Hi Grant,

Just wanted to take a moment to thank you for your recent comments here on No Depression. It means a lot to the folks who blog and post other content here to know that it's being noticed and appreciated. Since the majority of content on this site is crowd-sourced, community involvement is what makes everything here on ND possible. So, thanks again for taking the time to post comments - we really appreciate it!

- Lucca at No Depression

Thanks to Freddie Bienstock & the Colonel, Elvis Presley was given tons of crappy material. Not only that, they flat out stole Martha Carson's arrangement of "Swing Down Sweet Chariot," copyrighted it and she never saw a penny. (Elvis used to open shows for Martha. Elvis learned the song from Martha!) Freddie Bienstock could have brought good material to Elvis but he was greedy, short-sighted, and obviously couldn't recognized the difference between a good song and a bad song. Elvis' studio musicians dreaded the sight of Freddie Beinstock.

Glad to be friends, Grant!
Hope you enjoy the songs I've posted from my band The Headlocks.
I read No Depression all the time and would like to think that our new record Cuckoo Bird would have been received well somewhere among its pages...
Glad to be here on NoDepression
Rob

Hi Grant,
Thank you for the friendship.
Regards
Karin

i typically just ask what you've been listening to for my Americana needs. i'm still trying to figure out how i stumbled into my latest love - Rachel's.

Hi, Grant,
Alan at Appleseed Recordings here. I tried sending you the press release below to your grant@nodepression.net address and it bounced back. Would you care to share your new e-mail address, and should we still be sending you review copies of our releases? Is Peter now at the Seattle address or still in NC. Please let me know, and please read on,
Alan

For music feature program consideration...

Indie Record Label Appleseed, Haven for "Heritage" Folk/Roots Artists,
Celebrates 100th Release: New CD/DVD by Buffy Sainte-Marie

West Chester, Penn. -- It's appropriate that an independent CD label with a roster of creatively vibrant and often politically active musicians from the past five decades would mark its 100th release with a CD/DVD package in August by Buffy Sainte-Marie, the first recordings in 18 years from the once-blacklisted Native American folksinger-songwriter.

What's surprising is that the label, Appleseed Recordings, is not only surviving but successfully spreading its idealistic belief in music's power to move people and effect social change to new generations. The company's activist outlook and its core of "heritage" artists -- respected musicians associated with the folk and protest movements of the Sixties and beyond, but many of them long absent from the recording studio -- have inspired guest appearances on its special projects by contemporary performers such as Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Bonnie Raitt and dozens more. The twelve-year-old label has been recognized by nine Grammy nominations and, finally, a Grammy Award in 2009 for one of its main inspirations, Pete Seeger.

West Chester, Penn.-based Appleseed was founded by music-loving former lawyer Jim Musselman, who forged his own social conscience as one of consumer advocate Ralph Nader's "Raiders," forcing the auto industry into mandatory installation of airbags in motor vehicles in the Eighties. Determined to start a record label of musical and historical value, Musselman has gradually assembled a roster of releases by many giants of topical and personal songwriting as well as traditional music, including Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton, Sweet Honey in the Rock, former Byrds leader Roger McGuinn, Tom Rush, Jesse Winchester, Holly Near, and David Bromberg; a British contingent that includes Donovan, Al Stewart, and John Wesley Harding; and other international artists including Tommy Sands (Northern Ireland), Dick Gaughan (Scotland), and Sharon Katz (South Africa). This week's release of Canadian-born Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Running for the Drum" CD, which includes a biographical documentary DVD, "Buffy Sainte-Marie: A Multimedia Life," marks the overdue return of another independent musician who paid for her activism with a de facto airplay ban during the Nixon years in the Seventies.

"Appleseed has built its reputation as a label unafraid of politics, a place where an artist can speak his or her mind without fear of censorship," to quote the online All Music Guide. The company backs up its idealistic outlook by contributing a percentage of its profits to environmental, human rights, and other progressive organizations -- more than $250,000 to date.

Aside from releasing highly praised solo albums by its artists, Appleseed has issued albums of Underground Railroad and Spanish Civil War songs; "Give US Your Poor," a charity CD that paired established musicians such as Natalie Merchant with their down-and-out counterparts to benefit the homeless (for which Merchant was named ABC-TV's "Artist of the Week" in 2007); archival recordings of previously unreleased traditional American folk ballads; and expanded reissues of out-of-print LPs. In 2007, the label released "Sowing the Seeds - The 10th Anniversary," a 2-CD set celebrating its first decade with catalogue highlights and new recordings, including a historic pairing of Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen on the latter's "Ghost of Tom Joad." Numerous outspoken musicians on other labels, including Joan Baez, Steve Earle, Ani DiFranco, and Billy Bragg, have recorded as guest artists for Appleseed.

Appleseed has also been greatly responsible for the restoration to the public consciousness of folk and activist icon Pete Seeger and introducing his music to a new, young audience. One of the label's earliest releases was a 2-CD tribute to Seeger called "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," the first of three such tributes featuring mostly exclusive new recordings of Seeger-associated songs performed by Bruce Springsteen (his first real contact with Seeger's music, which led to his "Seeger Sessions" recordings and tours almost a decade later), Jackson Browne & Bonnie Raitt, Judy Collins, Donovan, actor-musician-activist Tim Robbins and a virtual who's who of classic and contemporary folk music. Fittingly, Seeger's "At 89" CD in 2008 brought the label its first Grammy Award (for "Best Traditional Folk Recording"); Pete's appearance with Springsteen performing "This Land is Your Land" at the pre-Obama inauguration "We Are One" concert in January 2009 added another link in the chain of tradition.

Equally gratifying to Appleseed has been the use of its recordings in times of political strife and human anguish. Years after its inclusion in Appleseed's first Seeger tribute, Springsteen's version of the Seeger-adapted "We Shall Overcome" civil rights song was used by NBC-TV news as the soundtrack to a video montage of self-sacrifice and suffering in New York City in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, broadcast nightly for a week. Grieving families also played the song for comfort in the wake of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. On the day of the US invasion of Iraq, Musselman added some updated lyrics to Seeger's Vietnam-era protest, "Bring Them Home," and brought Seeger into the studio to sing a timely new version, later augmented by Earle, Bragg, and DiFranco, for inclusion on 2003's Grammy-nominated "Seeds," the third of Appleseed's Seeger tributes. Springsteen subsequently wrote, performed and recorded additional verses to "Bring Them Home."

Musselman finds great satisfaction in combining his commitment to social justice with his passion for music: "We are more than a record label; we are a vision, in many ways using music as a tool of social change and peace. We also are unlike most labels in that we initiate many of our projects and then approach artists to share that vision."

For more information about Appleseed Recordings, to arrange an interview with Jim Musselman, or to request a review copy of Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Running for the Drum" (US only), please contact me via the phone number or e-mail address below. You can also visit our website, www.AppleseedMusic, for more information.

Thanks and stay cool,
Alan

Alan Edwards
Appleseed Recordings
(ph/fax) 215-628-4562
(e-mail) JoeVinyl@aol.com
www.AppleseedMusic.com
29 Betsy Lane
Ambler, PA 19002

I read an article of yours at a friends house in Oxford mag. on "Writing on Writing". I am now a fan of your crisp and mindful writing. Anything you may need to know about raising chickens, geese, peacocks, guineas, turkeys or ducks, please feel free to ask as I am expert in these matters.