Tag Archives: Gillian Welch

American and Roots Music Videos: RPM 8

Pixabay License

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

Next February will mark the 15th anniversary of YouTube, though it seems as if it’s been around forever. Owned and operated by Google, it is second only to its parent company’s search site as the most visited on the web. The statistics are staggering, and while I’m much more interested in the incredible access to music and its impact to modern culture than reciting a bunch of numbers about YouTube, there are a few that deserve to be shared. While there appears to be no single source of information about the company, sites such as Techjury, BiographOn, BrandWatch, and Wikipediaaggregate from many data sources in an attempt to give us the freshest information. I scanned all of the above in order to share just a few facts and figures with y’all.

Almost 5 billion videos are watched every day, although 20% are usually abandoned in the first ten seconds. Four hundred new videos are uploaded every minute. Last year 95% of the most watched clips were music videos, and the all-time champion clip that sweeps all categories is the song “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi, featuring Daddy Yankee, with over 6.6 billion views as of August 2019. Don’t be too concerned if you’ve never heard of it before (neither had I), because we Americana and roots music fans are simply a demographical blip. And while all age groups regularly visit the site, those between the ages of 18-44 dominate the audience. Finally, the gender gap has leveled out over the years, with an almost 50-50 split now, which might explain the popularity of topics such as makeup and video games.

For those of you who have been reading my columns through the years here at No Depression or follow my Americana and Roots Music Daily page on Facebook, you know that I use YouTube to hunt down and share music videos on a regular basis. It’s also become a regular Broadside feature to post my favorite new music videos each season, but this summer I’m feeling challenged to do so. In all candor, there just haven’t been many new albums that have knocked me over in the past few months. That said, I’ve decided to share a few recent discoveries that might be best described as old, new, borrowed, and blue. Happy listening.

John Prine and Poor Little Pluto

Just days after announcing the cancellation of summer tour dates due to dealing with some health issues, Prine released a new video from Tiago Majuelos, produced by the Spanish animation production company Bliss. As of this writing, the tour dates scheduled to begin in September are still on.

That Other Americana-Outlaw ‘Supergroup’

There is much press, publicity, hype, and anticipation for the upcoming release from The Highwomen — Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires, Maren Morris, and Natalie Hemby. They’ve put out a video, played at Newport Folk Festival, covered Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” on Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show and are being hailed as the all-female update of The Highwaymen, the supergroup launched in 1985 by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson. I’ve listened to four of the songs that they’ve released so far, and my ears must be broken because it’s not working for me. Sorry.

On the other hand, I recently came across this performance that was filmed at the Country Music Hall of Fame back in 2017. Featuring Jason Isbell, the above-mentioned Shires, Gillian Welch, and Dave Rawlings, it strikes me as the perfect union of both the not-that-old and new guard of the genre. If these four ever joined forces on an extended project they would most definitely and organically take the title of “supergroup.”

The Great Lonnie Johnson in Germany

Filmed in a Baden-Baden, Germany, studio with sets designed to reflect the realities of the urban blues, this clip is from the early ’60s, as it appears on the first of three volumes from the DVD set titled American Folk-Blues Festival. I believe that’s Sonny Boy Williamson doing the intro, and the band features Otis Spann paying piano, Willie Dixon on bass, and Fred Below on drums.

Lonnie Johnson was born in New Orleans in 1899 and as a child he studied piano, violin, and guitar. In the early 1920s he recorded for Okeh Records and has been acknowledged as a pioneer of the single-string guitar solo style. He recorded and performed through the late ’50s, and for a time he worked in a steel factory and as a janitor until being “rediscovered.” He toured throughout the ’60s and passed in 1970. Most of his recordings were done with an acoustic guitar, which is why I treasure this clip so much.

The Doctor Makes a House Call

I was searching for a Dr. John performance that wasn’t simply him playing the same three songs that he’s most famous for and came across this gem. I believe it’s from the TV show Sunday Night, later changed to Night Music.Jools Holland hosted the first season in 1988, and then David Sanborn took over. The show featured an eclectic list of musicians from across many genres, and you can still find some of the performances posted on YouTube. This is simply the best.

