Some random thoughts

Listening to Loudon's Recovery album (2008) right now. His voice has become noticeably...weathered? Not quite sure what the right word is. The earliest album of his that I've heard from beginning to end is Unrequited (1975). Back then, he sounded like the snotty little jerk that I'm sure he used to me. Now, he sounds wearier, more desperate somehow. Sometimes, that really puts the songs over. The theme of the album, for readers unfamiliar, is songs that were written during the early 1970s, rerecorded. So these are the songs of the young Loudon, performed by the old Loudon. Some of the performances are really good, like "Saw Your Name in the Paper" and "Muse Blues." Sometimes, the strength of the songs has to do with the fact that a young man was singing them. That's my take on "Motel Blues" which, great though it is, sounds most unattractive coming out of the mouth of a 62 year old. It sounded desperate as sung by a young man, and now...well, it still sounds desperate. But the singer sounds defeated in a way that doesn't work for me. On the other hand, "School Days," from his very first album (1970) has improved with age. And his band's arrangements are wonderful on that song, stroking the melody and providing perfect counterpoint. And "Old Friend" and "The Man Who Couldn't Cry" would be powerful songs in almost any context; they are two of his greatest songs, I think.

I see that Joe Henry produced this CD. Joe Henry is the same man who is credited as producer for Ani's Knuckle Down (2005). That's Ani's best disc since Little Plastic Castle (1998), and I have often suspected that Joe Henry is a big reason for it being so good. Sometimes, having that outside voice can make a big difference. Ani seems to think so too:
http://www.righteousbabe.com/ani/knuckledown/interview.asp

About a week ago, I played Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer for Denise. "When I Go." She pronounced it the most beautiful thing I've ever played for her. We listened to a few more songs from When I Go, before playing her a few songs from Tracy's Flower of Avalon. She seemed to be impressed, although she pointed out that the arrangements on "Gypsy Rose" didn't work.

I've never played my favorite Neil Young songs for Denise. How can that be?

Speaking of Dave and Tracy, did you know that they have a Christmas album? It's called American Noel (2008) and I just listened to it for the first time two days ago. I'm putting it back in the CD player right now....Dave Carter had the magic touch. The opening song is "Go Tell the Fox," a Carter-written carol announcing the birth of the "Christ child." The music swings gently and has a simple, catchy melody, with guitar and fiddle (and bass?). And Tracy harmonizing beautifully. Tracy takes the lead on the next song, "Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella," with Dave her backing up on all the instruments: guitar, bass, and banjo. Then comes "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming." I do not like Christmas carols as a general rule, but Dave and Tracy...what can I say? The soul and the melodies and the harmony singing just keep on coming. I'm convinced that Dave Carter was an enormously gifted songwriter, who probably could have hung his hat on songwriting, without ever performing, if he had chosen that path. But he and Tracy sound natural together, meant for each other.

Brooks Williams is playing at the Iron Horse in mid-January, and I'll be there. I haven't seen Brooks since the spring of 2003, at the All Angels Coffeehouse at Broadway and 80th in Manhattan. Since that time, my friend Anthony has begun taking guitar lessons from him.

I'm not satisfied with what I said about "Motel Blues," above. I'm not entirely sure why this recording doesn't work as well for me. Listen to the version(s) on YouTube, or the one on A Live One (1980), and you tell me what you think. The desperation actually sounds more acute on these versions. Joe Henry, in the liner notes to Recovery, writes that the original version sounded like a come-on, from someone who just wanted to get laid, pure and simple, and that the current version sounds like a plea, really desperate. Me, I've always felt like the song sounds like a desperate plea, especially when he gets to "save my life!"

The Nields @ The Iron Horse, December 13th, 2008

The first time I saw the Nields was over 10 years ago, at Newport. I remember very little about that performance. I do remember that, for a shamefully long time, I used to confuse them with...Little Feat?! Yes, Little Feat. Could I have been so ignorant back then? The thing is, Little Feat played later that afternoon in Newport, and something about their music got tangled up in my head with the Nields'. Anyway, I saw the sisters perform a couple of times thereafter at Falcon Ridge and at First Night in Northampton. Then, this past summer, I saw them play at Falcon Ridge with the full band, and it was 45 minutes of pure up. So that primed me for their Iron Horse show.

I can't say that I saw 85 minutes of pure up in Northampton, but I certainly enjoyed myself. Nerissa and Katrina took the stage at about 20 past 7:00, introduced by Nerissa's husband. I had expected an opening act: according to the on-line schedule, Lucy Wainwright Roche was the opening act. I never found out why, but she was nowhere to be seen. Too bad. Anyway, the Nields sisters played a very relaxed set. It was so relaxed that Katrina's two children, young William and older Amelia (who was once declared "World's Cutest Baby" at Falcon Ridge), wandered on and off the stage more or less at will to cling to their mother, sit at her feet, run and dance around, and basically hang out. At the end of the set, Nerissa's husband brought their two children (much younger) onto the stage to join in.

The songs were a mix of new and old. After a short discussion about how wrongheaded she had been about the mother-child bond when she was younger, Nerissa led the sisters in a performance of "Merry Christmas, Mr. Jones" from the Bob on the Ceiling album. This is a song about a pregnant teenager in which the young woman, after she gives birth, declares that she has no feelings for the new baby. Beyond that, there was the classic "Best Black Dress," with Katrina doing her usual enthusiastic dancing that looked slightly awkward, as if her self-consciousness was intruding on her enthusiasm. Nerissa looked more comfortable on stage, perhaps because she was the one with the guitar. There was "Give Me a Clean Heart" and "This Train" from their newest album, Sister Holler. Katrina's daughter, Amelia, came on stage to do some Irish dancing, which moved Katrina to crouch and lean against the side of the stage, laughing her head off, as her sister strummed a suitable rhythm on the guitar. Later, she held Amelia in her arm while singing another song, her son William sitting at her feet, throwing a little piece of paper (gum wrapper, maybe?) up into the air.

Their harmonies were lovely, although I can't say I received much emotional kick from the performance. My favorite moments were when Dave Chalfant, Katrina's husband, was on stage to play some guitar. Those moments added a touch of heat, just when it was needed. Overall, it was a relaxed performance, as befitting a musical act that drew more heavily than most "contemporary folk" on the folk music tradition. I miss the band. But I like what has been left behind just fine.

Tuna delights

I was happy to discover that http://www.hottunatunes.com/ recently posted a recording of the Northampton Hot Tuna concert from this past September 4th. I downloaded it last night and am delighted with the recording.

Loudon Wainwright w/ Carsie Blanton @ The Iron Horse, Thursday, December 4th, 2008

This past Thursday night, Loudon Wainwright paid a visit to the Iron Horse for the best night of music that I’ve had since I arrived in Pioneer Valley back in late June. Only the Ani Difranco and Hot Tuna shows rival what I saw Thursday night. I forgot to bring my glasses to the show, so I was especially glad that I arrived at the Iron Horse early. I was seated very close to the stage.

Loudon was in fine form, but before I write about his performance, there is the small matter of the genius opening act, a little, curly-haired woman named Carsie Blanton. She got on stage at 7:00 sharp and immediately attracted my attention with her poise, her serious expression, and her outfit, which featured a black, knee-length dress and a red top that hugged her curves and showed off a fair amount of cleavage. None of this would matter much to me (I swear) if the performance had fallen flat. But, not only was her voice as sexy as her appearance, but it was also smart, playful, painful, and jaunty. Her guitar-playing was nimble and assured. So, in terms of song-writing talent and lyricism, she resembled the main act. I sense a lot more psychic and spiritual strength in her than in Loudon, though. If she’s been as abused and mistreated as some of her songs suggest, I can understand how that came to be.

The opening song was, I later learned, called “Belle of the Ball,” a statement of purpose pertaining to the mating ritual. If he can’t see that I’m the you-know-what, he can’t be right for me. The hook was the voice, the careful way it cradled the lyrics, and the skillful, jazzy guitar melody. I don’t know exactly how long Carsie Blanton has been doing this, but within 15 seconds of her performance, I was convinced that she was a pro. Nothing that came next made me think anything less. Next came “Buoy” which was a clever series of unfamiliar similes, then “Money in the Bank,” my favorite song of the set, which she introduced as a song that she’d researched by looking up gambling on Wikipedia. Then came the title track to her CD, “Ain’t So Green” and, the most painful song in her set, “Closer to Him.” “Closer to Him” is about the singer’s attraction to angry, abusive men, and the hard lessons learned by acquaintance with them. By the end of her set, I knew that I would be spending money on her CD and on some demos that she mentioned she’d posted on her website….Now, having listened to both demos and the polished CD (from 2005), I think I prefer the demos.

At around 7:45, Loudon Wainwright wandered through the crowded Iron Horse and up on to the stage, to great applause. There was a brief delay as he looked for a place to put his glass of water. First, someone gave him a chair. Then, staff member came up on stage and replaced the chair with a stool. This exchange prompted the performer to laugh and say, “It’s like an Ionesco play—‘The Chair and the Stool!’” From there, he launched into his first song, a charming, upbeat ditty about how much fun it is to cheat on his sweetheart. He played fat chords on the guitar and sang the cheerfully offensive lyrics with a big smile. And away we went.

Like what I remember of the last time I saw Loudon (October of 2001 at the Bottom Line in New York City), this performance was a mixture of old and new material, serious and silly, songs about family and songs about the life of a touring singer-songwriter. His new album is called Recovery (2008) and it consists of rerecorded songs from his first two albums from the early 1970s. He played four or five songs from it, the highlight among them being “Old Friend,” one of the most serious songs I’ve ever heard from him, a song to an old friend about how the friendship has changed: “slap your back I can no longer / I can only shake your hand.” His great autobiographical song, “Westchester County” came second in the set, with its immortal statement of how upper class kids get their kicks: “steal a kiss, cop a feel / off a girl in high heels / we came in our cummerbunds.” Then came a double header of great holiday material, “Thanksgiving” and “Suddenly, It’s Christmas.”

I was impressed by the number of requests he took: “Saw Your Name in the Paper” from the new album, “Red Guitar” on the piano, “White Winos,” “Daddy Take a Nap,” “Daughter,” and maybe one or two others. He announced that the anniversary of his dad’s death was coming up, before performing “A Handful of Dust,” a song his father wrote, and “Surviving Twin,” about his relationship with his father, from the great 2001 album Last Man on Earth. He played two great songs that he wrote for a musical, currently playing in England, about a winning lottery ticket being shared between a black woman and a redneck somewhere in Florida. He played a shattering, painful song about family trauma that was strangely enhanced by the lyrics about his difficulty with playing the piano in any key other than C.

He concluded the performance with a completely straight take on “Have Yourself a Merry Christmas.” I was a bit turned off by that. At the end of the song, he flashed us a big grin and exclaimed, “It’s the new optimism!” It was amusing, I guess, but it still felt like an anticlimactic finish.

I skipped the Chris Smither show Saturday night at the Iron Horse to be with Denise in New York. But this Saturday, I’ll be around to catch The Nields, who putting on a rocking performance at Falcon Ridge this past summer. Expectations are high!

Ani Difranco @ Town Hall, November 21st, 2008; Jack Hardy, Tim Robinson, and Chris Fuller @ The Postcrypt Coffeehouse, November 22nd, 2008

A study in contrasts this past weekend, as two different kinds of performers dominated two different kinds of stages. On Friday night, Denise and I attended the Ani Difranco concert at Town Hall, the first of two nights for Ani at that venue. Saturday night, however, we traded the screaming Difrancophiles and the concert hall for the more quiet, but nearly as passionate folkies at the Postcrypt Coffeehouse of Columbia University for a trio of fine local singer-songwriters: Jack Hardy, Tim Robinson, and Chris Fuller.

