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

The Carpenter

No stunners here though it does grow on you. Which is ok if you are good with things growing on you. Diggin on "Pretty Girl from Michigan". Resonance.
"Through My Prayers" - pretty melody - sweet lyric. I like.



The Carpenter Tracklist
01 – “The Once and Future Carpenter”

02 – “Live and Die”

03 – “Winter In My Heart”

04 – “Pretty Girl From Michigan”

05 – “I Never Knew You”

06 – “February Seven”

07 – “Through My Prayers”

08 – “Down with the Shine”

09 – “A Fathers First Spring”

10 – “Geraldine”

11 – “Paul Newman Vs. The Demons”

12 – “Life”

http://www.theavettbrothers.com/music-featured/

Concord, North Carolina-based indie folk-pop darlings the Avett Brothers received rave reviews for their 2009 breakthrough major-label debut, I and Love and You, which peaked at number 16 on the Billboard 200 album chart and resulted in an invitation to perform alongside Bob Dylan and Mumford & Sons at the 2011 Grammy Awards.

While much of that record's success stemmed from brothers Scott and Seth Avett's poignant songwriting, producer Rick Rubin played a large part in letting those tracks shine. Rubin returns for the group's seventh studio album.

Juliana Can Cover

1. Cells by Teenage Fanclub
2. Learn To Fly by Foo Fighters
3. Bad Moon Rising by CCR
4. Ready For Love by Bad Company
5. Self Machine by I Blame Coco
6. Fruit Fly by Nada Surf
7. Closet by Pete Yorn
8. Sweet Is The Night by ELO
9. Do I Wait by Ryan Adams
10.Friend Of Mine by Liz Phair
11.My Wife by The Who
12.Rock And Roll by Led Zeppelin

http://www.julianahatfield.com/newalbum.htm

Wiki knows all:
Juliana Hatfield (born July 27, 1967 in Wiscasset, Maine, United States), is an American guitarist/singer-songwriter and author from the Boston area, formerly of the indie rock bands Blake Babies and Some Girls. She currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and attends School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
The daughter of Philip M. Hatfield (a radiologist) and The Boston Globe fashion critic Julie Hatfield, Juliana was born in Maine and grew up in the Boston suburb of Duxbury. Her father claims descent from the West Virginia Hatfields of the Hatfield-McCoy feud following the Civil War. She acquired a love of rock music during the 1970s, having been introduced by a babysitter to the music of the Los Angeles punk rock band X, which proved a life-changing experience. She was also attracted to the music of more mainstream artists like Olivia Newton-John and The Police, perhaps explaining the contrast in her later music between sweet, melodic "pop" songs and more hard rock oriented material. Visualizing herself as a singer since her high school years, Hatfield sang in school choirs and briefly played in a cover band called The Squids, which played (though not exclusively) Rush songs.

Blake Babies
Following her graduation from Duxbury High School, Hatfield attended Boston University for a semester. She then transferred as a piano student to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, in the hope of finding a band with which to sing. There she soon met Freda Boner (now Freda Love) and John Strohm, forming the Blake Babies with them in 1986, at the age of 19. The band, with which she sang and played bass guitar (as well as some guitar and piano), was signed to North Carolina's Mammoth Records and received a fair amount of airplay on college radio through the early 1990s. The group toured the United States several times, performed in Europe, and made several music videos. Hatfield eventually earned a degree in songwriting from Berklee.
Although Hatfield shared vocal duties with Strohm in the group, she quickly stood out due to her unique vocal quality; her somewhat thin, girlish voice gave the group a youthful, innocent sound that was nevertheless belied by often-caustic lyrics and a vocal delivery punctuated frequently by harsh, distorted screams (in live performances more so than on recordings). Although the group's early work was essentially punk-oriented, they quickly settled into a sunny, melodic, and slightly jangly pop style reminiscent in style of early R.E.M. and Neil Young. Hatfield and Strohm shared songwriting credits and often sang together in harmony or octaves, creating a memorable "boy-girl" sound rarely encountered in rock (except in the work of X and a few later indie bands such as Velocity Girl, Hazel, Quasi, Low, Mates of State, and Rainer Maria).
The group formally disbanded in 1991 but, largely due to the persistent efforts of Freda, reunited briefly in late 1999, performing a few shows in 1999 and 2000 and embarking on one last U.S. tour in 2001. Coinciding with the tour, the Blake Babies recorded and released a new album titled God Bless The Blake Babies which received strong reviews. The album featured new original songs as well as renditions of songs by Ben Lee and Madder Rose. Frequent collaborator Evan Dando also made a guest appearance on the album. After the tour, Hatfield released a Blake Babies EP titled Epilogue at her live shows featuring the band covering Fleetwood Mac, The Ramones and MC5.

