Songs From the Shipyards

This is the 3rd release in what is, at the moment, a trilogy of side projects, Diversions Vol 3 is a score written for a new film by Richard Fenwick, Songs from the Shipyards, tracing the history of the shipbuilding industry using a compilation of archive footage. I have been a Unthanks fan since first I heard their angelic voices meld in harmony. Big Steamers is a favourite here at the Monastery.
But even alone, the album’s jigsaw puzzle mix of song, spoken word and shipyard sound is a haunting folk portrait of a community bearing the emotional and physical weight of industry.
The intimacy of the freshly cut-back band distills the power of a capella showstopper ‘Fairfield Crane’, performed with characteristic sharpness by Rachel Unthank. Jez Lowe’s ‘Taking on Men’ becomes a short and bittersweet recession anthem, immediate as carol singers at your front door, while a cover of ‘Shipbuilding’ is equally focused but rounded out with a lush arrangement, almost choral.
At just a nudge under ten minutes long, ‘The Romantic Tees’ is comparatively expansive, a mix of spoken word, working boat launch sounds and song in three parts, with a patchwork feel. With Graeme Miles’ words rejecting romanticisation of the river with an audible raised eyebrow (‘The ‘romantic’ Tees?’), producer and ‘deviser’ Adrian McNally finds a break in the at times chocolate box melodies of the album at large.
Elsewhere, sweet, impressionistic lullabies and eerie seaside waltzes are again undercut by lyrics insisting on the reality of declining industry and its impact. Diversions Vol 3 paints an incisive portrait of England’s industrial heritage, even beyond the rivers of the North East.

Stillhouse

When I first heard the initial iteration of this project I was speechless. Of course, I'm not generally given to oration as a rule, but the sweet simplicity of this work just seemed so right.
I was immediately enamored with the title track.
A vision realised...
Steinar Raknes is a man of many tastes. A founding member of the fiery modern jazz quartet The Core, a collaborator with lyrical jazz violinist Ola Kvernberg, co-leader of the SKÁIDI duo with yoik vocalist Inga Juuso, and leader of his own quartet that covers tango and bossa-nova classics, on Stillhouse, this Norwegian double bassist features his abilities as a vocalist and interpreter of eclectic, iconic American songs from the past few decades, as well as a few originals.
Raknes’ acoustic arrangements are straightforward.
His vocals are warm but his delivery direct and reserved, largely reciting the lyrics as matter-of- fact reporting, and never attempting to compete with memorable, existing vocal versions. His confident and powerful finger-picked playing strips the melodic content of these songs to their basic skeletal lines, his humble and intimate attitude stressing their emotional impact.
Raknes hosts Nashville harmonicist Mickey Raphael and several Norwegian vocalists on a few songs. Solveig Slettahjell brilliantly adds her warm voice to Raknes’ on John Prine's “Killing the Blues.” Raphael is a perfect partner on the arresting, melancholic cover of Gillian Welch’s “Tear My Stillhouse Down.” Gently, with vocalist Unni Wilhelmsen, Raknes adds touching emotional insight to The Band’s “Twilight.”
Raknes couples Prince’s “Kiss” with Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire,” transforming the originals’ explicit, seductive and reckless desire with the experience of mature and patient passion. This kind of peace-making with his own past serves Raknes beautifully on his original, “Time to Go” while a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” adds a distant and skeptical view of the historic event.
Raknes’ best cover is John Prine’s classic “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness,” where his modest and sober approach fits perfectly with the words. He concludes this set with two originals, the bluesy “Down the Drain” and optimistic farewell “Walkin.’”
Surprising, beautiful and highly rewarding.
Personnel: Steinar Raknes: double bass, vocals; Mickey Raphael: harmonica (1, 3, 6, 8, 10, 13) Solveig Slettahjell: vocals (1); Unni Wilhelmsen: vocals (5); Kaja Bremnes: vocals (12); Paolo Vinaccia: snare drum (8); Andrew Utnem: harmonium (9, 14).

Hello Black Halo

Just like the late Jessie Mae Hemphill, Becky Lee is a renegade and Lonely She-Wolf in the world of men dominated Blues Rock’n’Roll. She is one of the world’s few female one (wo)man bands. She plays guitar, kick drum, snare w/a foot pedal and floor tom with her strum hand with such co-ordination you could swear it was a 4 piece band.
Hello Black Halo, her debut album on Voodoo Rhythm Records, rolls in with  dark clouds of betrayal, death, and lust, as Becky Lee abuses the hell out of her guitar using the drums only to drive the song into the open country of your speakers and her voice strikes with the power of lightning.
In “Killer Mouse”, she breaks from the beating drum into a small lead that proves Lee understands how a song needs to break down for the words or music to have the desired power.
The tracks that follow are all great and enjoyable, but the track that stands out is “Hip Kids”, a suburban summer lament. In this track, Lee channels the Shondells in a 1950′s dirge about being finished with the posturing multitudes who are too cool to do anything loose or reckless (or even treat a woman right).

frank lee artseen

Former Freight Hopper Lee on banjo and guitar, in a set of old-time songs, tunes and blues: "Fully Saved Today," "Riley the Furniture Man," "Shout Lula," "Ragged and Dirty," eight more; with singer Jessica Johnson and Joey Damiano on upright bass. This is a fine collection of tunes.

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/franklee
Album Notes

A passion for traditional songs and tunes from the rural South has fueled Frank's love of performing for the past 25 years. As a founding member of the Freight Hoppers, he has shared this passion with audiences all over the United States and Canada, as well as much of Northern Europe. He presents a range of old-time music that spans from raw Blues from the Mississippi delta, to the hillbilly music recorded in the South in the 1920's.

Growing up just south of Atlanta, Frank recalls hearing stories about the exploits of his banjo-playing grandfathers, as well as hearing about Fiddlin' John Carson and Riley Puckett. As a kid a neighbor introduced him to the music of Ralph Stanley, Frank became fascinated by the banjo. Immediately after high school graduation, Frank broke his femur in a motorcycle racing accident. His father bought him a banjo to pass the time in traction, and Frank's been playing ever since.

Frank began giving banjo lessons while he was in art school, and in the mid-80's started traveling with Clearwater, a bluegrass band that toured throughout the U.S. and released an acclaimed album, Willow of Time (produced by Rhonda Vincent). His focus gradually moved toward older, more archaic styles of Southern music. Clawhammer banjo styles took his attention away from the slick 3 finger bluegrass styles.

A few years later Frank moved to Bryson City, NC to take a job playing music for the tourists on the Great Smoky Mountain Railway, where he met fiddler David Bass. The two of them began playing old-time music at the train depot in Bryson City, and the Freight Hoppers stringband grew out of this gig. The daily work of the depot created a particularly tight band sound, and the group placed first in the stringband competition at the Appalachian Stringband Music Festival (a.k.a. Clifftop), appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, and signed on with Rounder Records.

The Freight Hoppers toured extensively throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe, released three albums, and achieved a level of public recognition previously unheard of for a modern old-time band. Frank's old-time banjo playing can be heard on the three Freight Hopper albums, as well on a Freight Hoppers live concert video. He has a banjo instructional video out on Homespun Video. Slide guitar has become a part of Frank's concerts. A 1932 National Steel Duolian was added to the arsenal of banjos, along with a love for the oldest recorded blues players from the South, Son House, Willie Brown, and Blind Willie Johnson. Spirituals and blues round out a performance of unique arrangements of Old-time music from the deep Southeast.

Are You There

Minnesota is the new moniker of veteran singer/songwriter Peter Himmelman, who has had a prolific solo career since his 1986 debut, This Father’s Day. Minnesota’s Are You There is one of Himmelman’s most intimate albums to date and his first collaborative effort in over 25 years. A number of musicians contributed to the album, but Himmelman’s principal artistic partner on Are You There was filmmaker David Hollander.

The two travelled to Himmelman’s hometown of Minneapolis, Minn. to record what Himmelman describes as more of a “theatrical experience” than a “collection of songs.”


Jim Anton - Bass
Jake Hanson - Guitar
Noah Levy - Drums
Peter Himmelman - Guitar, Vocals
Jeff Victor - Keyboards
Joe Savage - Lap Steel
Kristin Mooney - Vocals
Claire Holley - Vocals

Produced by David Hollander

http://www.minnesotaband.com/minnesota-the-band/

Minnesota – The Band
“To me this isn’t just a collection of songs,” Peter Himmelman says. “It’s more like a theatrical experience.” Himmelman is explaining Are You There – the first album released under the collective moniker Minnesota. Indeed, Himmelman’s latest project defies easy categorization – standing as far apart from his acclaimed discography as it does the typical creation of a rock album in this day and age.