The Town Hall show began with Pieta Brown. I learned, several songs into her set, that this was the daughter of the great Greg Brown. She has a lovely singing voice. Rather like the Cowboy Junkies, Denise suggested to me during the set. True, that: you could hear a bit of Margot Timmins in the singing. I don't remember the songs as well. Bo Ramsey played guitar with her. This is a guy who has played with a lot of the greats, from Iris Dement to Lucinda Williams to Greg Brown. I just now went to peruse his website (www.boramsey.com) and I see that he has even played with Ani. Quite a resumé. Anyway, his fills and flourishes were very good. In fact, they were my favorite part of the performance. I think I'd like to see Pieta Brown again, but at a place like the Postcrypt, with a bit more intimacy. I bet she would have been at home in a round robin-style set-up with Jack Hardy and company.

Ani took the stage with energy and excitement, leaping to the front of the stage as she launched into "Little Plastic Castles." Unlike the Ani show I saw up here in Massachusetts back in July, this one really focused on new material. Half a dozen songs from her newest album, Red Letter Year (2008), and several songs that have to appear on an album, along with representative songs from each of the four albums from Evolve to Reprieve. The band was in fine form, with Mike Dillon hammering his percussion devices, Allison Miller pounding away and harmonizing beautifully, and bassist Todd Sickafoose taking a turn at the pump organ at stage left.

The new songs all sounded good; no surprise there. The real surprise was hearing a song about Barack Obama. Has Ani ever written a song that praised an American politician like this? I don't think so. She also complemented the President Elect three songs into the set as she replaced the line about "Tweedledum or Tweedledumber" in "Fuel" with "fucking Barack Obama." Nice touch.

Highlights? I think my favorite moment was the performance of "Nicotine." I've noticed that, not only does the Reprieve album improve every time I listen to it, but its songs improve enormously in concert. I suppose that's true of most of Ani's material, but it's particularly noticeable for Reprieve, an album that I didn't immediately make contact with but now enjoy almost as much as its predecessor, Knuckle Down (2005). Anyway, Ani played the opening chords to "Nicotine" before stopping to fix one of her nails. Then, she resumed playing, as her bandmates accompanied her quietly. It was one of the subtler moments of the performance, and a great one. From the new album, "Present Infant" and "Landing Gear" were particularly good moments too. I had been hoping for "Way Tight," but no such luck.

As I mentioned a moment ago, she played fewer old songs (say, anything before 2000) than she did when I saw her earlier. "Napoleon" came about halfway into the set. "Gravel" ended the set. For the encore, all four musicians took up percussion instruments and played a guitar-free version of "Every State Line," which was very satisfying. Finally, to send us off into the night, "Overlap" from Out of Range (1994).

It was a satisfying show, Denise and I agreed. The crowd was energetic, although it didn't dance, we were sorry to see. But we sang, we cheered, we screamed for our Ani, and she gave up the folk and the funk for around 90 minutes. Ani's songs are good-to-great, but in concert I'm moved by the sound of the band, and this is a real good one. I do miss Andy Stochansky, but the Miller-Dillon-Sickafoose band just keeps sounding better to me. Denise didn't care for Mike Dillon's percussion, and I admit that, the first time I heard him play with her at the Beacon in 2006, I didn't much like his contributions either. But every time I've heard him since, I've liked him more and more. Just the same, the simple fact of the matter is that Ani Difranco is one of a small handful of performers I can think of who absolutely own the stage they walk own. Her guitar playing is a miracle of intensity and precision, and she's one of the most brilliant and talented popular singers I've ever heard. What more do you want?

At the Postcrypt (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/postcrypt/coffeehouse/), on the other hand, all the performers have to work with is songs. There is no sound system, and there is no room for a band. Ani herself played the Postcrypt stage in her early days (May of 1993, according to www.onherown.com), a show I would have loved to have seen. Who shared the stage with her, I wonder? .... Okay, I just checked at the Postcrypt's website: the answer is Amy Correia, a pretty good singer-songwriter in her own right, but not someone I'd put in the same league as Mr. Difranco. At any rate, on Saturday night, there was a round-robin style performance from 9 to midnight.

Denise and I arrived at around 9:40 to find a packed Postcrypt. For the last few years, the fire marshal has been cracking down on the 35-person limit. That's unfortunate. I have a lot of great memories of Postcrypt shows with the room crammed full of 50 or more people, many of them sitting on the floor. This time, Denise and I spent the first half hour or so standing at the doorway. But it was a typical Postcrypt crowd: they were there to hear the songs. They were utterly silent during the performance, except when the songs elicited laughter or singalong moments.

The performers on stage were part of Jack Hardy's crew. As I wrote in a previous post, if you don't know about Jack Hardy and his accomplishments (musical and otherwise), you owe it to yourself to check him out (www.jackhardy.com). On stage left, closest to where Denise and I stood (and, later, sat), sat Chris Fuller who, I believe, is a more recent remember of Jack's songwriting circle. He was good. The standouts were a song about a Mexican woman wrestler and another one called "Get a Room," which was what he demanded of "church and state." Pretty clever. Tim Robinson has been with Hardy for 10 years or more, if I'm not mistaken. Again: a very talented guy. His singing voice is an acquired taste, I've often thought, although Denise approved right from the outset. His stage presence is wry and relaxed.

But Jack was the man I was most excited to see. He performed a number of new songs (included a few that he played before Denise and I arrived, I was told). The ones we heard included "Kansas," the first song we heard him perform that night, and, to close the evening, a song that might have been called "Ask Questions," which was marvelous. In between those two, Jack took some requests, and he treated us to several recent, and a couple of older songs. First came "Johnny's Gone," which was a real delight. It's a favorite of mine, from the album Civil Wars (1994). The recording features a firm, but slow rock beat and an electric guitar solo: not arrangements you usually hear on a Jack Hardy album. Saturday night, however, the man played it solo on the acoustic guitar. If Ani Difranco is a cunning, canny singer, blessed with a plastic, pliable singing voice and a brain that knows how to use it, Jack Hardy is all heart and passion. He can't do the things that Ani can do, but his natural instrument is so beautiful that he can put over his love ballads and political songs and story songs with ease. This is a man who has made a career, an entire lifestyle around songwriting. A week does not pass without him writing a song, and that has been so for over 30 years. His talent is immense. He played "The Bells of San Blas" and "I Oughta Know" (which turned into a singalong), "The Zephyr (Take it Slow)" (also from Civil Wars), and my favorite single moment of the evening, the title track from White Shoes (1981). "White Shoes" is a beautiful ballad and, by the end, the entire audience was singing softly along with the refrain.

It was a sweet Postcrypt homecoming for me. Matt Winters was there, along with his father. Jack Hardy's daughter, Morgan, was there, and she introduced me to Jack, which was cool. I think I recognized a couple of the other older folks in the audience from Postcrypt shows of years past. It felt like home, somehow. Town Hall had felt different. There was a communal feel to both shows, but the communities were quite different. Denise and I went home feeling tired but content.

Chris Smither @ Joe's Pub, November 1st, 2008

This past Saturday night, the great Chris Smither played two shows at Joe's Pub, accompanied, unusually but effectively, by a drummer and a second guitarist (his producer, David "Goody" Goodrich). I was there for the early show, accompanied by the brilliant and beautiful Denise Milstein.

We dined at Joe's Pub too. We had a lovely dinner of Gemelli pasta with spicy sausage, and glasses of a Spanish Crianza that really hit the spot. I left to use the restroom, and I returned just as the man himself took the stage with his bandmates. The last time I was at Joe's Pub to see Chris Smither, that second guitar player was there. But this was the first time I had ever seen him with a drummer. I feared that such an addition to his sound might make his foot-tapping superfluous, but I was wrong. Both he (forgot his name) and Goodrich were unobtrusive contributors. There was no doubt as to whose show this was.

Each of the last few times I've seen him, he's opened with "Open Up" from his most recent album, Leave the Light On (2006), and this time was no exception. From there, he launched into material from his last few albums, beginning with his version of Dave Carter's "Crocodile Man." As Ellen Stanley (https://www.kfai.org/user/28) once remarked to me, this guy's shows don't vary too much, as far as the set lists and overall sound are concerned. But I was particularly glad to hear "Never Needed It More" third in the set, along with "Lola" a bit later. "Love You Like a Man" made an appearance, which made me think happily about the jam on that song with Chris, led by Eddie from Ohio, at Falcon Ridge this past summer. He played two of his more socially/politically cutting songs, both from his most recent album: "Diplomacy" and "Origin of Species." He played "Hold On," his manifesto about freedom, "Drive You Home Again," about selfhood, and "Help Me Now," about solipsism. Denise's favorite was "No Love Today," and the singer preceded it with his imitation of the fruit and vegetable man that he recalled from his childhood in New Orleans. I'm rather partial to that one myself.

The crowd at Joe's Pub was appreciative. There were some calls for "Slow Surprise," and I would have been delighted with that one myself. It's one of my most favorite songs by him, or by anyone else. He talked about his father, remembering his reaction to his son wondering whether he'd go to hell (his father's response: "well, it would not surprise me."), and he was careful to note the songs his mother liked ("Never Needed It More") and disliked ("Lola").

Next up: Richard Shindell @ The Iron Horse....

Erin McKeown @ The Iron Horse, October 11th, 2008

Erin McKeown played to her home crowd on Saturday night. She sounded wonderful. I sensed that life hasn't been especially kind to her lately; she made a few comments that betrayed a bit of sadness. And she told a gripping story about a recent drive from the Valley to New Orleans through Texas, in which she saw the devastation from the latest hurricane. So much of what Erin sings and plays is wrapped in irony, sarcasm, layers of metaphor, and/or some other kind of linguistic tension that the tone of bewildered disappointment that hung over the performance seemed fitting somehow.

The first half of the set was devoted entirely to new material, first on the guitar, and then a ballad at the piano that was probably the highlight of that part of the performance. She finished recording a new album a few weeks ago, and she played six or seven songs that will appear on it. Based on what I heard, I sense that the new album will be a treat, more like Distillation (2000) or We Will Become Like Birds (2005) than Grand (2003), which still doesn't impress me, its high points notwithstanding. I maintain that Distillation is a work of genius, and at some point I'd like to write an essay entirely about that album and why it's so great, and Sing You Sinners (2007) is the easiest album of hers to listen to. In fact, it's playing as I write this. Anyway, the new material sounded jaunty, fun, and, in a couple of cases, tense in the same way that best of Distillation is tense. One song was about a long car ride with someone she wanted to sleep with. The piano ballad sounded almost like Randy Newman, and she introduced it by claiming that it featured some adult language and themes, before muttering into the microphone: "fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck."

After the new song on the piano, she began dipping back into her catalog for more familiar songs. She began with a drawn-out, elegiac version of "James!" from Grand. Then came "Cou Cou" from Sing You Sinners, a song that she introduced as being "very old." Then the guitar came out, and "A Better Wife," "Cinematic," "Rhode Island is Famous for You," and "La Petite Mort" from Distillation to end the set. For the finale, she had us all standing and chanting "oh, Estelle" during the refrain while shaking our fists in the air. It recalled my first experience with Erin McKeown, back at Falcon Ridge 2000, when she was part of the new artists' showcase. To prepare us for the same song, she had us all raise our fists...before reprimanding us: "right now, I should be looking out into a sea of left hands!"

For her encore, she played two more great songs from Distillation. First came "Blackbirds," on the guitar. Then, after saluting the state of Connecticut's recent move toward modern civilization by recognizing gay marriage, "Daisy and Prudence," on the piano.

