Getting Hardy on my Shindell

Over the past month or so, I have been trying to digest the most recent albums by Richard Shindell and Jack Hardy, entitled Not Far Now and Rye Grass, respectively (and NFN and RG hereafter). They didn't go down as easily as I thought that they would. Initially, the glossiness of NFN stuck in my craw as irritably as RG's rhythmic woodenness and occasionally overwrought verbiage did. But after multiple listens of several songs at a time and, over the past couple days, listening to each in its entirety, I think I'm ready to reflect more positively...much more positively in the case of Jack's newest.

Let's start with NFN. I haven't gone back to the recent Shindell albums in some time now so, in a way, I feel like more of a stranger to his music than I did, say, when his live album, Courier (2002), came out. NFN feels familiar, like I've heard it before, but that's because it doesn't sound too substantially different from Vuelta (2004) or Somewhere Near Patterson (2000) or Reunion Hill (1997). As with those albums, the sound is folk-rock, with an emphasis on the folk. No distorted guitar, nothing especially uptempo. The hooks lie in the melodies, sometimes in the refrains, and, on one song, "Gethsemane Goodbye," in both.

Thematically, nothing more holds this album together than anything on his previous albums. Over his past few albums, Shindell has specialized in open-ended character portraits and unusual and provocative settings. The opening song, "Parasol Ants" features "a well-known local hood," busted, lying flat on the ground, as a line of ants marches past. "Mariana's Table" is the subtlest song on the album, with "trucks hauling wheat grain" roaring through Buenos Aires, interrupting a quiet scene about a woman, Mariana, selling her empanadas and beer. There is the hint of conflict, of political frustration just beneath the surface. He reports on his website that "Get Up Clara" is about a mule, but when I first listened to it, it seemed to be addressed to the singer's lover. Silly me, I had thought that he was working the old blues tradition of referring to his lover as a beast of burden. Since he once laid down a great version of "Sitting on Top of the World," I didn't put it past him. Anyway, "Get Up Clara" and "Gethsemani Goodbye" and "Balloon Man" are the best tracks on the album, along with Dave Carter's "The Mountain." I would rank it slightly below recent efforts, but I imagine that the real Richard Shindell fans will eat it up. I'll stick with his live album and, maybe, Patterson, or maybe his album of covers, South of Delia (2007), when I need a Shindell fix. "I still maintain that he's a bum," who's at his best at his most objectionable ("Are You Happy Now?" which reminds me of Loudon Wainwright III) and his most mysterious ("Transit" which reminds me of Flannery O'Connor).

So, what does it all add up to? A skilled craftsman working his craft. Nothing more. As usual with Richard Shindell, his newest album offers solid songwriting, smooth singing, and glossy production and arrangements. I never really get the feeling that there is any larger message to this guy's music, and that's not a criticism. Or, at least, it wouldn't be if the songs featured anything particularly uplifting or life-affirming. But so much of this guy's music in full of the soft fatalism that so many singer-songwriters indulge in. It's especially clear on the couple of examples of lyrics that reach out a bit; there's simply no reflection in the music of the emotions suggested by the words. This proves Stephin Merritt's comment that there isn't enough information contained in songs to signal the meaning of a performance to a listener. Artists like Richard Shindell verify the truth of that claim. In "State of the Union," for example, there is a quiet anger in the lyrics that simply isn't reflected in the music or arrangements or singing. To me, that's a sign of someone so middle-class (not to mention resigned to the capitalist world order) that he doesn't even realize how weak his politics really seem. On one recent listening to NFN, I had hoped that the Lilliputian story of "Parasol Ants" might reveal a broader, more originally expressed political message hidden in the album. But I don't think so. Interesting to note that he recorded this thing in Buenos Aires at a place called Amalgamated Balladry.

Still, there is such a thing as craftsmanship, and Richard Shindell has got it. Listen to NFN if you want to hear well-constructed contemporary folk songs, marked by carefully controlled singing and staid arrangements. Since I have a taste for this sort of thing, I'm sure I'll return to it from time to time, despite my more intellectual misgivings.

Jack's RG also feels familiar. It feels like part two of a saga of country music albums begun with Bandolier (2002). The arrangements are similar: guitars, dobro, bass, fiddle, a little piano, no drums. And, like Bandolier, RG improves with repeat listenings. The melodies and words and arrangements blur comfortably within each other, and Jack's weathered voice is appropriately cradled by his harmony singers who, on this record, happen to be his daughters. Jack's technical vocal proficiency isn't at Richard Shindell's level, but he's got more soul and a better understanding of his gifts than I bet Richard will ever develop. Really, his voice hit me the first time I ever heard him, at the Postcrypt Coffeehouse in the spring of 2000.

RG is Jack Hardy's 19th or 20th album, and I think it's one of the better ones; in the top half, let's say. In its thematic coherence and suitably austere arrangements, it may even be top 5. As he's gotten older, that weathered voice of his has deepened, its cracks combining with the man's personal history--his brother was in one of the Twin Towers when it collapsed and, over 30 years before, he was deeply involved in radical politics on the University of Hartford campus--to evoke world-weariness and political despair. The album opens with the song that best evokes that meaning: "Soundtrack," which overviews recent political issues and events with various references to pop and folk songs of years past. The refrain features his daughters' harmonies: "bye bye American pie / bye bye Blackbird." Later on, there's "Ask Questions." And, in between and thereafter, there are a bunch of above average country songs.

But while Bandolier was little more than an album of country songs (and at least three great ones: "The Moon Is Full," "Autumn," and "Everything's Bigger in Texas"), on RG, there are darker things going on. There is a disillusionment that, like Ani Difranco's, is earned. RG may have some good country songs on it, but it is quietly and brilliantly an album about how and whether people will face down the evil in their midst. "Soundtrack" suggests that "There's still time to lock up your daughters," and its use of older folk and pop songs helps evoke an innocence that Jack surely knows didn't define the era that they're usually associated with. "Crime of the Century" squeezes in references to the touring life and illegal downloads, while quietly suggesting that the real crime is the political disengagement in that lifestyle: "You headed out to save the world / wound up drunk and chasing girls / buddy can you spare a dime / for the crime of the century?" The title track is quiet and hypnotic in its evocation of an American south terrorized by the Klan and argues that we don't "Ask Questions" enough about that facet of America's past. "Prisoner"'s "And there's no one to ask questions / and there's no one to reply / to ask why i was taken / on the fourth day of July" evokes the same themes. Meanwhile, "If I Were to Lay Me Down" and "Kansas" and "Now and Then" are stark and beautiful, with Jack sometimes using his higher vocal registers to evoke restlessness and discontent.