Himmelman remains one of the most revered singer-songwriters of his generation: USA Today hailed him “one of rock’s most wildly imaginative performers,” while The San Francisco Chronicle said of the Grammy-nominated artist “he probes all the passions, from anguish to lust, to depths few rockers can even imagine.” Of Himmelman’s 1991 solo album From Strength To Strength (which yielded the memorable radio hit “The Woman With the Strength of 10,000 Men”), Time Magazine praised “songs written with the same emphatic edge and aesthetic urgency that impelled the Lost Generation to write novels.”

That same iconoclastic drive, however, pushed Himmelman to move beyond his own boundaries on Are You There. For one, it isn’t a solo album – a rare occurrence from someone who hasn’t released a “band” album in over 25 years; then again, it isn’t exactly a “band” album, either. Are You There is cinematic in ambition yet defiantly frayed in execution with boldly raw performances jumpstarted by subtly modernist production featuring a diverse set of musicians including Jake Hanson (Halloween Alaska) on guitar, Noah Levy (BoDeans/Brian Setzer) on drums, Jimmy Anton (Johnny Lang) on bass, Jeff Victor (the Honeydogs/Andrew W. K.) on keyboards, and the front-and-center vocals of Kristin Mooney and Claire Holley. The album hybrids all these contradictions into one of the year’s most startling, evocative musical journeys

That’s in part due to the album’s unlikely conception: a collaboration born of an equal partnership between Himmelman and accomplished filmmaker David Hollander, who is best known for creating the venerated TV series “The Guardian” (which propelled lead actor Simon Baker to his current fame), and directing independent films like 2009′s critically-praised Personal Effects, which starred Ashton Kutcher and Michelle Pfeiffer (which Hollander adapted from a Rick Moody short story).

“We had our own trajectories in our respective worlds, so we weren’t competitive,” Hollander notes. “Peter was getting ready to make a record, and he needed a little direction and change. I wanted to hear Peter with no smokescreen – to create a world around him that’s physical and visceral, but also enveloping and spacious. I wanted to toy with the constructs.’”

The two did have common ground to work from. Himmelman is no stranger to the moving image, having received an Emmy nomination in 2002 for his scoring work on the TV show “Judging Amy”; he also created the music for Hollander’s 2007 series “Heartland.” “Peter isn’t a cautious writer,” Hollander notes. “He’s impulsive and quick, whereas I’m more long form, prone to circling endlessly. I wish I had his qualities, and I expect he wishes he had a bit of mine.”

Hollander’s storytelling instincts, honed from years of television and film work, bring a fresh perspective to Himmelman’s music – a process that kicked off when the two longtime friends got together in fall 2011 to listen to songs Himmelman had demoed for a new record. “I immediately heard a larger narrative in the songs, saw a story within that felt compelling,” Hollander says.

This concept allowed Himmelman free range beyond his usual songwriting concerns and allowed the album to introduce new sonic rules into his work. Previously renowned for his literary, spiritual explorations, Are You There finds Himmelman still asking questions both sacred and profane – but now imbued with a new, edgy fervor. In “Deep Freeze,” he reveals an apocalyptic but all-too-familiar world where “the devil is coming out of deep freeze”: “They’re stringing up the niggers, the faggots, and the Jews/They’re never out of victims – it’s getting’ hard to choose,” he sings.

“How can you not feel on the edge of some kind of chaos today?” Himmelman says. Himmelman’s approach reflects his primal, contemporary spin on themes embedded in rock and roll’s roots. “I tend to be interested in more basic blues these days: Howlin’ Wolf, Blind Blake, Leadbelly,” he notes. “I want to find out how these guys rocked juke joints with just one acoustic guitar. Working within the narrowest of melodic and lyric structures – I find great freedom in that.”

Even the recording environment would also factor into the album’s thematic sweep. In January 2011, Himmelman and Hollander traveled to Himmelman’s hometown of Minneapolis in the midst of a record breaking cold-snap to record the album. “We placed it in and called the collective ‘Minnesota’ to give Peter his due,” Hollander says. “For Peter, it is a homecoming. The record that he created, that I then curated, is very much about someone finding his home.”

Together, the musicians and production team partnered to achieve Himmelman’s most immediate sounding recording yet. “I love how this record feels,” Himmelman says. “I hear a sheen on a lot of newer things; this feels handmade, more spontaneous.”

Himmelman and Hollander chose the album’s title from a particularly resonant line in the song “Call From the Road.” “For any artist, it’s an important question,” Himmelman notes. “Is anybody there? Are you in this relationship, or just going through the motions?”

“Minnesota’ represents the whole experience,” Hollander says. “It’s not a Peter Himmelman solo album, or ‘A Film by David Hollander’; it’s a larger collaboration, well beyond the two of us. We pushed each other out of our comfort zones and into new territory.” Himmelman adds: “I was sometimes frustrated by the new approach, but a great producer – and David qualifies as that – can make you become yourself again.”

Curse in the Woods

http://www.curseinthewoods.com/index.php/pressbio

From : Montreal

Since : The band was formed in 2009

Discography :
- Curse in the Woods (demo) : 2010
- Wise up (single) : 2012
- The Deals they Made : 2012

Band members :
- Sam Harvey : Piano, Accordion, keyboards, organ, guitar.
- Jeannie Taylor : Vocals
- François Girouard : Drums, musical saw, banjo, percussions, soundscapes.
- Philippe Latour : Standup bass, electric bass
- Gabriel Girouard : Violin, Alto violin.
- Guillaume Garant-Rousseau : Tuba, trompette
- Aiden Fontaine-O’Connell : Trombone
- Philippe Rivard : Video creation and projections
- Andréanne Roy : Backvocals, percussions





CURSE IN THE WOODS'BIO

Curse in the Woods was born as the result of a chance meeting one January night between Jeannie Taylor and Sam Harvey at a Montreal metro station, where Sam was playing the accordion. Sam had just come back from a three-year tour of Europe where he busked in the streets of more than eight countries. Jeannie, a visual artist and member of the burlesque troop Oops Johnny!, had begun to perform her own creation, a theatrical burlesque character, which melded the macabre with sensual beauty. Curse in the Woods is the product of the encounter of these two artists and the mixing of their similar yet unique visions.

A few short months after embarking on this project, Curse in the Woods had grown to include a collection of extremely talented musicians and a wide variety of instruments. Curse in the Woods had become a largescale multi-media project, combining music with diverse theatrical and audiovisial elements, drawing equally from traditional and contemporary backgrounds. Curse in the Woods’ musical influences flow from the raw sounds of Delta blues and gypsy music, to the magnetic songs of Lhasa and Tom Waits, with a touch of the eerie melodies of horror film music.

From the moment they played their first shows Curse in the Woods was affably welcomed by Montreal’s pop and folk scenes and continue to entertain audiences at some of the city’s most popular venues. The momentum has continued over the years, allowing the band to establish a solid foundation in their own right as a fresh addition to Montreal's dynamic music scene. In 2010, Curse in the Woods recorded their first demo in a friend’s tiny apartment studio. In 2012, the band’s first album will finally be released. 'The Deals they Made' was recorded and mastered at Montreal’s own legendary Studio Victor. After years of academic musical and artistic study, the members of Curse in the Woods deliver a performance of story telling, music and visual arts that captivates the audience in an atmosphere of wickedly mystic fun.

Hymns to What is Left

Greg Brown's mother played electric guitar, his grandfather played banjo, and his father was a Holy Roller preacher in the Hacklebarney section of Iowa, where the Gospel and music are a way of life. Brown's first professional singing job came at age 18 in New York City, running hootenannies (folksinger get-togethers) at the legendary Gerdes Folk City. After a year, Brown moved west to Los Angeles and Las Vegas, where he was a ghostwriter for Buck Ram, founder of the Platters. Tired of the fast-paced life, Brown traveled with a band for a few years, and even quit playing for a while before he moved back to Iowa and began writing songs and playing in midwestern clubs and coffeehouses. This latest release is a true treat. Besham's Bokerie sealed it for me. A keeper!


http://gregbrownmusic.org/hymns.cfm

Folk icon Greg Brown will unveil Hymns To What Is Left (Sawdust Records, marking his 25th studio album) through online distributor CDBaby on October 2nd, 2012, the same day that his wife Iris Dement releases her much-anticipated album, Sing The Delta (Flariella Records).

Fueled by a signature rumbling baritone voice, (after receiving multiple Grammy nominations, over a 30 year career and building an astonishingly deep songbook - that has been covered by dozens of frontline artists - while touring incessantly), Brown’s recent Freak Flag (Yep Roc 2011) was stunning in its tenderness and unfiltered emotional depth; beyond that, it found Brown reenergized to the recording process, making way for his latest truly potent tour de force, Hymns To What Is Left.

