in Cut 2 and uses his 12-string guitar for the same selection
in Cut 10.
It’s hard to imagine in this hundreds-of-channels-at-the-touch-of-a-button age, but not so very long ago- during my lifetime, in fact, TV was home to very few programming choices, and any music, particularly good music, was rarely found. Variety shows like the Ed Sullivan Show would have the occasional pop act between the dancing elephants and such, and there were occasional shows dedicated to pop music, but vaudeville, rather than anything current, was the benchmark.
So it’s all the more impressive that it was not an ambitious musician of the rock generation, which was (arguably) at its boldest artistic point, but the most successful mainstream country artist of his time that most effectively bridged the gap between musicians of various genres in the late 1960s.
One of the activities I enjoy most at traditional music festivals and multi-day workshops is the opportunity to thoroughly browse the pre-recorded music offerings. Those stacks of compact discs and digital video discs seem even more accessible than their vinyl and magnetic tape ancestors, and, unlike vinyl “records,
Blues fans know Tom Ball and Kenny Sultan as Santa Barbara’s answer to Brownie and Sonny. This came natural for Ball, since he shares Sonny Terry’s birthday of October 24.
Ball and Sultan have been entertaining audiences all over the world since 1978. They are known for their casual yet musically tight shows. They’ve recorded eight duo CDs, and have a long running residency at the Cold Spring Tavern in the Santa Barbara hills. Sultan was recently honored with a signature Martin guitar.
For a very brief time in 1968 and 1969, Los Angeles was the home of an almost perfect amalgamation of rock and roll, country and soul music known as TheFlying Burrito Brothers. Their first recording, Gilded Palace of Sin, was a eclectic mix including recent soul hits redone in a country rock mode. Somehow TheFlying Burrito Brothers were able to take songs like Dark End of the Street or Do Right Woman with their own imaginative spin while still capturing some of the essence of the original interpretations. The Flying Burrito Brothers also brought a good number of originals to the project, and each was worthy of contrast with the soul tunes. In fact, it wasn’t hard to imagine William Bell or James Carr taking a crack at Hot Burrito #1 or Hot Burrito #2. Then TheFlying Burrito Brothers upped the ante, adding several Nuevo-country tunes that would have felt at home with George Jones, Buck Owens or more likely Waylon Jennings. Christine’s Tune, Sin City, Wheels: these were all steely country tunes but with hip, bent lyrics.
Do you ever long to get away? Sometimes, in the middle of the week, do you have an intense desire to walk in a meadow, see a shooting star, reflect on a glacial mountain, pluck an old guitar on an aged, wood front porch, or just scratch the grateful belly of an old dog? If you do, Bill Staines’ newest release, Old Dogs, provides a much-needed respite from the complexities of today’s world. He also gives a glimpse into the diversity of American experiences through which, he allows his audience to see the past in a way that informs our appreciation for the present.
The ukulele of Jake Shimabukuro continues to boldly go into musical territory where no uke has gone before. Shimabukuro largely left behind his traditional Hawaiian repertoire some years ago, but his exploration of the instrument’s expressive capacity remains enthralling for music lovers not attached to genres. Two fall releases, one linked to the signature dance form of Hawaii, the other reaching out to vintage pop, deserve attention.
In the EP recording My Life, the virtuoso offers beautiful, heartfelt arrangements of six of his favorite tunes. He treats the work of Sarah McLachlan, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, and Cyndi Lauper with respect while integrating his unique interpretations.
Athena Tergis - San Francisco- raised Valley Of The Moon (Alisdair Fraser’s Scottish Fiddle School) denizen, three-time Junior National Scottish Fiddling Champion and principal fiddler for Riverdance on Broadway- has released a lovely and varied CD showcasing her clean and sprightly style with the help of some other excellent musicians. Eminent guitarist John Doyle is the producer along with providing his signature syncopated guitar and bouzouki accompaniment and arrangements. Liz Carroll, Natalie Haas and Sharon Shannon join her as well on a few tracks on fiddle, cello and accordion, respectively, along with Chico Huff on bass, Billy McComiskey on accordion, and Ben Wittman on percussion.
Like many other fans of A Prairie Home Companion, I first heard Robin & Linda Williams on the radio program where they’ve been frequent guests for over 30 years. That’s what makes their newest CD “Radio Songs
Today's world is fast moving and noisy. Pop music often reflects this, so much so that it becomes difficult to find music that isn't fast moving and noisy without succumbing to "easy listening," "new age" or "light jazz."
Ray Bierl's music is not fast moving or noisy, nor is it "easy listening," "new age" or "light jazz." It's folk, at its best. More back porch music than Top 10 pop.
Though raised in San Diego, Bierl's music is best known in the Bay Area, his adopted home. Ray picked up the guitar in high school, and became enamored with folk music in the 1960s, becoming a regular on the coffee house scene. Bierl provided guitar backup for a variety of artists such as Rosalie Sorrels, Kate Wolf, and Malvina Reynolds. He also dabbled in bluegrass, and eventually took up the fiddle. He took his fiddle to work every day at his civil service job and practiced at breaks, lunch and after work. One hopes his co-workers received hazard duty pay, since the fiddle is an instrument that is difficult to master, and a painful experience for those that get to hear the progress.
Martin Simpson has long been one of my favorite guitarists. I
love his sense of timing. The fluidity
of his picking conjures for me cascades and swirling eddies that buoy up the
melody. What wonderful control he has- and he’s not afraid to just let it ring,
either.
He starts off with a few ballads that have made their way to America- Batchelor’s Hall and an instrumental
version of Pretty Crowing Chicken on the banjo, (both of which were
collected by folklorist/musician/photographer John Cohen in the 1960s,) and Lakes
of Champlain, a version of the Irish Lakes of Coolfinn. They are
enhanced by the gentle cello and concertina accompaniments by Barry Phillips
and Alistair Anderson,
respectively.
Sometimes we ignore our own backyard, musically speaking. We
don’t truly respect the talent we have in our own community or we can’t grasp
them as STARS. Peter Case is a case in point. (Not only a bad pun but also the
kind of hackneyed redundancy that has made the print media what we are today.)
Case has spent most of his career based in Southern California, and has long garnered the
respect (and awe) of his fellow musicians. His work has been regaled by the
critics, but for the most part “mainstream success” has eluded him. Case is a
remarkably prolific artist, his work gifted with a rich, storytelling aspect
that make comparisons with prose writers such as Raymond Carter or Cornell
Woolrich every bit as appropriate as comparisons with great storytelling
songwriters like Guy Clark or Sleepy John Estes.
Say you've got to move and you've misplaced your energy
supplements? No problem. Pop on Oyaya! and crank up the volume. You'll soon be doing all the moving you need
to do - and I mean "moving" from taking all your stuff from here to there as
well as "moving" your body to the groove.
From the first staccato hits on the snare drum, introducing
some deliciously dexterous acoustic guitar work, followed quickly by some
smoking slides on electric bass, the sense that you are in for an energetic
ride becomes clear. Though she is not a
very big person, Kidjo has a huge voice and enough energy to get us all to
dance - or move furniture! You get the sense that she really doesn't
need a microphone to front a band replete with guitars, several percussionists,
drums, keyboards, horns and a host of backup singers.
