belarus old woman blues

A couple of days from now I'm gonna post something about Furry Lewis. But while I was trailing him down on the tube I found the blues in Belarus. Yeah, she's playing a guitar with a lightbulb. A lightbulb. Dig it. Looks exactly like something Furry would have picked-up and practiced while working medicine shows in his younger days. Furry and the lightbulb-playing babushka could probably have a long conversation as they finished off a quart of the good stuff. But, really, watch this woman just play the blues, offering up her own version of what I would guess to be a traditional folk song. Again, in a deep way she mirrors Furry: Someone from the country playing a folk blues in a modern city with people walking by and praying for a ruble or a dime. And I love how utterly unconcerned she is with a videotaping device taking her in, not looking up for anything. She's playing and doesn't care a single whit for that device you have in your hands. World Wide Country Blues.

Thanksgiving Cornucopia

That's Grandma Ann hanging out in her living room on the eastern shore of Maryland. 95 years old and full of laughter, good cheer, and yeah, some well-earned piss&vinegar intransigence every now and then. This past summer she had to stay in a nursing home of sorts to recover from some heart and lung issues. For lunch one day we got in the automobile and took ourselves out to a favorite place of hers on the water. She'd lost her hearing-aid at the nursing home, so she had a rigged hearing-aid in place. While it helped, she was not really able to participate in the conversation. So she sat there in silence, enjoying her delicious crabcake sandwich at a spot she'd been to many many times over her long life. As it came time to leave, Grandma Ann tried repeatedly to get up from the bench. I was sitting opposite her and watched as she tried again and again to stand up on her own (she refused help). After the fifth or so time, she sat back down, looked straight at me and said with real joy "this has been a wonderful day." Here's a woman near the end of her life, dependent upon a walker to get around, spending most of the hours of her days in a nursing home, and seemingly not capable of standing up on her own - a set of circumstances I'd call frustrating, to say the least - and the words close to her lips are words of thanks. It broke my heart. And it made me question my easy frustrations, my easy words of disappointment, my easy selfishness. The world moves pretty fast and we find endless ways to justify our petty actions and words, never slowing down to think about just how little we are asking of ourselves as we stroll through the world with ever-reliable blinders on. Thankfulness resides inside of you, right now, this moment. Grandma Ann showed you so.

This six-pack is for her.

The first coldie to get cracked features Gaither Carlton on fiddle and his son-in-law Doc Watson on guitar. Taken from the Friends of Old Time Music boxset, here's what Watson had to say about "Double File":

It’s an old tune they used to square dance to a long time ago. They used to have some of them old shindigs and just about shake the log cabins down. Boy, they’d really romp it up, I’m telling you.

"Boy, they'd really romp it up" does a pretty good job of summing of the rest of the set as well.

Doc Watson & Gaither Carlton- Double File

Elvis Perkins - Stop Drop Rock and Roll

Sir Douglas Band- San Francisco FM Blues

Andre Williams & 2 Star Tabernacle - Jet Black Daddy Lilly White Mama

Dexateens - Spark

The Faces - Devotion

No Thanksgiving would be complete without a little ol' Grateful Dead. Here's a show from November 24th, 1972, when the Dead played Dallas.


While running in circles on the youtube last night I found Levon hanging out with Sissy Spacek in 1980, right about the time they played the father and daughter roles in Coalminer's Daughter. In her biography, Loretta says that one of her daughter's came up to her after listening to Spacek singing one of Lynn's tunes and saying "mama, she sounds more like you than you do." So let's serve another six pack just for the hell of it.

Scotty Stidham

Come On Everybody, Let's Do The Hawg!

What do you get when you combine ferocious post war urban blues harmonica and early 60s Memphis r&b: Eddie Kirkland's "The Hawg, Part 1." After parting ways with John Lee Hooker and getting a gig with Otis Redding in Macon, Kirkland followed Otis to McLemore Avenue where with Booker T and the MGs providing the funk he promptly unleashed harmonica fury on Stax-Volt. And as up front as Kirkland's harmonica is, Steve Cropper's guitar gets buried deep in a well, adding another unique aspect to this recording.