At the core of Hymns To What Is Left is the near-magical, copacetic interplay of Brown's driven and graceful acoustic picking with longtime collaborator/producer Bo Ramsey's distinctive artful soundscapes via bell-toned electric guitars and haunting slide.

In co-producing the album, Ramsey and Brown dug all the way into “less-is-more” and came out with a recording spotlighting Brown’s artistry on all levels. No drums or bass, the rustic mix was rounded out with contributions by Bob Black (banjo), Al Murphy (fiddle and mandolin), Dave Moore (button accordion), and daughter Pieta Brown (banjo, piano, harmony vocals), and cameo otherworldly harmonies by wife Iris Dement and daughter Constie Brown.

The result is an album of 14 uniquely unforgettable songs that find Greg Brown at the peak of his estimable vocal powers supported by an all-world stringband that's absolutely locked-in--in short, a masterpiece that may well be the finest front-to-back endeavor of his career.

Highlights are many and varied:

The opening Arkansas sets the tone, a raucous barnyard dance coasting downhill.

The mystical Besham's Bokerie (bewildering spelling and all) came to Brown in a dream. Luckily he made it into a song and tapped into his arresting falsetto to tell the tale.        

Black's intrepid banjo and Murphy's hill-country fiddle stake out a delicate, elegant old-timey framework on the lovely Brand New Angel  (recently recorded and showcased by Jeff Bridges in the movie Crazy Heart.)

Now That I'm My Grandpa is a masterwork--a clear coming together of Brown's lyrical directness and spiritual destination, as well as a linchpin to the album's collected self-awareness ("life is way less lonely when you're part of everyone").

The wondrous Fat Boy Blues applies a raggedy Tom Waits vox with a first-person Randy Newman approach ("one day I just woke up, fat as I could be, now I stumble out to the kitchen, for another chicken or two..." and the priceless "oh, yes, I am the walrus, and I have got the fat boy blues") to an irresistible, absolutely-slinky groove.

Private, simple and uncluttered, I Could Just Cry (How Sweet You Are) is one of the most perfect realizations of unconditional familial love. Country/folk great Don Williams has searched for this song all his life.

The title track, Hymns To What is Left, is another surrender of sorts, a subtle, gentle acceptance that experiences and feelings--even when painful--truly are the stuff of Life. Not to mention musically spellbinding.

Good To You is a crystalline country blues, and Greg & Bo's guitars are luminous.

No two ways about it, On The Levee is epic, a slow-opening, multi-dimensional work of art that feels like the magnificent, meticulously-drawn rush of the final pages of "100 Years of Solitude." Brown's vocal is conversational, eerie, ominous; the instrumentation likewise.

Hanging Man is deep and grand. An allegory in song. A perfect hymn?

End Of The Party and Earth is A Woman take us out.  All the way out.

The closing benediction, Earth Is A Woman revisits an enduring trope as old as man-, er, human-kind (clearly, if 'earth was a man,' we'd all have been toast long ago). Recorded in one take, it neatly culminates a magnificent collection of hard-won wisdom, jaw-dropping musicianship and generous, inclusive humanity. And that's a lot to get in just one little reckid, ain't it?

Long distance salvation

VARIOUS ARTISTS
''LONG DISTANCE SALVATION: A TRIBUTE TO BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN'S NEBRASKA''

1. The Wooden Sky - Nebraska4:28
2. Juniper Tar - Atlantic City/4:12
3. Joe Purdy & Garrison Starr - Mansion On The Hill/3:07
4. Spirit Family Reunion - Johnny 99/3:36
5. Joe Pug - Highway Patrolman/5:40
6. Jonah Tolchin - State Trooper/4:42
7. Strand of Oaks - Used Cars/3:01
8. Trampled By Turtles - Open All Night/3:09
9. David Wax - My Father's House/2:49
10.Adam Arcuragi - Reason To Believe/6:36
11.Kingsley Flood - Bonus: Shut Out The Light/3:35
12.Kyle Morton (Typhoon) & Danielle Sullivan (Wild Ones) - Bonus: Atlantic City/3:58
13.Joe Fletcher - Bonus: Pink Cadillac/3:23
14.Roadside Graves - Bonus: Downbound Train/5:14



I am so digging this release. Some fine, fine performances here by a well assembled group of artists who are plying their trade for a worthy cause. It don't get any better that that!

The album is 10 album and 4 bonus tracks featuring artists such as The Wooden Sky, Strand of Oaks, Roadside Graves, Joe Pug, Juniper Tar, Trampled by Turtles…well the list goes on and is quite impressive for the indie, folky types.
So all this is essentially about the music, but this whole project and compilation came together to benefit Project Bread who’s aim is about “alleviating, preventing, and ultimately ending hunger in Massachusetts“.

http://longdistancesalvation.bandcamp.com/album/long-distance-salvation-a-tribute-to-bruce-springsteens-nebraska

In January 1982, holed up in his spare bedroom with nothing but an acoustic guitar, harmonica, and a 4-track cassette recorder, Bruce Springsteen recorded an American folk masterpiece. Now, 30 years later, a new generation of songwriters pay tribute to 'Nebraska'...

Thanks to all the people that helped make this project a reality - without your time, enthusiasm and support this wouldn't have been possible. In particular Steve Legare, Naseem Khuri, Pete Weiss, Kyle Matteson, Adam Sharp for help and guidance. And Mallory Brown, who put up with Nebraska playing on repeat for the past year and tolerated my nonstop talking about project for nearly as long.

And of course, a special thanks to all of the artists who dedicated so much time and effort to the project.
tags

Sugaring Season

"Sugaring Season is Beth Orton's first album in six years – a time in which she thought of giving up music. But after having two children, some therapy, and guitar lessons from folk great Bert Jansch, the Brit winner is back."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/sep/23/beth-orton-interview-sugaring-season






Beth Orton's first album in six years, Sugaring Season, was recorded in Portland, Oregon with producer Martine Tucker. Orton also called upon a host of old friends to contribute to the album, including keyboardist Rob Burger, bassist Sebastian Steinberg, and legendary jazz drummer Brian Blade, along with guitarists Marc Ribot and Ted Barnes and folksinger Sam Amidon. This was worth the wait.

Be Still

Dave Douglas - trumpet
Jon Irabagon - tenor saxophone
Matt Mitchell piano
Linda Oh - bass
Rudy Royston -drums
Aoife O’Donovan - voice

Recorded April 15 & 16, 2012 at Avatar Studios, NYC
Recorded and mixed by Joe Ferla

http://music.davedouglas.com/
Dave Douglas is a multi-award-winning trumpeter, composer, and record label owner based in NYC.

Be Still is dedicated to the memory of Dave Douglas‘ mother, Emily, who passed in 2011 after an extended battle with cancer. Of the nine tunes here, six are hymns and folks songs that she asked him to perform at her funeral. Douglas originally arranged them for his brass group, then reimagined them for his new quintet and this recording, which he calls “aspirational.” His new quintet includes saxophonist Jon Irabagon, pianist Matt Mitchell, bassist Linda Oh, and drummer Rudy Royston. Guest vocalist and guitarist Aoife O’Donovan of the contemporary bluegrass group Crooked Still joins the band on five tunes. The Jean Sibelius hymn “Be Still My Soul” opens the set. It’s obvious from the start that Douglas is trying to move this recording beyond the boundaries of song. He looks inward, not only inside the arrangements but inside music to articulate what lies beyond the artificial boundaries of language and imposed structures. O’Donovan’s voice, in its plaintive yet expressive grain, takes the gentle melody and expresses it subtly, with unaffected emotional depth. Douglas is almost a duet partner. He finds the lilt in her voice, twins it, and echoes it with short phrases. Mitchell and the rhythm section make the tune sway and shimmer underneath them. “High On a Mountain,” a nugget from the bluegrass fakebook, features O’Donovan’s best high lonesome and flatpicking guitar skills. Douglas plays the part of the mandolin in the ensemble, he solos around inside of the verses as Oh’s bass walks it all out. Irabagon’s big soulful saxophone break is arresting. When O’Donovan’s voice and the harmonizing horns re-enter, the tune becomes something other: it exists not so much in a place beyond genres, but in one where they no longer matter in getting a great song across. “Barbara Allen” offers hints of “Shenandoah” in its intro, but as the horns carve room for O’Donovan, the entire number hovers in the ether, like a poem sung across a mountain valley. The usual solemnity of “This Is My Father’s World” is elevated to something far brighter. Elements of early jazz, traditional English folk music, and gospel harmony pour like water between the horns and are given wings by the rhythm section. O’Donovan sings the lyric as if she needn’t convince anyone of its truth because she knows it intimately and the band’s intuitive accompaniment only adds to that perception. Of Douglas’ own tunes here, “Going Somewhere with You,” with its reaching crescendos in the choruses, beautifully underplayed solos, and interconnected dialogue, not only complements, but highlights his intent for this album. The closing reading of Vaughan Williams’ “Whither Must I Wander” underscores the simple intimacy of the composer’s melody in order to reveal its true elegance. Be Still is brimming with poetic elegance; but it is also adventurous in its graceful articulation of folk forms (jazz is one of them, after all), and possesses a creativity and musical sophistication that is above all, revelatory.