Singer-songwriters don't seem to have much of a problem
bearing their souls. It's difficult to think of any subject that hasn't slipped
from the pens of a confessional musician. But it's somewhat a different story
when it comes to spirituality. A lot
of listeners shy from recordings that mention spirituality. Many are afraid
that they'll be proselytized, and of course some material isn't really
spiritual as much as religious indoctrination. And,
oddly, many people are far more comfortable discussing their love life than
their spiritual life. Singer/songwriter/guitarist Danny Flowers is an exception.
The whimsical name of the group belies the fact that these
musicians play hard, fast, and serious. There’s nothing fishy about them. In
fact, there’s no slouching or mannered excesses, as Fishtank Ensemble comes
armed, loaded and ready to serve you up a platter of intense nearly cosmic
gypsy music. Their latest CD release, Samurai
Over Serbia, samples the global plain that is the group’s playing field. Like
the gypsies, it crosses borders, villages, continents, and time periods
showcasing the varied instrumental prowess of each member and the extreme range
of vocalist, Ursula Knudson who also can double up on violin, banjolele and the
musical saw.
Following the oldest of musical traditions, Pint & Dale have gathered a number of great nautical-themed songs in their travels. Their latest CD The Set of the Sail features songs, both traditional and contemporary, they've collected in their travels to England.
Unlike some of the more traditional shanty bands, Pint & Dale dress up traditional songs with updated musical arrangements reminiscent of some of the better bands of the 1960s folk music revival but the sound is fresh and current. Felicia Dale plays the hurdy-gurdy, fiddle, whistles and bodhran. William Pint plays guitar and mandolin. Felicia Dale's hurdy-gurdy has a prominent role on this CD and it sounds like she has added a new dimension to her playing on that instrument giving it more of a leading role than on previous recordings.
Ka Hikina O Ka Hau represents a new exploration with
slack key guitar by one of the foremost contributors to the Hawaiian musical
renaissance that began in the 1970's. Keola Beamer applies traditional
slack-key tunings to both traditional and classical material, collaborating
with pianist-record producer George Winston and guitarist-arranger Daniel
O'Donoghue to create an album of delicate beauty. In most of the pieces, Beamer
plays all the guitars through the magic of overdubbing.
It seems that Raiatea has grown up. Not to say that her voice has changed - she still has the sweetest voice you can imagine. Raiatea's first CD was recorded in 2003 when she was 17 years old. While that may be the norm for pop bands, the Hawaiian traditional music scene is usually dominated by more seasoned musicians. This makes it even more remarkable that she has captured numerous prestigious awards from the start: receiving the Na Hoku awards for her debut (given by the Hawai‘i Academy of Recording Artists) for both Most Promising Artist and Female Vocalist of the Year in 2003. Her second CD Sweet and Lovely released in 2004 again won her the Na Hoku Female Vocalist of the Year plus Favorite Entertainer of the Year in 2005 plus four other Na Hoku awards. When she was nominated for a Grammy for her second CD, the New York Times called the recording "poised and utterly elegant."
The soaring vocal stylings of Qawwali singers (Qawwals) transport listeners and performers to heights of ecstatic spiritual awareness. Like the similarly intended and better known Whirling Dervishes, the public ritual of Qawwali runs on love and desire for Divine Union. Unlike the trance dancing Dervishes, Qawwali sweats, bleeds, and screams.
Originally from Persia, Qawwali flourished with the Chisti order of Sufis on the Indian subcontinent. A group of musicians called a party features a chorus of 4 or 5 men, a lead singer, second singer, percussionists on tabla or dholak, with the singers usually playing harmoniums, which took over from the stringed sarangis of earlier times. Qawwalis usually begin slowly with harmonium and tabla improvisation, some introductory singing by the lead, and finally the whole party joins building momentum as they go.
There lies a musical posse scattered across the vast disparate and desperate basin and valleys of Los Angeles, men who strum along according to the book of who-cares-what's-on-the-pop-charts. From bluegrass to blues and from ballad to cowboy waltz, the varied art of the American troubadour gets a shot in the arm when a cadre of the Southland's best musicians get together and stay in one place long enough to record a sample of the Americana roots music rainbow. The Goin' South Band rounds up Rick Shea, Cody Bryant, Paul Lacques, Vic Koler, John Zeretzke, Fred Sokolow, and Rick Cunha, each taking time out from their solo and sidemen projects, and presents them as educators and purveyors of various forms of the traditional American musical songbook, not the bright lights of Broadway, but tunes that would perhaps be found down the road a piece and headed mostly southbound.
Jake Shimabukuro's latest release could be titled The Naked Ukulele. Except for a few bonus tracks, the Honolulu-born ukulele virtuoso has stripped away the instrumental backup used in his four previous releases to let us experience his artistic sensibility without distractions. The result is a recording of rare emotional intensity. It showcases not only his astounding technique but also his drive to explore musical genres. While the Hawaiian folk roots of the ukulele remain strong today, Jake's music pushes beyond them fearlessly.
A haunting rock-blues-inspired riff opens the tastefully embellished version of George Harrison's While My Guitar Gently Weeps. After
stating the melody, he creates a bridge of chord progressions and
builds with a hard-driving rhythm and huge dynamics that belie the
small size of his four-stringed instrument. Then he returns to the
melody for a tender conclusion. During a recent interview, Jake told me
that Harrison's widow expressed her appreciation of Jake's adaptation
in person when he performed it in concert. In fact, Harrison was a
great fan of the ukulele, collecting instruments and recordings for
much of his artistic life. For that reason, too, Jake feels a bond with
the late Beatle whom he never met.
Bob Webb's album, Full Circle: The Solo Banjo Sessions means a lot to those of us who have been waiting many years for a recording of just Bob and the banjo. In the late 1970s, Webb abandoned old time banjo tunes for maritime music and Los Angeles for British Columbia and later Maine where he still resides. So, to have him back with this amazing album of old time banjo tunes is truly welcome since he is one of the finest clawhammer players in the country. The more you listen to his playing, the more you will appreciate his talent and mastery of the instrument.
If you are familiar withKitty Lie Over, the masterful recording of Irish traditional music by Mick O’Brien and Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh, you may have a sense of the melodious pulse that Caoimhin brings to this music. His new CD where the one-eyed man is king contains a series of jewel-like expressions that combine his sensibilities in the field of Irish traditional music with his own explorations in composition, recording, and art.This is an all-Caoimhin production, and he plays fiddle, hardanger fiddle,whistles, piano and other percussion on this recording.
Chris
Whitley pushed the envelope of blues music as far as any performer. His death
from lung cancer in November of 2005 at the age of 45 shocked and saddened the
blues music world. He was a remarkably proficient artist, reeling from solo
projects to inspired collaborations such as Dislocation
Blues, where he teamed with noted Australian
bluesman Jeff Lang.
Texas born Whitley released his first CD, Living with the Law, in 1991 and
released 14 others by the time of his death. Some, like 1998s Dirt Floor, were primarily acoustic
recordings, where others used samples, looping and distortion as part of the
menu.
In Generation Hawaii Amy Hanaiali'i' shares
the rich cultural heritage passed on from her grandmother's generation to her
own. Beginning with the opening song, Napua,
the influence of her recently-deceased grandmother, Jenny Napua Hanaiali'i
Woodd, permeates the album as it has permeated Amy's life. Beside the liner
notes for the song is a picture of a youthful woman with a fresh, engaging
smile, and a floral garland crowning her dark hair? The English translation of
Amy's Hawaiian lyrics captures the tenderness of the granddaughter-grandmother
relationship:
Your petals are indeed delicate
Awakened by the rains of Hina
How I yearn to see you
My blossom that is in eternal rest.