Eddie Kirkland - The Hawg, Part 1

rebellion in these rhymes

A few years back my friend Jack Herranen gathered some musicians together in New Orleans and cooked-up To Fan the Flames of Discontent: The Living Songs of Joe Hill. Working through songs from the IWW's Little Red Song Book, Jack and the Ninth Ward Conspiracy did right by these fighting for freedom folk songs, and in doing so carried on a tradition of resisting the depredations of capitalism through song and togetherness. One of the best songs on the album, "Remember" by Harrison George, speaks directly to those gathering under the OWS banner to say No! to political and economic elites drunk on power and the almighty dollar.

Remember -- Jack Herranen and the Ninth Ward Conspiracy [buy]

More recently, Jack's been producing a new album with some east Tennessee friends. While getting the album together in Knoxville, Jack sat down and played a set of tunes for Eleven O'Clock Rock on knox.ivi.com. Here's a clip from the show, with Jack singing his own "Runa Blues."


If you do a bit of scrolling, you can screen Jack's entire set on Eleven O'Clock Rock..

Katia&DonAllen

internet and time and seemingly any damned thing seems possible. i'll tell y'all later. short story: devendra makes an appearance through random chance alone, and he was gonna be here all the time. him and paradise.


You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a
sunflower!

easy go easy


Devendra - Quedateluna

Sammy & Patty

I raptly listened to Sammy Walker's "Song for Patty" about 5 times in a row, blissfully ignorant of any larger world being hinted at and quite happy to just take in a somewhat mysterious love song by a folk artist who did happen to sound like Mister Bob Dylan. Then I opened up the liner notes to the Broadside boxset from whence the song had come only to discover that the Patty being sung about had Hearst as a last name. I was puzzled, for the Patty Hearst I'd heard tell of was kidnapped, stuck in a closet, beaten, brainwashed, and then caught on camera with a rather badass looking gun, working for the revolution. Walker's song comes across as a love story about a girl who turns her back on money and family to stay with her boyfriend from the wrong side of the tracks. That's fertile ground for lefty folk music social portraiture, and within the genre Walker does pen some memorable lines -- "the wealthy strings of life were always pleasing" & "the avaricious scorpion is begging you to stay." That Stockholm Syndrome Patty would only 2 years later reveal during her trial that she hadn't actually gone ultra-leftist but instead been brainwashed by the SLA, doesn't for a moment diminish the power of Walker's song.

Song for Patty - Sammy Walker [buy]

Beauty

Jagger took off his shirt off and walked around; Albert [Mayles] followed him, filming. Mick Taylor and I sat on a bench with Hendrix, who seemed subdued but pleasant. I told him about seeing Little Richard, and he said, smiling as if it cheered him up to think about it, that once when he was with Richard, he and the bass player bought ruffled shirts to wear onstage, and Richard made them change: "I am the beauty! Nobody spose to wear ruffles but Richard!"
-- from Stanley Booth's The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones

He had watched me work and just loved the way I wore these headbands around my hair and how wild I dressed....He began to dress like me and even grew a little moustache like mine.
-- Little Richard to his biographer Charles White

Here's The Georgia Peach raving about Jimi. You ain't gonna believe your eyes or ears:


Told you so. Now here's Richard in 1973 playing a wicked version of "Lucille" and flashing some threads which bear a striking resemblance to Jimi's, headband and all.


And then we have Jimi in 1967 at the Monterey International Pop Music Festival, his real coming out party in the States, rocking the ruffles Little Richard had denied him.