Blues from the Roadhouse

http://www.stevejohnsonblues.com/bio.htm
Steven Bryan Johnson, born January 12, 1956, started playing guitar in 1963 after his Uncle Mickey Johnson played his electric guitar for him. Played in rock blues bands in California untill moving to Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1982. There he met Albert Collins, Willie Dixon, Luther Allison, Duke Robillard, Johnny Winter, and lots of Chicago and Detroit area blues players. Moved to New York City in 1983 and formed The Tanks, a Blues Power Trio and recorded 3 albums all independently released in the U.S. Played with Paul Butterfield, Johnny Copeland, Paul Schaeffer, Albert Collins, Little Jimmy King, Jaco Pastorious, Fernando Saunders, Tony Smith, Little Mike, Hubert Sumlin, Popa Chubby, Big Ed Sullivan, Jon Paris, Bill Perry, Michael Hill and most New York Blues players.

Voices Of East Anglia: How records are made

Voices Of East Anglia: How records are made: Two great sets of photos showing records being manufactured. The first set are from 1954 starting with an engineer splicing up a tape. Th...

Wayback - Blonde on Blonde

A true classic. 'nuff said.

Track listing

All songs written by Bob Dylan.
Side one
"Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" – 4:36
"Pledging My Time" – 3:50
"Visions of Johanna" – 7:33
"One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)" – 4:54

Side two
"I Want You" – 3:07
"Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" – 7:05
"Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" – 3:58
"Just Like a Woman" – 4:52

Side three
"Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine" – 3:30
"Temporary Like Achilles" – 5:02
"Absolutely Sweet Marie" – 4:57
"4th Time Around" – 4:35
"Obviously 5 Believers" – 3:35

Side four
"Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" – 11:23

If Highway 61 Revisited played as a garage rock record, the double album Blonde on Blonde inverted that sound, blending blues, country, rock, and folk into a wild, careening, and dense sound. Replacing the fiery Michael Bloomfield with the intense, weaving guitar of Robbie Robertson, Bob Dylan led a group comprised of his touring band the Hawks and session musicians through his richest set of songs. Blonde on Blonde is an album of enormous depth, providing endless lyrical and musical revelations on each play. Leavening the edginess of Highway 61 with a sense of the absurd, Blonde on Blonde is comprised entirely of songs driven by inventive, surreal, and witty wordplay, not only on the rockers but also on winding, moving ballads like "Visions of Johanna," "Just Like a Woman," and "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands." Throughout the record, the music matches the inventiveness of the songs, filled with cutting guitar riffs, liquid organ riffs, crisp pianos, and even woozy brass bands ("Rainy Day Women #12 & 35"). It's the culmination of Dylan's electric rock & roll period -- he would never release a studio record that rocked this hard, or had such bizarre imagery, ever again. AMG.

Wiki:

Blonde on Blonde is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in May 1966 on Columbia Records and produced by Bob Johnston. Recording sessions commenced in New York in October 1965, with numerous backing musicians, including members of Dylan's live backing band, The Hawks. They continued until January 1966, but yielded only one track that made it onto the final album—"One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)". At Johnston's suggestion, Dylan, accompanied by keyboard player Al Kooper and guitarist Robbie Robertson, moved to the CBS studios in Nashville, Tennessee. These sessions, augmented by some of Nashville's top session musicians, were more fruitful, and in February and March all the remaining songs for the album were recorded.
The album completed the trilogy of rock albums that Dylan recorded in 1965 and 1966, commencing with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited. Blonde on Blonde is often ranked by critics as one of the greatest albums of all time. Combining the expertise of Nashville session musicians with a modernist literary sensibility, the album's songs have been described as operating on a grand scale musically, while featuring lyrics one critic called "a unique blend of the visionary and the colloquial". It was one of the first double albums in rock music.
The album peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard 200 chart in the USA, where it eventually went double-platinum, and reached No. 3 in the UK. Blonde on Blonde spawned two singles that were top twenty hits in the USA: "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" and "I Want You". Two further songs, "Just Like a Woman" and "Visions of Johanna", have been described as among Dylan's greatest compositions and were featured in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.


Songs

"Rainy Day Women #12 and 35"


According to author Andy Gill, by starting his new album with what sounded like "a demented marching-band...staffed by crazy people out of their mind on loco-weed", Dylan delivered his biggest shock yet for his former folkie fans. The elaborate puns on getting stoned combine a sense of paranoiac persecution with "nudge-nudge wink-wink bohemian hedonism". Heylin points out that the Old Testament connotations of getting stoned made the Salvation Army-style musical backing seem like a good joke. The enigmatic title came about, Heylin suggests, because Dylan knew a song entitled "everybody must get stoned" would be kept off the airwaves. Heylin links the title to the Book of Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 15: "A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike." Released as a single on March 22, 1966, "Rainy Day Women" reached No. 2 on the Billboard singles chart, and No. 7 in the UK.

"Pledging My Time"

Following the good-time fun of "Rainy Day Women #12 and 35", the Chicago blues-influenced "Pledging My Time" sets the somber tone that runs through the album. It draws on several traditional blues songs, including Elmore James' recording of "It Hurts Me Too". For critic Michael Gray, the lines "Somebody got lucky but it was an accident" echo the lines "Some joker got lucky, stole her back again" from Robert Johnson's "Come On in My Kitchen", which is itself an echo of the Skip James 1931 recording "Devil Got My Woman". Gray suggests that "the gulping movements of the melodic phrases" derive from the melody of "Sitting on Top of the World", recorded by the Mississippi Sheiks in 1930. The couplet at the end of each verse expresses the theme: a pledge made to a prospective lover in hopes she "will come through, too". Besides Dylan's vocals and improvised harmonica breaks, the song's sound is defined by Robbie Robertson's guitar, Hargus "Pig" Robbins's blues piano and Ken Buttrey's snare drum rolls. The song was released in edited form as the B-side of "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" in March.

"Visions of Johanna"

Considered by many critics as one of Dylan's greatest masterpieces,"Visions of Johanna" proved difficult to capture on tape. Heylin places the writing in the fall of 1965, when Dylan was living in the Chelsea Hotel with his pregnant wife Sara. In the New York recording studio, on November 30, Dylan announced his epic composition: "This is called 'Freeze Out'." Gill notes that this working title captures the "air of nocturnal suspension in which the verse tableaux are sketched...full of whispering and muttering." Wilentz relates how Dylan guided his backing musicians through fourteen takes, trying to sketch out how he wanted it played, saying at one point, "it's not hard rock, The only thing in it that's hard is Robbie." Wilentz notes that, as Dylan quiets things down, he inches closer to what will appear on the album.
Ten weeks later, "Visions of Johanna" fell into place quickly in the Nashville studio. Kooper recalled that he and Robertson had become adept at responding to Dylan's vocal and also singled out Joe South's contribution of "this throbbing...rhythmically amazing bass part". Gill comments that the song begins by contrasting two lovers, the carnal Louise, and "the more spiritual but unattainable" Johanna. Ultimately, for Gill, the song seeks to convey how the artist is compelled to keep striving to pursue some elusive vision of perfection. For Heylin, the triumph of the song is in "the way Dylan manages to write about the most inchoate feelings in such a vivid, immediate way.

"One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)"

When Dylan arrived at the studio on January 25, 1966, he had yet to work out the lyrics and title for what was to become the closing track on Blonde on Blonde's first side. With Dylan piecing together the song's sections, and the chorus that gives the song its title only emerging on take five, the session stretched through the night and into the next morning. It was not until the eighteenth take that a full version was recorded. The next take, the nineteenth, closed the session and made it onto the album four months later. Critic Jonathan Singer credits Griffin's piano for binding the song together: "At the chorus, Griffin unleashes a symphony; hammering his way up and down the keyboard, half Gershwin, half gospel, all heart. The follow-up, a killer left hand figure that links the chorus to the verse, releases none of the song's tension."
"One of Us Must Know" is a straightforward account of a burned-out relationship. Dissecting what went wrong, the narrator takes a defensive attitude in a one-sided conversation with his former lover. As he presents his case in the opening verse, it appears he is incapable of either acknowledging his part or limiting the abuse: "I didn't mean to treat you so bad. You don't have to take it so personal. I didn't mean to make you so sad. You just happened to be there, that's all." "One of Us Must Know" was the first recording completed for Blonde on Blonde and the only one selected from the New York sessions. The song was released as the first single from the album on February 14, the same day Dylan began to record in Nashville. It failed to appear on the American charts, but reached No. 33 in the UK.