As in the other
songs to be found on Generation Hawaii,
the melody and instrumental arrangement of Napua
intertwine like the thick, fragrant, flowered vines to be found in Hawaii's forests, woven
to highlight the strength and sweetness of Amy's
voice.
Most
consumers are not surprised to see one of those “explicit lyric” stickers on
the latest rap or hip hop CD. It’s a little odd to see one on a roots-rock
record, but it does bring up the fact that a lot of folk music recordings
probably deserve a similar sticker. The people that thought up the idea of
putting warning stickers on records need a sticker too, but that’s another
story. Scott Miller & The
Commonwealth’s lyrics won’t cause you to pass out, and it’s easy to forget
about the sticker once you are immersed in the music of Citation, Miller’s newest recording.
Most people know
of the band Fleetwood Mac as a pop
rock group, one of the most popular in the mid and late 1970s. There is another
Fleetwood Mac that only shares two
of the same members, but left a legacy arguably as strong as the later
incarnation, although as an electric blues band with emerging pop overtones.
Fleetwood Mac
began in 1967 as somewhat of an offshoot of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, as three of the original four members
had been in the recent employ of Mr. Mayall. The former Bluesbreakers, bassist John McVie, drummer Mick Fleetwood and
guitarist/vocalist Peter Green, were joined by a 19 year old blues guitarist,
pianist and singer named Jeremy Spencer. Spencer had the ability to play American
blues legend Elmore James' songs uncannily like James, a somewhat astonishing
fact considering that Spencer was a young white Brit. Fleetwood Mac soon added Danny Kirwan as the third guitarist, and
the world was their oyster for a short period of time. However, Green began to mentally
unravel due to the pressures of rock success, and left the group. They soldered
on for another album sans Green, but during a U.S.
tour in 1971, Spencer left his hotel to visit a bookstore in Los Angeles, but did not return for that
night's concert. It turned out that he had joined a sect called the Children of
God, a group with which he remains affiliated to this day. Green was begged
back to finish the tour, but the first incarnation of Fleetwood Mac was on the ropes.The personnel changes made by McVie and Fleetwood eventually created the
pop supergroup that to many, eclipsed the memory of the first Fleetwood Mac.
Every now and then you find a wonderful little nugget of folk music, an obscure recording of an unknown artist in some tiny shop or on some esoteric website dedicated to the preservation and promotion of folk culture. Or maybe you receive it as a gift.
Such was the case with this 1999 CD, A Celtic Century. On first glance it looked to be nothing more than a charming local musician (in this case local to Butte, Montana), and his shot at immortality by way of a CD recording. It is much more.
I recently “discovered” the already long discovered, multi-award-winning songwriter and humorist, J.W. McClure, when I was hosting a showcase at the 2011 FAR-West Folk Alliance Conference in Eugene, Oregon. From the minute I heard the first few measures of his popular new cat song, Blue, I knew I was hooked. And my McClure “addiction” has only gotten worse since then.
The Gothard Sisters are three siblings from Edmonds, WA who perform traditional and contemporary music and dance. Highly skilled musicians and dancers, Greta (25), Willow (23) and Solana (16) have been performing and recording together for much of their lives and this comes through strongly in their music and arranging. Their new album, Story Girl, features many of the ideas and pieces the girls have developed over the last few years of a rigorous touring schedule across the U.S and Canada. All three sisters trained from an early age in the violin and while trio string arrangements are a hallmark of their playing, they are all multi-instrumentalists and singers as well as champion Irish step dancers. Because they come from a background steeped in many influences, the new album doesn’t fall strictly into any one genre but instead features both Irish, Scottish, Americana and Classical ideas intertwined in a number of self-composed tunes along with a few fresh takes of older traditional material.
Singer/songwriter Lucy Billings’ second folk/Americana CD, No Other Road, provides a wonderful combination of “shine” and substance. From the opening measure, the “shine” – emanating from Billings’ clear inviting voice and a stellar cast of studio musicians – makes the album an instant winner. But it is the substance – the melodic flow and refreshingly honest lyrics – that makes the album enduringly enjoyable. Laced with engaging personal stories, thought-provoking themes, instrumental nuances, and interesting chord progressions, No Other Road never loses its appeal, no matter how many times I listen to it.
With her new second album, Let the Storm Roll In, Claudia Nygaard is enjoying one of the most richly deserved success stories on the folk/Americana scene today. After years of honing her craft – performing at over 150 fairs and festivals in 47 states and across Europe, and working as a full-time staff songwriter on Nashville’s Music Row – Nygaard has emerged as an award-winning singer-songwriter whose new album has swept the Americana, Roots, and Folk Charts (actually staying on the Folk Charts for three months now).
Listening to Catch the Sunset, the sixth album of Minnesota singer-songwriter, Barb Ryman, I can’t help thinking she really has caught it….in all the ephemeral beauty, the simultaneous sadness and radiance, of every sunset since the dawn of time. This is one profoundly beautiful and beautifully profound CD.
October 4, 2011; the much-anticipated release of The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams, spearheaded by Bob Dylan for Hank William’s estate, had to take a back seat today to more urgent news about Hank Williams, Jr. Bocephus crashed the party by getting booted off of Monday Night Football, where his sun-glasses tough guy persona has reigned supreme since 1989, due to his unfortunate comparing of President Obama to Adolph Hitler in an ESPN interview over the weekend.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the acapella group Anonymous 4. They are team of four singers specializing in, though not always limited to, medieval music. During that time they have released a number of recordings including two collections of music by Hildegard von Bingen, and have been recognized as among the foremost interpreters of the music of this period; but they have also ventured into American gospel and rural folksong (Gloryland with Darol Anger and Mike Marshall). Though they had considered retiring the team in 2004, they have continued touring and recording and they are far from wearing out their welcome. If you are not familiar with their work, their website www.anonymous4.com is well worth a visit. The latest release from Anonymous 4 “Secret Voices: Chant & Polyphony from the Las Huelgas Codex c.1300” is a collection of music from the Cistercian Abbey of Santa Maria la Real de Las Huelgas near Burgos in northern Spain.
Double strung instruments have not been staples of Irish music for very long, perhaps only becoming popular since the late sixties and early seventies, spread by the likes of Johnny Moynihan, Andy Irvine, Donal Lunny and Alec Finn, but they have become emblematic of the resurgence and ensuing worldwide commercial success of traditional and folk music. Today, bouzoukis, mandolins, and octave mandolins, citterns, blarges, mandolas and mandocellos are found in folk groups across Europe and in the USA. Despite this success it is rare to find a recording that features only such instruments. Jimmy Crowley, Irish balladeer par excellence, and early adopter of the bouzouki, and Marla Fibish, San Francisco Bay Area based mandolin wonder, have released an album that is all double strung, all the time. And it is magnificent. Featuring the Gibson A model mandolin Marla was given by her grandfather, her mandola, and Crowley's bouzouki, mandocello, mandolin, and Dordán (a mighty bouzouki like creature with a deep and powerful bass), this recording captures the power, the rhythmic intensity, the heavenly harmonics and the sheer joy that flows from these instruments, when in the right hands. Marla and Jimmy are old friends, having toured and played together over the course of some years, and shows by this duo are always a delight.
Susie Glaze & The Hilonesome Band and the venerable Berkeley venue the Freight and Salvage. Sounds like a good match, and this recording made in July of 2010 proves it.