Todd Snider live in Snowtown, U.S.A.

sword & shield on the battlefield of snow in boston
Yeah Boston's not exactly weather suits my clothes in December, January, February, March, hell April - yeah, April. First year up here it snowed the most it's still ever snowed in a year. Coming from a place where an inch of snow will blot out all rationality in the natives, I was anxious about what the winter was going to bring. It seemed like it snowed forever and there was so much snow falling that the dreaded time of the ugly snow - the snow covered in cigarette butts and beer cans and dirt and ugly - was always put off to another day. I loved it. But I was 25 then; now I'm 40. This shit ain't cool anymore - even if it did inspire the Shaq&Nate-O-Meter:



With endless winter camped out in your backyard, you take whatever sunshine you can get. Like the Celtics on their way to banner 18, the Red Sox kicking off spring training, and Todd Snider rolling into town for a live show. I've probably listened to Snider more than any other artist for the past 4 years, but the first time I saw him live was a few days ago at the Paradise Rock Club. My gal Cort and my pal Jeff and I, after surviving the opener Jesse Ruben, had ourselves a ridiculously good time. Perhaps the first thing to note about the evening would be that I thought musical nirvana was going to be achieved for all present when Snider, during a time when he was requesting tunes, played "Freebird" for about 60 seconds. He played it long enough to where I giddily let out a "holy shit he's going to do it!" to Cort and Jeff. But it was not to be. What was to be was Snider playing damn good guitar, treating everyone to great versions of songs new and old, telling some hilarious stories, and in general just ruling the roost. From that night here's "Just Like Old Times" - another pitch perfect character study. Snider, with his keen eye for the telling class detail, captures a whole world with the line "we'll screw off the top on a bottle of wine."

Todd Snider - Just Like Old Times [buy]

I don't go out to many live shows, so I have no idea if the practice is common, but at the merchandise table for the show you could purchase a card for 7 bucks which would allow you to download the show later from toddsniderlive.com. It's a brilliant idea and seems to be a nifty way to put more money in the artist's pocket and give the audience a quality soundboard recording of the show for a reasonable price.

The other item I got that night was Snider's new 2-disc live set The Storyteller which came out a few days before the show. I've only heard disc one, and though I still don't know what to think about Great American Taxi, Snider and all those songs of his are in fine form. And he can string a few words together into one helluva story. Just check him detailing the time he met Bill Elliot in Chattanooga.

Todd Snider - Bill Elliot Story [buy]

If Snider gets anywhere near where you live, hock, steal, beg, or bribe for the cash if necessary to go see the man play. You'll be sure to thank yourself.

Virtuosismo Newborn

More words will be spilled about Phineas Newborn, Jr. (and Calvin Newborn & Elvis) in a few days, but this tour de force just can't wait for my lazy brain to generate nouns, verbs, etc.

Ed's Top 18!

We've got a guest in the Tavern! Ed Moloy, modern manuscripts curator supreme & avid (indie) rock listener, has graced us with a top ten albums & top eight singles list for 2thousand10. I'm not too well schooled in these contemporary sounds, so the only name on the list that I recognize is Roky Erickson who helped start-up the legendary 60s Austin psychrock band 13th Floor Elevators. But if Ed is telling you this stuff be the cream of the crop, then you better believe it.

ALBUMS:
1.


















Sea of Bees - Marmalade [emusic]

2.


















Radio Dept. - Heaven's On Fire [emusic]

3.


















Kathryn Calder - Arrow [emusic]

4.


















First Aid Kit - Ghost Town [emusic]

5.


















Lower Dens - Blue & Silver [emusic]

6.


















Tamaryn - Sandstone [emusic]

7.


















Best Coast - Boyfriend [emusic]

8.

















Mynabirds - Ways of Looking [emusic]

9.


















Dean & Britta - It Don't Rain in Beverly Hills [emusic]

10.


















Sambassadeur - Small Parade [emusic]

SINGLES:

1.


















Lower Dens - Blue & Silver [emusic]

2.


















Aleo Blacc - I Need a Dollar [emusic]

3.


















Sunshine Factory - Down [emusic]

4.


















Best Coast - Boyfriend [emusic]

5.


















Sherlock's Daughter - Song for Old People [emusic]

6.


















Violens - Already Over [emusic]

7.


















Roky Erickson - Goodbye Sweet Dreams [emusic]

8.

