"I Want You"

Andy Gill notes that the song displays a tension between the very direct tone of the chorus, the repeated phrase "I want you", and a weird and complex cast of characters, "too numerous to inhabit the song's three minutes comfortably", including a guilty undertaker, a lonesome organ grinder, weeping fathers, mothers, sleeping saviors, the Queen of Spades, and the "dancing child with his Chinese suit". Analyzing the evolution of the lyrics through successive drafts, Wilentz writes that there are numerous failures, "about deputies asking him his name...lines about fathers going down hugging one another and about their daughters putting him down because he isn't their brother". Finally Dylan arrives at the right formula.
Heylin points out that the gorgeous tune illustrates what Dylan explained to a reporter in 1966: "It's not just pretty words to a tune or putting tunes to words...[It's] the words and the music [together]—I can hear the sound of what I want to say." Al Kooper has said that of all the songs that Dylan had outlined to him in his hotel, this was his favorite, so Dylan delayed recording it to the very end of the Nashville sessions, "just to bug him". Released as a single in June 1966, shortly before the album Blonde on Blonde, "I Want You" reached No. 20 in the USA, and No. 16 in the UK.

"Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again"

Recorded at the third Nashville session, this song was the culmination of another epic of simultaneous writing and recording in the studio. Wilentz describes how the lyrics evolved through a surviving part-typed, part-handwritten manuscript page, "which begins 'honey but it’s just too hard' (a line that had survived from the very first New York session with the Hawks). Then the words meander through random combinations and disconnected fragments and images ('people just get uglier'; 'banjo eyes'; 'he was carrying a 22 but it was only a single shot'), before, in Dylan’s own hand, amid many crossings-out, there appears 'Oh MAMA you’re here IN MOBILE ALABAMA with the Memphis blues again'."
Inside the studio, the song evolved through several musical revisions. Heylin writes, "It is the song's arrangement, and not its lyrics, that occupies the musicians through the wee small hours." On the fifth take, released in 2005 on the No Direction Home Soundtrack, midtake Dylan stumbles on the formula "Stuck inside of Mobile" on the fourth verse, and never goes back. The song contains two oft-quoted pieces of Dylan's philosophy: "Your debutante just knows what you need/ But I know what you want" and "here I sit so patiently/ Waiting to find out what price/ You have to pay to get out of/ Going through all these things twice".

"Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat"

"Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" is a sarcastic satire on materialism, fashion and faddism. Done in Chicago-blues style, the song derives its melody and part of its lyrics from Lightnin' Hopkins's "Automobile (Blues)". Paul Williams writes that its misogynistic attitude is "moderated slightly when one realizes that jealous pique is the underlying emotion". In the lyrics, the narrator observes his former lover in various situations wearing her "brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat", at one point finding his doctor with her and later spying her making love with a new boyfriend because she "forgot to close the garage door". In the closing lines, the narrator says he knows what her boyfriend really loves her for—her hat.
The song evolved over the course of six takes in New York, 13 in the first Nashville session, and then one try on March 10, the take used for the album. Dylan, who gets credit on the liner notes as lead guitarist, opens the song playing lead (on the center-right stereo channel); however, Robertson handles the solos with a "searing" performance (on the left stereo channel). A year following the recording, "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" became the fifth single released from Blonde on Blonde, making it to No. 81 on the Billboard Hot 100.

"Just Like a Woman"

According to Wilentz's analysis of the session's tapes, Dylan felt his way into the lyrics of one of his most popular songs, singing "disconnected lines and semi-gibberish" during the earlier takes. He was unsure what the person described in the song does that is just like a woman, rejecting "shakes", "wakes", and "makes mistakes". This exploration of female wiles and feminine vulnerability was widely rumored—"not least by her acquaintances among Andy Warhol's Factory retinue"—to be about Edie Sedgwick. The reference to Baby's penchant for "fog...amphetamine and... pearls" suggests Sedgwick or some similar debutante, according to Heylin.
Discussing the lyrics, literary critic Christopher Ricks detects a "note of social exclusion" in the line "I was hungry and it was your world". In response to the accusation that Dylan's depiction of female strategies is misogynistic, Ricks asks, "Could there ever be any challenging art about men and women where the accusation just didn't arise?" The song reached No. 33 in the USA.

"Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)"

A bright blues "stomper" about lovers parting, "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)" is one of the more literal songs Dylan recorded in his 1965–1966 period. The narrator has tired of carrying his lover and is going to let her "pass". As in "Just Like a Woman" and "Absolutely Sweet Marie", he waits until the end of each verse to deliver the punch line, which in this case comes from the title. "Most Likely You Go Your Way" was issued as a single a year later, in March 1967, on the B-side of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat".

"Temporary Like Achilles"

This slow-moving blues number is highlighted by Hargus "Pig" Robbins's "dusky barrelhouse piano" and Dylan's "brief wheeze of harmonica". In the song, the narrator has been spurned by his lover, who has already taken up with her latest boyfriend. Referring to his rival as "Achilles", the narrator senses the new suitor may end up being discarded as quickly as he was. The refrain that ends each of the main verses—"Honey, why are you so hard?"—is a double entendre Dylan had been wanting to work into a song.

"Absolutely Sweet Marie"

This song, described as "up-tempo blues shuffle, pure Memphis" and an example of "obvious pop sensibility and compulsive melody", was recorded in four takes on March 7, 1966. Gill sees the lyrics as a series of sexual metaphors, including "beating on my trumpet" and keys to locked gates, many deriving from traditional blues. Nonetheless, the song contains what has been termed "one of the most oft-repeated of Dylan's life lessons", the thought that "to live outside the law you must be honest", which was later invoked in many bohemian and counter-cultural contexts.

"4th Time Around"

When The Beatles released their sixth studio album, Rubber Soul, in December 1965, John Lennon's song "Norwegian Wood" attracted attention for the way in which Lennon disguised his account of an illicit affair in cryptic, Dylanesque language. Dylan sketched out a response to the song, also in 3/4 time, copying the tune and circular structure, but taking Lennon's tale in a darker direction. Wilentz describes the result as sounding "like Bob Dylan impersonating John Lennon impersonating Bob Dylan".

"Obviously 5 Believers"

"Obviously 5 Believers", Blonde on Blonde's second-to-last track, is a roadhouse blues love song similar in melody and structure to Memphis Minnie's "Me and My Chauffeur Blues", and was described by Robert Shelton as "the best R&B song on the album". Recorded in the early morning hours of the March 9–10 Nashville session under the working title "Black Dog Blues", the song is driven by Robertson's guitar, Charley McCoy's harmonica and Ken Buttrey's drumming. After an initial breakdown, Dylan complained to the band that the song was "very easy, man" and that he did not want to spend much time on it. Within four takes, the recording was done.

"Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands"

Written over the space of eight hours in the CBS recording studio in Nashville, on the night of February 15–16, "Sad Eyed Lady" eventually occupied the whole of side four of Blonde On Blonde. Critics have observed that "Lowlands" hints at "Lownds", and Dylan biographer Robert Shelton wrote that this was a "wedding song" for Sara Lownds, whom Dylan had married just three months earlier. In his paean to his wife, "Sara", written in 1975, Dylan amends history slightly to claim that he stayed "up for days in the Chelsea Hotel/ Writin’ 'Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' for you".
When Dylan played Shelton the song, shortly after recording it, he claimed, "This is the best song I've ever written." Around the same time, Dylan enthused to journalist Jules Siegel, "Just listen to that! That's old-time religious carnival music!" However, in 1969, Dylan confessed to Rolling Stone's editor, Jann Wenner, "I just sat down at a table and started writing...And I just got carried away with the whole thing...I just started writing and I couldn’t stop. After a period of time, I forgot what it was all about, and I started trying to get back to the beginning [laughs]."
Heard by some listeners as a hymn to an other-worldly woman, for Shelton "her travails seem beyond endurance, yet she radiates an inner strength, an ability to be reborn. This is Dylan at his most romantic." Wilentz comments that Dylan's writing had shifted from the days when he asked questions and supplied answers. Like the verses of William Blake's "Tyger", Dylan asks a series of questions about the "Sad Eyed Lady" but never supplies any answers.

Sit Down, Servant!!

When you have music in your DNA, a little adversity won't keep it down. Such it is with Gordie Johnson. Having surgery for carpal tunnel is just a good reason to test your resourcefulness.

Test passed.