I don't usually think of Jack Hardy's albums as having thematic coherence, but RG does, and the more I've listened to it, the more I've come to admire it. And, while it isn't as listenable as some of his more recent stuff, it's also a bit more ambitious in its own subtle way. I like it more than Richard Shindell's NFN; the songs and the voice have more depth than most of the stuff on NFN, and the austere arrangements take on a haunting, mysterious quality that Shindell can only approach (and never really does on NFN).

Jack Hardy's stock-in-trade is songs. I find that his focus on songwriting sometimes results in unimpressive albums. As I've said to Matt Winters in the past, his albums can be hard to listen to, because the instrumentation becomes monotonous over a dozen songs. Occasionally, an arrangement will nail the song perfectly: the guitar parts on "Porto Limon" from 1984's The Cauldron and the title track of Through (1991), the male harmonies on the title track of White Shoes (1982), the Roches' harmonies on "The Tailor," from The Mirror of My Madness (1976), and the slow-but-solid beat and lead guitar lines on "Johnny's Gone" and haunting mandolin part on "111th Pennsylvane," both from Civil Wars (1994). At their best, his recordings are extraordinary: two of the highlights are "The Tinker's Coin" from Landmark (1982) and "Eclipse" from Omens (2000). His best albums combine great songwriting with consistently good melodies and arrangements--The Mirror of My Madness (1976), Landmark (1982), Civil Wars (1994), Omens (2000), and Noir (2007) are my top 5, in chronological order. This year's Rye Grass deserves mention as a great one too. It's the first album of his I've heard that I've enjoyed a lot, in spite of its all-too-consistent arrangements. Why? Because the music, the lyrics, the voice, and the thematic consistency add up to something; it's not just a collection of songs. Whether he meant to or not, Jack Hardy has made a serious album of folk and country songs about a decaying United States of America, about how hard it is to speak out against the injustices therein, and how necessary it is to do so.

Odds and ends

I am listening to Jim Henry’s One-Horse Town (2005) as I type this. It is one of the CDs I bought at Falcon Ridge this summer. It is one of a series of “seven-song six-packs” from Jim Henry and Tracy Grammer over the past few years. Tracy’s are called The Verdant Mile and Book of Sparrows. Jim Henry has this one, and another called King of Hearts. I’ll write about the others soon. For the moment, here’s what they have in common. They are all short; seven songs each. Tracy plays and sings on Jim’s six-packs, and Jim plays on Tracy’s.

Anyway, One-Horse Town is excellent. It opens with “deep river blues,” a Doc Watson-arranged traditional song, which sounds like it came from a Jorma Kaukonen album, with some delicate finger-picking and tasty dobro solos (Jim overdubs his own parts; Tracy is credited with vocals and violin). The title track comes next. It’s a Jim Henry original, and it’s very sweet, about the power of roots and their power over the children who leave small town life. The portrait of small-town life is conservative—“a peck on the cheek when there’s no one around”—but loving, and the melody is simple and direct. Think of it as a more optimistic, less fatalistic version of Dave Carter’s “Ordinary Town.” The version of “St. James Infirmary” that follows is straightforward. Then comes a previously unrecorded Dave Carter song, “Quickdraw Southpaw’s Last Hurrah,” typically excellent, yearning and sad and hopeful. “A sad farewell” is instrumental, pretty good. “This Lullaby” is a Jim Henry original, a lovely ballad about growing up. Finally, there’s another Jim Henry original called “Ruby,” about his daughter, that begins, “when Bob Dole spoke / your mom went into labor / her water broke / she started screaming for the savior.” I love it.

I hadn’t realized that Jim Henry is such a good songwriter, but he is. On the basis of “One-horse Town,” “This Lullaby,” and “Ruby,” I want to hear more.

I’ve also just listened to Richard Shindell’s latest album, Not Far Now (2009). It is good but, so far, I’m not sure what else to say about it. It actually peaks toward the end: the final three tracks are "Get Up Clara," in which Richard lets his lover be their guide, Dave Carter's "The Mountain," and "Balloon Man" which had me spellbound at the Signature Sounds concert last month. Based on two listens to the disc, they are the best songs on the album, the ones in which lyrics, music, arrangement, and performance yield something I'd like to hear again. None of the other tracks have made contact yet, although "Parasol Ants" has a great lyric. I think I need to listen again.

I've also been listening to the Flatlanders' Wheel of Fortune (2004) which has stuff on it that makes me smile, even laugh out loud, and all the singers are great. I'm starting to get the feeling I've stumbled onto something great. After perusing some of their other stuff via iTunes, I now realize that I know some of their other songs. WFUV used to play a couple of songs from their 2002 disc, Now Again, that I really liked.

I have yet to listen to Jack Hardy's newest, and it's on my agenda to give it a spin tomorrow. Ditto Carsie Blanton's newest. And Loudon Wainwright and Chris Smither both have new albums coming out in the next month or so. Goody!

Erin McKeown joins Righteous Babe

See here.

Falcon Ridge, 2009

I returned from Falcon Ridge earlier this afternoon. After a few days worth of music and camping out on Dodds Farm, I decided around 10:30 this morning that I’d had enough. I ducked out during the Gospel Wake Up Call. With some help from some twenty-somethings, pushing my car through some mud, I made it out of the Lower Pasture and onto the muddy path leading past the mainstage and out to the main road. As I passed the mainstage, I heard a performer announce that they were going to play a Patty Griffin song, which turned out to be “Mary,” just as I was leaving the festival grounds. I momentarily thought about parking somewhere and wandering back to see some more of the show, but exhaustion and lack of enthusiasm about the Sunday afternoon performance schedule and a vaguely melancholy feeling that Patty Griffin would never again record an album as great as Flaming Red won the day. There would be some good stuff happening on the workshop stage, it looked like, but not good enough to induce me to go back. Actually, the Gospel Wake Up Call, usually one of the festival highlights, didn’t do much for me; what I heard of it, anyway. Really, without Eddie from Ohio or the Nields or Vance Gilbert or any of the other Falcon Ridge stalwarts, I couldn’t muster much enthusiasm. And as for this afternoon’s mainstage…Wild Asparagus, Dan Navarro, Hickory Project, Cliff Eberhardt, N+K Nields, Ellis Paul, and Mecca Bodega: I salute you. Hope to see some of you sometime.

