Over the last couple of days, I’ve been inspired by Kate McGarrigle’s passing to go back and touch some milestones in my own musical listening journey, revisiting some things that have moved me and made me, for better or worse, who I am. I spent a lot more of that time than I thought I would listening to Jesse Winchester. Most of what I have of his music is on scratchy old LPs and just looking at those LPs I got hit with a wave from the past, a whiff of those nights when everything anyone said was wisdom for the ages, those warm nights that turned into cold mornings before any of us knew what had happened. Jesse Winchester’s music was perfect for those nights – the unspoken subtext of his exile gave his music an integrity, a moral center that so much else we listened to lacked.
I can’t tack any of those old records on to the end of my post, and even if I could, I’d never be able to bring you all back to what it was like to hear them for the first time. What I do have is a video of Jesse singing on Elvis Costello’s new TV show. The song is Sham-a-Ling-Dong-Ding from the new CD, Love Filling Station. At 3:16 of the video, there’s a shot of Neko Case, with a big tear rolling down her cheek as she listens to Winchester sing. Don’t be surprised if the same thing happens to you.
All of Jesse Winchester’s in print CDs are for sale on his website, along with lyrics to all his recorded songs and a tour schedule. He’s at Mountain Stage on January 31, so if that’s broadcast live where you are, the show starts at 7 P.M. Otherwise check your local listings. Here’s the video. Please enjoy.
Kate McGarrigle has died at the age of 63. She leaves behind a family whose membership includes not only blood relatives, but millions who have loved and been moved by the music she made.
This loss is a tough one for me. Way back and long ago in a very hard time a good friend gave me Dancer With Bruised Knees. It became and remains a go-to record for me, so basic to who I am that there’s no way I can do it justice here.
All I can do is what I always try to do here, and that’s to let the music speak for itself. Here’s Heart Like A Wheel.
Update (1/20): There’s a wonderful tribute to Kate McGarrigle at Vanity Fair – just go read it.
Update II (1/20): Hendrik Hertzberg has a lovely column about the McGarrigles here.
The Haitian disaster is beyond my poor power of description. We’ve all seen the pictures, we’ve all read the stories – if we multiply that horror by hundreds of thousands, we might begin to approach the misery that country and its people are suffering right now.
We must help in whatever way we can. The best way to begin is to head over to the Center for International Disaster Information – you’ll find plenty of suggestions on how to make your donation of goods, services or money count, and count quickly. Please go there now.
The musical heritage of Haiti is a rich one, drawing on the French influence as well as that of the neighboring Dominican Republic and nearby Cuba. The mizik rasin (roots music) that got started in the 1970s drew on all these as well as reggae, American rock and even the vodou religious ceremonies. Listen and watch the Boukman Experyans perform Ti Pa Ti Pa. If you know what the lyrics are about, tell us about it – whether you have a clue about the words or not, you won’t be able to sit still while it’s playing. The band got it’s name from two revolutionaries of different eras: Dutty Boukman was an 18th century vodou priest involved in the Haitian Revolution. “Experyans” is a transliteration of Experience, as in the Jimi Hendrix Experience. I think they live up to their name. Please enjoy the music and please help as much as you can. Thanks!
I heard Michael Penn’s No Myth in the supermarket (!) the other day, and I can’t get it out of my head. Maybe it’ll help if I put it in yours…
I’ve always loved the song, and remembered the MTV video as being a good one. Unfortunately, YouTube doesn’t have it, but they do have a pretty good version from MTV Unplugged.
No Myth was on Penn’s debut album, March, released in 1989. Since then he’s done a record every five years or so, a schedule not calculated to produce commercial success. There are rumblings that another one is due for release next year, and the likely presence of Aimee Mann (now married to Penn) might broaden its audience a bit. Let’s hope so.
In the meantime, here’s Michael Penn (from around 1989) with No Myth. Please enjoy!