01 In My Time of Dying
02 If You Think Your God Is Dead
03 Wrapped Up, Tangled Up In Jesus
04 This May Be The Last Time
05 Motherless Children
06 Old Landlady Blue
07 Blackbird Bakey Pie Blues
08 Between Heaven and Dripping Springs
09 Tired All The Time
10 Don't Miss Me When I'm Gone


http://www.sitdownservant.com/?page_id=123

Gordie Johnson is living proof that you can’t keep a good rockin’ man down.
On the heels of a potentially career-altering medical ailment, instead of wallowing in self-pity, frustration and recrimination, the frontman for Canadian alt-rock legends Big Sugar, the cowboy metal Texas concoction known as Grady, bass player for Wide Mouth Mason and producer extraordinaire decided to bear down and create some new sounds.
The result is Sit Down, Servant!!, which fuses Johnson’s lifelong love for Gospel music, with his affinity for reggae stylings.
The project, which also features Big Sugar drummer Stephane Beaudin as Johnson’s accompanist, is currently touring Canada and will appear at the Mansion in Kingston on Friday.
And longtime Johnson fans will notice the versatile shredder playing a lot of lap steel and utilizing some simpler chording structures with his left hand.
That’s because he’s basically rehabbing his left hand as he recovers from surgery to repair damage that had occurred over the past couple of decades, resulting in a debilitating bout of carpal tunnel syndrome.
So, as any good musician, he is using music as a form of physiotherapy.
“I had surgery on my hand, right at the beginning of the year. Carpal tunnel caught up with me after 10 years of working around it. It finally got to the point where, man, I really couldn’t play any more. After the last Big Sugar tour, I couldn’t play at all. I couldn’t do anything with my hand. So I figured I would try and get that surgery done, so I could save it, which I did,” he told Kingston This Week from a tour stop in Saskatchewan.
“I got the surgery done, and had a couple of months of just sitting around and looking at my bandaged up hand, wondering if I was going to play again.
“My hand just didn’t work at all, and I told the doctor, ‘Just put a metal hook on there. I will play like a mother … with a metal hook. I don’t care. I am going to play a guitar no matter what. You can’t get bogged down by it. I am going to make a sound one way or another.”
The impetus to “play again” came in the form of an offer to tour Canada with blues-rock icon George Thorogood.
He told his booking agent to book the shows, but the agent wondered how and what form Johnson would be able to conduct his musical business.
“I said there must be something I can play. I decided I could go back to playing the stuff I have been playing all my life. With that music, there’s no pressure to sound exactly like the record or like what people remember from your videos 10, 15 years ago,” Johnson said, explaining that the agent needed a name to give Thorogood’s people.
“I said, ‘Um, it’s going to be called Sit Down, Servant!!’ I happened to be listening to that song by The Staples Singers on iTunes, so I was looking at the screen while I was on the phone with my agent, and thought it was a good one. I looked it up to see who owns the domain name online, and no one owned it, so I registered it while we were on the phone. So I said, ‘Yeah, that’s the name of the band.’”
But then the agent asked for music. Johnson said he did, but to give him to the end of the day.
“I went into the studio with my assistant and we just cut two tracks together and by the end of the day I had them mixed. We got the gig based on that. But more than that it got my mind off my troubles and my inability to play and got me focussed on doing something, and hopefully getting my hand back in shape so I can go and do Big Sugar again,” he said.
“So, yeah, I am playing guitar. I am playing it lying down on my lap like a lap steel for part of the night, and a lot of the songs are spirituals and traditionals and blues songs, and even the originals are based on traditional music. So doing it is someplace that is really natural and easy for my hand because I have been doing them for so long.
“It’s my left hand, my chording hand, that’s the problem. So I will play with a slide. I am playing open tuning and the lap steel a little. It’s made me able to play and it’s going to get me back playing every night, so that I get my mobility back and my hand back.”
Someone without Johnson’s positive attitude and emotional resiliency might have packed it in and felt sorry for themselves.
That’s never been part of Gordie Johnson’s makeup.
“It could be easy to get kind of depressed and sit at home and not do anything because it hurts and it’s uncomfortable and you’re not doing what you think you could be doing. So rather than succumb to that, I said ‘No, I’ve got something I need to work on here, and get a record made.’ And we only took two days to make the record [called I Was Just Trying to Help].”
Besides singing and playing guitar, Johnson manipulates bass pedals with his feet, to give the sound more ‘bottom end.’ And I Was Just Trying to Help also incorporates Johnson’s inimitable reggae-dub vibe, making the traditional songs sound ‘Big Sugar-ish.’
“I didn’t want to just sit there with a banjo on my knee and make an acoustic folk record. That’s not what I set out to do. If I am going to do something like this, it has to be unique and I have to put my own stamp on it, and the fact that it’s electric and really subsonic and has lots of dub echoes on it, makes it not strictly a traditional approach to that kind of music,” he said.
“The Staples Singers, Mahalia Jackson, Muddy Waters, Blind Willie Johnson: those people are giants and they already did that thing. I can never hope to do it that way. I can do what I do. And there’s nothing less appealing to me than copying somebody copying somebody. I love the intention of the music, and I have always loved the message of that music. It’s something that I relate to.”
Johnson spent much of his formative youth living in Windsor, Ontario, meaning the sounds of Detroit radio wafted easily across the border and into the ears of an impressionable young Johnson.
“My dad was a choir leader at church, but I was so tired on Sunday morning in church because I had stayed up all night. I remember before I was in high school, I was out until three in the morning playing. I would sneak back in the house, and I just lived with my radio on. And at that time, in the 1970s, starting at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m, you’d start to hear Gospel programs on the radio from Detroit. Every other night you’d hear blues or soul or R&B, but Sundays you’d start hearing Gospel,” he said.
“So I would lay awake all night listening to the sermons and the choirs and it blew my mind. It was my first memory of grabbing a guitar and sitting in front of the radio and trying to copy what the preacher was singing because he would sort of sing a line and the congregation would say ‘Amen.’ So that was my first introduction into that sort of tonality and applying it to a guitar. So by the time I heard blues music, it was really familiar. Musical instruments are meant to emulate those vocalisms, so my approach to musical instruments came from that time, and it’s a very vocal approach, where everything needs to mimic human speech and human sound.”
As for the messages behind the music, Johnson said he isn’t a churchgoer.
“I don’t belong to anybody’s club. I have always been of the opinion that you shouldn’t blame the failings of Christianity on Jesus. He was just trying to help. Which is where the title of the record comes from. Christianity has caused a lot of turmoil in the world but don’t blame Jesus, he was jus trying to help.”
With limited marketing, Johnson said he is shocked at how well fans are accepting the Sit Down, Servant!! sounds.
“We cannot keep the CDs on the merchandise table. We go and shake hands after the show and it’s kind of pandemonium. It’s unprecedented. The response has been great.”
But don’t think for a moment that Johnson is done being a rock god.
Wide Mouth Mason has plans to tour Canada in September, and Big Sugar is also going to cross the continent in the fall. And there are also some Grady shows in the works.
“This hand thing has put me behind my own personal schedule a little bit, but I have to get well to the point where I can play with all those guys again,” he said.

Tilt-A-Whirl

A fine effort by a fine artist with a Springsteenesque affinity for tapping into the heart of the heartland and the people who live there. The man writes a good tune...

http://drewnelson.net/about-drew/

Michigan-born Navy veteran Drew Nelson is a storytelling songwriter and multiinstrumentalist. A fly fisherman and world traveler, he writes as a witness to the lives and journeys of those he has met along the way, mixing Americana and roots-rock with traditional folk styles.

Drew has toured across North America and Europe, performing solo and opening for popular rock artists like Melissa Etheridge and Edwin McCain as well as esteemed folk singers like Josh White Jr. and John Gorka.

He first met John Gorka in 2006, when Drew performed as part of Falcon Ridge Folk Festival's prestigious songwriting contest. John found him backstage after his performance and told him how much his songs moved him. Since then, Drew has shared the stage with John several times, including at such big events as the Kerrville Folk Festival. "Drew Nelson is one of my favorite new artists," John Gorka says. "His songs sound like the rest of us feel….dazed, angry, amazed and climbing."

Drew garnered further attention in 2009, when he released Dusty Road to Beulah Land (Waterbug Records), and it topped the folk radio charts. It also caught the attention of the Grammy-winning indie label Red House
Records, which just signed him. "I love that Drew can rock out as well as write sensitive ballads," Red House president Eric Peltoniemi says. "I admire his down-to-earth songwriting which portrays our world and ordinary people with such deep feeling and unflinching clarity. He has worked hard in life and hasn't been afraid to get his hands dirty. He has 100% credibility in the subject matter he writes about, and I'm excited to get the chance to work with him."