I should mention that there was an opening act. Mark Geary is an Irish singer-songwriter who is fond of putting his guitar through electronic loops and playing duets with himself. It's a cool effect. Nothing too special in his songwriting, but it was a pleasant way to start off the night. On my way out of the Iron Horse, he was sitting at the bar. We made brief eye contact before I made my way out into the Northampton night.

in other news

Okay, so I've got Erin McKeown coming up this weekend. The following weekend I'll be in NYC, so I'll skip the Crooked Still show. Music essays are currently on hiatus--too much to do!

Randy Newman @ The Calvin Theater, September 28th, 2008

I can't remember the first time I heard Randy Newman. He's one of a handful of performers I learned to listen to properly through reading Christgau's analyses of his albums. I have a bootleg concert recording from Germany, 2004 that I listen to a lot. I had only heard good things about his newest album, and I loved his appearance on the Colbert Report some months ago. So when I saw he'd be at the Calvin, I was curious, and I was rather eager to plop down the cash to see him. My man from Boston, Anthony, came with me.

He hit the stage at 8:00 on the dot and wasted no time by launching into two of my most favorite songs of his: "It's Money that I Love" and "My Life is Good." From there, he took us on a nice, long tour of his cannon. He played almost all the songs from his newest album, Harps and Angels, and, during the second set, he dipped way back to his first album for "I Think It's Going to Rain Today." His new album sounds great. "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country" was a beauty, and so was "Korean Parents," which had the audience in stitches.

But it was his old songs that people came to hear, and he did not disappoint. I didn't keep track of the set list, but he played "Short People" and "Birmingham" and "Louisiana 1927" and "Dixie Flyer" and "Kingfish" and "Have Pity on the Working Man" and "Sail Away" and "Baltimore" and "Last Night I Had a Dream" and "Political Science" (a crowd favorite, which closed the first set) and "In Germany before the War" and "Rednecks" and "You Can Leave your Hat On" and "Marie" (which I found heart-wrenching). He had the audience chant the words "he's dead" and "you're dead" in "I'm Dead But I Don't Know It." That song is from Bad Love (1999), and he also did "I Miss You" from that album. I'd hoped to hear "The Great Nations of Europe." No such luck, but he did play the other great political song from Bad Love: "The World Isn't Fair." Let's see...what else? The "We are the World" answer song, "I Want You to Hurt Like I Do." "I Love L.A."

Seeing this guy play was like seeing someone like Neil Young or Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell. I was watching a guy who had written so many great songs that he could hardly disappoint. And he was a good enough performer that songs that you might think had worn out their welcome sounded brand new as they were played on stage. The audience was appreciative from beginning to end. Even during the most well-known songs, folks were laughing, like during "Political Science" and "Short People." It occurred to me during "Rednecks" that Randy doesn't seem to have too many black fans. I wonder why...?

If he comes to your town, don't miss him!

update

I'll be posting here soon. There was Vance Gilbert a few weeks ago, and something really special this past Sunday night.

Vance Gilbert @ The Iron Horse, September 12th, 2008

I last saw Vance Gilbert at Falcon Ridge this past July. He autographed one my CDs, making it out to "NicKKK." To paraphrase Matt, my colleague in all things political science and folk music, Vance Gilbert gets away with saying things that no white performer could get away with (especially not at a folk music concert). On the evening of the 12th, he did not disappoint either Naomi or myself, treating us to some tasty guitar playing, extraordinary singing, good-to-great songs, and some politically incorrect comments about the very few blacks in the audience.

The opening act was Rebecca Correia. We only caught her last couple of songs. She has some pipes; no doubt. Her songs didn't really register with us. Naomi thought she was boring, and I had to agree. She came out to join Vance Gilbert for his encore, and she showed what she was capable of by (almost) matching Vance's vocal gymnastics. Impressive.

Vance Gilbert....The man knows how to sing. And write. And work a room. Upon pointing out all the black people in the audience: "we're the only chocolate chips in this cookie." His latest album is his latest gimmick: a bunch of songs written in the style of some other songwriter. "Whatever Louise Wants"--Richard Thompson. "Old Man's Advice"--Tom Waits. "Judge's House"--Bruce Springsteen/Steve Earle. And so forth. They were good. He also did "Unfamiliar Moon," which I recall really enjoying at Falcon Ridge. Plus, "Taking it All to Tennessee." In between songs, he joked around, told us about his dog, told us about his touring life, told us about how privileged and successful he felt to be doing what he was doing, and called out to some folks who'd just entered the Iron Horse: "you're late!" He made some small talk with some folks sitting in the front row. He praised his opening act. After the show, Naomi pointed out his warm stage presence. It's true. This ain't no Loudon Wainright III or Randy Newman, bad boys who probably are the jerks they often seem like in their songs. Vance is an ole' softie. Who can really sing.

Hot Tuna @ The Calvin Theater, September 4th, 2008

Good old Hot Tuna played the Calvin in Northampton last night, and Naomi and I were there to catch it. After a hastily prepared but tasty dinner--featuring, what else, Hot Tuna! Lovely tuna steaks, that is, with cous-cous and other goodies--we walked to the theater and walked in on the opening act, a mister David Lindley. I didn't know it at the time (last night, that is), but I now learn that this guy got his break as one of Jackson Browne's backing musicians. What I saw was an old guy, sitting on stage playing a variety of stringed instruments on his lap, with a slide (sidenote: people not sympathetic to this kind of music might snidely suggest that this distinguishes Lindley from the featured act by the fact that the featured act consists of three old men with stringed instruments and don't use slides, a thought that makes me smile even though I know it's unfair). Highlights included Bruce Springsteen's "Brothers under the Bridge," Steve Earle's "Copperhead Road," and a David Lindley original about being brought down by the backstage food.

But enough about that.

Hot Tuna are a marvel of musicianship. This was the fourth time I've seen them, and the third time I've been blown away. The second time I saw them, at the Beacon in November of 2002, their show was a bit too laid back as I recall. Plus, at that time, Michael Falzarano was still playing with them, and I'd never been too crazy about his contributions to the band. But even then, the interplay between Jorma and Jack was tasty, and then some, and they even whipped out "Serpent of Dreams" at that show, a song from America's Choice (1975) which I never could have imagined performed acoustically until it happened. Last night, with Jorma and Jack accompanied by another virtuoso, Barry Mitterhoff (who stole the show at Tuna's electric gig at the Beacon in 2006), the magic was there right from the opening number, "Search My Heart." On that song, it was all about interplay and responsiveness between the musicians. Not much heat, but plenty of warmth. The heat came next, with Reverend Gary Davis' "Candyman." On record, this one always features a Jack Casady bass solo and, last night, he did not disappoint. After the "get your baby some beer" verse, Jorma and Barry strummed the rhythm while Jack laid out and showed why some folks (including me at various times in my life) think this guy is the bass player to beat all bass players.

Their set tapped songs old and new (for the complete list, see Jorma's website: http://jormakaukonen.com/journal/). They played a few songs that they had recently recorded for a Jorma solo album, including "Nashville Blues" and a fantastic Roy Book Binder song called "Full Go Round." They played a couple of tunes from Jorma's most recent solo album (Stars in My Crown, recorded on Red House): "Heart Temporary," which sounds much better on record, with the full production, and "Late Breaking News," one of Jorma's funnest originals. They dipped way back into their catalogue, as they generally do, for songs from their first albums. They even did a long jam on "Good Shepherd," which originally appeared on Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers album (1969), which featured particularly fine solos from Jorma and Barry.

Picking a favorite from the show is hard, but I recall feeling the most satisfied by "I See the Light." This is one that was originally recorded with the electric band for Phosphorescent Rat (1973), was the highlight from the live album Double Dose (1977), and later made an acoustic appearance on Live at Sweetwater (1993). Last night, it was a wonder to behold, an aboslutely fantastic example of virtuosos devoting their talents to ensemble playing, keeping the solos to a minimum and really working the song over. The bridge and instrumental climax to this song made me indescribably happy. Later on, their jams on "Bread Line Blues" and "I Know You Rider" were both fantastic, with all three musicians given space to solo.

The audience was a bit disappointing. The show clearly did not sell out, and people were leaving pretty early. The band played for over two hours (a longer set than plenty of musicians half their ages play these days) and only an hour into it, the Calvin had already begun to clear somewhat. Naomi pointed out that a number of women sitting nearby had begun to fall asleep. And, as always happens at Hot Tuna shows, there were occasional shout-outs of "Hot Fucking Tuna!" and one pathetic, mind-addled moron screaming out random junk about the band to no one in particular: "Talk to Me!" "That's a REAL bass player!" "67!" "San Fransisco Sound!" and on and on. Amusing in limited doses, annoying when extended throughout the performance.

The musicians didn't talk too much from the stage. Jack didn't speak at all. Jorma introduced a few of the songs, and he looked amused by some of the audience...participation. "Well then," he said a number of times. A couple of people had called out for songs from the Burgers album (1972), so, after Jorma announced that they were going to play "Sea Child" (which they opened with back at the Beacon in '06), he then said, "and that's from Burgers--so there!" It was actually the first half of a Burgers twofer; they followed it up with "Let Us Get Together." Barry was the most verbal. He actually gave a long advertisement for the band' merchandise, announcing certain products that had sold out (including Jack's solo album, which was a surprise to hear), and generously recounting the history of the Jack-and-Jorma relationship. He even noted that there were some Tony Trischka band albums for sale, on which he himself played, and suggested them, with surprising sheepishness, for “any bluegrass fans out there.” He paused at this point, clearly hoping for a big shout-out for bluegrass. He (and I) were a bit disappointed by the response.

The set ended with “Just Because,” from Jorma’s Blue Country Heart (2002). I don’t know who wrote this one, but I know that Elvis Presley has a great version of it, and it sounded damn good last night. The encores were solid versions of “Uncle Sam Blues” and the one (and, to my knowledge, only) song of Hot Tuna’s to get any significant radio airplay during the 1970s, “Keep on Trucking,” also from Burgers. David Lindley joined in on those two, and his slide guitar solos were mighty keen.

I loved the show so much, I’m already contemplating a trip to see one of their electric shows during their annual Thanksgiving-to-Christmas tour. They’re playing Town Hall in NYC and a couple of New England dates. I’ll see if I can catch one. You should too.

Hmm

For some reason, I'm having trouble posting my Tuna review. More later....

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Soon to come

Two essays are in progress. One is about the difference between taste and judgment. The other is about Jack Hardy's first five albums. Hot Tuna plays the Calvin Theater this evening, and I'll be there with Naomi. We'll also check out Randy Newman at the end of the month. In between time, there's Vance Gilbert at the Iron Horse, but that might not happen.

Friday and Saturday's love

Nothing much new to report. My 31st birthday was today, and I celebrated last night with Naomi and company. She will accompany me to the Hot Tuna show at the Calvin Theater on 9/4. I can hardly wait to explain the "If you don't know Jorma, you don't know Jack" t-shirt to her.

Coming up...reflections on the early Jack Hardy albums, and maybe something about one of the other Falcon Ridge CDs. The Jeffrey Foucault album has begun to sink in somewhat, although it still doesn't blow me away.

Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer

When I was at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival for the first time, in 2000, I didn’t know who Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer were. I wasn’t alone; although they had their following, they were not a featured part of the festival. Big enough to have their own 50-minute time slot, but small enough not to entice the majority of festival-goers to return to their blankets to lend their ears. What I recall best from their 2000 performance was their energy and conviction. However you choose to describe the world they evoke in their songs (Dave’s songs, that is), they clearly believe in it. After I began listening to their music regularly—only after the last time I would ever see them play together—I would find further proof of that, from the Buddhist blessing they reprint on their CD covers to the stark instrumentation of the recordings. At that first Falcon Ridge performance, I remember feeling a rawness from the duo that is missing from most singer-songwriter duos. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a performance from Gillian Welch and David Rawlings that moved me as much as that first Dave and Tracy show, let alone from the Indigo Girls. Not much registered about those songs the first time, but the performance was meaningful to me, solely on the power of the singing and playing and passion. For some photos of the duo, including one of them at Falcon Ridge 2000, with Dave Carter looking rather intense, see here: http://www.hvmusic.com/article/alexander/carter_grammer/.