Solo career

Hatfield began her solo career following the Blake Babies' breakup in 1991, releasing her first solo album (Hey Babe) in 1992. The album was one of the highest selling independent albums of 1992. Hatfield recruited a rhythm section consisting of former Moving Targets and Bullet LaVolta drummer Todd Phillips, and Thudpucker bassist Dean Fisher, and thus becoming The Juliana Hatfield Three.
Hatfield achieved alterna-rock stardom with the release of 1993's Become What You Are (recorded under the group name The Juliana Hatfield Three). Several songs from the album received regular airplay on major North American rock stations, with Hatfield's song "My Sister" becoming the biggest hit of her career, with a #1 placing on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, and the video becoming an MTV staple. Portions of her video for "Universal Heartbeat" were featured in an episode of MTV's "Beavis and Butt-Head". Another one of her songs ("Spin the Bottle") was used in the soundtrack of the Hollywood film Reality Bites (1994). Hatfield also made the cover of Spin magazine. Hatfield's popularity coincided with the success, in the mid-1990s, of many other female alternative rock musicians. Although she has always maintained that her gender is of only incidental importance to her music, Hatfield was pleased to have been invited, in 1997, to tour with the first Lilith Fair, a prominent all-female rock festival founded by singer Sarah McLachlan. Hatfield was profiled in a number of girls' magazines at this time and was embraced by many pre-teen and teenage girls as a role model due to the positive way she addressed serious issues faced by young women in her songs and interviews. About this period she says: "I was never comfortable with the attention. I thought it had come too soon. I hadn’t earned it yet." She gained notoriety in 1992 for saying that she was still a virgin in her mid-twenties in Interview magazine. In a 1994 interview for the magazine Vox, she said she was surprised by the effect 'outing' herself had: "I think there are a lot of people out there who don't care about sex, but who you never hear from, so I thought I should say it. The magazine I did the interview for is full of beef-cake hunky guys and scantily-clad models, so I thought it would be really funny to say that I didn't care about sex in a magazine that's full of sex and beauty – but no one really got the joke."
In 1995, following the success of Become What You Are she released her followup album, Only Everything, in which she "turned up the volume and the distortion and had a lot of fun". One reviewer describes it as "a fun, engaging pop album". The album spawned another alternative radio hit for Hatfield in "Universal Heartbeat". The video featured Hatfield as an overly demanding aerobics instructor. Prior to the tour for Only Everything, Hatfield released Phillips and brought on Jason Sutter (American Hi-Fi, Chris Cornell, Jack Drag), as well as Ed Slanker (Thudpucker, Tinsel) on 2nd guitar, and Lisa Mednick on keyboards. Two weeks into the tour, Hatfield canceled the tour, which her publicist explained as due to "nervous exhaustion," and took a month long break. In her memoir, Hatfield writes that in truth she was suffering from depression severe enough to the point of being suicidal. Hatfield disagreed with the decision not to be upfront about her depression. The drummer was, once again, replaced, this time by Phillips, and touring resumed with Jeff Buckley as the opening act.
In 1996, she traveled to Woodstock, New York where she recorded tracks for God's Foot, which was to be her fourth solo album (third if not counting Become What You Are, which was recorded with the Juliana Hatfield Three), intended for 1997 release. After three failed attempts to satisfy requests from Atlantic Records to come up with a "single" that the label could release, Juliana requested she be released from her contract. The label obliged, but kept the rights to the songs produced during these sessions (Atlantic had reportedly paid $180,000 to that point on the recordings). Two tracks – "Mountains of Love" and "Fade Away" – were eventually released on a greatest hits collection entitled Gold Stars, while still another, "Can't Kill Myself," was available for download from Hatfield's official website. The remaining tracks have surfaced only as substandard bootleg versions (which do not meet Hatfield's approval) and she has rarely featured them in her subsequent live performances.
Following the traumatic experiences surrounding God's Foot, and now freed from her major label obligations, Hatfield recorded a six-song EP for indie label Bar/None in 1997 titled Please Do Not Disturb. Produced by Hatfield herself, the album featured several different musicians, including drummer Todd Phillips, guitarists Ed Slanker and Mike Leahy, and new bass player Mikey Welsh (Weezer) among others. The EP features a particularly tender song, "Trying Not To Think About It," which is a tribute to the deceased musician Jeff Buckley, who was a friend of Hatfield's.
Almost as a reaction to the seemingly endless studio sessions surrounding God's Foot, Hatfield recorded the album Bed in 1998 in six days, about which she says on her website: "It sounds as raw as I felt. It has no pretty sheen. The mistakes and unattractive parts were left in, not erased. Just like my career. Just like life."
In 2000, she released Beautiful Creature, an album which was among the most critically well-received of her career. This album left the rockier side of Hatfield's musical personality unexpressed, however, so at the same time she also recorded Juliana's Pony: Total System Failure with Zephan Courtney and Mikey Welsh, which she describes as "a loud release of tension", with "lots of long sloppy guitar solos. And no love songs...a not-at-all attractive reaction to the ugly side of humanity, specifically American culture." The two albums were initially released in a set as a pair; however, Juliana's Pony: Total System Failure was received badly by the critics, who preferred the acoustic songwriting on Beautiful Creature. On Beautiful Creature, Hatfield worked with Austin-based musician Davíd Garza who co-produced much of the album. Wally Gagel, a producer for Sebadoh and Tanya Donelly, helped Hatfield record her most electronica-influenced songs, "Cool Rock Boy" and "Don't Rush Me", which added texture to the otherwise acoustic album.
2002 saw the release of Hatfield's first "best-of" album. The album, titled Gold Stars 1992-2002: The Juliana Hatfield Collection, featured the singles from her solo albums. It also contained two of the songs from the previously unreleased God's Foot, a cover of Neil Young's "Only Love Can Break Your Heart", as well as four new recordings.
In 2004, Hatfield released In Exile Deo, which was arguably an attempt at a more commercial sound, with input from producers and engineers who'd worked with Pink and Avril Lavigne. Hatfield did, however, produce the album herself with David Leonard, receiving co-production credits on "Jamie's In Town" and the bright rocker "Sunshine." The critics loved it, with a couple calling it her best work since the start of her solo career.
By contrast, the 2005 album Made in China was released on her own new record label, Ye Olde Records, and has a much rawer feel. John Doe of the band X described the disc as "A frighteningly dark & beautiful record filled w/ stark, angular, truly brutal songs & guitars. This is surely a 'Woman Under the Influence', though I'm not sure of what." Reviews were mixed, with some liking the lo-fi sound, but others seeing it as slackness.