Drew's Red House debut Tilt-A-Whirl comes out in early 2012. He can also be heard on the new album Dark River: Songs of the Civil War Era, along with Jon Dee Graham, Slaid Cleaves, James McMurtry and new label-mate Eliza Gilkyson.

In support of his new album, Drew Nelson will be showcasing at the 2012 International Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis and will be touring across North America and Europe.

When Drew is not on the road, he enjoys reading, rooting for the Detroit Tigers, doing hot yoga and working as an amateur luthier, building guitars and octave mandolins. He is also working on putting together a photography show.

Red House Records is pleased to announce the February 14, 2012 release of Tilt-A-Whirl, the label debut of Michigan songwriter Drew Nelson. An artist with an international reputation and several critically acclaimed albums under his belt, the folk/Americana artist writes as a witness to the lives and journeys of those he has met along the way.b Mixing Sprinsgteen's roots-rock sounds with the folk storytelling sensibility of Nanci Griffith, Drew introduces us to an eclectic cast of everyday characters that includes out of work war vets, forsaken lovers, migrant workers and other directionless lost souls.

"As you encounter the characters on this record, it becomes clear that Drew Nelson has dedicated and re-dedicated himself to getting at real human stories," says acclaimed songwriter Peter Mulvey. "Some of these characters are him, and some are people he knows, and all their stories let us know that Drew is standing in the Midwestern cold, seeing and telling as clearly as he can."

Recorded in his home state of Michigan, Drew's new album sprung out of a series of serendipitous events that started with a chance encounter with a friend in 2011. It had been two years since his radio-charting album Dusty Road to Beulah Land came out, and this friend told him he had to make a new CD. "I just laughed and said 'Yeah, if I could pay for it.' He asked me how much it would cost, and he wrote me a check." Drew then called up his producer Michael Crittenden at Mackinaw Harvest Studios and to his great disappointment, discovered that the studio was booked solid for the next six months. But five minutes later, Michael called back saying that the band had cancelled for the following week. "That was it," Drew says. "I started to call all the musicians I knew that I wanted on the CD and just lived in the studio for the next two weeks, writing two new songs and recording almost everything live."

The timing ended up being perfect as Drew was able to record with some of his favorite Michigan musicians, including Michael Crittenden (B-3 organ, Wurlitzer, piano, guitars), Mark R. Schrock (bass, mandolin, vocals), Brian Morrill (drums), Drew Howard (pedal steel, Dobro), Jen Sygit (vocals) and Bettye LaVette's guitarist Brett Lucas who was coincidentally not on tour and was able to come in from Detroit. Adding some soulful electric guitar parts, Lucas added a rock edge to songs like "Promised Land" and "Danny and Maria" while adding subtle textures to acoustic tracks like "St. Jude" and "Here and There."

Together this ensemble of musicians brings Drew's sad and beautiful working class tales to life. Speaking to today's hard economic realities, Tilt-A-Whirl illuminates people's struggles to hold onto their hopes and dreams as they spin through the wild carnival ride of life

New Dylan

Dylan is a talent - let there be no doubt. At 22 years of age he brings more to a song than many twice his age. As beautiful as they are bleak, they serve to showcase his age (oh, the heartache is at the forefront at 22)  his Buckley/Isaak like vocal (a fine thing) and his way with a melody.
With an eye toward future and more mature subject matter, but with an understanding of the maturation process, I put Dylan on my "Keep on the Radar" list. This is a fine effort...

http://www.dylanleblanc.com/

The first track on Dylan's new release - PartOne: The End
Dylan describes what the song is about: “I had a crazy dream and this was the theme music to it. In my dream I was walking through the forest, and there was a battle going on and everyone was shooting each other and then people were hanging out and smoking cigarettes with their rifles and I remember there was a beautiful woman in the dream with long black hair. She was like a painting, and every time she turned the corner, the rest of the world would also become a painting. Every time I wanted to go closer, she would round the next corner. I woke up and I said “I have to write that song”. I picked it out on my guitar and I started thinking about innocence and what age is it that innocence stops and you start to become more aware of the world. When you become wise, things aren’t as fun and good as they used to be. It takes the magic out of it.”
‘Cast The Same Old Shadow’ Tracklisting
1. Part One: The End
2. Innocent Sinner
3. Brother
4. Diamonds and Pearls
5. Where Are You Now
6. Chesapeake Lane
7. The Ties That Bind
8. Comfort Me
9. Cast The Same Old Shadow
10. Lonesome Waltz
The bulk of the album was recorded in the legendary Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and then completed in New Orleans. It was co-produced by Dylan and Grammy award-winning engineer Trina Shoemaker (Queens of the Stone Age, Sheryl Crow, Emmylou Harris).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/8v28

BBC Review

LeBlanc’s second album presents proof positive that break-ups aren’t all bad.

Leonie Cooper 2012-08-20

Unless you’re fond of wallowing in misfortune, Cast the Same Old Shadow is not to be experienced on the back of a break-up. Poor Dylan LeBlanc, however, can’t help himself. Recorded after he’d been dumped, if it’s not clear from its opener’s title that this second album is awash with heartache, it’s sledgehammered home once the dejected vocals swoop in.
LeBlanc’s in possession of a breathier version of Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold’s woodland falsetto, which seems almost embarrassed to have grabbed attentions with its rugged purity. He might only be 22, but LeBlanc’s seen a darkness, one which has him coming across as a more rustic Jeff Buckley.
Though born in Louisiana, LeBlanc’s sound isn’t particularly Southern. Instead, he conjures up visions of the plaid-shirted tribes of the Pacific Northwest and of Neil Young humbly combing his sideburns by a sequoia before whittling a love token for the unrequited object of his affections.
The follow-up to 2010’s Paupers Field, this set plunders the overarching melancholy of Townes Van Zandt, making for an emotionally draining listen. The album’s cathartic country title track is a case in point. Of the song, LeBlanc says: “I wrote that song in my house and everyone had just left including a girl I liked, and she didn’t feel the same way about me. I wrote this song since I was feeling sorry for myself.”
What makes LeBlanc special, though, is his way of infusing the bleakest moments with slivers of hope – a major chord here, a lyric that sounds like it was sung from under a semi-smile there.
The gut-punching riffs of standout track Brother are counter-balanced with a jaunty hillbilly shuffle and, with its moaning pedal steel, Comfort Me gives off a surprising barroom bounce. Where Are You Now, another song about being ditched, allows sweeping 1960s symphonics to provide a dash of optimism.
LeBlanc admits he was listening to Beach House when recording this album and you can hear their influence, albeit subtly, in the hypnotic spreading of sound in the likes of Diamonds and Pearls. Proof positive that break-ups aren’t all bad.

Don McLean

01. American Pie
02. Vincent
03. And I Love You So
04. Castles  In The Air
05. Love Hurts
06. Crossroads
07. The Birthday Song
08. It Doesn't Matter Anymore
09. Crying
10. Prime Time
11. Winterwood
12. Crying In The Chapel
13. Wonderful Baby
14. Everyday
15. Fool's Paradise
16. Tapestry
17. Sittin' On Top Of The World

http://www.dfw.com/2012/09/08/677521/5-questions-with-don-mclean.html

Don McLean says he already knows how his obituary will begin. It'll emphasize the singer/songwriter's best-remembered hit, American Pie. This song, about "the day the music died," was a No. 1 chart topper in 1972. More recently, when a 2001 Recording Industry Association of America/National Endowment for the Arts poll celebrated the greatest songs of the 20th century, American Pie ranked fifth on the list. But McLean is no one-hit wonder. Other successful singles include Vincent, Crying and Wonderful Baby. And 40 years after American Pie, McLean is still writing music and still performing. Here he answers 5 questions:

1 When you look back over four decades in the music business, what do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment?

The main thing I would like to say is that I have become the person I wanted to be. As opposed to reaching goals but being an alcoholic, or reaching goals but having four failed marriages, or reaching goals but having kids in rehab. A lot of people reach their goals, but at a terrific price.

2 Is it safe to say, then, that you never cared about fame?

I had a recording contract with Clive Davis for about a year. He kept sending me wimpy little songs to sing and I didn't want to do them. So we ended our association. I guarantee you if I had decided to sing those songs, with the production values they would have used, I would have had hit records. But I didn't want those kinds of hit records. I don't want songs that don't mean anything. You wind up regretting it in the end anyway. Because if you get a hit that you don't like, you've still got to sing it.

3 Songs come and songs go. So what do you think about the staying power of American Pie?

It's a real honor and a gift. The thing that I value about the songs that Buddy Holly wrote and that Elvis sang, the songs by Pete Seeger and the Weavers, those songs are my friends. Better than my friends, in fact, because they're always there. And my hope is that people will consider my songs to be their friends as the years go by.