I only saw them together twice after that. At Falcon Ridge the next year, their popularity had clearly grown, and my festival companions were impressed. I was impressed enough by their performance that I made my way over to the songwriting workshop later that afternoon, or maybe it was the next day. I don’t remember what song they played, but I remember the mike being passed to Dave Carter after Richard Shindell had played “Transit,” one of that man’s very best songs. Dave was clearly a bit overcome. He pronounced it one of the very best songs he had ever heard, a sentiment that he repeated when I reminded him of it the one time we met, many months later. That last time I saw Dave and Tracy was in March of 2002 as part of Joan Baez’s touring band. They played Town Hall in midtown Manhattan, and Richard Shindell opened with a solo performance, playing his finely-crafted songs sitting alone on the Hall stage. I remember bounding town the aisle at Town Hall with my colleague at Columbia, Georgia Kernell, in the middle of his opening song, “Beyond the Iron Gate.” During Joan Baez’s set, the great women graciously let her new protogés take the stage for a few songs. They played “Ordinary Town,” “The Mountain” (which Joan had performed for the Dali Lama), and “Hey Conductor” which enticed Joan to return to the stage to dance. After the whole show was over, Richard and Dave and Tracy returned to the stage to greet audience members. I got autographs from Richard and Tracy, but I stopped to talk to Dave for a few minutes. I only recall two things. First, he had only glowing things to say about Richard Shindell. Second, he was tall. I don’t know how tall he was, but my recollection of him was that he was easily over 6 feet tall. He seemed to tower over me. He had a lot of hair too, not like what you see in photos of him in the CD jackets. Something about his presence seemed very intense, like whatever he was doing he meant to do and was meant to do. As with his presence, so too with his music.

One of the pitfalls that folk-based songwriting often falls into is a kind of soft fatalism. I’ve heard far too many songs that evoke pastoral imagery, mysterious women, the road, or explicit political disengagement in a way that conjures up an image of hippy-mysticism, middle-class escapism, or both. I have very little patience for either of these phenomena, although I make allowances for the latter (more than I should, probably). All sorts of stuff can redeem either one, of course, including unusual arrangements, extraordinary musicality, or a damn good sense of humor. Albums that move between songs of this kind and other, stranger (or hyper-normalized) material are often success stories. Listen to Richard Shindell’s Somewhere Near Patterson as an example.

With some exceptions here and there, I’ve never thought that Dave and Tracy fell into this trap. Something always saves what could be overwrought or overwritten songs and makes them register for me, with a tingle down the spine or a smile on the lips. Let’s take two songs, both from their first (and least impressive) album as examples of what they were able to accomplish: “Where I Go” and “The River Where She Sleeps.” “Where I Go’s” mysticism doesn’t truly lead anywhere, not really. The narrator does appear to transcend life and death by the final verse, and it happens organically, line by line in the song. It’s impressive, like a monument or an oil painting, but just as escapist…right? Insofar as all music is, yes. But, like I said from the beginning, these musicians sound committed. Like-minded souls (and I use that word advisedly) are free to listen along and accept it all as is: at the Dave Carter tribute at Falcon Ridge 2002, Pete Kennedy actually referred to Carter as a bodhisattva. The banjo part that opens the song (and album) is haunting and sets the stage for Dave Carter’s stark vocal. “Come, lonely hunter / chieftain and king / I will fly like the falcon when I go.” Later, Tracy Grammer enters the sound, putting an exclamation point on the mystery of the opening verse with an enchanting violin part that carries me easily to the next verse. I won’t go into a line-by-line analysis—I’m not sure if I could—suffice to say that the banjo-fiddle duo creates a lonesome, slightly creepy feeling that stands in contrast to the mysterious-but-not-creepy vocal. And after the climactic final verse, with the singer’s soul freed from its body, the instruments finish off the track by jumping into triple-time in order to evoke…what? “Spirits dancing in the flesh,” Carlos Santana might say. “Your mind has left your body,” Paul Kantner once sang. But Carter’s songs move me than anything either of those old Frisco hippies has recorded since the 1960s and We Can Be Together.

“The River Where She Sleeps” shows you just how well an austere arrangement can suit a song if it’s good enough, the singing is just right, and the melody is assertive. If you don’t like the melody that opens the song, I’m not sure what to tell you. The rolling banjo part just keeps chugging, and the lyric that follows sounds inevitable, with the line “when the sun refuse to shine” re-hooking each verse throughout, a strategy that would be used to great effect on “Mother, I Climbed” on Tracy’s album of Dave Carter songs Flower of Avalon. On this song, as much as on any song Dave Carter has ever written, the tumble of mystical imagery, pop music line dropping, furious rhyming, and seriously committed romanticism just plain works. And what really takes the cake is the reference to Alan Watts, which contextualizes every reference to Eastern philosophy I’ve ever heard in one of his songs. The whole thing is a masterpiece.

Those are the best two songs on the album, but they aren’t the only good ones. The first minute of “Kate and the Ghost of Lost Love” didn’t immediately strike me as anything major, although even here the melody is a good one. But it’s when Tracy Grammer pipes up on the second verse that the song’s power lifts off like a bumble bee from a flower. “Don’t Tread on Me” and “Little Liza Jane” both feature Dave Carter’s sense of joy and fun. And “Grand Prairie Texas Homesick Blues” picks up where John Prine’s “Paradise” left off. Not ever lyric works. But, after several listens, I began to notice the calculated goofiness of Dave Carter’s singing, a big plus. And the final track, “Elvis Presley,” contains a lot of stuff that, in most other contexts, would make me roll my eyes. But even there, the song’s soft fatalism is evoked with a tricky mixture of metaphors and images that add up to an enticing follow-up to Dylan’s “Desolation Row.”

Their second album, Tanglewood Tree (2001), is an improvement. Every element of their music—songs, melodies, harmonies, arrangements—kept getting better, album after album. Here, the arrangements are fuller, bringing more life to the music without intruding on the lightness and sense of fun. They are richer, but I still wouldn’t call them anything other than austere. Listen to the opener, “Happytown” with its quiet percussion and lovely organ which, on the final verse, makes Dave Carter’s self-amused singing seem to ring out with more passion and humor. But this is also the album wherein Tracy Grammer’s contributions become important to the overall sound. Her violin part on the title track and her lead singing on “The Mountain” make those entire songs work. Her harmony singing is more assertive than on the debut. Beyond that, the murder ballad is keenly written and sung, the “Farewells” are bittersweet, and “Crocodile Man” would later take on new life in Chris Smither’s hands (and voice). Listen to his version of the song on the Train Home album for evidence of the song’s greatness. In the end, though, what I like best, I think, is Dave Carter’s singing, which is probably the thing I’ve read and heard the least about, as far as these albums are concerned. It’s not a technically accomplished voice, but it’s lively and it puts across lyrics that wouldn’t necessarily work from other singers’ lips. “Happytown” is an example of that, and so is “Hey Conductor.” But “Walking away from Caroline” is priceless as written, taking a very familiar masculine boast/lament and taking it to town. How about this opening: “Caroline puts Dylan on / she always sings along / she gets the words all wrong / she falls out of time / but it sounds just fine.”

The third and best Dave and Tracy album is called Drum Hat Buddah (2002) which improves still more on the same basic Tanglewood Tree framework. The only noticeable difference, and I think it’s an important one, is that Tracy Grammer is even more involved. Her lead vocals on the best songs, like “Ordinary Town” and “236-6132” are a revelation: not perfect, but perfect for the songs. They also liven up material that might otherwise falter, like “I Go Like the Raven” and “Love, the Magician.” And her harmony vocals and fiddle sweeten Carter’s very best song, the eco-spirituality hymn, “Gentle Arms of Even.”

But here’s the amazing thing: I probably listen to the two posthumous albums as much as I do to Drum Hat Buddah. Seven is the Number (2006) is the last Dave and Tracy studio release featuring “new” Dave Carter songs that anyone will ever hear. It’s the album they were working on when Dave suffered his fatal heart attack in July of 2002, and much of it is a rerecording of Snake-Handling Man, a cassette-only release that dates back to pre-When I Go days. On this disc, every single melody is a keeper. On purely musical grounds, it may well be their most consistent album. The arrangements are the duo’s most austere since their debut. The songs may not be quite as good, as a whole, as those on Drum Hat Buddah. But I miss Dave Carter not because his songs tell some kind of primordial truth, but because of the sense of fun tucked away in his voice, because of what sounds like a spontaneous musicality in his sense of language and melody, and because I could do with more references to Mr. Rogers and lines like “I got nothin’ up my smile” in my folk music. And Flower of Avalon (2005) is even more miraculous. It’s an album of Dave Carter songs that the duo never recorded, that Tracy engaged with on her own...with a little help from John Jennings and Mary Chapin Carpenter. I wonder why she decided that these folks would be the ones to help her realize these songs on record. John Jennings is the producer that helped propel Carpenter to country music stardom in the early 1990s. His production is nothing like what you hear on the Dave and Tracy discs. I figured that this marriage would not work out and, on first listen, I thought I was right. But, repeated listening has made the glossy recording and insistently hooky arrangements more and more appealing. I don’t understand why “Mother, I Climbed,” is sung so mournfully (something I don’t blame Jennings or Grammer for). But I would say that as many as five songs from this CD are among Carter’s best, mining familiar themes to great effect. The male “Gypsy Rose” is cold and virginal, “Hey Ho” is Carter’s best (only?) political song, and “Anyway I Go” is half chorale, half lullaby and is elevated by Grammer’s soaring vocal. “Mother I Climbed,” sad though it sounds, is a remarkable statement of atheism, hooked around the lines, “open up your gate, Marianna” and “lay me down / in the dark womb of your love,” both of which have to be heard to be understood. Even when the songs aren’t winners as written, the production livens the material considerably. I remember seeing Tracy Grammer at the now-defunct Satalla in New York City, and she introduced “Phantom Doll” by telling us about Dave Carter’s love of Rufus Wainwright’s music, and you can hear it in the arrangement to the song. Much to my amazement, Flower of Avalon gets as much playing time as Drum Hat Buddah.

Well, in the end, it’s all about taste anyway. And I am hypersensitive to this duo’s virtues. Their music does more for me than dozens of other folkies, duo or otherwise. I couldn’t guarantee that someone who didn’t like this kind of music would like these folks. But I would be surprised by anyone open to the world of contemporary folk music, singer-songwriterdom, or what the late Dave Carter called “Postmodern Mythic American Music,” who wasn’t captivated by the Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer recordings. Their songs are expansive and ambitious, the harmony singing and melodies delights, and, never forget, Dave Carter was a joyful and fun-loving performer…whether he was a bodhisattva or not.

Jenny Godspeed and Patti DeRosa @ Mocha Maya’s, August 9th, 2008

A couple of good local singer-songwriters played Mocha Maya’s in Shelburne Falls, MA Saturday night. Shelburne Falls is a lovely old town in northern MA, about 25 miles up route 91 from Northampton, and Mocha Maya’s, I’ve recently learned, has a pretty good concert series (http://www.mochamayas.com/). I see that Gretchen Witt (http://www.gretchenwitt.com/), a New Artists Showcase performer at Falcon Ridge a couple of weeks ago, will be playing there on the 16^th.