There you have a large part of the story of this year’s Falcon Ridge: a lot of the regulars were absent. And there were a number of newcomers to the festival, along with a number of folks who had been away for some time. Given the destruction from last year, the festival promoters had seriously considered not putting the show on this summer. A friend told me yesterday that Anne and Bub were a bit distressed by the audience turnout this year: through Saturday evening, the crowds were smaller than they had been last year.

This summer’s folk fest was historic for me: it was the first time I’ve ever attended a music festival on my own. Matt Winters and company had other business, and the crowd that I used to folk out with a decade ago have either scattered all over the country or faded away. About twenty minutes after I put down my tarp, however, I discovered that my next door neighbors were Jessica and her mother and their friends. Jessica is the woman who drove me to the Ani show at the Pines last summer, and she also showed up at Falcon Ridge ’08. She is also part of the scene, acting as a manager (or street coordinator or something like that) for Girlyman, who were a big deal at this year’s fest. We caught up with each other and shared blanket space. So I had some company.

On to the music….

Thursday evening began with Kim & Reggie Harris and Magpie. These are two duos who date back to the 1970s, literally, and play 1960s-style commercial folk music. That is, they perform a lot of political music, clearly inspired by the songs of the protest singers of that time. In tone, spirit, and overall sound/feel, this was political music in the vein of Peter, Paul, and Mary or Joan Baez or Pete Seeger (as opposed to, say, Randy Newman). Pretty innocent stuff, for the most part. Kinda bland, but with one standout exception. Magpie performed one song without the Harrises, and it was a great one: “Barons of King Coal,” about mountain top removal in Appalachia. The four singers finished up with Phil Ochs’ “When I’m Gone,” and their harmonies took on that choral quality that I associate with the protest music that thrived during the era of the Civil Rights Movement and late as (beginning of) the sexual revolution (should that be capitalized? Yes). Throughout, they were backed by Mark Dann on bass, a Jack Hardy bandmate, and a part of the Falcon Ridge house band. Overall, an entertaining, if unspectacular start to the festivities.


Next up came John Flynn, another singer in the same mold, although he only dates back to the 1980s. He’s more in the vein of someone like Arlo Guthrie (who he’s travelled with), or maybe Steve Forbert. Some political stuff, but more like social commentary and topical tunes. His performance gained power as it progressed. An opening song that referenced “two wolves” was a like a bad Dave Carter song, but when he dumped the metaphors and took on concrete realities, his songs (and his performance) improved. He has a warm stage presence and made a couple of jokes and gently teased Arlo G’s harmonica playing. A couple of his more recent songs, “Semper Fi” and “America’s Waiting” were genuinely touching. He got a standing ovation from the Falcon Ridge audience. It was a step up from the opening act, and I felt like we were really underway.

The Folk Arts Quartet consist of four classically trained Berkley College of Music students playing music that they call “chamber grass.” What does that mean? What I heard reminded me of seeing Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas last year: fairly staid melodies, tight arrangements, and entertaining enough for a short time. Special kudos to Ivonne Hernandez, who showed off some toe-tapping and step dancing that, in conjunction with the music, was a lot of fun. Hannah Read hails from Edinburgh, Scotland, and has a charming stage presence. All four of them were all smiles. Very clean cut, a bit perky, great musicianship. Not much more to say, really. What do you think?

I decided to call it a night after that, and I wish I hadn’t. By the time I’d returned to my tent, Oneside had begun. I heard something really uptempo and fun-sounding. I heard a rollicking version of Johnny Cash’s “Cocaine Blues,” and I sang along as I set up my sleeping bag. So I missed out. And, rumor has it, Kathy Mattea put on a fantastic performance. Oh well. I got a good night’s sleep by Falcon Ridge standards, and I was ready for a full day of music on Friday.

I made it to the Workshop stage at 11:00 for something called “Heart & Soul,” with the Falcon Ridge house band (including Mark Dann and, does the guy ever get a break?, Jim Henry), Tracy Grammer (with Jim Henry, as usual), N+K Nields, Jon Vezner, and Dan Navarro. Navarro, the workshop MC, sang a song about songwriting, and it was witty and, yes, soulful. When John Vezner sat down at the piano a bit later for his second tune, he introduced himself as Kathy Mattea’s husband and proceeded to play a song that, from the opening line, made the Nields’ heads perk up, and they began to whisper excitedly to each other and to Jim and Tracy. It turns out that Jon had played whatever song it was on the Today Show about 15 years ago. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Jon Vezner has been a songwriter for a long time, working mostly for country singers. On the basis of what I heard at the workshop stage, the man not only can write, but he can sing too. A little while later, Nerissa Nields made a point out of not having met Jon until shortly before the performance and only now realizing that she was a fan. The Nields were charming, as usual, and they were very attentive to the other performers when they were on. In particular, they paid close attention to Tracy and Jim, who played David Francey’s “The Waking Hour” and, a bit later, “Gentle Soldier of My Soul” from Drum Hat Buddah. Tracy mentioned that, if she had learned what the title of the workshop was going to be a bit sooner, she would have learned how to play “Magic Man,” which elicited joyful laughter from the Nields and from a lot of the audience. The Nields did their classic “This Town is Wrong” and “The Endless Day,” from Sister Holler, a recent album of theirs which I enjoy more than anything of theirs (that I’ve heard) since their fantastic If You Lived Here You’d Be Home Now (2000).