If this tangled, modern world has got you down and you yearn for the simpler, good ole’ days, tune into Caleb Klauder for the most authentic reincarnation of Traditional Country, Honky Tonk and Old Time music you’ve ever heard....and a guaranteed, high-energy pick-me-up.
For a slice of bona-fide old-time Americana -- or, as they describe themselves, the kind of “ass-kickin redneck stringband music” you’d expect to hear on some front porch in Appalachia in the 1930s -- there is no better contemporary band than The Foghorn Trio. The Trio is an offshoot of The Foghorn Stringband, which has been together for ten years. Based in Portland, Oregon, with four albums to their credit, the up to 7-member band (depending on availability) has long been one of the brightest stars on the thriving Old Time Music Revival scene in the Northwest.
Blame Sally is a band based in the San Francisco area. This quartet of talented women singer-songwriters came together in 2000, putting their individual careers on hold to form a group that is far more than the sum of the parts. They perform a passionate and melodic mix of acoustic folk-rock tinged Americana music with rock, Latin and even occasional Celtic flavors.
During the Bicentennial in 1976 there were a plethora of patriotic gestures on every front, a flag-waving resurgence of national pride after the recent debacle of Watergate and the ignominious end to the Vietnam War. Even the staid National Geographic Society got into the act, deciding to make a simple statement of enduring American values by releasing an album of cowboy songs. So whom did they get to represent the American Cowboy? Not Gene Autry, not Roy Rogers, and not Tex Ritter; they dug deeper than the silver screen, and roped Berkeley cowboy Larry Hanks into their cause.
The luckiest fans of acoustic music on the night of January 7th, 2011 in Los Angeles were smack dab in the audience of McCabe's Guitar Shop for a concert from one of this country's landmark and pre-eminent songwriters of our generation, the great Ernest Troost. As an opener for Kenny Edwards in 2010, Ernest impressed, and this year yielded up a night unto himself, a very aptly deserved reward. Now in hand as Ernest Troost LIVE at McCabe's, this stellar new CD is the wonderful take-away from that evening's performances of Ernest's brilliant songwriting, amazing guitar work and fabulous accompanying players and singers.
Freebo is best recognized for the decade or more that he recorded and toured with Bonnie Raitt. In fact, Freebo is a genuine folk, rock and blues icon. For more than 30 years, Freebo has played bass and tuba on recordings and toured with some of the great artists of our time: Bonnie Raitt, John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, Crosby Stills & Nash, Maria Muldaur, Ringo Starr, Michelle Shocked, Neil Young, Loudon Wainwright III, Dr. John, and many others. He has also appeared on Saturday Night Live, Midnight Special, Muppets Tonight, and in concert with the legendary Spinal Tap.
Forget the banjo jokes. If you’ve ever heard him play live, you know: Dan Levitt can make a banjo sound like nothing you’ve ever heard before. And this gem of a CD captures it all. With his debut CD, Fancy That! Banjo Artistry Of Dan Levitt, “the man with the golden banjo” has produced an amazing treasure trove of beautiful music, both original and traditional. On some of the tracks – if you did not know what you were listening to – you might not even realize it was a banjo!
All Wood and Doors by James Lee Stanley and Cliff Eberhardt is one of those CDs that sounds both new and familiar at the same time, and for good reason.
James Lee Stanley has been a staple of the Los Angeles area singer- songwriter scene for more than 40 years, releasing 25 albums since his self-titled debut album in 1973. In spite of the fact that his 1998 album Freelance Human Being was listed by Fi Magazine as one of the top 200 recordings of all time, he remains one of the great undiscovered talents in American pop music.
It seems inevitable that the most talented of songwriters will sooner or later be compelled to do an album of cover songs. This offering by Fur Dixon and Steve Werner is a wonderful testament to the musicians that have inspired them.
Johanna Divine’s Mile-High Rodeo is an instant Americana classic. Just like that! Every song gleans from a different roots music genre and adds what appears to be a Divine touch. She possesses a real knack for melodic hooks, a skill honed, perhaps, from writing jingles for local merchants in Lafayette, Louisiana, her hometown of the past several years. Then there’s the voice; not a seductive Crystal Gayle soprano, nor a lean and stern Tammy Wynette croon, but an up front mid-range that gets the most out of her Knoxville, Tennessee delivery. Divine does not shy away from any style from the Americana catalog. All songs are originals, but you know she’s been around the jukebox of country, swing, jazz, rockabilly, honky-tonk, and torch songs, absorbing a lot of that true grit from the 1930s to the 1960s eras.
I took one look at the cover of this CD and concluded that it was a shoe-in for the 2011 Grammy for Best Hawaiian Music Album. After five years of awarding it to compilations of slack key guitar music, the mucky-mucks could enjoy a refreshing twist on their love affair with slack key. Celebrated vocalist, Amy Hanaiali’i, who has lost out to slack key at the Grammies more than once, had teamed up with five masters of the beloved guitar tradition: Cyril Pahinui, Sonny Lim, Dennis Kamakahi, Jeff Peterson, and Chino Montero. It’s a dazzling collaboration and thoroughly enjoyable listening. Did it win the Grammy? No! This year the award for Best Hawaiian album went to a vocalist of more limited gifts than Amy and no hint of slack key guitar on the cover. Go figure! We move on...
The sun had just risen over Mount Haleakala when we mounted our bikes. Encased in a hooded ski jacket provided by the tour service, I could still feel the bite of the icy air, which began to sting my cheeks as we gained speed. But an hour later, the moonscape of the Haleakala crater seemed worlds away and the lush ranch lands of its slopes came into view. I shed my jacket and enjoyed watching horses calmly grazing in the distance. I will never forget this view of verdant Maui.
Hard to define, eclectic, versatile... are the frequent descriptions Lawrence Lebo has received during and after her three volume set of releases, American Roots, which has now been fully realized with the release of last year’s final recording in the series. That’s she not he, hence the Don’t Call Her Larry proclamation and album sub-title.
Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yes, they’ve been around for a long, long time. Ian Dury wrote a song about the lifestyle. Eric Bogosian did a one-man show on it. Too many hair bands have worn it on their sleeve or inked it on their ____ (fill in the first thing that comes to mind). But back when hooch, a snort of stardust, and carnal pleasures, were sold under the counter, down the alley, on the wrong side of the tracks, and in the back seat, songs about said vices were sung with a very thin negligee of metaphor and without the help from high definition video accompaniment. Because of strict censorship, there was a thing called imagination (read: dirty mind) which made this music titillate ones cerebellum as it traversed the tenderloin district.
The Grammy category for Cajun and Zydeco music is only three years old. A young musician from San Felipe, Texas had his first solo album nominated in 2008 and his second effort made the list in 2009. This year, he’s back again as if it’s as sure a thing as his birthday. At 27 years of age, Cedric Watson, a relative newcomer to the scene, has reached the heights of the recording arts, sharing the charts and accolades with established Cajun and Zydeco giants such as Buckwheat Zydeco, Terrance Simien and Beausoleil.
If you take the accordion out of Cajun music and take the Cajun music out of the dance hall, what will you get? Ace fiddler, David Greely, an original member of the Mamou Playboys, lets us in on a secret most Cajun music aficionados know about, but rarely get to hear, at least in recordings or outside of Louisiana. With Sud du Sud (South of South), the fiddle has a life of its own and in a setting such as this, one gets to experience the instrument away from the din of the Fais dodo.