In December 2005, Hatfield toured the United States with the band X, whom she idolized during her teenage years.
In 2006, Hatfield released her first live album. Titled The White Broken Line: Live Recordings, the album featured performances from her tour with X. This was Hatfield's third release for her record label.
Hatfield's 9th studio album, How To Walk Away, was released on August 19, 2008 on Ye Olde Records. The album's heartfelt subject on the break-up of a relationship resonated with critics, who gave the album largely positive reviews, with some hailing it as her best album since In Exile Deo.
Hatfield returned 2 years later as her 10th studio album Peace & Love was released on Ye Olde Records, February 16, 2010. The album's composition, arrangement, performance, production, engineering and mixing was solely credited to Hatfield. The album received mixed reviews, with several complaining the album's low-key moody nature working against the potential of the songs.
Hatfield offered, via her website, to write custom songs in order to fund a couple of projects; one of which was to release archive material. About halfway through the project Hatfield stated that it had "completely re-energized and inspired" her again.
During October 2010 Hatfield and Evan Dando played two sell-out acoustic live shows together at The Mercury Lounge in New York. The following month the duo played sell out shows in Allston, a neighborhood of Boston. This tour was followed, in January 2011, by five dates on the American east coast; Hoboken, Brooklyn, Arlington, Milford and Philadelphia.
On April 2011, Hatfield announced her intention to work on a new album via fan-funding platform website Pledgemusic, from which she asked for her fans to help fund the project in exchange for personal artwork and memorabilia ranging from posters, CDs, demos, one of Juliana's First Act guitars (used during the recording sessions) and even locks of her hair. The project also included donations for the Save a Sato foundation to which Hatfield is a major contributor. Fan response was enthusiastic, going over 400% from the original project cost. The album was originally going to be titled Speeches Delivered to Animals and Plants, in reference to a passage in the John Irving novel The World According to Garp, but later Hatfield herself changed it for the title There's Always Another Girl, in reference to a song in the album of the same name she'd written as a defense for Lindsay Lohan after watching her flop I Know Who Killed Me.
There's Always Another Girl was released on August 30, 2011 again independently on her Ye Olde Records label, though a downloadable version was made available to contributors a month before on July 27, which was Juliana's birthday. The album has received mostly positive reviews from critics.
On August 28th of 2012, Juliana Hatfield will release a covers record titled Juliana Hatfield on her Ye Olde Records label. The album will feature covers of songs originally performed by The Who, Liz Phair, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Ryan Adams, I Blame Coco, Led Zeppelin, and more.