As usual, Friday afternoon’s mainstage was devoted to the Emerging Artist Showcase. I caught maybe 16 or 17 of the 24 acts and, on the basis of those, I’d say this Showcase topped last year’s. I was surprised to discover more than half a dozen acts I would love to see back. I really enjoyed the openers, Colleen Kattau & Some Guys, who opened with a kind of faux-Irish dance-chant. Later, Sean Rowe sang in a Greg Brown-ish voice and turned Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on a Wire” into a soul tune, beating the crap out of Johnny Cash’s version. I finally got to hear chuck e. costa, who I’ve been hearing about for a long time, and I was pleased (though more by the delicate guitar playing than by the songs). A woman named Emily Elbert (who I’ve since learned is only 20) sang like an angel, although I can’t remember her songs. The Brilliant Inventions opened with a hilarious song about a dream the singer had had about someone’s girlfriend…a dream which did not involve sex, he assures us in the refrain. And I got to see Jenny Goodspeed for the second time. Someone out there thinks she’s pretty special; Jim Henry was there to play some guitar for her. While I confess I liked her performance more than the first time I saw her, I remain underwhelmed. When it came time to vote on who should return, my selections were: Angelo M. (a fifty-something blues singer who played a couple of sharp songs and played some mean guitar), John Elliott, and, one of my favorite acts of the entire weekend, Swing Caravan. Swing Caravan are a four-piece group—two guitars, stand-up bass, and “kitchen percussion” (including washboard, a couple of pans, and a spit bucket)—that plays “gypsy jazz,” in the style of Django Reinhardt. Their two songs concluded the Showcase, and they were fantastic. All four musicians are hyper-talented: the ensemble playing, the solos, and Matthew Ruby Shippee’s understated singing were all treats, and the material was choice. And much to my delight, during the 5:00 dinner break, the group set up next to one of the food tickets booths to play, and play they did, for a little over an hour. As it turned out, they had some competition: about twenty feet away, a circle of six or seven folks, featuring the young Anthony da Costa, had gathered for some picking and singing, and they attracted quite a crowd. Between 5:00 and 6:30 or so, I wandered between the two acts, but I really spent most of the time with the Caravan, which really knocked my socks off. They popped up again for another hour or so of performance Saturday afternoon, around the dinner hour again. As it turns out, this group has a regular gig in Northampton, MA (where they are based) at the Yellow Sofa Café through the end of September, and I’ll be sure to catch them.

Between 4:30 and 5:00 (that is, after the Showcase ended but before the dinner break), Sarah Lee Guthrie (daughter of yes-you-guessed-it and granddaughter of you-know-who) and Johnny Irion performed on the mainstage. Their performance began with Sarah Lee stepping up to the mike and, without introduction, performing “Birds and Ships“ (a you-know-who lyric recorded by Wilco and Billy Bragg for the first Mermaid Avenue album) a cappella. Then, Johnny Irion basically took over. He was the frontman, as it were, and he had a gentle, comforting stage demeanor. They concluded their set with a lyric that, Sarah Lee explained, was sent to her from her “Aunt Nora” in NYC, who works for the you-know-who archive. Her proceeded to tell us about a snippet of dialogue that you-know-who had recorded toward the end of his life in which he talked about songwriting. I play my G chords and my D chords, Sarah Lee quoted the man (trying to imitate his voice), “but every once in a while I throw in a C chord to impress the ladies.” With that, they went into “Folk Song.”


After the dinner break, I positioned myself on Jessica’s blanket, center stage up close, with a friend of her mom’s to watch the Doc Scanlon Trio. Doc Scanlon sang and played stand-up bass, and his bandmates played guitar and clarinet. Their set was made up of old jazz and blue tunes. Blues as in Sinatra, of course, not as in Howlin’ Wolf. The highlight came when Doc invited Jonathan Russell, a 14 year old jazz violinist, to join them. He did, and they tore into “Sweet Georgia Brown.” On that tune, and on a couple of others, the kid violinist smoked. Doc called out for him to solo on the couple of other tunes they played together. Impressive stuff. Not exactly the kind of thing I expect at a folk festival, but it was a nice bit of energy.

I only caught the very first and very last songs of Karen Savoca’s set, as Jessica returned to the blanket and asked if I’d like to take a walk with her, which I did. Actually, what I heard of Karen Savoca made me want to hear more. I might seek her out at some point.

On the way back to the blanket, though, a friend of Jessica’s stopped to inform us that a major storm was coming. Memories of 2008 immediately flashed through my mind, and I packed my belongings and hustled back to my tent. Just in time: a drizzle began…and it turned into steady rain with thunderstorms about a minute later. Eileen Ivers & Immigrant Soul were slated to go on next, but they didn’t. Instead, I later heard, they gave an impromptu performance at one of the other tents. Sorry I missed it; it was supposed to have been great. The Refugees set was cancelled, although they apparently were given a slot to perform on Sunday sometime, I think. And the traditional Friday Night Summer’s Eve Song Swap was cancelled altogether. Bummer. I hid out in my tent, reading Chuck Klosterman essays, until around midnight when I went to sleep, with the rain hammering my tent. There were some song circles going on that night, but I decided to get some sleep.

The good news: I woke up the next morning completely dry. My brand new tent did its job.

Saturday began at 11:00 with Stonehoney. This is a four piece band—three guitars and bass—and they also performed with an accordion player whose name I forget. They were flat-out great. Their arrangements were really tight, and their harmony singing was outstanding. Their sound was basically country-rock—sample lyrics: “walking hand in hand / alone with you,” “I’m stoned again / if it’s a sin / i just don’t care,” “could have turned right but I turned wrong / now I’m here and here’s as good as gone,” and “two years gone in the city of angels / two years down [or “alone”? not sure].” Their songs are hooky and propulsive. I sensed that they were dying to have a drummer on-stage to power them over the top. There isn’t a lick of originality in Stonehoney, but tons of energy and commitment, and I loved hearing them as the opening act on Saturday. I now see that you can get a bunch of their songs on iTunes—for free! Sitting here at my computer, they still sound pretty darn good.


