Tag Archives: Americana

Easy Ed’s American Roots Music Broadside: March 2021

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The Return of Easy Ed’s Broadside? 

Indeed. Get ready for a more consistent monthly dose of new releases, music that’s been lost and found, philosophical rambling, cultural insights, news, views, videos, humor and more.

How Was Your 2020?

So yeah….this was supposed to be a monthly column after I retired from doing my weekly gig at No Depression’s website last August. But life got in the way of that idea. Between the stress and anxiety of working from home, isolation save the weekly trip to Trader Joe’s, the rhetorical political theater – spewing angst and hatred to a divided nation – I simply lost interest. Not in music, for it’s been a period of intense exploration and discovery, but in doing anything that involved much thinking or an attempt at creativity. I’ve fallen into a long season of passivity, satisfied with endless hours of watching films from Scandinavia to Korea, Germany to Hollywood. And those television mysteries from the BBC that seem to use the same actors like secondhand retreaded tires, and fascinating but soon forgotten documentaries about this, that and whatever. No comedy specials though. I lost my will to laugh. But the penlight is getting brighter and yesterday I was actually accused of sounding chipper. A first time for everything.

Please God…I Never Want To See Another Livestream Concert Again!

As I sit here punching above my weight, certain states that look more red than blue are tossing the masks and reopening the bars, restaurants, gyms and theaters. Down in Austin and Nashville where there are more unemployed musicians than grains of sand on a wide Hawaiian beach, a majority of club owners are not yet rushing to begin booking concerts. Optimism easily obscures reality and we’re likely another few months away from live entertainment. So at least for a little while longer we’re left with these sometimes interesting yet hardly satisfying live sets from empty stages and living rooms. I know it’s gotten bad when a favorite artist with hundreds of thousands of followers on Facebook only managed forty-two viewers on their recent weekly broadcast.

Got Any New Music You Can Share?

Sure. I’ve been trolling along with the last of the great music bloggers, seeking out those albums and songs that I have never known of, and scouring the rolling waves of new releases that came out in the wind and left in a whisper throughout these past months. When you put everything you got into an album with the hope of touring and getting noticed, it’s been a friggin’ heartbreak after heartbreak. A hundred years from now some ethnomusicologist will no doubt write a successful book on the lost music of 2020.

I know…it’s not a live performance and what does it have to do with roots music? Whatever. I like the song and the whole album and I like this guy even though I am one of the last people on Earth who seems to know of him. His album Songs for The Drunk and Broken Hearted is his thirteenth. I got myself the bonus recording where he does a whole band thing followed by an acoustic version. Brilliant music. And he does a lot of livestreams. Passenger is the name he records under, but he’s Mark David Rosenberg.

Dirk Powell is – damn, it’s a lot easier if I just quote his allmusic.com biography:

Dirk is considered one of the world’s leading experts on traditional Appalachian fiddle and banjo styles, along with carrying on the traditions of his late and legendary father-in-law Dewey Balfa, as well as the accordion player in the Cajun group Balfa Toujours. 

As you can hear above, the new album When I Wait For You is much more in the singer-songwriter category than his band work and it’s truly a beautiful work.

This is The Kit’s fifth album Off Off On is in heavy rotation here at my abode. Fronted by English singer and songwriter Kate Stables, who is based in Paris, her exceptional musical exploration includes whomever joins her in the moment. She’s often playing a banjo, and reviewers just can’t seem to put a tag or genre on her.

Cordova’s Destiny Hotel was a great find from this Tennessee-based band that features vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Joe Firstman, keyboardist Sevans Henderson, guitarist/vocalist Lucca Soria and vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Toby Weaver. They sound and look like a throwback to the Sixties that seems to be brought up in every article and review written, which probably pisses them off to no end. I feel for these folks since they are road hogs who have established themselves a large fanbase with nonstop touring. Morton

Morton Valance is simply indescribable and irresistible. A London-based duo who’ve released eight albums in fifteen years, I have never heard them until Bob & Veronica’s Great Escape was released. Th3e video is sort of an outlier on the album, but it truly shows their creativity and ability to step out, as the majority of the songs are slow tempo with tight and intricate harmonies. The duo features Ann Gilpin and songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Robert ‘Hacker’ Jessett. Along with this album, in 2020 they wrote and directed an autobiographical film documentary entitled ‘This Is A Film About A Band’ that was premiered at the Doc’N Roll Film Festival in London. Can’t wait to find it.

Australian singer-songwriter Emma Swift released an amazing – one more time – amazing album of Dylan cover songs titled Blonde On The Tracks. Based in Nashville and recorded with her partner Robyn Hitchcock and featuring Wilco’s Patrick Sansone, it’s pretty hard to believe this is her first full length album. Before becoming a musician, she was a radio broadcaster in Australia, hosting an Americana music show In the Pines. 