Three Mile Stone are three musical compatriots playing and singing sweet, soulful Irish music in the San Francisco Bay Area. Friends for many years, mandolinist Marla Fibish, fiddler Erin Schrader, and guitarist Richard Mandel formalized their musical comradeship as Three Mile Stone several years back, and music lovers are the better for it. There is an easy, trance inducing lilt to everything on this recording, even the driving (and they do drive!) tunes. Lots of love in these notes.
For obvious reasons, I should not be reviewing Uncle
Ruthie's new double CD; full disclosure: we have been friends for twenty-five
years, she has cooked noodle kugel for me, I have sung at all of her husbands'
memorial services, she has confided in me about each of her boyfriends and
assured me that the only reason she was interested in them is because I wasn't
available, and I have been a guest on her classic KPFK radio program Halfway Down the Stairs for more times
than I can remember-usually losing a nights' sleep to get there at 7:00am to
prepare for her 8:00am start time.
The ‘ukeke is a small, three-stringed Hawaiian instrument
made of koa wood, plucked while held in the mouth, which acts as a resonating
chamber. Its otherworldly pulsating sound would not bring to mind John Lennon.
But in the first 12 beats of Keola Beamer
& Raiatea, a lone 'ukeke
ushers in the opening notes of Imagine.
Played by Moanalani Beamer (Keola Beamer's wife and ensemble member), it keeps
solemn time while Keola Beamer and Raiatea Helm perform the song in beautifully
intertwined Hawaiian and English. Keola accompanies their vocals in his
signature slack key (ki ho 'alu)
guitar style and the Spring Wind Quintet enriches the arrangement. Hawaiian
chanting (oli) by Charles Ka'upu
brings this unique version of Imagine
to a close. The effect is of a universal hymn.
Watch the 
By the time I realized I wasn't listening to a Segovia
record, I remembered what a masterful finger-style guitar player Craig Lincoln
is. Seconds later, I remembered the beautifully tight harmonies that I have
come to expect when Sabrina and Craig sing, and the opening song, Sabrina's Make You Mine demonstrates that
wonderfully.
You haven't experienced the full aesthetic potential of If I Were a Rich Man from Fiddler on the Roof until you have heard The Temptations' rendition of the Broadway favorite. You can dig-a-dig-a-dum this and 14 other recordings of Black artists interpreting Jewish content in Black Sabbath: The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations, a CD released this September by the Idelsohn Society, an organization dedicated to collecting and preserving precious old recordings with Jewish content and exploring their significance.
The ever chameleonic Fishtank
Ensemble have once again added more colors to their palette, spilling over
into a pastiche of songs, traditional and new, retaining their own style, but
honoring the sources. This is an epic musical variety show except all the
performances are performed by four talented musicians and some added guests.
Fans of the Vermont-based trio Nightingale have had to wait a long time for Three, the band's third CD. It has been eight years since the last recording (Sometimes When the Moon is High; the first CD was entitled The Coming Dawn). Three is worth the wait. Bottom line, here's what you should know about this CD: it is a musical feast, full of thoughtfully crafted medleys, excellently played. Becky Tracy's fiddling is strong and expressive, whether she's singing out a melody, weaving in a harmony or providing a rhythmic riff. In Jeremiah McLane's inspired accordion and piano playing, you can hear evidence of his study of styles such as Quebecois and French music, as well as his masters degree in Contemporary Improvisation. Keith Murphy not only plays superbly on mandolin, guitar, piano, and on his feet (providing foot percussion); he also has a fine singing voice.
Are you happy?" inquires the tall imposing figure of
Bassekou Kouyate at a concert earlier this year at the Getty. As if insecure
about the effects of his music which should evoke this sense of elation, he
repeats this question at the end of every other song. And as the set
progresses, you decide, yes, I am happy, regardless of the language barrier and
the actual content of each song. The layperson can appreciate the technique and
the rolling wave of sound, not to mention the energy radiated by each of the
musicians who go from stoic self-conscious performance to playful dancing and
contagious smiles. Hints of 60s-era jamming weave in and out of the melodies
which retain the griot spiritual sensibility. This is not uncommon in much of
Malian music, and especially that of the stringed instrument variety.
At any given acoustic jam that might include musicians of
old time, Celtic, Appalachian, or any other form that serves up songs of a
traditional disposition, you might hear a certain similarity between old
ballads, folk blues, lullabies, and church music. There might be a twist in the
lyrics that bends an old Irish lament into something akin to an American blues
tune or a harmonica melody might remind you of some doleful dirge from a
concertina heard in a nameless pub you fell into one night.
When Pete Seeger was charged with Contempt of Congress for
not answering House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)'s questions on
August 18, 1955, he began a long sojourn as an underground artist, after having
headed the most successful pop folk quartet in music history just five years
before. That would be The Weavers,
which crashed and burned less than one year after soaring to the top of the hit
parade in 1950, with their two-sided hit record of Tzena Tzena Tzena and Goodnight
Irene. They were blacklisted before the year was out, and had two years
worth of bookings cancelled on them overnight.
Los Angeles was the home of the invention of country rock in
the late 1960s, and for almost a decade this genre flourished and made millions
of dollars for the major record companies. The Eagles were probably the most
famous of the groups that played country rock, although only their first record
and portions of the next few really mined this genre.
Having just ended a year that saw Pete Seeger's 90th
birthday celebrated by rock and folk royalty at the Madison Square Garden,
after being awarded his first competitive Grammy for the album Pete Seeger:
At 89, it is chastening to be reminded what all the fuss was about with
this brand new release of an extraordinary concert that Pete gave 45 years ago
on February 20, 1965-recorded live but only now released for the first time.
Tom Corbett's new CD, Tonight I Ride, is the kind of fun, quality album that those who have worked with him in the Southern California music scene for many years always knew he was capable of putting together. This is Tom's third solo release and -- with no disrespect meant to his first two efforts -- it is his best album so far.
Inspired is a CD of elegant Scottish music by David Brewer,
the piper and whistle player in the Celtic band Molly's Revenge, and Rebecca
Lomnicky, a young fiddler from Oregon. "Elegant" or perhaps "stately" seem to
be the best words to capture the atmosphere, in particular the fiddle style. It
is slower and more refined than old-time or Irish fiddling, but it is not classical
music either. If you are not familiar with this genre, this CD is a good
introduction. If you are already a fan Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas, Inspired will be an enjoyable addition
to your CD collection.
Evie Ladin, step dancer, banjo player and singer in the
Stairwell Sisters has just released her first collection of songs, Float Downstream. From the opening
track, I Love My Honey, with its
stripped down banjo, rhythm and voice, she shows you where she's from-- "a girl
who ran barefoot through muddy festivals, soaking up traditional American music
and dance." Although this tune (from fiddler Santford Kelly) and the album have
those late night acoustic elements of fire and firewater, its overall sound has
a more global, contemporary singer-songwriter blend.
It's hard not to like Pokey
La Farge and the South City Three. For want of a better term, Pokey and the
boys play "good time music." If you're old enough to remember the Lovin' Spoonful or the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, then you have some
idea of what type of music Pokey plays. Maybe you're a blues fan and know about
the Memphis Jug Band. Maybe you're a
folk fan and you like The New Lost City
Ramblers. You know that Pokey does. But perhaps you don't like upbeat
music. Perhaps you can't abide by humor in music, or even just plain silliness.
Perhaps you have no fondness for straw hats and spats. If so, then read no
more.