It’s official – the Chicago Cubs will not win the World Series this year. This isn’t really big news, as they’ve been not winning the World Series for 101 years in a row, an unmatched record of futility. The last time they were champions, Theodore Roosevelt was President and the big hit songs were Shine on Harvest Moon and All She Gets From the Iceman is Ice (really). It’s not easy to be that bad for that long, but the Cubs have pulled it off.
Despite (or perhaps because of?) this long victory famine, the Cubs have a fan base as large and loyal as any in the game, and such a group has to include at least one great songwriter. The Cubs’ own songwriter was the late, great Steve Goodman, who died of leukemia in 1984 at the absurdly young age of 36. Steve’s best-known song is City of New Orleans (Arlo Guthrie’s version is the definitive one) but A Dying Cubs’ Fan Last Request just might outlast it. Steve’s illness had very little effect on his sense of humor (he nicknamed himself “Cool Hand Leuk”) and Last Request manages to be very funny and very sad at the same time.
Steve died over 25 years ago, but, unfortunately for those Cub fans who have survived him, Last Request remains as timely now as it was then. He never (for obvious reasons) sang it inside Wrigley Field, but here he gets pretty close, singing on one of the Waveland Avenue rooftops across from the park. Please enjoy, and, if you’re a Cubs fan, wait till next year.
Mary Travers has died at the age of 72. Not much to say except “Thank you, Mary!”
Here are Peter, Paul and Mary at Newport with a rousing If I Had a Hammer. That old hammer and that old bell and that old song still have something to say to us, so listen and remember and say your own goodbye to a great performer who touched us all.
I know it’s short notice, but I only found out about it yesterday myself. Greg Klyma and Anthony DaCosta will be there too, and the show starts at 8 tonight (Friday September 11) at the Unity of God Church near Davis Square in Somerville, Mass. Directions to the church are here, full details here. Tell them Harry sent you.
For those of you who don’t know Jonathan Byrd, he’s tough to pin down in a few sentences. His first band was a heavy rock outfit he described as “Bad Brains meets King Crimson,” but he’s covered a lot of ground since then, through old-time and folk and country and Americana. The new CD, titled The Law and The Lonesome, comes out on the other side of genre – Byrd has found his voice with this one, and all he needs now is to find an audience as big as his talent.
Byrd himself wrote the perfect blurb for The Law and the Lonesome: “the ghost of Townes Van Zandt meets Hank Williams on the high plains.” I’ll be damned if I’ll try to top that. You’ll just have to listen.
Here’s a video of Wild Ponies, direct from Byrd’s YouTube channel, where you’ll find a bunch more. There’s a different version of this available as a free download on Byrd’s website, too along with more free music, a tour schedule, and much more. Please enjoy.
To get you all set up to listen to President Obama’s health care speech tonight, here’s a song that gives us a (probably incomplete) narrative of the singer’s visit to his family doctor. His symptoms (“feelin’ so bad”) are vague, but I have a hunch that the doctor’s prescription is going to clear things up just fine.
The song is Good Lovin’, the band is Long Island’s own Young Rascals – Felix Cavalieri taking the lead vocal. I used to see them play at the Action House in Island Park and they would tear the place up every time. No lip-synching here, this is live. Enjoy the music and stay healthy!
It’s a tough time to be a worker in the good old USA. Unemployment is high, working conditions are bad (if you don’t believe it, check this out), and there’s not much prospect of things getting better real soon.
“Too big to fail” means you get all you need and then some, “just struggling to get by” means you’re on your own. That’s the way it is and how it’s always been, I guess.
The soundtrack for today’s video is Merle Travis singing his classic Dark as the Dungeon, from the equally classic Will the Circle Be Unbroken. Some of the pictures you’ll see were taken long ago, but the way miners work hasn’t changed all that much over the years.
Here’s to better times for all workers everywhere, whether they’ve got a job to go to today or not. Enjoy the holiday.