Almost At The End…..Shameless Self-Promotion

Well that was fun. So here’s the deal: As most of you may know, I run a Facebook page and a Flipboard e-magazine that are linked here on my website. Every single day I scour the internet for music news and articles of interest, so you don’t have to. Every night on FB I also post a video to close it out. (This moth I’ve dedicated myself to finding 31 John Prine performances.) If you haven’t visited, please do. I should mention the Flipboard has over 3,000 articles including many that don’t get posted on Facebook, and is a great way to pass the time. Download the app or visit on your computer or tablet.

 One More Thing…March is Women’s History Month!

The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in commemorating and encouraging the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history.

 

 

 

 

 

Beyond The Top 10: Americana and Roots Music

CHUM Radio Hit Parade

It’s August 2020 and when I first pulled together this massive list it was about forty days ago. A lot has happened since then. The pandemic has simply gone away, nobody is wearing masks anymore, kids are going back to school safely, live music is back again and nobody is dying. Oops…sorry. That was a cut and paste from the Trump campaign’s Twitter account. The reality is that things still are very scary, people are dying every day, it’s too soon to know about school resuming and live music has not only completely stopped, but we’ve come to experience that live streaming is not as warm and cuddly as we thought it could be. 

Other life changing events that have impacted this list include Taylor Swift’s musical adulthood and the beautifully written and produced “folklore”, Gillian and Dave have begun to release all sorts of recordings that were almost lost in the tornado, Lori Mckenna’s album is an absolute contender for top ten, Joan Shelley and Bruce Springsteen both released live albums that are stripped down and delicious. And there’s a bunch of other new things recently released, but I’ll save those for the next time. 

I rarely rank titles, but in a moment of weakness the first ten here are (or were) my favorites of 2020, back in June. It might not have changed all that much, but in the end, who cares? I’m sharing this to help with your own musical exploration, not tout my own. I’m just a guy who has time on his hands to dig through the virtual wooden crates of albums and this is all stuff I’ve found and like. Maybe you will too.

Nathan Rateliff – And It’s Still Alright
Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit – Reunions
Logan Ledger – Logan Ledger
Bonnie Light Horsemen – Bonnie Light Horsemen
William Prince – Reliever
J.S Ondara – Folk n’ Roll Vol.1: Tales of Isolation
Tre Burt – Caught It By The Rye
Gil Landry – Skeleton At The Banquet
Eliza Gilkyson – 2020
Bonnie “Prince” Billy – I Need A Place

 

In absolutely no order whatsoever, neither alphabetically nor by release date because that was way too hard to do, here’s the rest of recent stuff I dig. And this is obviously not all that I listen to. I spend about half the day with these,  and the rest of the time I listen to a lot of older material. For example, lately I’m enchanted by Hawaiian slack key guitar, and jazz from 1940 to 1960. But those aren’t listed here. That’s another column or two. You are getting pure 100% Americana…whatever that is. I think.

Drive-By Truckers -The Unraveling
Jen Starsinic -Bad Actor EP
David Mayfield – Boy Howdy!
Nora Jane Struthers – Bright Lights, Long Drives, First Words
Sierra Hull -25 Trips
Love Me In The Dark -Love Me In The Dark
Buck Curran – No Love Is Sorrow
Honey Harper – Starmaker
The Mastersons – No Time For Love Songs
Brandy Clark – Your Life Is A Record
Steve Earle – Ghosts of West Virginia
The Mammals – Nonet
John Moreland – LP5

The Deep Dark Woods – Broadside Ballads Vol. 2 EP
Mark Mandeville & Raianne Richards – Road May Rise
Ray Remington – Texas Rose EP
Joe Edwards – Keep On Running
Teddy Thompson – Heartbreaker Please
Sarah Jarosz – World On The Ground
Mapache – From Liberty Street
The Secret Sisters – Saturn Return
Rose Cousins – Bravado

Jake Blount -Spider Tales
Tessy Lou Williams – Tessy Lou Williams
Jason Wilbur – Time Traveler
Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher
Neil Young – Homegrown
Bob Dylan – Rough and Rowdy Ways
Jonathon Wilson – Dixie Blur

The Hanging Stars – A New Kind Of Sky
Mark Erelli – Blindsided
Fairport Convention -Shuffle and Go
Dave Simonett – Red Tail
Jim Lauderdale – When Carolina Comes Home Again
Watkins Family Hour -Brother Sister
Clem Snide – Forever Just Beyond
Lilly Hiatt – Walking Proof
Swamp Dogg – Sorry You Couldn’t Make It

Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud
James Elkington – Ever-Roving Eye
100 Mile House – Love and Leave Me
Laura Marling – Song For Our Daughter
Laurie Lewis -And Laurie Lewis
Western Centuries – Call The Captain
Lucinda Williams – Good Souls Better Angels
Chatham County Line – Strange Fascination
The Lowest Pair – The Perfect Plan
Joe Ely – Love In The Midst of Mayham
Mr. Alec Bowman – I Used To Be Sad & Then I Forgot