I attended the show with the lovely and charming Naomi Fox, who first clued me in to Jenny Godspeed (http://www.jennygodspeed.com). I listened to a couple of cuts from her album Under the Ash Tree, including a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “The Arrangement,” which I haven’t listened to since the last time I gave Ladies of the Canyon a spin. And I noticed that her album came out on Signature Sounds, a mark of quality in my book, and had contributions from Jim Henry, Duke Levine, and Beth Amsel. That’s a pretty good array of supporting musicians.

When Naomi and I arrived, Jenny Godspeed had already performed her first set of the evening, and Patti DeRosa (http://www.pattiderosa.com) was well into her own. We walked in on a song called “Complicated Woman” that was nothing special as a song, but the singer performed confidently, with assurance. Her next songs were more substantial. She did a cover of Gil Scott-Heron’s “Winter in America” and a lovely song of her own called “Italian Heart.” She talked about seeing Gil Scott-Heron live in the 70s and her elderly Italian grandmother, now deceased. Her guitar playing was clearly a cut above the folkie norm: mostly chords, but with some tricking-looking moves up and down the frets. The overall impression she gave was of relaxed calm, someone who knew who she was and where she’d been. Now, looking at her website, I see that she’s received accolades from her betters, including Vance Gilbert. No surprise.

Jenny Godspeed’s mini-set was pleasant, although nothing more than that. Her voice is more pristine than Patti DeRosa’s, and her songs are wordier. Dare I say artier? She played a song called “Compass” that made we wince a bit. On the other hand, she also played a love song called “More than Just Friends” that made me smile. It was simpler than her other songs and, like a lot of simple songs, was plenty profound in its way. As Pete Seeger once said, “any fool can be complicated.” Naomi and I both agreed that Patti DeRosa is worth checking out.

Naomi and I also noticed that Memorial Hall (http://www.shelburnefallsmemorialhall.org/), also in Shelburne Falls, has a nice movie series. Astaire and Rogers in Shall We Dance? (1942) this September 12^th and 13^th, and we might just go.

I’ve been immersing in two early Jack Hardy albums, The Mirror of My Madness and The Nameless One. Both are great, and I’ll write more about them another time.

Writing away

My original plan with this blog was to post something of substance every Sunday. I'm not sure it will happen today. Although I have been writing obsessively as of late, a lot of that writing has been for professional purposes. I've been working on an essay about Ani Difranco and another about the evaluation of singer-songwriters, with a focus on Jack Hardy. The two essays have been bleeding into each other, which leads me to believe I need to think a bit more about what I want to say.

I'm slowly making my way through all the CDs I bought at Falcon Ridge. At its best, Vance Gilbert's One through Fourteen is excellent. "Waiting for Gillian" and "Eliza Jane" are every bit as good as I remember them being when I heard him play them at Makor back in 2001 or so, there's some pretty good band playing on some of the tracks, and there's a pretty good blues song too. His newest disc is good. At Falcon Ridge, his Tom Waits tribute made more of an impression on me, but on disc, it's the Bruce Springsteen/Steve Earle tribute that hits home. I've also begun making my way through the first CD of the first Jack Hardy box set. It seems that his earlier recordings were closer to straight country music than anything he recorded until Bandolier, although I don't think his voice lends itself as well to the strident singing he does on the early 1970s stuff. I need to listen a bit more, but so far "Go Tell the Saviour" sounds better on the Folk Brothers album. I can hardly wait to play Mirror of My Madness, which has some stuff I've heard live plenty of times but haven't heard on album since I listened to the album five years ago in Harvard Square at the long-gone used CD store on Mass. Ave. Lucy W. R.'s newest is as good as her first, and I'm starting to warm up to Lori McKenna's first while hearkening to hear her newest. I'm still trying to make contact with Jeffrey Foucault's Stripping Cane, and, I'm sorry to say, Tracy Grammer's Book of Sparrows.

More to come.

Ani Difranco @ The Pines, July 12th, 2008

On July 12^th, Ani Difranco paid a visit with her band to The Pines in nearby Florence, Massachusetts. The Pines is an outdoor venue, sort of a miniature version of what you find at folk festivals, with a small hill leading down to the stage and, at the top of the hill, a series of vendors selling food and young women pushing progressive politics. I positioned myself fairly close to the stage, a move that I would later reconsider as I found myself squeezed in by a bunch of drunken dancing Difrancophiles who didn’t treat me much differently than a tree that happened to be in their way. But, for the hour or so before the opening act took the stage, it was a nice area to sit and enjoy the warmth and the beauty of Look Park.

As usual at Ani Difranco shows, I was an outsider. Back when I was with Emily, I could play the part of the chastened boyfriend, attending because his girlfriend wanted to go, even though, in reality, I was always every bit as enthusiastic as Em. The past couple of times I’ve seen Ani (this past November, in Boston, MA; this past January, in Portland, ME), I’ve been on my own, and that meant being a single heterosexual man in a sea of folks who were…well…not. I’m a bit too old to let something like that bother me, but it sure is noticeable.

One big difference between this show and recent Ani concerts I’ve seen was the popularity of the opening act: Kimya Dawson. This is the young woman who wrote a bunch of the songs that appear in the movie Juno. In concert, she strummed a guitar and half-sang, half-recited a series of wordy flights of fancy that had me smiling with pleasure. She conveys a real sweetness of temperament and a sense of fun that I love in my folk music. I don’t remember much about the songs, to be honest. I do remember that she played a few songs from an upcoming children’s album, one of which included an audience participation part in which Kimya had us make animal noises (“okay now boys and girls…”). And she played a song written by her brother, a love song that had some fun with the name of that most classy of professional wrestlers, Randy Savage. She was on stage for no more than 45 minutes or so, and I’m glad to have seen her.

When Ani and her band hit the stage, the crowd let out a yell, and we were off. I couldn’t have been happier with how she opened: “Anticipate,” a chestnut from Not So Soft (1991). Her band’s accompaniment was supple and functional, supporting the song rather than taking it over. More to the point, the band was supporting the guitarist-singer. There was no mistaking whose show this was. Ani sounded fantastic; she was very much on. On “Anticipate,” she eliminated gender specificity, as she sang “Get a firm grip / before you let go,” dropping the “girl” that used to say all that needed to be said about her target audience.

From there, she took us on a tour through her two most recent albums, a few new songs, and a couple of visits into her back catalogue. There is plenty of room in an Ani Difranco set for fan favorites, “classic” material, and songs that sound like artist favorites. She played four songs from one of her best albums, Little Plastic Castles (1998). “Gravel” came four songs into her set, and triggered screams of excitement and an all-out singalong. I love that one myself. It features almost everything that makes Ani Difranco special, privileging her percussive guitar playing and exuberant singing. “As Is” came a few songs later, and that’s a song I’d forgotten about. There’s yet another sign of greatness: a song on her best album is easy to forget about but, when heard again, is like a warm handshake hello. The impact of “Two Little Girls” was enormous, coming as it did right after the lovely ballad to her “baby’s daddy,” “Way Tight.” “Way Tight” is such a cute song, played solo, that “Two Little Girls,” also played solo, felt like a raging storm. The guitar playing on that one is like a tornado, and I wasn’t surprised that, by the end of the song, she had broken one of her ought-to-be-patented Lee press-on nails that she uses to play guitar. “Little Plastic Castles” came later, as her second encore. I can remember seeing her last year with Melissa Ferrick joining her for this song to play the trumpet part and sing some harmonies. But it sounded just fine without her.

As I mentioned earlier, Ani’s song catalogue is awfully deep, and there were other welcome moments. I’m partial to “Modulation,” with its slinky groove, from Knuckle Down (2005), and “Angry Anymore” from Up Up Up Up Up Up (1999). This is a songwriter whose catalogue has grown so deep that, with an attentive band, she is capable of switching things around from night to night. A perusal of her setlists from recent gigs (see www.onherown.net) shows that she does just that. How will her career play out, I wonder? She’s been a model of under-the-radar professionalism so far, and her songwriting, singing, arranging, band-leading, and guitar playing are wonders to behold, now as ever. She’s so full of energy, I can’t imagine the new mother ever slowing down. Her gigs are, to be sure, a bit shorter than they were in the years when I first began seeing her perform. I don’t think she plays for two hours at a time anymore. But her discography and song catalogue are so chalk full of great material, with so few flubs, that I bet she could easily make a career out of recording at this point, if, say, motherhood or health problems became too much of a burden. But, again, I can’t really imagine that. This is a performer who lives for the stage.

Speaking of which, these days Ani Difranco’s touring band is a four piece: longtime bandmate Todd Sickafoose on standup bass, Mike Dillon on percussion and vibes, and Allison Miller on drums. Each time I’ve seen this band, I’ve enjoyed it more and more. Like many Difrancophiles, I miss the days of Andy Stochansky and Sara Lee, the band that was captured on her first live album, Living in Clip (1997). But the current band measures up, I think. I used to think that Allison Miller wasn’t as subtle a drummer as Andy Stochansky, and that may well be true, but she’s damn good. I think she’s more of a rock drummer than he was, a bit more balls-to-the-wall. Mike Dillon impresses me each time out with his fills and flourishes. During this show, I was close enough to notice he and Miller grinning at each other during some songs. Either they were sharing a private joke, or they were having so much fun with each other on stage that they were bursting with joy. My guess is the second: Ani Difranco’s stage looks like a fun place to be. Finally, Todd Sickafoose is clearly very comfortable onstage with Ani. He’s been playing with her since 2004 or so, after she disbanded her road bank of the previous few years. You can see him on the Trust (2004) DVD, and he looks pretty comfortable even then. He seems to blend into the sound of the band more completely than his bandmates. In part, that’s distinctive of the bass in modern popular music; so I recently learned from watching Tom Dowd and the Language of Music, a fabulous documentary about the great sound engineer, who worked the boards for artists ranging from Ray Charles to Ornette Coleman to Aretha Franklin to Eric Clapton to the Allman Brothers. Apparently, in some of the pop recordings of the 1930s and 40s, it was often very difficult to tell if there even was a bass.

Things wound down Saturday night with a new song, a rant called “Alla This.” It wound up not being the end of her political material, though. We all screamed for the encores, of course, and, before she had returned into view from backstage, she had already begun to play the opening guitar part from “Evolve,” one her best personal-is-political-is-personal-is… songs ever. I wouldn’t mind it if that became her standard concert closer; it’s a quite a feeling to chant along with her doing the instrumental parts, as the band turns the song into a rallying cry much bigger and more powerful than what you hear on Evolve (2003). “Little Plastic Castles” came next.

To send us home, Ani served up yet another oldie. “Overlap” featured Allison Miller’s harmony singing, as the band stretched out the ending of the song for a minute, chanting the final syllable of the song title with the band leader, as Miller, Sickafoose, and Dillon kept the groove going. It felt like a lullaby except that, instead of putting us to sleep, it left us wanting more. Like all of the greats, Ani Difranco knows how to pace a concert. What doesn’t she know how to do? I didn’t much care for the big band, but even then, that was a question of taste, not judgment. Album after album, show after show, I keep wondering what she’ll do for an encore, what she’ll do to stay fresh. Live her life, appears to be the answer. More than any other performer I can think of, Ani is a star for whose fans she can do no wrong.

I’m one.

