There's a long tradition of singer-songwriter couples in folk music, especially in those pockets of history where you find movements and schools forming. From June Carter and Johnny Cash in the second-generation countryfolk days, Buddy and Julie Miller at the forefront of the modern Americana movement, and Jeffrey Foucault and Kris Delmhorst's marriage in the wake of their work with folk supergroup Redbird, to the doomed-but-productive pairings of James Taylor and Carly Simon in the singer-songwriter seventies and Maria and Geoff Muldaur in the Greenwich Village and Woodstock jugband era, not to mention the quirky songs of the [...]
Well-covered in popular culture and over at classic songs collaborative Star Maker Machine , John Hartford never made the splash he could and should have as a performer, in part because Glen Campbell's Grammy-winning cover of Gentle On My Mind sold so well, the cash flow gave Hartford license to chuck it all in and pursue his true passion - as a steamboat captain on his beloved Mississippi River. But the man I once heard referred to as "the clown prince of old-time" kept coming back to the music, [...]
By day the heat is intolerable. My students wilt in my presence; I suffer in theirs. Finals are two weeks away, but we will lose this lesson. My last period classroom blazes like the sun: too many windows, and too many well-intentioned adolescents to open them, letting out the residual comfort of dim lights, linoleum, stillness. Back home, the garden wilts. Its overgrown grasses and weeds bear the scars and indentations of cats trying desperately to bask in the coolness of an earth long scorched beyond any [...]
I was one of those arty middle-class music-and-theater kids - you know, the ones who spend their free periods in the band room, stay after school to paint sets, seem utterly disconnected from the mass media-driven marks of popular consumer culture, and demonstrate a complete and utter lack of coordinated ability in running shorts. But it wasn't just desire or common interest that kept me there. Natural talent, a strong ear, and an ADHD sufferer's tendency to misplace my instrument had led to formal voice lessons and private choruses as a child (lose [...]
Every season seems to have a mood set by the changing scenery. Fall is especially pronounced: Time to pull out the sweaters, drink more tea, enjoy the pumpkin sightings, and watch the trees change colors. As the air cools, the days grow shorter, and our hands grow colder, so too do we adjust our accompanying album shuffle. We switch from indie pop to folk, from glam rock to instrumental ambient. Indie Shuffle contributors have compiled their favorite albums for autumn. So what did we pick? Below are our favorite fall-time albums, with our favorite song from [...]
I had planned to post a huge survey of new and upcoming tribute albums from the folkworld here in this space today, but after a week of bedside Zen , Sunday's late-night sociopolitical rant , and a full-bore reentry into teaching and town business meetings, exhaustion seems to have caught up with me. I'll be working on that tribute post throughout the week, and hope to have it up on Sunday at the latest. But in the interest of deadlines, and because the ol' brain is really not up to much [...]
I saw Randy Newman a few weeks back (review here ) and it reminded me how underrated he is as a popular songwriter. Sure, the songs are all sung from the point of view racists, perverts, rich assholes and generally unlikeable people, but that just makes the more interesting than the "I love you, you don't love me, boo hoo" school of tune creation. Luckily, musicians seem to share my reverence for the man more known for his Pixar ditties than serious compositions, and covers of his songs abound. So here's his most famous album and, [...]
Randy Newman: You Can Leave Your Hat On [ purchase ] Apparently, there's a rich subset of headgear to be mined in this week's theme. But Randy Newman's classic isn't just about hats. Quite the opposite, in fact: it's about everything one could wear coming off sultry and slow, followed by a series of puppetmaster striptease chessmoves from a narrator obsessed with an unidentified, objectified stripper of some sort. I don't usually go for full-bore lyrics, but these read so perfectly like the [...]
By the time we finally caught pregnant, we had both been teaching for a decade, and that meant the baby name books were right out. After we discarded the archaic and the merely odd, the names that were left were invariably overfamiliar -- we knew "that kid", and thus the name came with baggage we just could not accept. So we took a look at ourselves. Liberal folk, to put it politically, with a sense of adventure, and a love of the world for what it was. We wanted [...]
For me, and with my particular tastes, I'm comfortable saying that the new record by Austin-based singer-songwriter Danny Schmidt is the best of the new year. By now Danny's got a recognizable and distinctive vocal delivery and I love it. His songs are as literate and can be as funny and clever as anyone else in the songwriting racket today. I've written about his upcoming record, Grey Sheep , here , but frankly I did so too early. His record has a Feb. 19 release date and at the time of my [...]
"Hey Ya!" (Outkast cover) - The Supersuckers (Super Highly Recommended!) "On a Plain" (Nirvana cover) - Rogue Wave "Blue Skies" (Irving Berlin) - Devon Sproule & Paul Curreri "When I Paint My Masterpiece" (Bob Dylan cover) - Elliott Smith ( video , 10/5/98)
Besides "Sky Blue Sky", I'm excited about Devon Sproule's new album "Keep Your Silver Shined" out on April 17. I have to thank Craig and Vin Scelsa for turning me onto Devon. Devon Sproule ~ Let's Go Out Each Valentine's Day, Devon and her now-hubby get together and record some songs. They share them . I picked out one from each session. Devon Sproule & Paul Currei: Plea For A Good Night's [...]
Cover Lay Down
indie shuffle
Cover Me
Star Maker Machine
songsillinois
Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands
The Late Greats
Music Singles Chart #109
Family of the Year - "Diversity"
I’ll Just Leave This Here #161
Young Jeezy – Go (Ft. YG & E-40)