Phantogram - Mouthful of Diamonds [emusic]

sam quinn, chattanooga

I Hear Them All

Punk Rock Woody
When I first wrote about the Dave Rawlings Machine's Friend of a Friend I enthused about how a feeling of great possibility emanated from the album. Seeing the band live in 2009 at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston only confirmed that feeling. Fortunately, someone recorded the next night’s DRM show, and doubly-fortunate that recording just got passed on to me by my pal John. One of the stand-out tracks meshes fellow Machine and Old Crow Medicine Show member Ketch Secor’s beautiful “I Hear Them All” and Woody Guthrie’s sturdy and triumphant sing-a-long “This Land is Your Land.” It’s one of those heaven-made matches.

I Hear Them All - Dave Rawlings Machine
This Land is Your Land - Dave Rawlings Machine

There are different versions of “This Land,” and I don’t think it’s an accident that Rawlings & friends decided to include two of the “extra” verses of “This Land” when they paired it with “I Hear.” While the most well known version of the song celebrates the natural wonders of the land and the right for all to full participation in the life of the country, the extra verses call attention to the stark economic inequities and exclusionary practices which deny this right.

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;
By the relief office, I'd seen my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,
Is this land made for you and me?

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

Those verses jive quite well with the sentiments expressed in “I Hear.”

I hear the crying of the hungry
In the deserts where they're wandering
Hear them crying out for Heaven's own
Benevolence upon them
Hear destructive power prevailing
I hear fools falsely hailing
To the crooked wits of tyrants when they call.

It’s not hard to imagine finding those lines in the pages of the lefty folk magazine Broadside or being sung, like Woody’s song, at a 60s anti-war rally. And while a lot has changed in the country for the good since the sixties, there’s still plenty of same as it ever was injustice and rabid inequality. Perhaps at no time during the past 50 years was this more evident than during the Bush administration’s sorry, and yes, racist response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. OCMS did right by the post-Katrina gulf stream waters town of New Orleans when they filmed the “I Hear” video there.



Both are deeply American songs of affirmation: your voice will be heard and this sprawling landscape and all-men-are-created-equal idea called America has room for everyone. They are affirmations only partially incarnated throughout our history (to put it all too kindly), but they place a demand on us to find ways to make that incarnation more true to the ideals expressed.

If the world serves up a shot of the Machine in a town near you, get yourself to the bar lickety-split. Here’s the band singing the gospel at Bonnaroo 2010.

Tony Tengo

Dig the fadeout...
Yo La Tengo - Let's Save Tony Orlando's House [buy]

Happy Birthday Elvis

Thought I'd celebrate the 76th birthday of Elvis with a few originals the Big E reworked under the Memphis Sun.
That's Alright - Arthur Crudup
Blue Moon of Kentucky - Mr. Bill Monroe
Mystery Train - Little Junior Parker
Milk Cow Blues - Kokomo Arnold
I Want to Play House with You - Eddy Arnold

And here's one of my favorite songs by The 60s King:
That's Someone You Never Forget - Elvis Presley

Elvis stirring up delirium with far too much ease:

not in faith and not in madness

Another year presents itself -- plural, shifting, novel, offering us black ice and chance once more to step outside.

All summer I made friends
with the creatures nearby --
they flowed through the fields
and under the tent walls,
or padded through the door,
grinning through their many teeth,
looking for seeds,
suet, sugar; muttering and humming,
opening the breadbox, happiest when
there was milk and music. But once
in the night I heard a sound
outside the door, the canvas
bulged slightly -- something
was pressing inward at eye level.
I watched, trembling, sure I had heard
the click of claws, the smack of lips
outside my gauzy house --
I imagined the red eyes,
the broad tongue, the enormous lap.
Would it be friendly too?
Fear defeated me. And yet,
not in faith and not in madness
but with the courage I thought
my dream deserved,
I stepped outside. It was gone.
Then I whirled at the sound of some
shambling tonnage.
Did I see a black haunch slipping
back through the trees? Did I see
the moonlight shining on it?
Did I actually reach out my arms
toward it, toward paradise falling, like
the fading of the dearest, wildest hope --
the dark heart of the story that is all
the reason for its telling?
-- Mary Oliver, "The Chance to Love Everything"