Falcon Ridge, 2008

This year was the 20^th anniversary of the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in upstate NY. It also marked the end of a 6 year hiatus for my folk festival attendance. I discovered Falcon Ridge in 2000, when the good folks at WFUV put up a couple of tickets to the fest on their concert hotline. I’d enlisted an old friend from the Newport Folk Festival days (say, from 1993 to 1999), and we had a grand enough time to convince me that this is where I ought to be in late July every year. The next two summers, I attended with a constellation of friends from the Newport years and their people. I can’t say it was the 20^th anniversary that convinced me to return to Falcon Ridge. More so, I just missed going to folk festivals. The lineup looked pretty good, and Newport is a shell of its former self—it’s gone downhill since Ben and Jerry’s sponsorship ended after the ’99 fest, an event that was preceded by the Unilever sale (for commentary on that, see http://www.commondreams.org/views/041300-106.htm). After that, the fest went through a series of sponsors, including Dunkin’ Donuts and Rhode Island’s own Newport Creamery. This year’s Newport lineup features the Black Crowes, Trey Anastasio, and Brian Wilson. Cool musicians, I suppose, but if that’s folk music, then I’m Ani Difranco’s love child. Anyway, what matters more is the Falcon Ridge vibe, which I recall fondly. Of course, that had as much to do with the company than anything else, but the music beckoned strongly enough to convince me that a return was in order.

I arrived in Hillsdale in Sandro’s car. Sandro is one of Matt Winters’ (http://soundofblackbirds.blogspot.com/) comrades from high school, and I’d heard plenty of good things about him. Now I can add my two cents: he’s a good guy, a good driver, and we share a dislike of having to go to sleep in leaky tents. Of course, I don’t know anyone who enjoys that, but I digress. We arrived on Thursday, mid-afternoon, and, not long thereafter, I found myself sitting with Matt and Sandro, listening to the two of them strum and pick their guitars and trying to harmonize when I knew the songs. I didn’t tell him this, but Matt’s singing voice is occasionally reminiscent of the young Chris Smither. When he sang Neil Young’s “From Hank to Hendrix” on Saturday night, I immediately thought of Smither’s version of “I am a Child” from I’m a Stranger Too! (1970). I bet Matt would kill on that one.

I’ve known Matt since I was a first-year graduate student at Columbia University, and I thought that I was the only political science student into folk music. But Matt was running the Postcrypt that academic year (1999-2000), and it wasn’t long before we were talking folkiedom and watching people like Ina May Wool, Jeff Cannon, Mark Teamaker, and others whose names I forget on the Postcrypt stage. The Postcrypt was my first exposure to the semi-famous, like Jack Hardy (www.jackhardy.com) and The Roches (www.roches.com), as well as the less-famous-but-still-awesome like Robert To’Teras and Laura Kemp (www.laurakemp.com). I was an irregular Postcrypt attendant, but boy was that a great place to hear music. And Matt, as I recall, was an excellent host, not to mention a knowledgeable someone I could ask questions of. It was an intimate enough setting such that I could occasionally exchange a few words with a performer. I remember chatting with LA-native Mark Humphreys (www.markhumphreys.com) about Loudon Wainwright’s History and the then-recently released Mary Gauthier breakthrough, Drag Queens in Limousines. I remember being too shy to even approach the bewitchingly sexy Laura Kemp, after a spur of the minute decision to go to the Postcrypt one night yielded a fabulous 50 minutes of this woman’s powerful voice and guitar playing. I remember leaving the Postcrypt, visiting an ATM to get cash, and going back to the Postcrypt to buy a copy of her short-player Alone. Getting back to Matt, I also remember once arriving at a Postcrypt show with a friend a bit late one night and finding a crowded room. We took seats at the end of the room that I thought were free, and I looked over at Matt, who was behind the concessions counter and looking over at me, rather bemused. After the set that we had walked in on had ended (was it Frank Tedesso? I think so: www.franktedesso.com), Matt emerged from his spot, and found a couple of other chairs to reserve. I only later realized that I had taken chairs that he was saving for someone else. After my friend and I had taken our seats, I glanced to my right and noticed a dude in a green velvet jacket, casually leaning against the wall. Had I just taken Jack Hardy’s chair? I never found out.

Thursday night at Falcon Ridge was a change from my last experiences at the festival. It used to be a Friday-through-Sunday event; not anymore. The Thursday evening lineup was a good one….

The Horse Flies (www.thehorseflies.com) opened the festivities. I hadn’t heard of them before, although I now learn that they are a veteran band. Their sound was bluegrassy, but not authentically so. Their website mentions a punk influence; I can’t really hear it. They definitely hinted at Eastern melodies and textures, with a wailing/droning vocal part duplicating the fiddle part in a tune that I later learned was called “Rafting.” I also sensed a jam band aesthetic at their core, as if jamming might be in their blood but being held back by something (like, say, a 50 minute time limit). In that respect, they reminded me a bit of Railroad Earth, who played on Sunday and who I saw a couple of years ago, opening for Hot Tuna in New York City and, if I recall correctly, who played Falcon Ridge in ’01, or was it ’02? They played a cool version of “Iko Iko,” but I thought they really took off with one of their faux-Eastern ensemble pieces that seem to spiral up into the air like a prayer on the wind. I don’t know the name of that one, but I want to find out. A solid set to start off the festival.

Next up was Red Molly (www.redmolly.com), a trio that first formed at Falcon Ridge in 2004. They won me over immediately by opening with their arrangement of “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning.” Actually, apart from the opening verse, it bore little resemblance to either the Reverend Gary Davis or Hot Tuna renditions, but I still liked it just fine. They played a couple of Gillian Welch tunes, including the murder ballad “Caleb Meyer,” very good, and harmonized superbly. I also give them the Falcon Ridge 2008 award for Best T-shirt By an Artist: a simple white logo over a plain red background. I didn’t buy it, but that’s a shirt I can imagine actually wearing. So much of artists’ clothing merchandise is stuff that seems cool in theory but that I’d never actually make use of. Anyhow, Red Molly’s set was lovely.

The Jason Spooner Trio (www.jasonspooner.com) was third, and I say Jason Spooner is someone to look out for. He’s a Maine-based singer-songwriter, and boy do I wish I’d known about him when I lived in Maine. His voice sounded a bit like Don Henley (in a good way), a bit like John Mayer (again, in a good way), and maybe even a touch like the young Chris Smither’s (which wasn’t bad and would eventually become extraordinary). His band’s sound was quite full, impressive for an acoustic guitar-bass-drums setup, and I couldn’t help but notice that his bass player looked like Sammy Hagar (which I didn’t and don’t hold against him, I promise). And, while paying attention to lyrics in a festival setting is always a tricky thing (as Matt mentioned to me later that evening), I heard a few things that made me look up, especially on the title track to their latest CD, The Flame You Follow. And that brings me back to the band’s sound, which was inviting, both in terms of being pleasant and making me want to hear more of the music and in terms of making me want to know more about what the singer had to say. As I write this, I’m looking at the guy’s webpage, and I’m not surprised to see some thoughtful reflections on songwriting in the “Artist’s Bio” section. With his soulful (overused compliment, but the shoe fits, I swear) voice and excellent band, his foot was already in the door. But he barged into the room with a country-flavored cover of Neil Young’s “For the Turnstiles,” Red Molly harmonizing at his side. Watch for him.

Crooked Still (www.crookedstill.com) was my first “wow” moment of the festival, definitely my favorite of the Thursday night performances. Another roots band that contains bluegrass but more than that (and less: no mandolin!), they had a dense, infectious sound that left just enough breathing room for some soloing, most notably from their banjo player and their fiddler. The banjo player, Dr. Greg Liszt, was positioned stage left, a good few feet from his quartet of bandmates. There were, I learned as I watched, two reasons for this. First of all, his mannerisms during his solos were such that someone could have gotten hurt had they stood too close. The man solos with his head a-boppin’ and one foot rising up and down. Second of all, the man needs his own mike, since, while he never sings harmony, he sure has a lot to say in between songs. I learned from Matt’s blog that his strange and off-topic comments are nothing new, but I loved it. His banjo playing was good-not-extraordinary, but his banter was great-not-good. Among other things, he announced a mud wrestling contest after show (as far as I know, it never materialized). The fiddler, Brittany Haas, was excellent, both in her solos and in her accompaniment. A couple of months ago, I saw her sister Natalie perform on cello with Alasdair Fraser on fiddle, but I hadn’t known about Brittany. I was happy for the introduction; she’s super. The singer, Aofie O’Donovan, shone on a song called, I think, “Did You Sleep Well” (yup, just verified that on their website). And their playing, both ensemble and solo, hit a peak on a something called “The Absentee.” Not sure what the song is about but, during the performance, I could have cared less. They also turned the Robert Johnson song “Come On in My Kitchen” into a slow, slinky vehicle for some tasty solos, and it was hooked around a descending pattern that the performers periodically copied in unison. I wonder what possessed them to want to do this song. The significance of the Robert Johnson catalogue is very much in question these days, IMHO. Maybe at some point, I’ll write an extended essay about that. Anyway, Crooked Still is a band worth checking out. Strange note: while I bought a bunch of CDs at Falcon Ridge this year, I skipped over this band. I’ll probably check out their iTunes offerings and make my own little compilation of favorites.

Thursday night ended with Lori McKenna (www.lorimckenna.com). Paper Wings and Halo was her first album, back in 1998, and a couple of songs from it appeared on a 1999 15-song promotional compilation for Gabriel Unger Artist Management called Fresh Tracks. Lori McKenna’s contributions, “As I Am,” and “Hardly Speaking a Word” are highlights, and Fresh Tracks was also my introduction to Erin McKeown, Jeff Lang, Rose Polenzani, Jess Klein, Mark Erelli, Beth Amsel, Kris Delmhorst, and on and on. Anyway, Lori McKenna recently put out an album on Warner Brothers called Unglamorous, and Christgau wrote a positive review (http://music.msn.com/music/consumerguide/oct07/), so I was curious to see what I’d find. At Falcon Ridge, I discovered that Faith Hill has covered her songs, that she’s toured with her, and that she’s found her home in the world of country music. Her songs speak to the country tradition somewhat, but her band was more rock than country. Her songwriting seems to be detail-oriented; the title track to Unglamorous included lines about her five kids “in shorts,” and “peanut butter on everything.” She’s from Stoughton, Massachusetts and she’s happily married. Neither of these qualities is known for being the fountain of great country songs and, really, I wouldn’t call her country. Instead, she rocked out with her band. It was basically straight up rock, with her lead guitarist breaking out a couple of rock star solos. They were good. And McKenna can really belt when she wants to. She covered “Dream a Little Dream” with a bit more subtlety, thank goodness, and, for her encore, she did “It Makes No Difference,” a country song if I ever I’ve heard one. Rink Danko’s vocal on the original recording of that song can bring tears to my eyes. Lori McKenna’s rendition didn’t quite do that, but I was glad to hear her sing it. And that concluded the Main Stage performances for Thursday night.

Friday continued a Falcon Ridge tradition: the New Artist Showcase. The Showcase consists of nearly 4.5 hours’ worth of independent musicians’ performances. Basically, each performer does two songs; I think one or two folks managed to fit a third song into their allotted time. I caught about 20 of the 23 performers. My favorites were Danny Schmidt (www.dannyschmidt.com), from Austin TX, Lucy Wainwright Roche (www.myspace.com/lwrlwr) from Brooklyn NY, and a band called Blue Moose and the Unbuttoned Zippers (www.bmuz.net) from Boston, MA. I encourage readers to check them all out. During the dinner period, 5:00-6:30, the Main Stage was dormant, but a Beatles workshop got going on the Workshop Stage. I stopped by for about half an hour, but my attention was wandering. The only thing I saw that was notable was the opening performance, which featured a whole bunch of musicians, including Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams, performing “A Day in the Life.” Pretty cool, but then my attention began to stray.