For the next act, Tracy Grammer with Jim Henry, I once again moved down to position myself on Jessica’s blanket, once again positioned center stage up close. Tracy and Jim sat alone on stage and opened with “Gentle Arms of Eden” and “Crocodile Man.” With that, Tracy announced that they would perform the set that they had planned to do last year, eliciting cheers from the audience, many of whom had clearly been around for the destruction last summer. Jim took up the electric guitar for “Shadows of Evangeline,” from Tracy’s album of previously unrecorded Dave Carter songs, Flower of Avalon, produced by Mary Chapin Carpenter and Jim Jennings. Without the glossy production, the song’s basic weirdness was even cleared than it is on the recording. The antiwar song “Travis John” came next, followed by Jim Henry’s lead on “1952 Vincent Black Lightning.” Then came “28th of January,” which I heard at the SigSounds show last week. Before the next song, “Dirty Little Town” (from Tracy’s The Verdant Mile album), Tracy explained that she was from southern California and, “like,” grew up with smog days (as opposed to the snow days of the northeast—much more fun). “The Mountain” came next, a song that Dave Carter wrote specifically for Tracy to sing; Jim Henry sang the Buddhist blessing toward the end of the song. Then came “The Verdant Mile.” And, to finish the set, a great version of Townes Van Zandt’s “Poncho and Lefty.” It was a lovely set of music. Tracy’s banter was charming, and occasionally off kilter (like when she told us to put sun screen on because, she assured us, skin cancer was no fun). And Jim Henry is awfully funny. When Tracy introduced the final song by mentioning that it was about a couple of outlaws, “much like Jim and myself,” her bandmate said, in his best outlaw growl, “gimme a double lat-te…whole milk!”


The Most Wanted Song Swap took up the 1:00-2:00 time slot. Two of my three picks from last year were there—Lucy Wainwright Roche (LWR hereafter) and Blue Moose and the Unbuttoned Zippers (BMUZ hereafter)—along with Abi Tapia and Amy Speace, both of whom played at least one song that I actually sort of remembered from the previous year. LWR played entirely new material, including one called “The A & E,” about a date that she went on in England which ended with her spending the night with her date in the emergency room, after he had what in the end turned out to be a collapsed lung. Amy Speace probably had the most impressive singing voice (although I’m still partial to LWR). Her best song, a really great one in fact, was hooked around the line “the only thing I’ve learned / is that i haven’t learned a thing.” Abi Tapia, a very cute woman, was my favorite. She sang three superb songs “Another State Line,” about her inspiration for what she’s done with her life, the catchy “Let the Lover Be,” and the ready-for-country “Hand Over Your Heart.” Watch for her. Finally, BMUZ were also superb. Their sound is a difficult to describe, something I bet their press agent, if they have one, would love to hear. But really, they sounded like a cross between Crooked Still and Bartok’s string quartets—there were some bright melodies, but they were undercut by dissonance and a kind of eerie quality that made me pay attention. There was some singing too, but I was paying more attention to the instruments: two fiddles, guitar, and nyckelharpa. It’s an enticing sound, and I would love to see them again.


I skipped Susan Werner and Jon Vezner to walk around, eat, and rest back at the tent. I came back to the mainstage for Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams. Their set was high energy, as always, and I had fun. But I think the enthusiasm of the audience played a big part in my enjoyment of their performance. I like ‘em just fine, but I am not that impressed. If it’s the instrumental stuff that people like, then I wish they’d pay more attention to folks like BMUZ (pushing boundaries) or Swing Caravan (above average neo-traditionalism). If it’s the danceable rhythms, then why are they at a folk festival, and why not get one of those bouncy country or bluegrass groups to the fest? And why wasn’t Eddie from Ohio there this year? And I’m sure there’s an explanation for all the umbrellas going up for the final song that has nothing to do with the weather, but I’m not sure what it is.

I missed almost all of Lisa Haley & the Zydekats and, based on what I heard at a distance, there might have been something there worth hearing. In fact, I was attracted back to my tarp by the sound of a guitar solo. But, by the time I was back, it, and the rest of the set, was over.

Pamela Means played next. A graduate of the Ani Difranco school of guitar playing and writing (but not, unfortunately, singing), her performance was forceful, if nothing else. But she opened with a preachy song about New Orleans that had me pining for Ani’s “Red Letter Year” and thinking that, if this performer really was a Difranco graduate, I’d give her a B for guitar and a C for writing and maybe something in between for singing. She preceded the next song by asking, “where my bi-racials at?” She listened to the smattering of applause, announced “this is for both of you,” and went into the next tune. She told a story about fixing her car’s muffler with some guitar strings while on the road in Wisconsin, where she’s from, before playing a song about Maine. She played a jazz tune. She got my attention with a song I later learned is called “Maybe You Should” in which she told a “drunken swine” to “shut your face and drink your beer.” That was more like it. Maybe the Ani comparisons aren’t fair, but that’s all I could think about during her set. That said, she was okay.