4 Is it true that the famous song Killing Me Softly is about you?

The way it happened was that Lori Lieberman [who was first to record the song, a year before Roberta Flack sang it] was asked by a friend to go see me in concert. I sang a song called Empty Chairs. That was a song that apparently resonated with her. She had all these feelings and told the songwriters about that. So they didn't have Don McLean in their minds when they wrote Killing Me Softly. But they used her memories of what she saw when she saw me. So she feels, and has always said, that the song is about me.

5 You're doing a concert tour in England next month. At age 66, have you ever considered retiring?

It's not really a career. It's a way of life. It's like breathing. I can't do anything else.



Wiki:
Famed for -- and ultimately defined by -- his perennial "American Pie," singer/songwriter Don McLean was born October 2, 1945, in New Rochelle, New York. After getting his start in the folk clubs of New York City during the mid-'60s, McLean struggled for a number of years, building a small following through his work with Pete Seeger on the Clearwater, a sloop that sailed up and down the eastern seaboard to promote environmental causes.

Still, McLean was primarily singing in elementary schools and the like when, in 1970, he wrote a musical tribute to painter Vincent Van Gogh; the project was roundly rejected by a number of labels, although MediaArts did offer him a contract to record a number of his other songs under the title Tapestry. The album fared poorly, but Perry Como earned a hit with a cover of the track "And I Love Her So," prompting United Artists to pick up McLean's contract. He returned in 1971 with American Pie; the title track, an elegiac eight-and-a-half-minute folk-pop epic inspired by the tragic death of Buddy Holly, became a number one hit, and the LP soon reached the top of the charts as well.

The follow-up, "Vincent," was also a smash, and McLean even became the subject of the Roberta Flack hit "Killing Me Softly with His Song"; however, to his credit -- and to his label's horror -- the singer refused to let the success of "American Pie" straitjacket his career. Subsequent records like 1972's self-titled effort and 1974's Playin' Favorites deliberately avoided any attempts to re-create the "American Pie" flavor; not surprisingly, his sales plummeted, and the latter release even failed to chart. After 1974's Homeless Brother and 1976's Solo, United Artists dropped McLean from his contract; he resurfaced on Arista the next year with Prime Time, but when it, too, fared poorly, he spent the next several years without a label.

McLean enjoyed a renaissance of sorts with 1980's Chain Lightning; his first Top 30 LP in close to a decade, it spawned a Top Ten smash with its cover of Roy Orbison's classic "Crying," and his originals "Castles in the Air" and "Since I Don't Have You" both also reached the Top 40. However, 1981's Believers failed to sustain the comeback, and after 1983's Dominion, he was again left without benefit of label support. McLean spent the remainder of his career primarily on the road, grudgingly restoring "American Pie" to his set list and drawing inspiration from the country market; in addition to a number of live sets and re-recordings of old favorites, he also returned to the studio for projects like 1990's For the Memories (a collection of classic pop, country, and jazz covers) and 1995's River of Love (an LP of original material).

Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance

New release from Patterson Hood (of Drive by Truckers fame) who felt he had some demons to exorcise. If you are an artist, this is how it is done. Write it down and commit it to "tape" - just get it out. It beats drowning those demons in the "substance" of choice. Because they never really drown, they just momentarily become quieter, Only to roar back in the morning.
Anyhoo - Patterson tells his story below.
Some decent tunes here - nothing earth shattering (these days how often does that happen?) but worth a listen... No particular favorite - maybe "Depression Era" gets a nod.




Heat Lightning Rumbles In The Distance track listing;

1. 12:01
2. Leaving Time
3. Disappear
4. Better Off Without
5. (untold pretties)
6. After The Damage
7. Better Than The Truth
8. Betty Ford
9. Depression Era
10. Heat Lightning Rumbles In The Distance
11. Come Back Little Star
12. Fifteen Days (Leaving Again)


http://pattersonhood.com/bio

Patterson Hood
Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance
Release date: 9/11/12 on ATO Records

Back in January 2011, worn out from having spent a year on tour and facing a new album’s release and another year spent mostly on a bus, away from the comforts of home and family, I decided to try to write a book. I had made a couple of stabs in that direction before (as well as a couple of screenplays) but had so far failed to complete one. The thing is, I love to write on the road. I write most every day out there. It’s usually not songs, as completing a song amid all of the noise, distractions and music blasting on the bus is very difficult (I do often start songs there that get finished later) but writing non-musical compositions comes pretty easy for me out here and it sure passes the time. Beside, I had an idea for a story I wanted to write and it started coming very easily. By our third month on the road I already had a pretty firm outline of what I wanted and several chapters that I felt really good about.
I was calling my book “Slam Dancing in the Pews”, named after a cassette that Virgil Kane had recorded in 1992 when Cooley and I were playing shows under that name after the break up of Adam’s House Cat. The book was basically half-assed fictionalization of that very turbulent period of my life. I was 27, my band broke up, I got divorced and left my hometown to live in Memphis. My car got stolen, our band’s truck got stripped and I fell in love. I fell out with my family (who I was very, very close to) and had my heart broken. I seriously pondered killing myself several times but instead wrote literally over 500 songs in a three-year period. A time when I reinvented myself artistically and experienced a sort of rebirth that led to a lot of the things I have done in the last two decades.
My book would sort of tell that story, but interspersed with lyrics from that period of my life, as well as new song lyrics either set in that time or from the point of view of various characters from the book. The structure would be chapter / song / chapter / song and so on. If the book was coming fast, the songs were coming even easier. Then the booked stopped coming. Someday I may want to tell that story, but timing is everything and this just isn’t the time for it.
The songs, however continued to pour out, taking a few left turns and then morphing into its own thing. Most of this album comes from that short period of time between February and June of 2011. The songs begin in the period that the book was set in, but don’t end there, as they really just were the impetus for writing about the life I am living now and contrasting it with the troubled times of two decades ago.
I called it Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance and decided that spring to record it as a solo album. I could clearly hear in my head exactly how I wanted every song to sound and made a list of who I wanted to play on each one. It is in some ways the most personal album I’ve ever made. There has always been a lot of me in all of the albums we’ve done, but usually semi-disguised as character sketches and stories, but the first person narrative in this one is pretty firmly rooted in autobiography, albeit in two dramatically differing time periods.
A Festival of Teeth – The making of Heat Lightning:
I have GarageBand on my computer so I decided to record a rough sketch of the album in my office, off from our kitchen at our house. The new songs nearly sequenced themselves into a near narrative and I started passing out my GarageBand demos to various friends and relations and received near unanimous positive feedback from it.
David Hood is a session bass player who played on tons of those great Muscle Shoals soul classics back in the day. He played bass on The Staple Singers’ classic “I’ll Take You There” as well as hits by Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Bobby Womack, Bob Seger, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson and Etta James. He is also my Dad and he came over to record with me last fall and absolutely outdid himself. His playing on the title cut is just stunning and we had an amazing time working together.
David Barbe, who has partnered with me on almost everything I’ve done for about a decade now, co- produced and played bass on the rest of the album.
Kelly Hogan has long been one of my favorite people and I knew I wanted her to sing on my album. She has just recently recorded an album of her own and she and I had attempted to co-write a song for it. She sent me a set of lyrics to an unfinished song she was working on about our friend Vic Chesnutt. I loved her lyrics and set about re-writing it and turning it into a song called “Come Back Little Star” which I then sent back to her to complete, but alas she didn’t get it finished in time to make her album and upon deciding to do my album, asked her if I could finish it for my album and she agreed. She came down to Georgia and sang on it and on “After The Damage” which I also wrote with her voice in mind. Upon singing her takes she could see through the glass into the control room what she described as “A Festival of Teeth.”
As always, Brad Morgan played drums and just keeps getting better and better all of the time. As a lot of the songs were piano based (and since I’m just not a very good piano player) I was fortunate to have Jay Gonzalez playing Andy Baker’s grand piano (on indefinite loan to Chase Park Transduction) as well as Wurlitzer, accordion and Mellotron. John Neff came by to play some spot-on pedal steel and we even got Cooley in to play banjo on a couple of tracks.
My love for the Denton, Texas band Centro-matic is well known and once again I was fortunate to have Will Johnson and Scott Danbom in for a few days each to play with me. Will came in October, played some guitar and did some stunning singing. Scott came by in August and played upright piano on “Leaving Time”, then came back in early December and played the fiddle. I had always heard cello on some of these songs and for the first time got to play with Jacob Morris (Madeline, Moths and Old Smokey).
In the end, I think we made the most intimate and personal record of my career and I’m extremely proud of how it all turned out. I have put together a really good band, The Downtown Rumblers, to go out tour behind it and I’m really looking forward to taking this show on the road.
Patterson Hood