The Main Stage resumed business with Terrance Simien and the Zydeco Experience (www.terrancesimien.com). They were fun. I really don’t know much about Zydeco music and don’t listen to it much one way or the other, but they were high energy and had a bunch of people up dancing. Matt was a part of that bunch and, in return for showing his boobs, Terrance Simien through him some Mardi Gras beads. Terrance Simien really overdid it with those beads. He threw out string after string after string of them. I find that sort of pandering exasperating; a little of it goes a long way, and a lot of it goes nowhere fast. But the beats were catchy, the singing decent, and they even threw in a rendition of “The Weight.” Not bad.

Next up: the Folk Brothers, consisting of Jack Hardy (www.jackhardy.com) and David Massengill (www.davidmassengill.com), along with a couple of backing musicians. I will not write at length about Jack Hardy. If you don’t know this man’s music and his story, you owe it to yourself to find out about it. Check out his website and, by all means, go out of your way to attend his gigs. Of his easily available CDs, the ones to start with are Omens (2000) and his most recent, Noir (2007). Massengill is a still a puzzle to me. His set at Falcon Ridge 2002 was great fun, including a tune about having his knuckles rapped by his grade school music teacher (“Ouch, ouch, ouch”) called “Culture Hurts.” And he did write “On the Road to Fairfax Country” which appeared on the Roches’ Robert Fripp-produced 1982 album, Keep On Doing. On the other hand, I once saw him play a show with Jack Hardy at the now-defunct C-Note in the East Village, and I thought his songs fell flat. Did I really need to hear a 10 minute-long song about Jack and the Beanstalk? No, I didn’t. But I knew he was an old friend of Jack’s and I was ready to be wowed. Their performance was good, but not great. Their harmonies weren’t particularly smooth and, as Allan and Matt pointed out, David’s dobro playing just didn’t mesh very well. Matt asked what the point was: the duo format didn’t add anything, and why not just have Jack sing his songs and David sing his? He’s right to ask what the point was, and I think that attentive music listeners should ask that question more often, whether the performance begs it or not. I could have asked the same thing about Crooked Still’s “Come on in My Kitchen,” but that’s a topic for another essay. I will add two things, more positive. First of all, the songs really were good: Dave van Ronk’s terrific “Losers” from Going Back to Brooklyn (1991), Jack’s “Maeve,” David’s cute “Ode to a Mouse,” a decent Bush-bashing tune from Jack, the aforementioned “On the Road to Fairfax Country” from David, and versions of “Peggy-O,” “Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies” and “Saint James Infirmary Blues” that reminded me of Jack’s serious devotion to the folk music tradition. Also, having now listened to their new album, Partners in Crime, I think whatever problems I had with their set were a question of the performance, not the idea of their duets. On record, the laid back feeling and offhand harmonizing work nicely, and their version of “Peggy-O” is really good.

The next act was one I really feared coming in to the festival. They’re called The Strangelings (www.thestrangelings.net/). They are made up of Pete and Maura Kennedy who, as The Kennedys, have been an uptempo treat at previous folk festivals, a handful of folks I’d never heard of, and Chris Thompson. I was not impressed at all with Chris and Meredith Thompson at previous folk festivals. Their big, self-involved voices reminded me of the worst sort of histrionic melodrama that you can find in this particular music genre. I remember their performance of “Tanglewood Tree” at the Dave Carter tribute in 2002, and it was a travesty. Chris Thompson repeated the travesty as part of The Strangelings in 2008, singing an overblown lead on that song. But that was the only false move in their set. In this context, which is full of rocking and Pete Kennedy’s electric sitar and some screeching, eerie violin, Chris Thompson made sense. The set reached a peak with “Matty Groves,” with Thompson (Chris, not Richard, although I couldn’t help but think of Fairport and Sandy Denny) wailing and snarling into the microphone, “I’ll kill you if I can!” And they delighted me with a cover of “White Bird” that sounded astonishingly like the band that originally recorded it, It’s a Beautiful Day. I just watched the performance of “Matty Groves” that’s on The Strangelings’ MySpace page, and it’s not as good as what I heard at Falcon Ridge. Really, they were slamming on Friday night. It was a fine dose of physical, electric music for the Main Stage and, while I’m not positive I would seek them out to see again, I would be happy to see them at Falcon Ridge next year.

Bill Evans’ Soulgrass (http://www.billevanssax.com/) performed next. They were my least favorite act of the evening. What I heard was a bunch of virtuosos showing off. Bill Evans and his bandmates (but mostly Bill Evans) treated each song as an excuse to solo. They all have some fearsome chops, but so what? After about 10 minutes, I grew bored.

The Friday night song swap concluded the evening. This is also a Falcon Ridge tradition: a quartet of singer-songwriters take the stage and perform round robin. Our contestants this year: Vance Gilbert (www.vancegilbert.com), John Gorka (www.johngorka.com), Patty Larkin (www.pattylarkin.com), and Eliza Gilkyson (www.elizagilkyson.com). I won’t go into all the details here, but I ought to begin by saying that I was not, nor have I ever been, particularly moved by either Gorka or Larkin. With the exception of Larkin’s song “Beg to Differ,” which I can remember her playing at previous Falcon Ridges and hearing on WFUV when I lived in NYC, neither of these musicians touched me. Patty Larkin can play some guitar, no doubt, but her songs don’t really move me. And John Gorka leaves me cold. He may well be a great songwriter, but nothing about this performance, or any other performance I’ve seen of his, projects any kind of musical necessity. Why is he doing what he’s doing? Is there any kind of vision here? His singing is relaxed, a bit too relaxed. Is he really performing songs, or simply reciting them? Maybe I need to get to know his songs a bit on CD before seeing him again. Then again, I didn’t know either Jack Hardy’s or Chris Smither’s songs before seeing them live for the first time, the first at the Postcrypt and the second at Falcon Ridge, and they both moved me tremendously.

But the other performers were a different story. Eliza Gilkyson is a powerful singer, and she can write. I first saw her in August of 2007 at an outdoor concert in NYC, along with Mary Gauthier, someone who I really miss seeing live. Anyhow, she was superb at that show, which included a simple but effective cover of “Love Minus Zero/No Limit.” Her highlight from this evening was the title track from her newest album, Paradise Hotel. Lovely stuff. Vance Gilbert, meanwhile, was a riot. He has an energetic stage presence that often veers into the politically incorrect. I’ve seen him several times, most notably at Makor in NYC back in 2001 (with Erin McKeown opening), when he asked a woman in the audience if she wanted to know why she was at the show alone—ouch! The man can sing, play, and write at a pretty high level, and he puts his talents to excellent work. This time, he played songs from his latest album, which I bought the next day, Up on Rockfield. Songs included “Goodbye Pluto,” “Whatever Louise Wants,” and, best of all, “Old Man’s Advice,” which he intentionally wrote in the style of Tom Waits. All in all, it was a very fine evening of song swapping. It ended around quarter of 1:00 in the morning, with the quartet joining together for a final sing-along.

That was not the end of the evening’s music. That afternoon, our friends Marie, Allan (http://rattlemycage.wordpress.com), and Ellen (http://www.myspace.com/motherbanjo) had arrived and, after the song swap, the six of us headed back to the campsite. We wound up congregating in a neighbor’s tent for some late-night picking (or, in my case, harmonizing and whistling). A lovely time was had by all.

Saturday was a combination of Main Stage excellence, Workshop Stage excellence, and me trying to find a shady place to nap (we won’t get into that last one).

Patty O and the Hip Hooligans started things off on the Main Stage with a set of very light jazz. Chamber jazz…? Way too mellow. It was pleasant but forgettable, Ellen and I agreed.

Vance Gilbert was up next. His set focused on his newest album, 11 songs written self-consciously in the style of some other songwriter. He repeated some of the ones from the previous night’s song swap. Another standout was “Judge’s House,” which evoked the Bruce Springsteen of Nebraska. He also played one of his concert staples, “Taking it All to Tennessee,” which I never get tired of, and the title track to 2005’s Unfamiliar Moon, which I’d never heard before and was happy to be introduced to. A Vance Gilbert performance is incomplete without plenty of talk in between songs, and he found opportunities to praise the sign language interpreter on stage (and make a rather inappropriate comment about the sizes of their respective waist lines), yell at the pedestrians crossing in front of the stage (to sit down!), and respond to an audience member’s song request with the comment that he won’t play any song that he can’t make any money off of. As always, a class act.

I only caught part of the Most Wanted Song Swap, and I skipped Lowen & Navarro’s set entirely due to hunger pangs and exhaustion. One of last year’s Most Wanted was a guy named Joe Crookston (www.joecrookston.com), who actually sat next to me on Thursday night for the Main State performance, along with his wife and their adorable little daughter. He struck me as a nice guy and, from what I heard, the guy can write and play. He’s got a sense of humor too; the man’s first song was a cover of Supertramp. Randall Williams (www.randallwilliams.com) was another one of last year’s Most Wanted. He seemed a bit bombastic to me, although I confess I wasn’t paying as close attention as I should have been. Lindsay Mac (www.lindsaymac.com) is a cellist who strummed and plucked her instrument as if it were a guitar. I was reminded of Matt’s question about the Folk Brothers: what’s the point? Again, it’s possible that the songs were the point; I didn’t notice. In any case, I have to wonder if there was anything about the songs that required her to play the cello the way that she did. The previous day, at the Beatles workshop, she’d played “Blackbird” on the cello, and I admit it sounded real good, but isn’t that a function of the song? Ah, the greatness of the Beatles. That’s food for thought for some other essay. Oh, and I don’t think I noticed a thing about Anthony da Costa (www.anthonydacosta.com) although I heard great things about him.

Back to the John Gorka/Patty Larkin thing. I have to return to it, you see, because they were the next two performers on the Main Stage, and I missed all of Gorka’s set and all but the last two songs of Larkin’s. Matt and Ellen both told me later that Gorka’s set was great. I don’t doubt that his fans were happy…but could the man win over people who didn’t already know his material? I don’t know. I wasn’t there to find out for myself, and I didn’t interview any audience members. I should note, however, that I arrived back at our blanket to hear Patty Larkin play “Wolf at the Door,” one of about three songs I can identify upon hearing as a Patty Larkin song. I can only do that for two John Gorka songs, and I forget both of them (just kidding!). Anyway, “Wolf at the Door” is a good song. One reason it’s a good song is that it’s catchy, with a cool melody and some nifty guitar playing. The singer’s voice even takes on different tones, as she moves from refrain to verses. Those sorts of qualities are acts of generosity toward her listeners, and they make me more interested in what she has to say. In this case, the song is commentary on the music business, and the star system in particular. Does she say anything truly original here? No, but her interest and enthusiasm are palpable. I have yet to hear these qualities in John Gorka although, again, I don’t really listen to his CDs. I should give them a chance before I pass judgment. His live performances (all at folk festivals) have been disappointments. When I was at the CD tent over the weekend, I didn’t even really look for Gorka CDs. But I was curious to know more about Patty Larkin’s work. I noticed two things. First, she plays all the instruments on her new album. Second, I noticed that, on a couple of previous albums, she recruited Michael Manring (www.manthing.com) to play bass. My brother used to be a fan of this guy’s work; I believe there was a CD called Thonk that he really liked. Apart from his session work, Manring has released some albums full of instrumental music that features his bass playing. I find them basically unlistenable, but I can still appreciate the man’s talent. Anyway, moving on…. WAIT!! Before I go on, I just now saw that Manring’s website notes that he was scheduled to play with Gorka at Falcon Ridge! I need to ask Matt about that.