Steve Forbert – Early Morning Rain
Damien Jurado – What’s New, Tomboy?
Gretchen Peters – The Night You Wrote That Song: The Songs Of Mickey Newberry
Krista Detor – Chocolate Paper Suites
Emily Duff – Born On The Ground
Pharis and Jason Romero – Bet On Love
Caleb Caudle – Better Hurry Up

Terry Allen & The Panhandle Mystery Band – Just Like Moby Disc
The Haden Triplets – The Family Songbook
Marcus King -Eldorado
Dayna Kurtz & Mamie Minch – For The Love of Hazel: Songs For Hazel Dickens EP
Charles Wesley Godwin – Seneca
V/A – Strut My Stuff: Obscure Country & Hillbilly Rockers
Vera van Heeringen – Won’t Be Broken
Norma MacDonald – Old Future
Zach Aaron – Fill Dirt Wanted

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.

New Americana and Roots Music: RPM 9

Photo by Pixabay

An occasional series of Americana and roots music videos. Sharing new discoveries, and occasionally revisiting old friends.

I was planning on sleeping in late today since I had the day off. I’ve been telecommuting these past few weeks, which has been keeping me busy and in touch with people beyond my four walls. Between my workmates scattered throughout the country and Canada, as well as my social media friends and connections, I’ve been lucky to remain in almost constant contact via chat, phone, and online conferencing, which certainly helps tamp down feelings of loneliness during these strange times. It’s also given me time to reconnect with folks I haven’t been in touch with for decades, and I appreciate those moments of sharing memories and catching up.

It’s been almost two weeks since I last went out to my local market, and with nothing else to do this early in the morning, and the fact that we older folks have an hour to shop before the rest of y’all can come in, I gloved up, put on my mask, and grabbed the illegible list left on the kitchen counter by my son. Do you know why most 20-somethings can’t spell or write on paper with a pen or pencil? They grew up with autocorrect and keyboards. I don’t really believe that, but doesn’t it sound like something a grumpy old man would say?

Ain’t gonna bore you with the details, but when I arrived at the store there was a line a quarter-mile long because the seniors think that six feet of social distancing really means 15. But things moved fast, and within an hour I was on my way home with $200 worth of stuff in the trunk of my car. I was even able to grab a half-dozen rolls of toilet paper, which I considered for a moment putting on eBay as soon as I got home and selling ’em for $100.

The biggest benefit to working at home, other than not having to get dressed or take a shower every day, is that I’ve been able to listen to my tunes through speakers rather than headphones or earbuds. It’s something I no longer do very often with the exception of when I’m driving, and as the days have passed I have substantially increased my consumption. I’ve also been monitoring a lot of the livestreams that people have been doing, and while that’s not as much fun as a concert, I like to look beyond the players and check out their furnishings and see how they live. Brings out those voyeuristic tendencies, I suppose.

So let me shut up now and share some music. Plenty of new albums have been released in preparation for a summer festival season that has now faded into unlikelihood, so marketing plans and the ability to get the word out is making tough times tougher. And of course I’ve found a few older videos you might enjoy seeing. I’m gonna link to each artist’s website and let the music play. Take care and stay safe.

Laurie LewisAnd Laurie Lewis

An album of duets from the queen of West Coast bluegrass. A champion fiddler who also sings, writes, and plays guitar and other string instruments, Lewis has been releasing albums since the mid-’80s. She has appeared on the Grand Ole Opry and Prairie Home Companion, and her discography is a gold mine. Here’s one with Leah Wollenberg from the new album that they performed last November.

Laura Marling Song for Our Daughter

Originally planned for a late summer release, Marling actually pushed this forward to April. Her summer tours were suddenly canceled, and speaking on NPR she said, “I suddenly realized that not only was I going to miss performing, but I was also going to miss that opportunity to connect with people in that way, and I hadn’t anticipated feeling like that. I felt like the only thing I could offer was the album.” This is a complete Tiny Desk Home Concert from her living room.

Logan Ledger – Logan Ledger

With T Bone Burnett producing and playing guitar on half the tracks, as well as a stellar band that played on the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss Rising Sand collaboration backing him up, this is a steaming hot debut. I give Ledger all the credit for making this album sizzle, with an amazing vocal range and style.

 

Buck CurranNo Love Is Sorrow

Formerly of the duo Arborea, this is Curran’s third solo album, and this video was filmed and edited by his daughter Shylah. Currently living in Bergamo, Italy, Curran is a luthier, guitarist, singer, songwriter, and producer who has opened my ears up over the years to what one may call “cult-Americana.” This album takes me back to the later-’60s folk era, reminding me of Pearls Before Swine, Tom Rush, Tim Hardin, and the balladry of Marty Balin.