The package is so gorgeous it grabs you right away. Big bold
southern colors and Latin looking iconography. gives you a warm feeling that
this might be a special recording. First off the sparkling harp of Celso Duarte
takes you right to Vera Cruz. But wait, there are the Chieftains - with Sonny's Mazurka. So Irish. Will this
work? Then Lila Downs hypnotic vocals take command, and the whole thing gels in
a most marvelous way, with the pipes, whistle, flute taking decidedly Latin
lines, and seemingly having a ball. Then back to the Mazurka in the end, and
you realize, this is going to be gooood.
It's been four years since cancer took Ali Farka Touré, but
the gentleman farmer, Niger River bluesman, and former mayor of Niafunké has
left us with one last sonic memento. Ali
and Toumani finds the guitarist teaming up again with countryman and kora
virtuoso Toumani Diabaté (with whom Ali won a Grammy for In The Heart of the Moon) and a few special guests, including Ali's
son Vieux and the late Cuban bassist Cachaito Lopez. (In a sad irony, these
were the Buena Vista Social Club sideman's last recording sessions as well.)
The album's 11 cuts, recorded over three days in June 2005 at a London studio,
manage to be both spontaneous and contemplative, a timeless slice of pan-Malian
musicology riven with a laidback acoustic intensity reminiscent of the best
back-porch jam sessions (albeit a very well-recorded one).
Two things hit me from the first, listening to Natural Angle, Grada's latest release on
Compass Records. First, this recording just sounds fantastic, and second, these
great players have carved out a unique sound amidst the proliferation of
fiddle/accordion/flute/guitar.female vocalist Irish bands now showcasing Irish
music on the world's stages. Grada's music is rooted and strong, with a sense
of humor and it is quite emotionally powerful without losing an truly engaging
sense of spontaneity.
There's no folk like Quaker folk. On the cover of Carrie
Newcomer's new CD, Before & After, she is illustrated in warm sunset
colors on a train. The window shows a scene outside; a golden sun and several
birds in flight. And there is Carrie, busy writing on a pad of paper with book
in hand, her feet relaxed on the seat across from her. It is a serene portrait
of an artist at work with her inspirations around her.
Sylvia
Herold
In the category of children's music, dozens of musicians
have made their entire careers writing and performing music exclusively for
tykes and pre-teens. A handful of acoustic musicians who usually write
sensitive adult songs will occasionally make the foray into a children's album
as their own offspring or those near to them can often be the catalysts for
creating kid choruses. Some well-known performers have crossed-over for a stab
at creating a songbook of tunes palatable to the little ones. Leadbelly, Johnny
Cash, and David Grisman are just a few that come to mind. And a few years ago,
even the alt-country guys and gals took some time away from songs of dark love,
dark roads, the dark before light, and whiskey, and contributed some bouncy
rhymes to The Bottle Let Me Down: Songs
for Bumpy Wagon Rides.
Shout Monah is the
first album by The Haints Old Time String
Band. Featuring Erynn Marshall on fiddle, Jason Romero on banjo and vocals,
and Pharis Romero on guitar and vocals, the Haints are anchored near Victoria,
BC, where Erynn (now of Galax, Virginia) hails from, and where Jason and Pharis
now live. The Haints channel the energy and often-overlooked versatility of
old-time Southern music. Yes, this CD is squarely in the old-time tradition --
no experimental blending with other genres or taking off in new directions
here. But, no, these songs and tunes don't all fit into a single mold or follow
the same groove. The Haints explore the many twisty by-roads of Southern
mountain music, pulling together an album that is novel and enticing, all the
while hewing close to traditional roots.
If you enjoy Scottish
bagpipe music and wanted to get a CD featuring this amazing instrument, the CD Turning Pages by David Brewer is a good
place to start. David is the piper and whistle player of Molly's Revenge and
the Scottish Highland pipes is his main instrument. The CD contains a mix of traditional pipe tunes, airs,
marches, jigs, and reels.
Beth Wood is an artist you should know about. A powerful
singer/songwriter of new contemporary folk music, her newest project, her
eighth independent release Beachcomber's
Daughter, is a gorgeous musical joy ride, vividly and movingly brought to
life via a confident and kick-ass country rock and roll, at the same time
tender, poetic and painful, with a wicked and wonderful humor to top everything
off.
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.
Boulder Acoustic Society has been called a mini-orchestra
rather than your basic rock and roll band. They are a lively musical caravan
made up of four Colorado-based musicians who burn up stages across the country
to many a sold-out venue. The varied backgrounds of BAS allow them to give a
kaleidoscopic performance that is impressive, but without any hint of pretension.
With Punchline, they transfer some of variety to a digital package. The
ambitious nature of the packaging of the CD, although no enhancement to the
music nor insightful to the songs (no lyric listings), adds a dimension
(literally 3D!) of the band as both poseur and provocateur. It will stand out
musically, as well as literally, on your CD storage shelf.
I recently became acquainted with the Appalachian folk music
duo of Jeni Hankins and Billy Kemp (they bill themselves as "Jeni &
Billy") when I met and played alongside them at the FAR-West (Folk
Alliance Regional) Music Conference in Irvine in early November. We shared a
discussion panel on Appalachian music, and later we shared songs in a roundtable
showcase room. It was, by virtue of the close confines of the room, a wonderfully
intimate experience of their work, but also intimate by virtue of their art, their
writing and performance style, and their honest, loving, warm and authentic
presence.
Some precious gifts are wrapped in delicate tissue papers of
many colors, a layered rainbow of sorts that you would not want to tear but
would want to keep and cherish along with the gift. Unwrapping the meaning of an
exquisitely crafted Hawaiian mele can give you this feeling, especially if you
approach it as one who doesn't know the language. Mele is often translated to
mean the word song and perhaps it is most quickly understood that way. But the
Hawaiian mele evolved from ancient poetic chants that often were accompanied by
dance.
"If you remember the 60s you weren't there," insisted Wavy Gravy, one of its iconic counter-cultural heroes, but as Johnny Cash replied in his early gospel masterpiece, "I was there when it happened, so I guess I ought to know"-the "it" in this case being the folk revival. And all of us who were there know, what was the most reliable source for accurate information about that on-going odyssey through America's bedrock music. That would be The Little Sandy Review, which was edited and published by Paul Nelson and Jon Pankake, in the same state from which came the folk revival's most astonishing artist. That would be Minnesota, home to both Bob Dylan and Jon Pankake-and thereby hangs a tale.
up-and-coming phenom in mid-1960s Los Angeles, he was poised to hit it
big; everyone who heard him was blown away. Listening to these two recordings,
it's easy to see why. But it never happened. His story is sometimes compared to
that of the Nobel Prize winning mathematician John Nash, which was made into
the movie A Beautiful Mind a few
years ago. Like Nash, Steve Mann's mental illness became the dominant force in
his later life, overshadowing his earlier promise.
Happily
though, we do have these two recordings. Most of these cuts are from the 1960s
when Steve was at his peak and still performing in concert. There is also one cut
on Alive And Pickin' that was
recorded in 2004.
Banjo player Fred Sokolow brought a blues guitarist
friend to the Ash Grove one night in 1967 to see Steve Mann. As Steve launched
into a Blind Lemon Jefferson tune, 99
Years Blues, Fred noticed his friend unbutton the top button of his shirt.
By the time Steve finished the song, 2 and ½ minutes later, Fred's friend had
pulled out a handkerchief and started to daub some beads of sweat that had
formed on his forehead.