Has Mexico Sent Us the Check Yet for the Wall? LOL.

Tom Russell put a song out back in 2007 that could have been written yesterday: “Who’s Gonna Build Your Wall?” Russell, who lives in the El Paso-Juarez area, explained to NPR: “The danger in the song was thinking I was taking a cheap shot at the government, which isn’t where I’m at. I want to be honest about it — I don’t have any politics one way or another. That just doesn’t interest me. I turn my gun barrels on the people I dislike, which are white developers who have used these people and then are the first to jump on the bandwagon and say, ‘Yeah, we gotta get rid of them now.’”

And One More for the Road

This video has probably received more views, likes, and comments on my Facebook page than any other. I had no idea how beloved and respected Junior Brown is in the roots music community since he’s never really had a huge album throughout his career despite releasing 12 great ones. The 67-year-old musician who plays a double-neck guitar he invented is one of the best performers I’ve ever seen, and his shows are high-energy affairs that show off both his virtuoso playing and songs with whimsical lyrics. This one is from his 1998 appearance on Austin City Limits.

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

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 nd Facebook as he 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 Videos: RPM 3

Museum of Applied Art

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

Surfing in the digital stream and scouring YouTube for new music, old tunes and whatever I can find of interest. Here’s a few things that caught my eyes and ears this season.

Amilia K Spicer

Amilia’s Wow and Flutter, which was released last year, is full of earworms. Calling her music “red-dirt noir,” she co-produced it with multi-instrumentalist Steve McCormick and put together with the help of friends like Eric Heywood on pedal steel, Tony Gilkyson and Gurf Morlix on guitars, Dylan/Stones bassist Daryl Johnson, and Wallflower/Foo Fighter Rami Jaffee on keyboards. Last week when I told her I couldn’t stop listening to it, she said “Yay! The Glue Album!” And so here we are: tunes that stick like bubblegum on a hot asphalt highway. We’ll kick it off with a live version of Spicer’s “Windchill” and then a video she directed and produced for “Fill Me Up.”

The Tillers

The Tillers‘ self-titled album came out last March and is their fifth in ten years. Based in Cincinnati, they started out playing the great folk classics of the ’50s and ’60s, busking on the corners and playing bars that pass around a hat for tips. Over time they have developed into a super-tight stringband that doesn’t strictly adhere to one genre or another. They often sound like old-time Appalachian, other times they’re the Ramones on acid. They gotta love Iris DeMent’s quote: “The Tillers … I could sit and listen to them all night long!”

Pat Reedy & The Longtime Goners

Pat Reedy is another musician who started out busking, making a name for himself on the streets of New Orleans. He put out a couple of albums with the Longtime Goners of great Cajun-style country before moving to Nashville and morphing into a band of honky-tonk outlaws. He’s an unabashed day-job construction worker who happens to write some great songs, and this summer he and the band are on the road promoting That’s All There Is (And There Ain’t Anymore).

Little Jimmy Dickens and the Columbia Classics Series

I’m going to close this out with two more tunes that each come from older compilations. The first is a Little Jimmy Dickens song that comes from the second volume of the five-disc Columbia Country Classics series. Born in Bolt, West Virginia, and standing at four-foot-eleven, he started out performing as Jimmy The Kid before he was discovered by Roy Acuff and signed to Columbia Records. He was a longtime member of the Grand Ole Opry, joining in 1948 and making his final appearance just weeks before he passed away at age 94. Along with Hank Williams, Minnie Pearl, and her husband Henry Cannon, he co-wrote “Hey Good Lookin’” sitting on an airplane in 1951. Only Williams got the songwriting credit.

Dave Rawlings Machine

Back in 2014 there was a one-night-only concert in New York’s Town Hall that was released as a film documentary along with a soundtrack album titled Another Day, Another Time: Celebrating the Music of Inside Llewyn Davis. It was far better than the original fictionalized feature film depicting a ’60s folksinger, and featured a ton of musicians, including Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, the Punch Brothers, Elvis Costello, Jack White, Joan Baez, and Marcus Mumford, and it was produced by T Bone Burnett. For me, this is the standout track, and in these unsettling times, one that really sticks.