Eliza Gilkyson2020

This is a beautiful new recording featuring a great band of musicians from Austin, where Gilkyson resides. Her website describes the album much better than I could:

“A blend of new and old, reflecting the protests and activism that have defined her generation, including her interpretation of some folk favorites by Bob Dylan, ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,’ and Pete Seeger’s ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone.’ Eliza also adapted a new song, ‘Beach Haven,’ from a letter written by Woody Guthrie in 1952 to Fred Trump, who at the time was his landlord, regarding his segregationist renter policies. Ever the optimist, Woody pleaded to Trump to ‘open your doors’ and ‘rip out the strangling red tape’ that kept the apartment from embracing all races.”

Mark ErelliBlindsided 

I can’t imagine a more appropriate title for an album released during these times. Over two years in the making, and with a full tour lined up and ready to go, veteran folksinger Erelli turned it up a notch on this project and then got kicked in the gut. I think I have over a dozen albums of his and various side projects, but this one is really special. From his blog:

“Though the reviews have been fantastic, it’s been a very confusing time for life in general, never mind for self-promotion. An album’s release pales in comparison to the real challenges ahead. And yet Blindsided is the culmination of over two years’ hard work, my own and others’, and I will continue to look for appropriate ways to honor this. If you’d like to contribute, the best thing you can do is to buy this record, listen, and encourage others to do the same.

In this challenging time, aside from following public health guidelines and keeping my family safe, it’s difficult to know what to do. Honestly, supporting my wife (who works in health care) and maintaining structure and a sense of normalcy for my boys keeps my plate pretty full. But as Rosanne Cash put it, ‘artists are the premiere service industry for the heart and soul,’ and I’d like to do my part.

So, what do you need? More goofy Instagram story songs? A YouTube Live fan Q&A? Online concerts? Is there a way I could be of service to you right now? How can I help?”

Imagine, he’s asking how he can help us. Here’s three songs from the new album and something he posted to help first responders in his home state, Massachusetts.

 

 

 

This was originally published at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music’s website, as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.

 

 

Americana Lost and Found: 1940-1947

Film Reel Container

On April 14, 1891, a Chicago businessman named Mortimer Birdsul Mills was granted a patent for a major improvement in what was then called a coin-actuated vending apparatus. It gave consumers of cigars the opportunity to select which one of several brands housed inside of a machine that they wanted to purchase. Mills established the Mills Novelty Company, and over the next several decades manufactured slot machines for gambling and separate devices that dispensed chewing gum, hot coffee, and cooled Coca-Cola bottles. With Mills’ son and grandchildren running the business, in 1928 it added coin-operated radios, phonographs, and eventually jukeboxes to its offerings.

One of the coin-operated machines of particular interest delivered to the public a new music configuration called Soundies. These three-minute black-and-white musical films were produced between 1940 through 1947, shot on 35mm film stock, and then transferred to a more affordable 16mm loop that featured eight different performances. For 10 cents you would get to watch one at a time with no ability for selection, but hopefully you’d enjoy whatever clip was next up and keep feeding the dimes.

At least seven production facilities in New York, Hollywood, and Chicago produced Soundies, for which the performers recorded the songs in advance and then lip-synced for the film. The machines that played them were sold and marketed under various brand names — Hi-Boy, Troubadour, Dancemaster, Do-Re-Me, Swing King, Zephyr, Studio, Throne of Music, Empress, Constellation, and The Panoram.

The Mills Panaram

The Panoram, built with high quality wood and designed in an art deco motif, was placed in public areas such as soda shops, cafés, taverns, roadhouses, and bus and train stations. While the first year was a runaway success, bringing the Mills family millions of dollars, World War II quickly interrupted its distribution with a shortage of raw materials to build more cabinets. By 1947, with television in the beginning stage of home entertainment dominance, Mills discontinued the Panoram, leaving an archive of approximately 1,800 Soundies.

Merle Travis – “Old Chisolm Trail”

Covering all genres of music, such as classical, big-band swing, hillbilly novelties, and patriotic songs, Soundies also added comedy sketches in 1941. In American roots music you had Merle Travis, The Hoosier Hot Shots, many jazz bands, and what has become their legacy: a huge catalog of African American artists who would otherwise not have had the opportunity to be filmed. Eventually the Soundies were sold off to several home video companies and distributed in a variety of formats, with many currently available to view on YouTube.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe and The Lucky Millinder Orchestra – “The Lonesome Road”

In the mid-1960s, the Scopitone jukebox made its debut based on a similar technology as The Panoram but now offering color format. They were initially available in Western Europe but soon spread to the United States. Some of the performers included The Exciters, Procol Harum, Neil Sedaka, Jody Miller, Bobby Vee, and Nancy Sinatra’s popular “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.” Bypassed by The Beatles and others from the British Invasion, the Scopitone jukebox faded by the late ’60s, although its technology continued for several years.