Before you put this CD in your playback machine take a look
at the small package this good thing comes in. Every touch has meaning, and was
attended to with more than a modicum of thought. The front cover has what looks
like-though it may only be simulated-a 19th century Currier and Ives
print of a couple riding a sleigh being pulled by a team of energetic horses,
charging out of the circular frame in which there is a lovely winter scene with
a snowy landscape. It looks like they are heading out of this bygone world into
your postmodern living room. The typeface for the title-Christmas In the
Heart-is also studiously old-fashioned, derived from many a 19th
or early 20th century theatre poster.
2009 Kerrville New Folk Winner Ernest Troost's newest album, the aptly titled Resurrection Blues is a brilliant new piece of songwriting art. Its thirteen Piedmont-blues influenced songs tell stories of passion, lost love and regret-filled lives at a cross-roads, looking for a modern-day answer to "how did things ever get this far?" and "when did the darkness fall?" Ernest Troost's existential questions run rampant in his first three songs; and then, the stories begin.
Haberdashery is a new group from Los Angeles and just released their first CD. And what a fine first project it is! Haberdashery is hard to classify stylistically, but if you like Astor Piazolla, you'll enjoy them. Maybe it could be described as a mixture of Tango, Jazz, Folk, Gypsy, and French music, but that is not too helpful either. You just have to hear it and you can get samples on their 
Maria Muldaur has had a somewhat schizophrenic career. Her early work was totally roots oriented, working with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, singing, playing fiddle and serving as a sort of folk music sex symbol. But by far her biggest success was as a pop jazz chanteuse warbling Midnight at the Oasis. To some, she's the iconic hippy chick with the long thick hair, dancing to Bob Dylan at Newport. To others, she is an almost Mae West-ian entertainer, as known for her repartee and cleavage as her song selection. Midnight has become, like it or not, a standard, at least judging by Wal-Mart and recent elevator investigation.
The combination of British guitarist/producer Justin Adams and Gambian spike fiddle (ritti) master, Juldeh Camara, produces a sound that either completes the circle of Africa-to-America and-back-again musical history or, at the very least, takes a part of the arc and intersects it with a new kind of Afro-blues genre.
We last left Peter Joseph Burtt with Sunken Forest. It was a treasure trove of African influenced blues,
folk and pop. The interim years have not found Burtt resting on his laurels,
and so we come to Hand To Mouth.
Expectations are high around here when Ronny Cox releases a new album. And fair disclosure is due: this reviewer named him among FolkWorks' "Top Ten / Best of 2008" male singer-songwriters in L.A., two years after he earned "Listener Favorite" status on radio's "Tied to the Tracks" for his original song, Sanctuary, about a newborn wild horse. And even before this review and another due this month in Dirty Linen magazine, 
Love of the Land
is the first solo CD by Christa Burch,
a Southern Californian who has contributed her many musical talents to a variety
of West Coast music projects, playing bodhran with the Syncopaths and
Blackwaterside, singing as one-half of the a capella group Lintie. Love of the Land is a vocal CD, a
collection of Celtic songs, some traditional pieces, mostly from Scotland and
Ireland, but also some new compositions in the Celtic tradition. The CD is
produced by Dennis Cahill, best known for his haunting, sparse guitar-playing
with Irish fiddler Martin Hayes. Fans of the Hayes-Cahill recordings will find
some of the same sweet, evocative and exploratory playing here.
Soul Science is what happens when you mix a British electric blues guitar dude, best known for pop/rock work with Robert Plant's post-Led Zep solo band, with a Gambian rifti (one-string fiddle) hotshot who's a griot from Africa but clearly conversant with mainstream Western tunes. Unobtrusive bass and percussion fills in the picture. The vibe is African, yet the supporting undercurrent is easily accessible Western-familiar pop blues. Nice stuff, well worth a listen.
I'm driving down Route 66 with my 14 year-old twin daughters in tow. I insert this new CD into the player. I ask the girls, "How do you like this?" They roll their eyes and say, "Very retro, Dad!" I wonder...is retro an accumulation of music that has caught with us? This one sounds to me like what a Zen monk once called, "beginner's mind." I pray..."Lord, let me not take myself too seriously and help me to make less sense more of the time."
Xuefei Yang is a classical guitarist with a twist. Yes, she has a clear affinity for the Spanish classical repertoire, and this album includes well-executed performances of works by Isaac Albeniz, Francisco Tarega, and Enrique Granados. Very pleasant stuff, this.
This is very nice stuff. Jim Stubblefield plays sizzling
flamenco-infused guitar, with extra helpings of steam. Who knew that this level
of intense, sexy energy could come from a nylon string acoustic guitar? But
Stubblefield can play him some fine tunes, hey.
The intent of a recording project is usually established
well before the first note is recorded. Even if all the songs haven't been
composed or all arrangements finalized, there is a reason for the artist to
begin. But sometimes that intent, or the result, can be changed by activities
well beyond the artist's control. Thus begins Holy Roads.
Hot on the heels of the Gram Parsons & The Flying Burrito Brothers Live at the Avalon Ballroom 1969 release last autumn comes this import re-release of Last of the Red Hot Burritos, featuring a remarkably different Flying Burrito Brothers. These tunes were recorded live at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire and Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio in 1972.
On her new CD Beautiful World, Eliza Gilkyson lets go
with her jitters and assurances on our times and the times to come. Her first
new studio recording in 3 years, she still writes a line that cracks like a
whip with rhythm and meaning delivered with catchy music and an expressive
voice that's a pleasure to have in the ear. These are songs you can't get out
of your head, and you're glad they've nested there.
Susie Glaze is relatively new to the Southern California bluegrass scene, but her rise to the ranks of nationally known talent has been fairly well documented here in the pages of FolkWorks. Glaze was raised in Tennessee, and first chose the artistic path of theater. After some success in the New York stage scene, she discovered a love for bluegrass music and moved to California. First she became a member of The Eight Hand String Band, and then began her solo career. Green Kentucky Blues is her fourth solo project, and most likely the one that folks will look back to as her "breakout" recording. Don't be surprised if Green Kentucky Blues finds its way to a nomination at IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) music awards.
The thinking man's country ensemble, who seem to soar ever higher over the vast wilderness of hyphenated roots music bands, have released another recording, Hallowed Ground, and it admirably adds to the existing evidence that they deserve their previous acclaim.
Some hear the clarion call of the bagpipes and the ears perk up, the heart races, and the sonority reverberates through the core. Even if you don't have a molecule of Celtic DNA in your spittle, everyone has a reaction to the echoing exhalations of the unique bag, chanter and drone instrument. When combined with the sonorous beating of drums and the unique bellow of the didgeridoo, something primal and immediate hits the psyche. Whether it's your cup of tea or mug of grog, Wicked Tinkers provide an invitation to explore those internal rumblings, subtle or undiscovered though they may be.
The word He’eia refers to He’eia Bay on Hawai’i
Island’s Kona coast, a place where King David Kalakaua used to enjoy on a day
at the beach. In the opening musical selection of the same name, Cyril Pahinui
evokes the setting with a powerful, lush interpretation of the name chant (mele
inoa) for Kalakaua, with music attributed to J. Kalahiki. He’eia is
one of three traditional songs for which he has created exquisite arrangements
for slack key guitar.
agine in this hundreds-of-channels-at-the-touch-of-a-button age, but not so very long ago- during my lifetime, in fact, TV was home to very few programming choices, and any music, particularly good music, was rarely found. Variety shows like the Ed Sullivan Show would have the occasional pop act between the dancing elephants and such, and there were occasional shows dedicated to pop music, but vaudeville, rather than anything current, was the benchmark.
