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.

live machine

Mark Seliger's photo from an American Songwriter interview with Welch & Rawlings.

I don’t get out to see too many concerts, but this week I caught Sam Quinn playing a (mostly) solo acoustic set and tonight I’m hitting the town with friends to see the Dave Rawlings Machine. Since hometown pal John placed Rawlings’ Friend of a Friend album in front of me I’ve basically been delirious about it. Just listen to this infectious “Sweet Tooth” with Old Crow Medicine Show, Gillian Welch, and Benmont Tench, and you can tell why. Like many of Michael Hurley’s best songs, "Sweet Tooth" takes a break from stale old Reason to open us back up to poetic, earthly delight -- and just having a good time while we float around on this rock. Count me in.

sunshine & sorella's

Photo from Flickr page.

Just relaxed with a couple friendly to the customer mimosas plus the regular order at the best damn breakfast joint in the world, my beloved Sorella’s, and then found my way back home under blue skies and sunnysun listening to a few tunes. Seemed good enough to pass along.


Delaney and Bonnie - Get Ourselves Together [buy]

we’ve got to get ourselves together
take some time and talk it over
we’ve got to get ourselves together
try and understand one another






Bob Weir - Playin’ in the Band [buy]
One of the Dead’s (this is solo in name only) closest studio-captures of their live sound. No surprise as in ‘72 the dead were playing, at least to these ears, as adventurously as they ever would, while also bringing their improved post-Workingman’s/Beauty studio skills to the recording sessions. "Playing" would begin to take it’s place in ‘72 as one of the Dead’s main long distance live vehicles. You can hear why on this version, with the band rocking and rolling and tumbling while Jerry channels Bakersfield via San Francisco.



Dave Rawlings Machine - It’s too Easy [buy]
With maybe the exception of Michael Hurley's similarly generous of spirit Long Journey, recently I've come back to Dave Rawlings' debut album more than any other. It really is a special set of songs. If in boston ye be, get it live on june 5th at the paradise (hat tip to Josh). See you there. Sun!

Dave Rawlings Machine - Friend of a Friend

On a rec from an old hometown pal I got the debut Dave Rawlings Machine album Friend of a Friend. Here's a recommendation for you: go get it for yourself, loved ones, and strangers. I can’t stop listening to it to save my life. Full to overflowing with generosity of spirit Friend of a Friend conjures up a world with laughter in the air, possibility around every corner, and a sense that good times are present when good friends are near. Even strangers, like the telegraph man in one of the album’s best tracks, “Ruby”, bring help. Wisely placed in the center of the album is Rawlings’ and long-time musical partner Gillian Welch’s miraculous duet cover of Conor Oberst’s “Method Acting” into Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer.” An absolutely entrancing song, “Method>Cortez” is the one dark room in this house. The abiding joy found elsewhere on the album, while deeply present on the song, is tempered here by a desperate yearning for understanding which seems out of reach. When Rawlings’ sings

I don’t know what tomorrow brings,
It’s alive with such possibility,
But I know that I feel better when I sing,
Burdens are lifted from me,
That’s my voice rising

it’s the pain behind “feeling better” and the weight of those burdens that we register. But that burden can be lifted and the world still sings with possibility.

Rawlings and friends have so many musical textures and colors at hand, and they cover, without any loss in creativity, a large amount of stylistic territory. We are treated to country porch hi jinx with "It's Too Easy" and “To Be Young (Is to be Sad, Is to be High)"; some Michael Hurley silliness "Sweet Tooth"; a dust bowl folk blues "How's About You?" which hits the right notes during our depressing economic moment; a trad folk "Monkey and the Engineer"; and, another highlight, a gorgeous piece of Dylanesque folk-pop “Bells of Harlem.” Really, strangers will thank you.

Dave Rawlings Machine - Method Acting>Cortez the Killer
DRM - To Be Young (is to be Sad, is to be High) [buy]

Coupla videos of Rawlings, Welch, and some members of Old Crow Medicine Show at Grimey's in Nashville performing songs off Friend of a Friend: