Tag Archive | americana
Ry Cooder’s Election Special
I’ve got a bad feeling about the American Presidential election, and so has Ry Cooder. He’s so worried that he’s rushed out a new album, Election Special, on which every track is dedicated to alerting his fellow-countrymen and the rest of the world to evil intentions of the Tea Party Republicans and their wealthy backers […]
Woody Guthrie: a Liverpool celebration
A little bit of music history was made in the Rodewald Suite last night. The event was a celebration of the centennial this year of the birth of Woody Guthrie at which Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter, gave an engaging personal talk about her father’s life and music. Organised by Alun Parry, founder of Liverpool’s Woody Guthrie […]
Bob Dylan: 50 years of hard travellin’
Fifty years ago today, on 9 March 1962, Bob Dylan’s eponymous debut album was released. Dylan had arrived in New York only 14 months earlier and was still three months short of his 20th birthday. The songs on Bob Dylan consisted of familiar folk, blues and gospel material combined with two original compositions. The album made little […]
Ry Cooder: songs for grubby, grabbing times
‘These times call for a very different kind of protest song. ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone?’ We’re way down the road from that’. – Ry Cooder Which album released this year speaks most plainly to the times in which we live? No contest: it’s Ry Cooder’s latest, Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down, […]
Gillian Welch: The Harrow and the Harvest
There are ten tracks on the magnificent new album from Gillian Welch, The Harrow and the Harvest – ten songs that Welch half-jokingly says express ‘ten different kinds of sad’. So how can this music be enjoyable? The answer lies in the consummate musicianship of GillianWelch and her musical partner, David Rawlings. Their vocal harmonies […]
Robert Plant: pure joy
It’s all about that great once upon a time when there were changes to made and music actually was a catalyst for a lot of beautiful change. That’s why sad old hippies still keep their hair long. Because we were part of something that meant something more than just ego and income. In last night’s […]
The soul of a song
I’ve been dipping into the second volume of Clinton Heylin’s exhaustive study of the songs of Bob Dylan. ‘Dipping’ is all I can manage: I find the accumulated detail exhausting. And, moreover, it’s not ‘the songs of Bob Dylan’ – it should, more accurately be subtitled ‘the recordings of Bob Dylan’ because Heylin exhaustively catalogues […]
Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt
You were a tiny spark Caught in your parents’ eyes When they made love in the dark You were the big surprise And the old man came through Gave his very best for you And your mother’s arms They kept you warm Like no other arms could do When you couldn’t find the light At […]
Joan Baez: How Sweet The Sound
I saw first Joan Baez perform live at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester in 1964, being at the time addicted to her first two studio albums, with their strange and mysterious songs such as ‘Silkie’, ‘Barbara Allen’ and the ‘The Trees They Do Grow High’. I recall that I was surprised and thrilled that […]
Disfarmer: more interesting images than music
I’ve been listening to the new Bill Frisell album, Disfarmer. I know he is considered to be a great guitarist, but I find his albums, with the exception of Good Dog, Happy Man, rather dreary and uninspiring – ‘gentle sweet nothings’, in the words of a BBC review. Despite the favourable reviews, this one doesn’t […]