Lani McIntyre – “Imua Ailuni”

The Panoram and Scopitone systems each preceded and predicted the popularity of music videos popularized by MTV. Two recommended sources for more information about Soundies, the Panoram and Scopitone:

The Soundies Book: A Revised and Expanded Guide
The 2007 PBS-produced documentary Soundies: A Musical History, available on Amazon Prime Video

I’ll close this out with a cornucopia of clips, and encourage you to go forth and explore these three-minute slices of old-time historical Americana and American roots music.

 

 

 

 

This was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music’s website. 

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.

Americana and Roots Music Broadside: 12 Albums For 12 Months

Pixabay License

Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day there is a seemingly endless flow of articles from music writers, along with reader polls from publications, that attempt to come up with a definitive list of albums, songs and musicians which are the best, greatest or favorite. With about a hundred thousand new albums released each year, it would be impossible for any one person to listen to every single oneWith about a hundred thousand new albums released each year, it would be impossible for any one person to listen to every single one in order to somehow quantify or offer an objective opinion, but it makes good copy and click-bait.

With such a public thirst for lists, wouldn’t it be of disservice if I at least didn’t attempt to offer my own? Although I don’t like ranking systems when it comes to artistic endeavors and I adhere to a “there’s no such thing as bad music” personal standard, the reality is that the collective we all like some lists. In our hyperactive and volatile modern lives it’s the fastest way to catch up on what we may have missed. Since nobody wants to be left out of the loop, Wikipedia publishes an article that links lists of lists of lists, which are indexed by subject matter and linked to other lists. So whether you’re looking for the greatest unsolved scientific questions, all the characters in The Walking Dead or Brazilian Films of the 1930’s…there’s a list for it.

Below, in no particular order or rank, are twelve albums that I have enjoyed over the past twelve months. There are no rules I abide by, it’s neither definitive nor complete of what I’ve listened to, and the music doesn’t even need to have been recorded or released this year. Hope there’s something here you’ll discover for yourself.

Emily Scott Robinson – Traveling Mercies

Robinson travels across the country in an RV with her husband, and she recorded her third album, Traveling Mercies, in East Nashville with producer Neilson Hubbard. This one has been on my playlist longer than any other, and I’ve also added her other work.

If you’ve heard of her for the first time this year it’s likely because of the song “The Dress,” which deals with her experience of rape. She was 22, drugged in a bar, and assaulted. Like many others, she didn’t report it, and dealt with the aftermath by falling into depression. She went through therapy and eventually became a social worker and crisis counselor before dedicating herself to music full-time. I’m unable to explain exactly how or why this song has affected me in such a powerful way, but it tears me up every time I listen.

J.S. Ondara – Tales of America

A large part of American folk and roots music has come to us from Africa through the forced migration by abduction into slavery. This year a young man of 26 from Nairobi, Kenya, who came to America by choice has released what I believe to be one of the finest debut albums ever. He chose to settle in Minnesota in 2013 because it was once the home of Bob Dylan, whom he discovered in his teens and memorized many of his lyrics. After taking online guitar lessons and doing the open-mic circuit, he developed a unique songwriting style and added in a sense of fashion that’s not often in a genre seen beyond cowboy couture.

The Milk Carton Kids – The Only Ones

 Clocking in at less than 30 minutes, it’s fitting that when The Milk Carton Kids released this in the UK, it was on a 10-inch vinyl pressing. With their glorious, luxurious harmonies, Kenneth Pattengale’s 1954 Martin 0-15, and Joey Ryan’s 1951 Gibson J45, this is a completely stripped down seven-song set that was recorded last summer. Not only do they still hold the Paul and Artie vibe, but are getting mighty close to exceeding it.

 Various Artists – Come On Up to the House: Women Sing Waits

 Here’s something that is totally uncool to admit in public when among music people: I’ve never liked Tom Waits all that much. He’s written some great songs, but I’ve felt that his voice and instrumentation have gotten in the way. There was a six-month period around 1983 when I listened to Swordfishtrombones every day while under the influence of some heavy duty weed, but that’s about it. So it’s been a joy to listen to this tribute to his music sung by women who make it more melodic and bring out the best in them. I’m a cover song freak anyway, so this one works for me.

Justin Townes Earle – The Saint of Lost Causes

A confession that I never thought I’d share: with each year that passes, I find myself looking forward to the next album from the son rather than the father. Ten years ago, when I started listening to Justin’s music and following him on social media, it felt as though he might not make it past his 30th birthday. In 2010, after a nasty public fight at a club, he entered rehab — not for the first time — and it seems to have kicked his butt down a better path. He was married in 2013, they had a baby four years later, and now comes his ninth album, The Saint of Lost Causes. In a recent interview he shared that he and his dad are working on some sort of collaboration for 2020, which I sit on the edge of my seat awaiting.

