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Newspaper Birds On A Summer's Day

It should be made clear, from the outset, that no $20 compensation is due for this post.





I've heard this song for at least 20 years, having bought the LP sometime in the 1980s, and the CD-reissue circa 1990. The recording linked here was made in 1972:



http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/s/Keeper+Of+The+Mountain/1Xpatm



The band is the Flatlanders. The song is "Keeper… Continue

Added by PB on March 14, 2010 at 12:30am — No Comments

Austin afterthoughts

A few follow-ups on last week's visit to the Lone Star City:



The guest-appearance by Nashville's Gwil Owen at Toni Price's Tuesday Happy Hour was a nice note to go out on. Owen's relationship to Price's music is something akin to that of Jimmy Webb and Glen Campbell's biggest hits; he writes these masterfully crafted emotional songs, she knocks them outta the park. Been that way since her… Continue

Added by PB on October 20, 2009 at 8:14am — 2 Comments

A meditation on Austin.

"You gotta get up to get down!" exhorted Toni Price from the stage of the Continental Club last Tuesday night, by way of explaining the dynamic shifts that can be common to her long-running happy-hour sets at the historic South Austin nightclub. Thus the hopped-up java-juke of "Too Much Coffee" coexisting alongside the soul-aching heartbreak of "I Doubt If It Does To You", or the spirited reaffirmation of "Hey!" being followed by the lonesome longing of "Just To Hear Your… Continue

Added by PB on October 12, 2009 at 11:00pm — 6 Comments

Guy Clark at the Belcourt (Nashville, TN), 9-23-09

The occasion for this sold-out performance to about 500 folks at Nashville's Belcourt Theatre was this week's release on Dualtone Records of Guy Clark's latest disc, Somedays You Write The Song, and the structure of the show suggested Guy is particularly proud of this one. Flanked on his left by fellow songwriters and ace accompanists Verlon Thompson and Shawn Camp, and on his right by the much-more-than-merely-accomplished rhythm section of percussionist Kenny Malone and upright bassist… Continue

Added by PB on September 24, 2009 at 2:00pm — 6 Comments

A toast to the New Lost City Ramblers

As our friend Barry Mazor reported this morning, Mike Seeger passed away last night from cancer at age 75. It was Mike's old band the New Lost City Ramblers who recorded the version of the Carter Family staple "No Depression In Heaven" that a young Jay Farrar later heard and decided to cover as the title track for his band Uncle Tupelo's debut album in 1990. One thing led to another and, well, you know the… Continue

Added by PB on August 8, 2009 at 6:30pm — 13 Comments

Who is this guy?

(Photo by Patti Foerster)





His name's Aaron Lee Tasjan, and until three days ago, I'd never heard of him. If you live in New York City and pay attention to roots music there, though, you probably have. Over the past couple days, I've seen enough of the guy, and heard enough about him from trustworthy fellow travelers, to… Continue

Added by PB on August 6, 2009 at 10:00am — 2 Comments

Fire Marshals Of Bethlehem, The World From The Back Seat

Fire Marshals Of Bethlehem

The World From The Back Seat

(self)



With three singers and songwriters among its five members, Austin pop band the Fire Marshals Of Bethlehem could potentially fall victim to too-many-cooks syndrome, but it doesn't turn out that way. Though frontwoman Julie Lowery, violinist Jenny Smith and drummer David Mider are distinctly different writers, their songs mesh surprisingly well on this second outing from the Fire Marshals (and first… Continue

Added by PB on July 25, 2009 at 7:30am — No Comments

Bob Dylan: An outlandish provocation

OK, so here's the deal....



First off: This is of course a follow-up to Grant's thread about Merle Haggard being "the greatest living American songwriter," which ended up provoking much discussion. That was partly because it involved high-profile names, and partly, I would contend, because the very statement which was posited as the provocation was so easily shot down (or at least opposed) that a lot of people were compelled to respond.



I have somewhat of a new-media-theory… Continue

Added by PB on July 16, 2009 at 9:31am — 26 Comments

Sons Of Maxwell

So there's a band from Nova Scotia (a faraway but friendly northeastern Canadian province) called the Sons Of Maxwell that I just came across today, and I wanna start out here by displaying one of their videos from a few years ago just because I think it's top-priority to make note that they really seem like they're a pretty good band, first and foremost:







Not bad, eh? I mean, maybe not the world's Next Big Thing, but a quite tuneful and pleasant buncha… Continue

Added by PB on July 15, 2009 at 11:02am — 1 Comment

MINUS 5, Killingsworth (Yep Roc)

MINUS 5

Killingsworth

(Yep Roc)



What makes the music of Minus 5 leader Scott McCaughey work is the juxtaposition of comfortably familiar musical forms – granted, quite a lot of them, often mashed together – with a strikingly off-the-wall and original lyrical perspective. He was raised on the '60s classics and has never really left there, whether it's garage-stomp or classic pop or strummy folk or dreamy country-rock, or other sounds that anyone from, say, the… Continue

Added by PB on July 6, 2009 at 9:44pm — No Comments

Holsapple, Stamey, and Family

A new collaborative album from former dB's bandmates Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey is a welcome occurrence – the disc, titled Here And Now, came out earlier this month on Bar/None – but as much as the record has quite a few new songs from both of them that are well worth hearing, it's the lost classic they pulled from the scrap-heap of yesteryear that I've had a hard time shaking these past few weeks.