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

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.

United States of Americana: New Music For Old Ears

Each week when the new releases become available, I grab whatever I think might interest me and throw it into a playlist. I don’t curate it or make it public, it’s just my personal-virtual-digital equivalent of that stack o’ albums I used to have leaning against up the wall after a trip to my local record store. And despite still hearing the words of disdain from Grant Alden forever whispering in my ear, I hardly ever listen to an album from the first track to the last, but rather let the songs magically pop out randomly all by themselves in shuffle mode.

When the playlist grows too big — maybe over five or six hundred songs — I begin to trim the herd. The tunes will either get flipped into the main library or dumped in the trash can on my desktop. Sorry, that sounds harsh and heartless. But I also know what I like and what I don’t. And I guess I should mention that not everything is actually brand spanking new. Sometimes I’ll add an old favorite or two that I haven’t heard in a while. And other times I just can’t let something go because there’s still something more to get from it. Anyhow, music is timeless, right?

You can thank (or blame) Amilia K Spicer for giving me the idea for this week’s column, where I’ll share a few songs I just can’t let go of. Spicer’s Wow and Flutter, which was released last year, is full of earworms. Calling her music “red-dirt noir,” she co-produced it with multi-instrumentalist Steve McCormick and put together with the help of friends like Eric Heywood on pedal steel, Tony Gilkyson and Gurf Morlix on guitars, Dylan/Stones bassist Daryl Johnson, and Wallflower/Foo Fighter Rami Jaffee on keyboards. Last week when I told her I couldn’t stop listening to it, she said “Yay! The Glue Album!” And so here we are: tunes that stick like bubblegum on a hot asphalt highway. We’ll kick it off with a live version of Spicer’s “Windchill” and then a video she directed and produced for “Fill Me Up.”

I”ve been listening a bit to the five-disc Columbia Country Classics series and especially the Little Jimmy Dicken’s tracks. Born in Bolt, West Virginia, and standing at four-foot-eleven, he started out performing as Jimmy The Kid before he was discovered by Roy Acuff and signed to Columbia Records. He was a longtime member of the Grand Ole Opry, joining in 1948 and making his final appearance just weeks before he passed away at age 94. Along with Hank Williams, Minnie Pearl, and her husband Henry Cannon, he co-wrote “Hey Good Lookin’” sitting on an airplane in 1951. Only Williams got the songwriting credit.

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

My Favorite Un-Americana Music of 2017

Photo by Oliver Zühlke/Creative Commons

This is the season that I try to be the first kid on the block to beat out the barrage of those end-of-the-year lists from critics and pundits. At No Depression, and other like-minded music websites and magazines, the official music polls from readers, contributors, and reviewers will be coming in December. Had I been born a betting man, I’d lay down a few hundred bucks that there’ll be little variation or surprises between any of them. Ever since the term roots music has morphed into a more definable mainstream “Americana” tagline, diversity has seemed to have left the building. While you won’t get much disagreement from me on the quality and depth of music that has been released so far this year, it seems that I continue to find myself taking the road less traveled.

This year it feels as if I’ve been walking down the dark side of the street, whether we’re talking about art, culture, politics, or simply life in general. There were health issues to deal with and the loss of a parent. I’ve found myself constantly concerned for my children that a madman lives in Washington who is one button away from annihilating the planet when he’s not chipping away at the fabric of our society by normalizing the abnormal. From the racist cries of “blood and soil” to an unjust justice system that tips to white skin and wealth to revelations of what we already know … that bad men do bad things to women and children … and to all the other natural and human disasters we’ve lived through so far, I’m only finding shelter by cocooning with music, books, and video.

So with that bright and shiny preamble, here’s some of my favorite aural oddities and mainstays for the year. As always, I use a different yardstick to measure and compile my list. This is what I have either discovered or gravitated to, undefined by such things as release dates. Whether it was brand new this year or merely recycled from the past, who cares?

The Entire Ry Cooder Catalog

I wish he would have titled one of his albums Pastrami on Ry, and I’m sorry that for most of his career I’ve largely ignored his solo work. Aside from a seemingly infinite number of songs he’s done session work on for others, the only albums I’ve really known inside out have been two from the ’70s: The Gabby Pahinui Band Volume 1 and his solo Bop Til You Drop. So now, thanks to the magic of touch and click streaming, I’m making my way through everything else. While skipping around and sampling from this era and that, I’m spending most of my time with Paradise and Lunch, Into The Purple Valley and Chicken Skin Music.

A Prairie Home Companion

While I know he’s trying his hardest and still growing into his role, Chris Thile’s voice reminds me of Opie Taylor and he’s yet to hone his comedic skills with timing and inflection. But on the other hand, he’s doing an amazing job at making great music with that killer band he’s assembled and presenting exceptional guests week after week. He’s going down the right path but one suggestion would be to please stop referring to Sarah Jarosz as “inimitable.” Why continually state the obvious? Finally, a note about Garrison Keillor. Over the years he’s entertained millions of us and his wit, humor and his support of musicians won’t be forgotten. And while it was sad to witness his termination played out in counterpoint to rapists and serial harassers , he had to go.

David Rawlings

I got a chance to see David and Gillian right before the release of Poor David’s Almanack, and it was the first time I’d ever seen them live in concert. Tickets have always seemed to get swallowed up the minute they go on sale and my budget doesn’t include StubHub. After 21 years of being a devout fan of their partnership, each and every note, song, and harmonic moment gave me a night of multi-orgasmic goosebumps.The album is simply perfect.

Freakwater and The Mekons

In September these two bands reunited as The Freakons and performed two nights in Chicago. Monica Kendrick for The Reader broke the news about a new album they’re now recording. She wrote that it’ll consist of “traditional songs about an industry that links the English Midlands, the Welsh valleys, and the ‘dark and bloody ground’ of Appalachia: coal mining. Haunting tunes in that vein came from both sides of the pond, and the Freakons take them on in the high-lonesome, rabble-rousing tradition of late West Virginian labor singer Hazel Dickens. Proceeds from the album, when it’s finished, will benefit Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, a grassroots organization that promotes voting rights and opposes mountaintop-removal mining.”

Rodrigo Amarante

Gotcha … right? A Brazilian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Amarante is a member of Los Hermanos, a band that still plays live but hasn’t recorded since 2005. He partnered with The Strokes drummmer Fabrizio Moretti and American musician Binki Shapiro, who in 2008 released an album on Rough Trade as Little Joy. In 2015 he wrote and recorded “Tuyo,” which has been used as the theme song for the Netflix series Narcos. It’s an earworm.

Tom Brosseau

The ten songs on Treasures Untold were recorded live at a private event in Cologne, Germany. The album features six American folksongs and four originals. Brosseau was born and raised in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where in 2007 the mayor awarded him the key to the city. I think about that often. Since 2003 he’s lived in Los Angeles, has recorded a bunch of albums, and toured Iceland. Well … other places too.

Valerie June

I don’t pretend to understand her and I don’t listen to her albums. But I’ve seen her perform twice and she is the modern-day Nina Simone. Undefinable and undeniable.

Tom Russell

He celebrated his 68th birthday last March and has released 29 albums, two of which came just this year. The first was his tribute to his old friends Ian and Sylvia, and now he is out on tour supporting Folk Hotel, a collection of originals. Two shots here: Tom playing with Max De Bernardi “The Last Time I Saw Hank” at Knuckleheads Saloon in Kansas City, Missouri in September 2017. And while I’ve been enjoying both new albums, I also want to share the song that was my first introduction to Russell and remains my favorite.

And to those who passed…

Down that dark side of the street we’ve lost too many folks this past year. I’m not going to list them all here, but we’ll close it out with this … a tribute to them all.

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