and you are me

Austin has long been a breeding ground of fine artistic endeavors, most notably in the music arena.
This is a fine example of said endeavors.
I swear, there is something in the water! :-)


UNCLE LUCIUS  "AND YOU ARE ME"




1. Set Ourselves Free/4:17
2. Pocket Full of Misery/3:28
3. Rosalia/3:28
4. Willing Wasted Time/4:17
5. Keep The Wolves Away/4:35
6. Somewhere Else/4:24
7. All We've Got Is Now/5:15
8. New Drug/3:51
9. Just Keep Walking/4:44
10. There Is No End/6:41
11. I Am You/6:25

Tiger Anaya /Trumpet
Mike Carpenter
Kevin Galloway
Joshua Dane Greco
Jon Grossman
Matt Price /Trombone
Uncle Lucius
Hal Jon Vorpahl
Mark Williams /Cello
Mark Wilson /Flute, Sax (Baritone), Sax (Tenor)

http://uncleluciusmusic.com/bio/
Austin-based indie rock band Uncle Lucius is set to release its new studio album, “And You Are Me,” on August 28, 2012.  Recorded in Austin and Nashville, “And You Are Me” finds Uncle Lucius stretching their musicianship and reeling in eleven songs that punch with a fullness reminiscent of The Doors to early Black Crowes. Uncle Lucius takes rock and roll from its deep roots, pushes it onward by putting their own honest interpretation of new rock sounds with elements of r&b and blues added. The band includes Kevin Galloway on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Hal Vorpahl on bass, Mike Carpenter on lead guitar and vocals, Josh Greco on drums and percussion and Jon Grossman on lead vocals, and keys.  The first single and video for “Pocket Full of Misery” will be serviced to radio and video outlets shortly.

The new album comes on the heels of a three-year run of tour dates that took Uncle Lucius across the continent strapped with 2009′s “Pick Your Head Up,” a self released album hailed for bringing rock and roll back to its heyday sound. Packed into their van the band toured everywhere from the corners of both coasts and throughout the Midwest from their Austin TX home pushing their rock and soul shows into late nights throughout the country. Songs from this 2009 album were featured on TV shows such as Castle and Friday Night Lights.

The band continues to tour leading up to the release of And You Are Me, and they pride their live show as a sacred and energetic experience, with a belief that this is still the truest form of communication with their fans.

Privateering

I always eagerly await a Mark Knopfler release. This one, more so. as it is a two disc set.  As noted below. "The album is a soulful and heartfelt collection masterfully performed by a group of world class players."
I am so diggin this.


http://www.markknopfler.com/about/

"A privateer is what I am, really," says Mark Knopfler.

The title track of the legendary singer-songwriter and guitarist's eight solo album evokes a swashbuckling era of seafaring plunder, merchant raiders and licensed pirates. But Mark finds an analogy with the modern rock and roll life. "I really get a buzz out of having this little group of people that sallies forth across the world. I enjoy being in command of it, the band, the crew, travelling through this ever changing landscape and playing in all these different places. You get where you get without any kind of assistance, really, making your own way in the world. There are no government grants to play this music. You're a privateer. And that's the way I like it."

Privateering is Mark Knopfler's first double album in a 35-year recording career. "The older I get, the more I want to write," he says. "Whether that is just panic at time running out, I'm not sure. I'm enjoying the process more than ever, writing, recording and playing live, I enjoy all of it. I'm almost tripping over songs."