So, instead of attending the Main Stage for these sets, I attended the Workshop stage, where “The Blues is Still the News” was the theme. The program was great, although, as usual with these things, it wasn’t a workshop. The performers were Jason Spooner, the great Chris Smither, Eliza Gilkyson, and, the MCs of the program, Eddie from Ohio. Spooner led things off with “For the Turnstiles” and, once again, Red Molly was there to help out. The highlight of Eliza Gilkyson’s portion of the show was “Dark Side of Town,” a real crowd-pleaser. Chris Smither has been steeped in the blues ever since he first started recording in the late 1960s. I still remember Smither at the 2002 blues workshop, when he performed Mississippi John Hurt’s “Candyman” and an old Little Feat song, “Rock n’ Roll Doctor.” This time, he stuck to his own songs: “Link of Chain,” “Diplomacy” (a political song that had the crowd cheering), and “Can’t Shake These Blues.” Finally, Eddie from Ohio stole the show. I don’t know the titles to the songs they played, but Julie Murphy Wells sang her pretty ass off on a song full of sexual double entendres. And the bass player, Michael Clem, introduced their final tune by describing their encounter with Chris Smither that morning. They accosted him and begged him, “Mr. Smither! Mr. Smither! Can we please play your song?” To which he responded, “And you are…?” The song was, no surprise, “Love Me Like a Man,” made famous by Bonnie Raitt on her 1972 album, Give It Up. Diana Krall did a version of it too, a few years ago. Eddie from Ohio did it proud, with Julie Murphy Wells flexing her pipes, Jason Spooner adding harmonica, and Smither himself soloing a bit on the guitar. Throughout the performance, I kept looking over at Chris Smither, wondering how it felt to have his song performed right in front of him like that. He looked cool as a cucumber. The song is almost 40 years old now, and it really isn’t representative of the kind of the thing the man writes. Listen to his first album, I’m a Stranger Too! (1970), and the song really sticks out, sandwiched in between “Homunculus” and “Lonely Time,” both of which suggest very different concerns than “Love You Like a Man,” as it was originally called. By the time he rerecorded them for Another Way to Find You (1991), his voice had deepened and filled out, and his performance of “Homunculus” on that album is haunting and oracular.

After the dinner break on the Mainstage, I settled into a lawn chair on our blanket for the Chris Smither performance, the one I’d been waiting for all weekend long. I can’t say enough good things about this guy. As a singer, guitarist, and songwriter, he blows most other solo performers off the stage. His 2002 performance at Falcon Ridge was my introduction to the man’s work; before then, I knew the song “No Love Today,” but that was all. He had played the song swap that year, and he was the best on a stage that included Susan Werner, Greg Brown, and Erin McKeown, none whom is a slouch when it comes to writing, singing, and playing. Wouldn’t you know it, just as he took the stage Saturday evening, 2008, the rain began. Up went my umbrella, as the man launched into his opening number, “Open Up,” the lead track from his most recent disc, Leave the Light On (2006). For about half the set, the rain came and went, and it was pretty heavy at times. But the performer carried on, basically as if nothing was wrong. The performance was standard Chris Smither, a fact that Ellen pointed out later that night. She’s right: if you’ve seen the man enough times, you learn that he plays a set that doesn’t vary much from gig to gig unless a) a new album has just been released, or b) he’s been working on new material. Not much improv, not much banter in between songs. I didn’t write down the setlist in order, but he played two other songs from Leave the Light On: “Father’s Day” and, the high point of the set, the crowd-pleasing “Origin of Species.” Great stuff, and I noticed Ellen smiling when he launched into “Train Home.” Me, I was happier still that he played “Hold On” and “Drive You Home Again,” two extraordinary songs about freedom and selfhood, respectively. More extraordinary Chris Smither songs from that performance: “Never Needed It More,” “Lola,” and “Help Me Now,” along with Dave Carter’s “Crocodile Man,” which Smither introduced as a Chris Smither song that Dave Carter wrote before he, Smither, got around to it. I have a recording of the 2002 festival’s Dave Carter tribute, and Smither’s performance was the only one that had the audience cheering and wowing after the first couple of verses. And that was before he’d had much of a chance to practice the song. This past Saturday night, it sounded effortless, and it was beguiling. So there you go: a standard Chris Smither performance is still spellbinding.

The Nields (www.nields.com) were up next. I’d seen them maybe five or six times before, at festivals and at First Night in Northampton. But here’s the thing: not since Newport 1997 had I seen them with the full band, with Dave Chalfant and company. I’d always seen them as a duo, or with Erin McKeown at First Night. This night, with the full band backing the sisters, they smoked. They played old tunes like “Best Black Dress” and, with Dar on stage, “I Know What Kind of Love This Is.” They played new songs, whose titles I don’t remember, but which were catchy and fun. The only thing missing was “This Town Is Wrong,” but I only thought of that the next day, so it clearly wasn’t much missed. Their set was high energy folk-pop, and the sisters are open, friendly performers.

Next up: Dar Williams (www.darwilliams.com). I don’t remember the first time I saw her, but I’m pretty sure it was in Newport, maybe ’96 or ’97, and I remember going through a brief Dar fixation which only ended when I heard Cry Cry Cry. With that album, the Dar fixation ended abruptly, and the Richard Shindell fixation began. Saturday night, she played a fun set, bookended by crowd-pleasers: “The Babysitter’s Here” opened the show and “When I Was a Boy” closed things. “Spring Street” is a song that doesn’t do much for me on CD, but it sounded real good Saturday night. She played a new song called “Buzzer” about the Milgram obedience experiment at Yale University in the 1960s that seemed a bit preachy to me. But the highlight of the entire festival came, just as it did at Falcon Ridges past, when she led the sing-along on “Iowa.” By the time Dar hits the stage, it’s always dark, and “Iowa” always produces the cigarette lighters and flashlights from the festival-goers and, before you know it, the hillside is lit up like a midsummer Christmas tree. It’s always a lovely sight, and the thousands of harmony singers on “Iowa” lift that song into the stratosphere. It’s a wonderful thing, and you really need to be there to experience it. But this time, there was something even more special planned. Dar had Nerissa and Katryna Nields come on stage with their children, Patty Larkin with hers, along with Dar’s own son, and Dar spoke directly to them, telling them that no matter what bad things go on in the world, that there are also a lot of people working to make the world a better place here at Falcon Ridge. She had us turn off our lighters and then turn them back on, all at once, so that the kids and everyone else on stage could see us. It was really moving, a moment when the feeling of community was palpable and made even more real by the presence of the children on stage and Dar’s words directly to them that created a different kind of relationship between audience and performers. For that briefest moment, all of the clichés about feeling “one with the performers” were made real.

The Farewell Drifters couldn’t help but be a letdown after that and, anyway, I was wandering around during most of their set. What little I noticed sounded like an all too polite set of bluegrass songs, well-played to be sure, but not extraordinary.

I was really looking forward to Eddie from Ohio (www.efohio.com). At festivals past, this was always an opportunity to dance, and Matt, his girlfriend Sarah (who’d arrived that afternoon), and Ellen and myself all walked down to the front of the stage, off to stage right, to twirl and jiggle and jump around a bit. They played a few of their more recognizable songs, like “Old Dominion” and “Candido” (which I misrecognized as “Number Six Driver,” which they didn’t play). They played a cover of an old Shawn Colvin song called “Cry Like an Angel.” They played some new material. Eddie did his drum solo. Really, I wasn’t paying attention to the subtleties with this group. I was just having fun, and why not?

Martin Sexton (www.martinsexton.com) closed the show on Saturday night. I hadn’t seen him since Irving Plaza, 2001. I actually learned while at Falcon Ridge that that very show I saw had been recorded; I saw CDs of the show on sale in the merchandise tent, but I left without buying one. Anyway, I have fond memories of that show. I just remember him having one of the biggest, most pliable voices I could imagine, and his guitar playing was clearly a second voice that he played to harmonize with his pipes. And for songs, how about “Glory Bound,” “Diggin’ Me,” “Hallelujah,” “Beast in Me,” “Black Sheep,” and, from his newest album, “Happy.” He played these songs with a kind of jazzy elasticity, and his voice is a wonder of nature. I said jazzy but, as Ellen mentioned, it really felt more like gospel music. He crooned, he whispered, he scatted, he moaned, he roared. When he closed the night by proclaiming himself a patriot and singing “America the Beautiful,” he had me believing.

If I had to choose a favorite performance from Saturday night, I think Martin Sexton’s has to win the prize. There are other artists whose records mean more to me and that I’d rather listen to. I don’t think there was a single more affecting moment than Dar’s performance of “Iowa.” The Nields’ high energy set was pure up, as was Eddie from Ohio’s. And I admired the Chris Smither performance quite a bit, particularly for the man’s coolness in the face of Mother Nature. But no one puts on a show like Martin Sexton, and I can’t imagine any setting—festival, coffeehouse, theater, amphitheater, club, or stadium—in which he couldn’t win a crowd over. Maybe after multiple performances, his act would seem as rote as Chris Smither’s, but I don’t think so. The song and the performance are two different things and, while Smither’s songs may be some of the best of the last half century, Sexton is one of the best performers I’ve ever seen.

Unfortunately, the post-Main Stage events of Saturday night curtailed my Falcon Ridge experience. I had been planning to stay through until Sunday night, but, at around 1:00 AM Sunday morning, the rain began again and, this time, it didn’t let up until around 5:00. My tent couldn’t withstand the storm and, within fifteen minutes, there was water entering the tent from the sides and from up above. The temperature that night had actually been a bit milder than during previous nights but, as I became wetter, I became colder. I didn’t sleep at all that night. By the time the rain ended, most of my clothes had been drenched, what was left of the food I had brought was ruined, and the sun had already begun its ascent. I was freezing and unhappy, and I decided to take out my frustration on my tent. It probably wasn’t fair to blame the tent for having gotten wet; after all, there were some much sturdier tents around me, and I learned that a lot of the folks in them had gotten wet too. But there was no convincing me, and I vowed that, as part of my preparations to leave the festival grounds, I’d throw the damn thing in the trash.

I did stick around for Sunday morning’s Falcon Ridge tradition: the gospel set. The Strangelings, Vance Gilbert, Eddie from Ohio, and The Nields shared the stage. I was a bit out of it, but they played with energy that probably would have been infectious if I’d been able to catch a few hours of sleep the previous night. The Nields didn’t play “Keys to the Kingdom,” a surprise. But EfO did play “Great Day,” which is a Sunday morning staple at Falcon Ridge. I love that song; it shows off the band’s vocal chops better than anything else they do.

After the gospel set ended, Sandro and I looked at each other and nodded. The festival was over for us. I would have to miss Tracy Grammer’s set, which is too bad, along with Eliza Gilkyson and Railroad Earth and a few others, including the headliner, Janis Ian. Sandro and I said our goodbyes, packed up, threw out my tent, and headed off, just as the rain picked up again. Not only did it pick up, but it became a torrential downpour. I later learned that, back in Hillsdale, the rain turned to hail, and disaster ensued. After Tracy Grammer finished her set, the festival ended. I’ll leave it to Matt to post something about that on his blog or elsewhere. In the meantime, there is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjGjqmQhiTk. Be sure to read some of the comments to the video; Tracy Grammer makes a couple of contributions.

So things didn’t end as beautifully as they’d begun, which is a shame. If I’d actually been around Sunday afternoon, I’d probably be cursing out the festival right now instead of praising it, vowing never to return. But those feelings would have evaporated pretty quickly, I’m sure. The festival was more tiring than it was 6 years ago but, then again, I’m 6 years older, and the darned thing is a day longer than it used to be. I suppose it’s a good sign that I’m already eager for next year’s event. In the meantime, I’ll be living in Pioneer Valley, and there’s plenty more live music to be seen. The first order of business, then, is to start buying concert tickets.

The second order of business is to buy a new tent.