One of the activities I enjoy most at traditional music festivals and multi-day workshops is the opportunity to thoroughly browse the pre-recorded music offerings. Those stacks of compact discs and digital video discs seem even more accessible than their vinyl and magnetic tape ancestors, and, unlike vinyl “records,
Blues fans know Tom Ball and Kenny Sultan as Santa Barbara’s answer to Brownie and Sonny. This came natural for Ball, since he shares Sonny Terry’s birthday of October 24.
For a very brief time in 1968 and 1969, Los Angeles was the home of an almost perfect amalgamation of rock and roll, country and soul music known as The Flying Burrito Brothers. Their first recording, Gilded Palace of Sin, was a eclectic mix including recent soul hits redone in a country rock mode. Somehow The Flying Burrito Brothers were able to take songs like Dark End of the Street or Do Right Woman with their own imaginative spin while still capturing some of the essence of the original interpretations. The Flying Burrito Brothers also brought a good number of originals to the project, and each was worthy of contrast with the soul tunes. In fact, it wasn’t hard to imagine William Bell or James Carr taking a crack at Hot Burrito #1 or Hot Burrito #2. Then The Flying Burrito Brothers upped the ante, adding several Nuevo-country tunes that would have felt at home with George Jones, Buck Owens or more likely Waylon Jennings. Christine’s Tune, Sin City, Wheels: these were all steely country tunes but with hip, bent lyrics.
Do you ever long to get away? Sometimes, in the middle of the week, do you have an intense desire to walk in a meadow, see a shooting star, reflect on a glacial mountain, pluck an old guitar on an aged, wood front porch, or just scratch the grateful belly of an old dog? If you do, Bill Staines’ newest release, Old Dogs, provides a much-needed respite from the complexities of today’s world. He also gives a glimpse into the diversity of American experiences through which, he allows his audience to see the past in a way that informs our appreciation for the present.
Athena Tergis - San Francisco- raised Valley Of The Moon (Alisdair Fraser’s Scottish Fiddle School) denizen, three-time Junior National Scottish Fiddling Champion and principal fiddler for Riverdance on Broadway- has released a lovely and varied CD showcasing her clean and sprightly style with the help of some other excellent musicians. Eminent guitarist John Doyle is the producer along with providing his signature syncopated guitar and bouzouki accompaniment and arrangements. Liz Carroll, Natalie Haas and Sharon Shannon join her as well on a few tracks on fiddle, cello and accordion, respectively, along with Chico Huff on bass, Billy McComiskey on accordion, and Ben Wittman on percussion.
Like many other fans of A Prairie Home Companion, I first heard Robin & Linda Williams on the radio program where they’ve been frequent guests for over 30 years. That’s what makes their newest CD “Radio Songs
Today's world is fast moving and noisy. Pop music often reflects this, so much so that it becomes difficult to find music that isn't fast moving and noisy without succumbing to "easy listening," "new age" or "light jazz." 
“A moment of madness is better than a life of logic.
AUTHOR: PETER CASE
ARTIST: PETER CASE
Pop on Oyaya! and crank up the volume. You'll soon be doing all the moving you need
to do - and I mean "moving" from taking all your stuff from here to there as
well as "moving" your body to the groove.
The whimsical name of the group belies the fact that these
musicians play hard, fast, and serious. There’s nothing fishy about them. In
fact, there’s no slouching or mannered excesses, as Fishtank Ensemble comes
armed, loaded and ready to serve you up a platter of intense nearly cosmic
gypsy music. Their latest CD release, Samurai
Over Serbia, samples the global plain that is the group’s playing field. Like
the gypsies, it crosses borders, villages, continents, and time periods
showcasing the varied instrumental prowess of each member and the extreme range
of vocalist, Ursula Knudson who also can double up on violin, banjolele and the
musical saw.
Following the oldest of musical traditions, Pint & Dale have gathered a number of great nautical-themed songs in their travels. Their latest CD The Set of the Sail features songs, both traditional and contemporary, they've collected in their travels to England.
It seems that Raiatea has grown up. Not to say that her voice has changed - she still has the sweetest voice you can imagine. Raiatea's first CD was recorded in 2003 when she was 17 years old. While that may be the norm for pop bands, the Hawaiian traditional music scene is usually dominated by more seasoned musicians. This makes it even more remarkable that she has captured numerous prestigious awards from the start: receiving the Na Hoku awards for her debut (given by the Hawai‘i Academy of Recording Artists) for both Most Promising Artist and Female Vocalist of the Year in 2003. Her second CD Sweet and Lovely released in 2004 again won her the Na Hoku Female Vocalist of the Year plus Favorite Entertainer of the Year in 2005 plus four other Na Hoku awards. When she was nominated for a Grammy for her second CD, the New York Times called the recording "poised and utterly elegant."
heights of ecstatic spiritual awareness. Like the similarly intended and better known Whirling Dervishes, the public ritual of Qawwali runs on love and desire for Divine Union. Unlike the trance dancing Dervishes, Qawwali sweats, bleeds, and screams.
There lies a musical posse scattered across the vast disparate and desperate basin and valleys of Los Angeles, men who strum along according to the book of who-cares-what's-on-the-pop-charts. From bluegrass to blues and from ballad to cowboy waltz, the varied art of the American troubadour gets a shot in the arm when a cadre of the Southland's best musicians get together and stay in one place long enough to record a sample of the Americana roots music rainbow. The Goin' South Band rounds up Rick Shea, Cody Bryant, Paul Lacques, Vic Koler, John Zeretzke, Fred Sokolow, and Rick Cunha, each taking time out from their solo and sidemen projects, and presents them as educators and purveyors of various forms of the traditional American musical songbook, not the bright lights of Broadway, but tunes that would perhaps be found down the road a piece and headed mostly southbound.
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the rich cultural heritage passed on from her grandmother's generation to her
own. Beginning with the opening song, Napua,
the influence of her recently-deceased grandmother, Jenny Napua Hanaiali'i
Woodd, permeates the album as it has permeated Amy's life. Beside the liner
notes for the song is a picture of a youthful woman with a fresh, engaging
smile, and a floral garland crowning her dark hair? The English translation of
Amy's Hawaiian lyrics captures the tenderness of the granddaughter-grandmother
relationship:
Fleetwood Mac
began in 1967 as somewhat of an offshoot of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, as three of the original four members
had been in the recent employ of Mr. Mayall. The former Bluesbreakers, bassist John McVie, drummer Mick Fleetwood and
guitarist/vocalist Peter Green, were joined by a 19 year old blues guitarist,
pianist and singer named Jeremy Spencer. Spencer had the ability to play American
blues legend Elmore James' songs uncannily like James, a somewhat astonishing
fact considering that Spencer was a young white Brit. Fleetwood Mac soon added Danny Kirwan as the third guitarist, and
the world was their oyster for a short period of time. However, Green began to mentally
unravel due to the pressures of rock success, and left the group. They soldered
on for another album sans Green, but during a U.S.
tour in 1971, Spencer left his hotel to visit a bookstore in Los Angeles, but did not return for that
night's concert. It turned out that he had joined a sect called the Children of
God, a group with which he remains affiliated to this day. Green was begged
back to finish the tour, but the first incarnation of Fleetwood Mac was on the ropes.
The personnel changes made by McVie and Fleetwood eventually created the
pop supergroup that to many, eclipsed the memory of the first Fleetwood Mac.