These 20 tracks of consummately crafted folk, blues, country and rock originals reflect the creative exuberance of an artist whose exceptional abilities were recognised with a Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's Ivor Novellos. He has performed live in front of countless millions. He has collaborated with artists of the stature of Bob Dylan, Randy Newman, Emmylou Harris and Van Morrison. He has composed distinctive soundtracks for such classic films as Local Hero, The Princess Bride, Last Exit To Brooklyn and Wag The Dog. He has been regularly acclaimed as one of the greatest guitarists in the world. But what he sees himself as, first and foremost, is a songwriter. And this may be his finest-ever collection.

"I have always thought in terms of the transatlantic nature of music. My idea of heaven is somewhere where the Mississippi Delta meets the Tyne. What I wanted from the very first album with Dire Straits and songs like 'Sultans of Swing' was to write my own geography into the American music that shaped me, to identify the English, Irish and Scottish landmarks on Chuck Berry's road. I think what I'm doing now is both synthesising those influences and separating them. The band I have is so talented, and so flexible, they give me the kind of palette to go anywhere I want, so I can jump from a hill farm in the north of England and go straight to the streets of New York City or go down into the delta for a straight-ahead blues."

Privateering travels from the dreamy Americana of 'Redbud Tree', filled with trademark silvery Stratocaster licks, to the sea shanty pipes of 'Haul Away', the swaggering slide electric blues of -'Gator Blood' and the Celtic folk yearning of 'Kingdom Of Gold'. It is full of drawn characters like the tough northern sheep farmer of 'Yon Two Crows' and the boastful gambler of 'Hot Or What', and evocative situations like the embattled lovers in the rain swept 'Seattle' and the mysterious contemplations of mortality of 'Dream Of The Drowned Submariner'. The lyrical and musical detail in these songs is of the very first order, with Mark Knopfler's singing and playing always bringing the story home on the back of one of the finest bands in the world. Privateering is not a concept album. It is not a song cycle. It is simply one of our finest and most distinctive musical talents doing what he does best.

"I chose to make a double album this time just because of the sheer volume of material. I didn't want to separate songs into blues and folk and country and I didn't want to leave songs on the shelf. I just wanted it to be a reflection of the fantastic sessions we had. With a great bunch of players, it's the same as a great group of actors reading a script from the page, the thing can come alive in ways it just never has before. This is the band I have been working towards my whole life."

The line-up of musicians Mark has been gathering around him since the mid-90s includes Guy Fletcher (keyboards), Richard Bennett (guitar), Jim Cox (piano), Glenn Worf (bass), Mike McGoldrick (whistle and flute) and John McCusker (fiddle) with the recent addition of the fantastic Ian Thomas (drums). Special guests included Paul Franklin (pedal steel), Phil Cunningham (accordion) and Tim O'Brien (mandolin). Ruth Moody of rising roots band The Wailin' Jennys contributed her distinctive vocals. "To have Ruth singing on the record was very special for me," says Mark. "She is on the very top level of singers and songwriters out there and I can't take her off my jukebox." The blues material was infused with the harmonica playing of Kim Wilson of legendary blues rockers The Fabulous Thunderbirds. "One of the most important things about the blues to me has always been the harp. Seeing Muddy Waters as a kid made a big impression on me, the harp was burbling away all the time, the band was swinging. And to me the greatest modern exponent is Kim Wilson, he's been my top man for many years, so it was really great to have him on board. We hit it off straight away and got a great session going."

Recorded in Mark's own studio, British Grove, Privateering is a smart, subtle, soulful and utterly superb collection of songs from a class act with an unbeatable band. These are tough tales of real people, living hard lives in difficult times. And it is all carried off with the self-confident bravado of a latter-day privateer. The cover, featuring a battered van and a shaggy dog, says it all. "I remember in the early days, if you had a van you could get into a group, so band wagons have always had a special place in my heart. It was important to use something like that, to take it away from the nautical swashbuckler. To me a man in a van has got as much to do with privateering as a frigate or a gunboat or anything like that. He's on the road, he's making his own way, he's doing his thing, the best way he knows how. That's what I'm talking about. That's what we're all trying to do."