Bob Malone won the Emerging Artist Showcase over 10 years ago and now played the mainstage. I knew nothing about him coming on, and I was impressed. He leads a 9-piece band, including 3 horns and 2 back-up singers, one of whom is his wife (and the subject of what I thought was the best song he played). The sound is a Memphis soul-type deal with some great piano, courtesy of Mr. Malone, and some simple but effective horn arrangements and soloing. The back-up singers danced and sashayed around their corner of the stage and, if anything, didn’t sing enough. Because the one weakness I heard was in the singing. It sounded like there were some good songs, and the instrumentation was hot, but Bob Malone’s singing voice simply doesn’t cut it. The guy is clearly pretty talented, but this kind of music absolutely requires a singer capable of putting over this kind of material. I thought of Taj Mahal singing with the Phantom Blues Band, and I tried to picture Malone’s band, with Bob himself at the keys, and Martin Sexton handling the mike. That would be something. At is was, I enjoyed the set quite a bit and found myself a bit put off by the fact that a lot of the same people who were up and dancing for Gandalf Murphy a few hours earlier had their asses planted on the ground for what was, I thought, a much more danceable set of music. Maybe everyone was tired.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the festival came next. I’ve seen Janis Ian a couple of times at festivals over the years, but I’ve never been as impressed as I was Saturday night. With the sun having set, the stage almost completely bare, and a big crowd assembled at their blankets, the performed was announced. Then, she stepped up to the microphone and, without any guitar accompaniment, began singing “Jesse.” After a few lines, she began to pick and strum, quietly. She had me completely and, by the end of the song, I semi-consciously realized that she had everyone. There was huge applause. Then she played a song called “Through the Years” that, from another singer, might have sounded mawkish and embarrassing but, from this woman, in this context, opened up a torrent of emotions in me (the short version being that I felt very intensely single by the end of the song). From there, she had me (and, it seemed, the rest of us) in the palm of her hand as surely as Chris Smither did during his nighttime performance at the 2002 fest. She told us a harrowing story about performing “Society’s Child” on a California stage when she was 15 years old and booed off the stage to the cries of “nigger lover” and how, after running off stage and crying and being convinced to return, the majority of audience, who was there to hear her after all, physically forced the racists back into their seats, racists who eventually “slunk” out of the theater, to use Ian’s word for it. Then she played the song, a song I’ve heard before, but never with the effect it had Saturday night. The tragedy of the song seemed unusually clear; this was a young teenager’s song, written during a very different time (something Ian herself mentioned when telling the story). It occurred to me that I would not be sympathetic to a white teenager who didn’t have the courage to stay with her black significant other…but then I thought some more about my own contact with racism, and I thought some more. Anyway, the point is that Janis Ian’s performance was transcendent, both for her music and for her talk. And it was more notable still for her announcement that the crew had to shut the generators down and that she had to leave the stage! No shit: she walked off and Claudia Marshall, the WFUV dj who’d introduced her, told us that we might have to wait for 25 minutes before she returned. It wound up being something under 20 minutes, during which some folks sitting a few yards in front of me began singing. First, there was Dar’s “Iowa.” Then, a bit later, “This Land is Your Land.” Miraculously, when Janis Ian returned to the stage, the spell resumed, as if it had never been broken. There was more chat, there were more songs: “At Seventeen” and a funny song about her autobiography. She was forceful, poised, confident, funny, and the highlight of the festival, interruption and all.

At that point, I made a spontaneous decision to call it a night. So, I skipped Girlyman and Ryan Montbleau. As I wandered around the campgrounds, I could hear Girlyman, and I’m not convinced that I missed anything too special. But I promise I’ll give them a chance some other time.

So…my personal highlights were Janis Ian, much to my surprise, and Swing Caravan, also to my surprise. Beyond that, I’d check out anyone from the Most Wanted Song Swap if any of those acts came anywhere nearby (which, given the Pioneer Valley, is pretty likely), and maybe Stonehoney too. And about half a dozen of this year’s “Emerging Artists” were darn good as well.

Special thanks and notice are due my tent, which held up under some pretty heavy rain on Friday night....See you next year!

Ani, in all her forms

I had been planning on writing on so many other things for so long--the Jack Hardy cannon, Robert Christgau's cool music reviews--but something else has come up. Thanks to a friendly trader I met on www.onherown.net, I now find myself with several (more) hours worth of live Ani recordings, over four shows: one from '94, one from '97, and two from '08. This particular trader has a fine selection of boots, and I had to choose from among a pretty wide selection. I won't bore readers with extensive reviews of each one...but some commentary is definitely in order.

Let's start with the performance from July 7th, 1997. This is from her European tour, her last series of shows before an August jaunt, opening for Bob Dylan. The legendary Andy Stochansky on drums, Jason Mercer on bass--a Canadian rhythm section. After she introduced them, she proceeded to inform her audience: "If you have any rhythmic or melodic complaints, you can address them directly." No complaints here: after listening to this show, I regret my recent comments about Ani's current band being my favorite. With all due respect to Allison Miller, Andy Stochansky has so many tricks up his sleeve, he makes Houdini look like Bozo. What he does with "Fire Door" and "Worthy" and, in particular, "Buildings and Bridges," make both songs sound better than they have ever sounded. Meanwhile, Jason Mercer is every bit the Sarah Lee. But Sarah looked so cool on stage. I was fortunate enough to see both of them play bass for Ani back in the day. I can hear their comparable musicalities on recordings, but I have a very fond recollection of seeing Sarah Lee grooving to the music on stage, looking oh so cool. As I write these words, I realize that my enjoyment of this recording has something to do with nostalgia. I remember seeing this band at the Meyerhoff in Baltimore and being blown away by everything. I remember hearing her sing the then-new, unrecorded song "Glass House" at Newport in 1996, and being mesmerized. I remember being with old friends at the Providence Performing Art Center not long after that, when she opened with "God's Country," which I'd never heard before that night. Strange in a way that Ani Difranco would be someone that I would associate emotional growth and the transition into maturity with, but I do. Anyway, she and her band were on fire on July 7th of 1997. "Glass House" sounds great, but the peak moment, I think, is "Letter to a John" leading into her old poem, "The Slant." And before she gets to the poem, she offers her lapdancing services for "10 deutchmarks a song."

If Andy S. sounded subtle and sensitive in 1997, he sounded raging and hard in 1994. The show from February of that year, from the now-defunct Wetlands in New York City, was a drums-and-Ani show, and it features some really hard-rocking stuff
from Andy...on basically every song. She covers her early catalog in lots of detail, including stuff I've basically forgotten about, like "4th of July" or "Falling is Like This," which reminds me that I should give Out of Range (1994) another spin one of these days. "Pick Yer Nose" is introduced as "a little dance tune." "In or Out" is so intense, it's almost unhinged. She precedes "My IQ" by asking her audience if she'd mentioned how happy she was to be there, and Andy's percussion is on overdrive on "Anticipate." And, after "Not so Soft," but before the encore ("Out of Range"), she ends the performance with an a capella cover of Bruce Cockburn's "Mama Just Wants to Barrelhouse All Night Long." Now, I can totally understand her affinity for Cockburn...but why that song, I wonder?

The material from 2008 is outstanding. The band captured on these recordings is the one that she continues to tour with today. It's been her touring unit since around 2006. Alison Miller isn't as subtle a drummer as Andy Stochansky, she's more of a power drummer. Todd Sickafoose has been playing bass for Ani since 2002 or thereabouts and is excellent, maybe her best bass player ever. And Mike Dillon handles vibes and a bunch of other percussion devices.