 The Delines – The Imperial

It took five years for this Portland-based band to release a follow-up to their 2014 debut, Colfax. In January 2016 vocalist Amy Boone was hit by a car in Austin, breaking both of her legs, which required several major surgeries and a long recovery that put the band on hiatus. Author and songwriter Willy Vlautin’s lyrics seem perfect for Boone’s approach and style, and the band is seasoned, soulful, and tight. The Delines are Amy Boone on vocals; Willy Vlautin on vocals and guitar; Sean Oldham on drums and vocals; Cory Gray on vocals, keyboards, and trumpet; and David Little on bass and vocals.

Better Oblivion Community Center – Better Oblivion Community Center

 Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst teamed up for a folk-rock-pop album that is far less duo and more about the band. They’d been writing songs together since spring 2017, and kept the project quiet until earlier this year. This is unlike each other’s solo work, and whether you’re a fan or have no clue who they are, it just works.

 Audie Blaylock and Redline – Originalist 

Back in 1982, at age 19, Blaylock joined Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys as a mandolin player for nine years. After stints with Red Allen, Rhonda Vincent, and others, he formed Redline back in 2004. This year they’ve released their seventh album, and the current lineup has Blaylock doing lead vocals and guitar, with Evan Ward (banjo), Mason Wright, (fiddle), and Reed Jones (upright bass) filling out the lineup. The Originalist is split with six new songs and six classics. I love the powerful sound and harmonies, and have been delving into the catalog. (Just a note about the video: This is a performance from Mike Huckabee’s show, and I want to be clear that this is not a person I support, with his right-wing political views and rhetoric. But Blaylock’s music is great.)

Ordinary Elephant – Honest

Crystal and Pete Damore met at an open mic in Texas in 2009, got bitten by the creative bug, bought an RV, and hit the road to play wherever they could. Performing and recording under the band name Ordinary Elephant, they were named Artist of the Year at the 2017 International Folk Music Awards. Crystal handles lead vocals and acoustic guitar, while Pete plays clawhammer banjo and sings harmony. I’d also recommend checking out their first album, Before I Go.

Hank Williams The Complete Health and Happiness Recordings

This set was released back in June and includes eight shows that Hank recorded on two successive Sundays at WSM-AM in Nashville in October 1949. These transcriptions were sent out as radio shows that had spots left out so the local announcer could read ads or other copy. Including the theme song below, there are 49 tracks on this set, presented for the first time the way they should be heard. In previous years, beginning in the early ’60s, these performances have been sliced and diced umpteen ways. Even though these recordings are 70 years old, they’re of excellent quality and Hank and his fellow musicians are simply outstanding.

Luther Dickinson and Sisters of the Strawberry Moon – Solstice

This is a stellar one-off production that has Dickinson surrounded by a group including Amy Helm, Amy LaVere, Shardé Thomas, Birds of Chicago, and the Como Mamas. The concept took three years to put together and was recorded over a four-day session at the Dickinson family’s Zebra Ranch Studio in Independence, Mississippi.

Echo in The Canyon Original Soundtrack

Doing an album of cover songs from the ’60s for a film rather than using the originals is taking a big chance, but the recordings are so intertwined with the documentary that I think it works well. I’m a fan of Jakob Dylan’s work with The Wallflowers, as well as his vocal style, so perhaps that’s part of why I find this collection palatable. He did a fine job of bringing in a strong group of modern-day songsters and a solid backup band to support him. I know this collection has been panned by many reviewers, but I’ll stick my neck out and give it two thumbs up. This clip features Jade Castrinos.

HIDDEN TREASURE #13:

The Starbugs – Kids Sing Bob Dylan

I consider this one of my greatest discoveries of the year. Released back in October 2011 under the name The Starbugs, the group features Jessie Hillel, Rebecca Jenkins, Sarah Whitaker, Ben Anderson, and Roisin Anderson, who at the time were aged 7 to 15 and are from New Zealand. Produced by Radha Saha and David Antony Clark, it must have taken quite some time to go through 40 Dylan albums to find songs that would work with preteens. The entire album is a pure delight, and the man from Minnesota himself gave his personal blessing for using an alternative version of “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.”

This was originally published in an altered format as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music’s website. 

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here and at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.

Molly Tuttle: From Her Tweens to Her Twenties

The Tuttles With AJ Lee

Considering that she is only a quarter-century old and just released her first solo album, one might suggest I could be jumping the gun on writing a retrospective of Molly Tuttle’s musical career and highlights. And had she not grown up in the era of the magical time machine also known as YouTube, we might have thought she just landed under a Nashville cabbage patch one day and — poof — a star was born. But this young woman began playing guitar at the age of eight, recorded her first album of duets with her dad at 13, and has won more awards than the number of ants on a Tennessee anthill.