Amazon:
2012 two CD release from the British guitarist, songwriter, producer and former Dire Straits leader. Privateering is Knopfler's first double album, each song an original. They cover a wide range of locations and characters from both sides of the Atlantic and move through a number of genres which include several new Blues originals. The album is a soulful and heartfelt collection masterfully performed by a group of world class players. In addition to what has become Knopfler's long-time band, hand-picked guest aces include Kim Wilson (harp) of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Tim O'Brien (mandolin), singer Ruth Moody of The Wailin' Jennys, Paul Franklin (pedal steel) and Scotland's Phil Cunningham (accordion). Twenty new titles were recorded at the artist's British Grove Studios in London with the following players: Richard Bennett (guitar), Jim Cox (piano) Guy Fletcher (keyboards), John McCusker (fiddle), Mike McGoldrick (whistle and flute), Glenn Worf (bass) and Ian Thomas (drums). Knopfler was assisted by co-producers Guy Fletcher and Chuck Ainlay.

ALBUM CREDITS:

Mark Knopfler: vocals, electric, slide and acoustic guitars
Richard Bennett: guitars, bouzouki and tiple
Jim Cox: piano and organ
Guy Fletcher: keyboards and vocals
John McCusker: fiddle and cittern
Mike McGoldrick: whistles and uilleann pipes
Phil Cunningham: accordion
Glenn Worf: upright and electric bass
Ian Thomas: drums
Kim Wilson: harp
Tim O’Brien: mandolin and vocals
Paul Franklin: pedal steel
Ruth Moody: vocals
Rupert Gregson-Williams: vocals
Chris Botti: trumpet
Nigel Hitchcock: saxophone
John Charnec: clarinet

Strings arranged by Mark Knopfler and Guy Fletcher
Strings conducted by Rupert Gregson-Williams

All songs written by Mark Knopfler
Except “Miss You Blues”, lyrics Mark Knopfler, melody “Deep Blue Sea”: trad arr Knopfler
Published by Hornall Bros Music Ltd/Will D Side Ltd

DISC 1:
01. Redbud Tree
02. Haul Away
03. Dont Forget Your Hat
04. Privateering
05. Miss You Blues
06. Corned Beef City
07. Go, Love
08. Hot Or What
09. Yon Two Crows
10. Seattle




DISC 2:
01. Kingdom Of Gold
02. Got To Have Something
03. Radio City Serenade
04. I Used To Could
05. Gator Blood
06. Bluebird
07. Dream Of The Drowned Submariner
08. Blood And Water
09. Today Is Okay
10. After The Beanstalk

Young Canadians

Rockin the Monastery last night...

http://eamonmcgrath.exclaim.ca/
http://whitewhale.ca/label/artist/eamonmcgrath/
At 23, Eamon McGrath has a list of accomplishments under his belt that would echo that of a writer twice his age: 250+ songs written and recorded, album of the year credits, multiple tours through the UK, Canada and Europe, and stints playing in the backing bands for both the legendary Daniel Johnston and Julie Doiron.
McGrath’s style is constantly changing and his shows range from sweaty, bombastic, punk and noisy garage-rock inspired barnburners, to quiet, intimate country best fit for a Western saloon. In the span of a single concert, and sometimes in the span of a song, heart-wrenching confessional lyrics pave the highway towards string-shredding guitar solos and an adolescent howl like no other.
“Young Canadians” takes his classic country/punk live show dichotomy even further.   It’s dark, yet, beautiful with badass, 90s-era pacific northwest workouts like “Rabid Dog” and “Saskatoon, SK” lying next to the dirty soul in “Pain of Love” and quiet, haunting odes to time lost (”Auditorium”), all filtered through a youthful, fist-in-the-air nod to Canadiana.
“Young Canadians” is McGrath’s 3rd official release following “13 Songs of Whiskey and Light” (2009), and “Peace Maker” (2010).  For Young Canadians, McGrath headed back into Vancouver’s JC/DC Studios with John Collins (New Pornographers) and Dave Carswell (Destroyer) and recorded it all within the span of one wild week.
It’s a grand novel bridging gaps between McGrath’s Albertan, prairie roots, and the ever-present spirit of punk rock that has come to define his life.   McGrath sums up “Young Canadians” on the first track:  ”My life could be a broken record by Canada’s Ramones.  Eternal adolescents: I’m calling out your names. Rock and roll won’t ever be the same”.
“There’s an openness and honesty to the lyrics that belies his tender age and he can carry a song with the slenderest of help…he sounds around double his age and he sounds like someone who will still be worth listening to when he is forty two.”
- Americana UK
“The teenage kick in his raw Saturday night energy is even more authentically prodigious…his rasping Waitsian voice suggests an unlived lifetime spent in low company in smoke-filled bars. (4 stars)”
- Uncut Magazine