It's called "My Friend The Sun" and it's by a late-'60s/early-'70s… Continue

Added by PB on June 30, 2009 at 1:00pm — 6 Comments

Bare, Bread, and America

Leave it to Bobby Bare Jr. to refuse to choose between David Gates and Gerry Beckley. His upcoming EP American Bread, due out August 11, is true to its title, consisting of covers from the catalogues of America and Bread.



The precise track-listing hasn't been revealed, but given that it's seven songs – requiring, presumably, a 4-3 split – I guess we'll find out which band he likes better once the sequence leaks out. (Personally, I would've played it "Sister Golden Hair",… Continue

Added by PB on June 19, 2009 at 1:30pm — 4 Comments

But Grant, you missed the best song...

I could have written this as a comment on Grant's latest entry about Christy McWilson, but it's time I put up something new in my own little corner here, and this probably will run a little longer than just comment-length. And, probably most importantly, I had – rather ironically – actually already been planning to post something about a song of McWilson's on that Guilty Women record… Continue

Added by PB on June 3, 2009 at 8:00pm — 6 Comments

Anyone remember Milo Binder?

Among the many folks across the blogosphere who chimed in to express their sadness at the passing of guitarist and songwriter Duane Jarvis a few weeks ago was a name I hadn't come across in quite some time: Milo Binder. "I never meet a person who knew Duane who didn't like him. He was simply the most easy going and positive guy theoretically possible," Binder wrote on his MySpace… Continue

Added by PB on May 24, 2009 at 10:00am — 9 Comments

Ray Charles "Modern Sounds" reissue

Normally I don't pay a whole lotta attention to reissues of recordings that have already made it to CD previously -- but in this case it seems worth at least noting, given the historical significance of the recordings in question. So, here's the scoop from the folks at Concord Records:





RAY CHARLES’ LEGENDARY MODERN SOUNDS IN COUNTRY & WESTERN MUSIC,

VOLUMES 1 & 2 TO BE REISSUED BY CONCORD RECORDS ON JUNE 2



Million-selling Volume 1 joins… Continue

Added by PB on May 19, 2009 at 8:00am — No Comments

Ian Hunter disc due July 21 on New West

The latest addition to the New West Records roster is the great Ian Hunter, whose next disc, to be titled Man Overboard, will be released on July 21. This fall, Hunter will reunite with the original members of Mott The Hoople for a string of shows in London.



Here's the full press-release scoop from New West:





IAN HUNTER, LEGENDARY MOTT THE HOOPLE FRONTMAN AND RENOWNED SOLO ARTIST SIGNS TO NEW WEST RECORDS



MAN OVERBOARD TO BE RELEASED JULY… Continue

Added by PB on May 19, 2009 at 5:43am — No Comments

Raitt remembers Bruton in Austin

As fate would have it, Bonnie Raitt was scheduled to play in Austin on Sunday night, a day after her former guitarist and longtime Austin music fixture Stephen Bruton passed away following a long battle with throat cancer.



Longtime Austin music journalist Michael Corcoran (who wrote the best of the Bruton obituaries I've found on the web) attended, and… Continue

Added by PB on May 11, 2009 at 9:00am — 2 Comments

Obama and journalism

Grant and I had wandered into some discussion about the future of journalism (or lack thereof) in the comments section of my recent "ND #81" blog-entry. So it caught my eye that in an… Continue

Added by PB on May 10, 2009 at 7:21am — 12 Comments

New Joe Henry disc due out August 18

The latest from renowned singer-songwriter (and, lately, an increasingly accomplished producer) Joe Henry is due out August 18 on the Anti- label and will be titled Blood From Stars.



Here's the full press-release rundown from the label folks:





Joe Henry to Release Blood From Stars August 18



Renaissance Man Eschews Decorum to Reveal More Vital, Raw and Dark 11th Album



Joe Henry's new record Blood From Stars begins with a poignant and… Continue

Added by PB on May 8, 2009 at 7:30am — 1 Comment

What price artistry?

Got a kind and friendly e-mail today from Jake Brennan, a Boston-area musician (and son of Dennis Brennan, among that city's roots-music laureates) who has started up a new "artistfunding" organization, with his associates Brad Powell and Evan Kenney, called The Hector Fund. (Exactly who Hector is, I'm not sure; didn't find any explanation of the name among the FAQs on their site, but no matter.)



Jake was writing… Continue

Added by PB on May 4, 2009 at 12:30pm — 5 Comments

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Created by No Depression Feb 17, 2009 at 9:06pm. Last updated by No Depression Sep 24, 2012.