Molly, Michael, and Sullivan Tuttle’s bluegrass version of “El Cumbanchero” was uploaded in 2006 and has been viewed more than 1,750,000 times. And just to see what four additional years of practice and growing up can do to one’s musical skill sets, here is their 2010 version, with Molly moving from guitar to banjo:

Jack Tuttle is a distinguished bluegrass musician, teacher, author, and historian, and he came from a musical family in rural Illinois where he first learned to play guitar at age 5. Migrating to California, he began developing a complete lesson program for fiddle, banjo, mandolin, and guitar and has taught thousands of kids and adults since 1979 from his home base at Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto. Known as the “Dean of Bay Area Bluegrass,” he taught his own three children how to play and through the years they’ve been highly active on the festival circuit and at music camps, through the California Bluegrass Association (CBA), Northern California Bluegrass Society (NCBS), and the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA).

For those of us guitar players who’ve been around a while and think we might be pretty proficient, watching Molly Tuttle’s right hand technique is a jaw-dropping experience. It seems to be a hybrid of Merle Travis’ style combined with clawhammer banjo, and the result is stunning. When you add in her abilities as a cross-picking, lightning-fast flatpicker, it’s no surprise that in 2017, Tuttle was named the IBMA’s Guitar Player of the Year, an honor that was repeated the following year. She also won this year’s Americana Music Association’s Instrumentalist of the Year award. In addition to her fretwork virtuosity, she’s an exceptional banjo player, singer, and songwriter. Here’s one she wrote back in her teens.

The first album Tuttle recorded was in 2006, a duet project with her dad titled The Old Apple Tree. Around that time, the IBMA began a program for pickers between ages 4 and 17 called Kids on Bluegrass. Held during the annual World of Bluegrass festival, the kids get to meet up with others for the chance to play and perform together. Tuttle was one of many talented participants, as were Sierra Hull, Sarah Jarosz, Alex Hargreaves, Molly Cherryholmes, and another Californian, a bit younger than Tuttle, named AJ Lee. Here’s Lee, Tuttle, and Angelica Grim with Luke Abbott in 2009 at the Brown Barn Bluegrass Festival in San Martin, California:

Like Tuttle, Lee began studying and performing bluegrass at a very young age. She was about 10 or 11 and attending a CBA event when Jack Tuttle introduced himself to her father, Rodney, and shared that he was working with groups of kids and wondered if Lee might want to join in. That was the genesis of The Tuttles with AJ Lee, featuring Jack on bass and occasional vocals, with the three Tuttle kids and Lee taking the spotlight. Here they are in 2010 at the Strawberry Music Festival at Camp Mather, California. Molly Tuttle is 17 here.

The group released their first self-titled album in 2010, followed by a second release titled Endless Oceans. Lee, whom I’ve written about before, is now 21, plays in the band Blue Summit that also features Sullivan Tuttle on guitar, and has won the Best Female Vocalist award from the Northern California Bluegrass Society seven times. Her mom, Betsy, has told me that “what AJ learned mostly from her work with the Tuttle family was humility among greatness and the ability to play with intent.” While Lee was poised to make the move to Nashville, as Molly Tuttle has done, a year ago, she’s backed off for now, telling me not too long ago that her “heart is in California.”

In 2012, Molly Tuttle had a huge year when she was awarded merit scholarships to the Berklee College of Music in Boston for music and composition as well as the Foundation for Bluegrass Music’s first Hazel Dickens Memorial Scholarship. She won the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at MerleFest and received both Female Vocalist and Guitar Player awards from the Northern California Bluegrass Society. (The Tuttles with AJ Lee took home the  NCBS’s Bluegrass Band award that year.)

In October of that year, she and her father participated in a duet contest on Prairie Home Companion and won second place. In an article for Bluegrass Today, she wrote:

“I have been listening to Prairie Home Companion since I was a kid, so it was a dream come true to play on the show. I loved seeing how it all comes together. Everyone who worked on the show was so professional, but also really friendly and nice. After the show Garrison invited us all to his house for a party, which was wonderful with lots of good food and people. He led a jam around the piano and asked if I would like to sing a Hazel Dickens song with him, so we sang ‘Won’t You Come and Sing for Me.’ All in all it was such an honor to be on the show and one of the best weekends of my life!”

Over on the Tuttles with AJ Lee website, on the front page it says “We don’t really play together as a band anymore but most of us still do still play music a lot. Thank you for being so supportive of our music over the years. Please keep in touch with us and we hope to see you some time at a show or festival.”

Molly Tuttle is on tour supporting When You’re Ready — you can check the dates on her site. This is the link to AJ and Sully’s Blue Summit site, and if you’d like to learn more about Jack Tuttle and perhaps want to take some lessons, just click on his name. I’ll close this one out with one of Molly’s signature concert tunes, the Townes Van Zandt cover she’s been doing for years. This video is from the family band’s Freight and Salvage gig in Berkeley in 2014 and it’s a barn burner. Great music from fine folks.

This was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music’s website.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.

