Musical visionary Bill Monroe, who got his start alongside brothers Charlie and Birch in the depths of the great depression, and subsequently performed as a solo act and bandleader for over sixty years until his death in 1996, was not just the father of the music we call bluegrass; he was its most prolific writer and disseminator. As composer and arranger, he created or recreated hundreds of songs; as progenitor, he found, groomed, and composed and performed alongside 161 Blue Grass Boys in a half century before sending them back out into the world to spread the gospel. [...]
It's coming on 2012, and all around us, bloggers tout their 2011 taste, jostling to be the best and first match for your own preferences, inviting debate over position in the ranks. And so, as we do every year as the calendar comes to a close, we struggle with the conceit of The Year In Review, surveying a year's worth of posts, writing a never-ending series of half-hearted drafts, flinching every time we approach the task, yet feeling guilt every time we put it down. My reluctance to pass judgement isn't a cop-out. [...]
You'd need to buy Red Molly 's latest album, Light in the Sky, to find this song.
It's been a weird year here in tiny rural Monson, MA, and it keeps getting weirder: after a devastating tornado in June, and a hurricane and flood in August, last week's freak snowstorm hit us hard indeed, felling thousands of trees across the vast landscape, and knocking out power and phone lines for the vast majority of residents. To help out, once again, I'll be re-gifting 40% of all donations to Cover Lay Down from now until the end of the month to support local rebuilding efforts - a gift sorely needed, with [...]
Two years ago, my annual visit to the folkfields produced a manifesto of sorts, anticipating and acknowledging the blur between old time, bluegrass, folk, and other american roots forms being performed by a rising crop of very young artists. Much of this came from the dual nature of my summer revelry: moving from Grey Fox Bluegrass to Falcon Ridge Folk allowed for a surprisingly consistent journey, and that which I saw in one site, I confirmed in the other. This year, though work and other obligations left me unable to attend Grey Fox, I [...]
I speak of two Mays on this warm, sunny Spring afternoon: of the request, and of the calendar. Yet the two terms are related, in their way. For Spring is a metaphor of rebirth, and "mother may I" is a sort of rebirth, too: of the moment, of the allowance to move forward, of the soul. Appropriate, I think. This past year, I've given myself permission to act again, treading the boards for the first time since a failure to learn my lines in time caused my high school director to [...]
Lucinda Williams is surely better known - or at least more easily recognized - for her ragged heartbroken delivery and emotional way with a guitar than her songbook per se. But as we noted back in May of 2009, when we featured her interpretations of other peoples' songs , it wasn't always the case: her first Grammy win was as a songwriter, for Mary Chapin Carpenter's 1992 performance of Passionate Kisses . In many ways, of course, Williams' is an unusual path towards stardom: though her 1979 debut [...]
As you can see above - yes, that's me with my hands to the sky, dancing sidestage in full-on last-day-of-the-festival mode - this year's annual excursion into the folkfields was a grand success. So good, in fact, that I'm writing this on the porch, reluctant to come inside lest the residual joy of the previous 11 days leech off in the presence of real toilets and showers, refrigerated food, and electric lighting. But in the end, it was also a study in contrast, with Grey Fox bigger than ever, and [...]
Typically, in our regularly recurring Covered in Folk feature, we enumerate the impact a particular artist has had on culture, and follow that with a carefully compiled list of folk covers from that artists' songbook. Tonight, we break the mold, turning to the songs made famous by Elvis in order to tout a few artists whose new and recent releases or rediscovered gems have been at the top of my playlist for the last few weeks for one reason or another. One day, perhaps, we'll feature a more traditional look at [...]
I'm down in the Outer Banks region of North Carolina once again, just like last year, on the cusp of a whole week of for what is fast becoming an annual gathering of extended family and friends. We left just after school on Friday, and I did the lion's share of the driving, just over twelve hours of overnight while the kids and spouse napped in the car; since we hit the sandy soil of Kitty Hawk just before sunup this morning, we've hit up sand and surf, sucked down breakfast barbecue and beer, [...]
Red Molly is a folk trio from New York. Last year they released their second album, Love and Other Tragedies , which also happens to be their first studio album. Honestly, the cd isn't my cup of tea. I can listen to it for about 4 songs before I need a change. That said, I love this song and have decided to share it with y'all. Red Molly - Beaumont Rest Stop That's pretty much their sound so if you like what you hear [...]
Pianist, guitarist, and singer-songwriter Susan Werner has built a career on performing a particularly potent form of contemporary folk - one which balances a fluid and nuanced sense of delivery with an unusually loose, almost jazzy sense of time in which every moment counts, and can be stretched out to maximum effect. I've seen Werner several times throughout her career, in large venues and small, and I've always been impressed by her ability to connect with the audience through song, and connect the song to our hearts. But though the [...]
Pianist, guitarist, and singer-songwriter Susan Werner has built a career on performing a particularly potent form of contemporary folk - one which balances a fluid and nuanced sense of delivery with an unusually loose, almost jazzy sense of time in which every moment counts, and can be stretched out to maximum effect. I've seen Werner several times throughout her career, in large venues and small, and I've always been impressed by her ability to connect with the audience through song, and connect the song to our hearts. But though the [...]
Laurie MacAllister, Abbie Gardner and Carolann Solebello are Red Molly who started singing together in 2004. The album from which this song comes, Love And Other Tragedies, was released in October of this year. This song is the last one on the album and its stays in your head a long while. MP3 File yousendit
I've been including a newgrassy song each and every week for as long as I can remember. Whether it's The Duhks or Crooked Still or even The Felice Brothers I've tried to be a proponent of this style of music for the last few years. So now I feel like I can't ignore this genre and the once weekly feature. Red Molly's new cd Love and Other Tragedies has been out since May but I've only just heard it. You can pick it up now through Amazon here . [...]
Red Molly is Laurie MacAllister, Abbie Gardner and Carolann Solebello. MP3 File
My name is Paul and I usually blog over at Setting The Woods On Fire . Boyhowdy has been kind enough to let me say a few words here while he enjoys a vacation. As you might have guessed from the title of my blog, I'm a big fan of Hank Williams . I also love cover songs. Cover songs are fun because they help you separate the song from the performance. Do I love Hank because of the songs he wrote and poularized? Or do I love Hank because of the way he [...]
It's school vacation, and we really needed a change of scene. So we headed down south to North Carolina's Outer Banks , just me, the wife and kids, and a whole host of other relatives from both sides of the gene pool: my father, my wife's parents, siblings on both sides, even a few great-aunts and grandparent-in-laws. None of us live here, but it's as good a neutral midpoint as any; we've rented two houses down the street from each other just to fit everyone comfortably, and the trip promises to be memorable no matter what [...]
Hope no one minds an early "Sunday" post this week; my brother and his wife are on their way in from Brooklyn for the long weekend, and I don't get to see them as often as I'd like. I'll have a short post up for Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, if I can; in the meantime, enjoy today's feature on "American Primitive" folkartist Gillian Welch and her partner David Rawlings, the tenth post in our popular Covered in Folk series, where we pay tribute to the songwriting talents of a single artist. [...]
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