The recordings of her April 6th and July 13th shows from 2008 show off a slightly jazzy band, looking back at what has become a huge catalog of good and great songs. The April show has a tad too much audience noise for my taste, but the performance shines through anyway. What I love is the way that the old material shines through with Mike Dillon's contributions. When they play recent material, like "78%H20" and "Nicotine," he is spot on. For the April show, they opened with "Shy," and "Not a Pretty Girl" came a few songs in, and "As Is" a few songs after that...and Dillon is there with some subtle flourishes that elevate the material (and that goes double for "As Is"). This is something that her horn band didn't do (exhibit A: my recording of her April 14th, 2000 show at UC Davis, when the horns really muck up "Shameless," among other songs). On July 13th, a lot of oldies were performed, including "You Had Time," heartbreaking, and "Anticipate," harsh, but I was especially to hear "If He Tries Anything," performed solo. And "Untouchable Face" with a lot of vocal tricks and some typically subtle and effective touches from Mike Dillon's vibes. Final note on the April 6th show: they did "Evolve" to finish up. On record, it's just fine, or maybe slightly better than that. With the full band backing her, and a screaming audience, it becomes a fireball, a call to arms, a hard rocking rant. My recollection of her performance of that one at the Pines from last summer is a treasured memory.

Ani is one of very few touring musicians on the scene right now who I always go out of my way to catch, and these live recordings verify that I'm not making a mistake. Good thing too, because I have tickets to see her twice in November.

Signature Sounds 15th Anniversary Celebration @ The Green River Festival, Greenfield, MA, July 17th, 2009

A lovely evening of music last night in Greenfield, MA....The original plan had been to attend the Carsie Blanton CD release party @ Club Passim this evening and skip out on the Signature Sounds 15th anniversary festivities in Greenfield last night. In the end, the opposite happened. After discovered that Matt would be there (and would most likely not make it to Falcon Ridge), I got in the ole' rental car and moved on up to Greenfield. I thought at the time that I would make it to Cambridge tonight but, after an afternoon of sitting in front of a computer without getting a lick of work done on my book, I've decided to stay in tonight. I'm writing this blog entry, and then I'll be a busy beaver all night long.

So, then. Signature Sounds has been the home for a lot of my favorites over the years. I was happy to see a former SigSounder, Erin McKeown, hit the stage for a song or two last night. Knowing then that even former SigSounders were welcome, I held out hope for a Brooks Williams sighting. No such luck. One wonders why anyone would leave as cool a label as Signature, but I digress.

The festival began with the house band jamming on a few tunes. I was happy to see David Goodrich and Jim Henry playing guitars, and Mark Erelli joined them too. Paul Kochanski, who plays with the Nields from time to time I think, was on the drums. Didn't catch the bassist's name, but I learn from Matt's review of the show that the dude's name is Jason Beek (I promise, by the way, that everything that follows is being written without consulting Matt's blog; just wanted to get that detail right). They were solid. The opener was a jam on an instrumental Peter Mulvey song. Then they moved on to something called 28th of July, with Tracy Grammer, looking lovely and upbeat, joining in on fiddle. After yet another instrumental, a special guest arrived.

Erin McKeown is special indeed, special enough to get her own paragraph. Her first album for Signature was Distillation (2000), and it's one of the best pieces of singer-songwriter product of the past 10 years. I think I discussed it a bit in my review of her Iron Horse show from last year. At any rate, she played "Blackbirds" from that album, with the drummer producing a slightly off-kilter rhythm to the song that fit the tune just right. She showed up again later to sing some harmonies.

What followed was a series of short sets, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-25 minutes for the first five or six acts, followed by longer sets for the final four performers. There was a second stage too, but I never made it there. Hence I missed Rani Arbo with Daisy Mayhem, the Winterpills, and a few others.

Up first was Tracy Grammer with Jim Henry. It occurs to me that Jim has now been playing with Tracy longer than Tracy played with Dave Carter, a sad thought in a way. But the music was lovely. She opened with "Crocodile Man." The performance was good, but there were sound problems that would persist for the first few performances. Buzzing in the monitors, and an overall sound that was too bass heavy. Anyway, the first song sounded good, although it signaled to me that Chris Smither probably wouldn't be playing that song in his set later that night. After that came Carter's greatest song, "Gentle Arms of Eden," and a cover of Richard Thompson's "1952 Vincent Black Lightning," very good. Tracy mentioned, with a laugh, that that was the song that brought last year's Falcon Ridge Folk Festival to a rather disastrous conclusion (see here). They finished with Tracy's own, "Verdant Mile," a line from which became the title of Matt Winters' blog.

Next up was Mark Erelli. I don't know this guy's songs, but I've seen him live a few times before, and I always enjoy him. He has a Steve Forbert-ish singing voice, and he's comfortable with a band, and last night's band in particular. The highlight was Tracy Grammer's assistance on Erelli's version of Dave Carter's "Cowboy Singer." Back in 2002, this is the song that Mark Erelli did at the Falcon Ridge tribute to Dave Carter, about 9 days after Dave's death. His version of it sparkles.

Third: Caroline Herring, who I'd never heard before. She opened with "Long Black Veil." When I mentioned to Matt that this was the first song I ever learned how to finger pick on the guitar, Matt told me that I probably played it better than Caroline Herring. Ouch. Next up came Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors," an interesting pick. But then the singer redeemed herself with two originals, one called "Wise Woman," with reference to a number of folks that Herring met while traveling in southwestern Mississippi, and another, whose title I forget, about a southern artist. Both were good songs, performed smoothly.

Jeffrey Foucault performed next. The main thing I recall about the performance was the rockingness of the band, featuring some distorted rockish guitar solos from Goody Goodrich. I have yet to be really impressed by Foucault. He's far from bad, but he doesn't blow me away. He didn't play anything from the one CD of his I own, Stripping Cane.