How Music Scratches A Niche

Pixabay License

Between my weekly column for No Depression, keeping my own website updated, maintaining a digital magazine, and aggregating music news on a Facebook page, I devote about three or four hours each day to scanning headlines, as well as searching for interesting musical tidbits in the less traveled corners of the internet. Perhaps it’s become an obsession, because it’s done not for money but simply for my own sense of curiosity and interest, and the enjoyment of sharing. To be transparent, and this is in no way a complaint but just a fact, if I was to live on my monthly stipend for writing, I’d be living in a cardboard box under a freeway, weigh less than a hundred pounds, and you’d find me at Union Square with three rusted strings on an old busted up guitar, singing the blues out of tune for spare change.

And so it is that I have a regular day job with salary and benefits that keep a roof over my head, food in my belly, one kid in college with the other now on his own, access to exceptional health care, and even a moderate savings account. Now, it’s not at the level when I will ever actually be able to retire and enjoy the so-called “good life” promoted in television advertisements from wealth management institutions, but that is of little concern to me. I am fortunate — knock on wood — to live a frugal and utilitarian lifestyle that allows time to enjoy film, art, music, and books.

For 40 hours each week, I interact with hundreds of people from many walks of life. Rich, poor, young, old, born either here or there with multiple ethnicities and religions, conservative, liberal, apolitical, privileged, just scraping by, in good health, and at the beginning, middle or end of life. While it’s not the sexy fast-paced executive position in music distribution that I once enjoyed over a decade ago, in many ways it’s one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. My days are filled with human interactions, mini-relationships that can last from a minute to several hours for my patrons, and months and years with my associates.

It’s not important what my job is or who I work for, but what I can share is that a large part of my day is talking about music and learning not only what people enjoy listening to, but how they do it. For someone like myself, who has been an avid music collector with the fortune to turn a passion and interest into a career, it’s interesting to get out of my bubble to understand how other people relate to music in their lives. And while I won’t say it has surprised me, personal observation flies into the face of the ideas and statistics that are often touted in the media.

Let me offer some examples. First off, for the majority of the people I meet, music is simply a soundtrack that plays in the background at a very low volume. They don’t necessarily seek it out, but rather accept whatever happens to come up. It’s a push rather than pull experience. Those who actively choose what they listen to will almost always stick to what they know, rarely going out of their lanes. There’s a relatively small percentage of people who actually collect physical music anymore, as most enjoy the ease and variety of satellite radio inside their cars and homes, and are rapidly adapting to subscription streaming. With all the news stories about people who are actively buying and collecting vinyl albums, and an endless parade of new turntables being marketed and promoted, I’m hard pressed to actually meet these people, as they are few and far between. In my experience, it’s just a small bump, folks, not a movement.

The vast majority of urban and suburban twenty-somethings are listening to hip-hop, while for those in rural areas it splits by gender to either bro country and muscular rock, or the lite pop of Katy, Arianna, Taylor, Miley, or whomever. Instagram notoriety supersedes actual musical output; selfies and fashion are now wrapped up in a ribbon of unfulfilled aspirations. When you’re in your 30s and 40s, settling into relationships, careers, and family, the music preferences default to whatever you were listening to in college. I suppose it’s hanging onto your youth and the concept of independence. Once you hit your 50s there seems to be a divide: those that stick with the same old thing and those finally taking the time to color outside the lines. Am I totally stereotyping? Of course. But I’m purposely painting with a wide brush and skipping over the fine-line exceptions because it isn’t about you or me. It’s about the majority of people.

What we call Americana is rolling along quite nicely, but it’s simply a scooter on a highway of long limos and SUVs. You can toss jazz, blues, bluegrass, folk, world, classical, and any number of smaller genres into the same bucket. Put aside for the moment that some young folks have gone to summer music camps, become music majors at college, and now play and/or listen to roots music. To appropriate and re-invent a phrase from Malcolm McLaren, the Sex Pistols’ manager and provocateur: All this scratchin’ is making me niche.

My personal observations should be considered neither dark nor dreary nor musical snobbery, because music brings to everyone enjoyment, emotional attachment, and connectivity to the world around them. And today more than ever before, it is live music that shines most brightly. Putting aside the cost of tickets to see top-tier acts, never before have we seen such a rise in festivals and the ability to discover exceptional performances in unlikely venues from local farmers markets, your neighbor’s living room, or the tavern down the street.

The inability to be financially rewarded from recordings and airplay has resulted in a shift of the paradigm. It’s not unique. From medieval fairs, minstrel and medicine shows, vaudeville, dance shows from American Bandstand to Soul Train, terrestrial radio, player pianos to DAT cassettes and beyond … it’s always changing. With the ease of both creating music and listening to it on an electronic gizmo that fits into the palm of your hand, what we have should be viewed as opportunity, not misfortune. And that serves not only the masses, but you and me. Another way of concluding my essay on the state of music today is that it, well, scratches our niche.

This was originally published as an East Ed’s Broadside column at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music’s website.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.