I saw Peter Mulvey for the first time in Newport about 10 years ago, a performance that I don't remember in the slightest (although I have the photo of him that I took back then). He also enjoyed rocking out a bit with the band, and two of his songs from last night were memorable: "Some People," which sounded like a second-rate version of Chris Smither's "Hey, Hey, Hey" (and that's no dis), and "Sad, sad, sad, and so far away from home" (or something like that), for which Jeffrey and Erin (and Kris? can't remember) came back out to sing, and Mark Erelli came back out to play some electric slide guitar. They sounded fabulous together, even if the sound system really pounded the music out a bit too loud.

By the way, speaking of Foucault and Mulvey and Smither, have you seen this?

Anyhow, up next came Kris Delmhorst, Jeffrey Foucault's wife. I think I saw her for the first time at the new artists' showcase at Falcon Ridge. I also saw her at the Postcrypt, with Joanna and Marisa, back in 2001 or thereabouts. She's really cute, and she can write. The memorable moment from her set was a song called "1000 Reasons" that featured the Winterpills, another Signature Sounds band that I once saw open for Erin McKeown, backing her. I was hoping for "North Dakota" but no such luck. Her husband came onstage to sing harmonies for a song or two, but I can't remember the particular songs.

After a short break, the festival performers went from the very good to the great. Richard Shindell played alone onstage, sitting front and center with his guitar. He opened with "Clara," a song from his most recent album that I had not heard before. On the basis of that song, and one other from his new album, something about a balloon man, I think the album is probably great. Richard Shindell is an excellent songwriter, a strong guitar player, and an expressive singer. He played a brand new song, "Abby" (or "Abbie"?), about a dog, a song which he reports having written while in Florence (Italy, not Massachusetts). "There Goes Mavis" was from Vuelta. James Kellaghan's "Cold Missouri Waters" and Shindell's own "Transit" were the highlights. Both of them were spellbinding. After "Transit," all I could think about was Falcon Ridge in 2001, where I heard Shindell play that song on a workshop stage. I remember that it was a songwriting workshop and, after Shindell played, it was Dave Carter's turn to play. But before he did, he glanced at Richard Shindell and said, into the microphone, that that was one of the greatest songs he'd ever heard. I know what he meant.

Finally came the performance I'd been waiting for, the one that I suspected (correctly as it turned out) would be the highlight. Chris Smither performed solo, which is what I like best. The last two times I'd seen him, he had a couple of backing musicians (including David Goodrich on guitar). But he doesn't need them, not with his foot-tapping and his incredible guitar playing. He opened the show with the song he's played to open each of the past four or five shows of his I've seen: "Open Up." The opening lines are, "I don't think for pleasure / it's just hard not to do / my thinking is a measure of / how much I need a clue" and that alone, along with Mississippi John Hurt-ish guitar playing and a rich, full, deep, weathered voice, got me hook, line, and sinker. Not much he could do to screw up after that. I mean, I think of that song as one of his more ordinary songs, but it beats the pants off of 90% of the other performers I see at folk festivals. With his second song, "Link of Chain," it's more like 98%: "can't you see / i can't explain / i'm a little like a link of chain / just a ring around another / running in and out again." The rest of the set was devoted to new songs, which I imagine will appear on his new album, due out in September. There was a song about his new adopted daughter called, I think, "I Don't Know" that wound up not being about his daughter at all. There was a topical song called "Surprise, Surprise." And there were two others, both in the mold of "Mail Order Mystics" or "Drive You Home Again," that sort of thing. And if you don't know either of those songs, you're missing out....Once again, Chris Smither shows what 40+ years of writing, singing, and performing experience will do for you. The highlight of the evening.

That's not to say Crooked Still didn't knock my socks off too. They did, particularly by opening with a cover of Neil Young's "Harvest Moon" before doing one of my favorites of their originals, "Lula Gall" (or "Hop High," as I know it). Really, this is a great band. Their performance was hot, and it featured some dynamic interplay between bass, cello, and fiddle, with the banjo occasionally asserting itself in some wild solos. They finished up with their version of "Shady Grove" and invited us to sing along, which we did.

We left before the final performance, by someone named Eilen Jewell, who I've never heard (of) before.

So that was that. Looking forward to Falcon Ridge, coming up this Thursday.

Odds and ends

It's been a month or so since I last posted, so here are some Sunday evening reflections (music-related, of course)....

I've been listening to Tracy Grammer's Book of Sparrows a lot lately. It connected with me for the first time in a powerful way this past March, while Denise and I were in the car, on the way to New Jersey. The scaled-down arrangement of Dave Carter's "Gypsy Rose" is the highlight, a definite improvement on the version she recorded for Flower of Avalon. The unreleased Dave Carter song "Lord of the Buffalo" is a gem. And, on our drive from the outer banks of North Carolina to Norfolk, Virginia, I found myself tearing up at Tracy's version of Jackson Browne's "In the Shape of a Heart." The CD is 7 songs long, about 30 minutes of music; those three songs, plus Tom Russell's "Blue Wing" and Simon and Garfunkle's "April, Come She Will" are all great. There's also a song called "Travis John," which is (a bit obliquely) about a boy killed in war on foreign soil. I think Tracy Grammer has become a better and better singer over time, or maybe it's just me. I've never disliked her, but I've never liked her as much as I do now. She'll be playing Falcon Ridge this year, and I can hardly wait.

What else? Some of the greats have new material out. The new Neil Young album is very good. It's full of loud, toneless crunch, and there are at least three really good songs, two of which bookend the CD. I'm not sure it's quite at the level of Living with War, although Christgau disagrees with me. I like it better than the new Dylan album, which has some great hooks here and there (like on "Jolene") but doesn't connect with me as well as Modern Times or "Love and Theft" or Time Out of Mind.

I recently bought a used copy of John Hiatt's Crossing Muddy Waters, parts of which I heard for the first time on WFUV in New York. The opening three songs are all excellent, and so is "Gone," about halfway through the record. Still trying to listen to the other songs to see what's there. Also bought a used Flatlanders CD, but I haven't listened to it yet.

I've been thinking a lot about Jack Hardy lately. I'll be sure to write more about his stuff in the weeks to come. Excited to see that Richard Thompson and Loudon Wainwright will be playing some shows together on the east coast this fall. I've already got tickets for their show at the Calvin Theater in Northampton.