Tag Archives: Alt-country

The Yearlings: Americana Lost and Found

Last week my local library was the recipient of about 500 barely, hardly, or never played compact discs that have made their way to my mailbox over the past couple of years. There were also a few boxes of recent books that have all been read and kept in excellent condition. They were my donations to the annual sale that will raise money to help fill the library’s shelves with new stuff. I’m really not much of a philanthropist, but hopefully the effort will bring in some money to an underfunded public institution, and admittedly it’s already done wonders for decluttering my apartment.

While it is indeed my good fortune to write a weekly column for this esteemed website, it is also both a curse and blessing that I am inundated every day with letters, emails, and packages trying to bring to my attention something new that I may choose to bring to your attention. Most come from marketing companies, managers, and public relations people, and as much as I’ve asked them to save the cost of paper, plastic, and postage since I’m an all- digital-all-the-time type dude, it just seems to be in their DNA to send me boxes and padded envelopes. So I guess on behalf of the public library, thanks for supporting reading and education.

Not to solicit or open the flood gates – repeat often: Ed does not write reviews – but what I prefer is when I get a note directly from the musicians. Like this one from a couple of weeks ago:

Dear Easy Ed,

The Yearlings are an alt-country band from The Netherlands. In November we released our album called Skywriting. Being a fan of your columns, we are very curious of what you think of it. Would you like to give it a listen?

With kind regards,

Niels Goudswaard
The Yearlings

Notice the subtle flattery? Very effective. Niels wisely included a link to a streaming service to make it easy for me, and I added it to a playlist that I call “Listen To This New Stuff Now” and wrote back:

Thanks. Just sampled and added it to my playlist. Sounds real nice with an R.E.M. and Jayhawks vibe to it. Lots of jingle jangle guitar work. Here’s a question…why sing in English instead of Dutch?

Ed

The next day Niels replied:

Good question. I grew up listening to English and American Music. Neil Young, The Band, The Beatles. Later on as teenagers we mostly listened to, indeed, REM, Uncle Tupelo, Wilco etc. The same for my friend Olaf, the other lead singer, who by the way works as a university teacher in English linguistics. When we started making music, it just felt natural to do it in English.

Thanks for listening! Its just nice to know that someone likes what we are making.

So, thanks a lot for your response!

Niels

The Yearlings formed in 1999 and they performed over 200 shows and released two albums before parting ways six years later. In 2014 Niels and Olaf Koeneman began exchanging musical ideas and writing again. With enough material for an album, the original lineup came back together — Herman Gaaff, Léon Geuyen, and Bertram Mourits — and they headed back into the studio along with René van Barneveld on pedal steel. Skywriting was released in November and is available in all the places you’d expect it to be, and they are touring throughout the Netherlands to support it.

Over on their website they’ve got about a dozen reviews posted already, mostly in Dutch, which really doesn’t help much when you’re trying to dig for more information but you only read English. But Keith Hargreaves over at one of my favorite sites, Americana UK, posted this review, and I’ll close it out by sharing a few of his words:

Hailing from that mecca of Americana …..Utrecht. Not an obvious location for an album chockful of big songs that speak of big skies and carry breezy melodies by the score. These are Pettyesque songs played with brio and verve and the harmonies really chime. This is an album of influences constructed in a loving way to celebrate a particular genre and it works in its own joyous way.

But wait … there’s more…there isn’t just one Yearlings, but two!

Several thousand miles away, down in Australia, there is another band called The Yearlings, which features the folk and alt-country sound of Chris Parkinson and Robyn Chalklen. Together since 2000, they have released five studio albums and toured internationally. Although their last album, All The Wandering, is already almost five years old, they are indeed alive, well, and performing with their incredible collection of vintage instruments.

Y’all can consider this last clip a bonus: You’re getting two Yearling bands for the price of one. Don’t forget to support your local library and go out to hear live music whenever you can.

This 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.

Nashville Cats on a Tennessee Ant Hill

The Lovin’ Spoonful

Yeah, I was just fourteen way back in 1966 and “you might say I was a musical proverbial knee-high.” My entire life swirled around the sounds of the times as a compulsive record collector and a late-night radio-dial twirler who was all ears and in possession of a Silvertone guitar bought straight out of the Sears and Roebuck catalog. I was teaching myself how to play by sheer repetitive listening, catching the latest riffs of the day from the opening notes from songs like “Sounds of Silence” and “Last Train to Clarksville.”

It was the year of the mixed bag, with the airwaves not dominated by one band or genre over another, but a hodgepodge of one-offs and classics. Wilson Pickett blended into the soundtrack with Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass and Ike and Tina; Nancy’s boots walked alongside The Supremes’ chiffon dresses and choreography; The Beatles, Stones, and Beach Boys pumped out one hit after another, and one song released the week of Thanksgiving became my obsession.

Yeah, I was just thirteen, you might say I was a musical proverbial knee-high
When I heard a couple new-sounding tunes on the tubes and they blasted me sky-high
And the record man said every one is a yellow sun record from Nashville
And up north there ain’t nobody buys them and I said, “But I will.”

Released two years before Gram Parsons and the Byrds’ Sweetheart of The Rodeo, considered by many to be the keystone to modern day Americana, John Sebastian’s slightly geographically misplaced love for country music and the folks who played it — Sun Records was 200 miles away in Memphis — it was both a lyrically poetic and instrumental masterpiece that didn’t sound like anything else being played on the radio at the time. “Nashville Cats” was the ninth track of the Lovin’ Spoonful’s third studio album, Hums of The Lovin’ Spoonful, and each song sounds different from the next. The first big hits were “Summer In The City” and “Rain on the Roof,” and the only commonality with the other 15 tracks were that Sebastian either wrote or co-wrote each song and sang lead on most.

Well, there’s thirteen hundred and fifty-two guitar pickers in Nashville
And they can pick more notes than the number of ants on a Tennessee ant hill
Yeah, there’s thirteen hundred and fifty-two guitar cases in Nashville
And any one that unpacks ‘is guitar could play twice as better than I will

I’ve read that Johnny Cash’s “I Walk The Line” was one of Sebastian’s influences, since he was indeed just thirteen and living in Greenwich Village when it was released on Sun Records. The real story of how the song came about can be found here in this interview Sebastian did in 2016 for Epiphone, but the inspiration was the late Danny “The Telemaster” Gatton.

Zal Yanovsky was the guitarist and co-founder of the Lovin’ Spoonful, and I must have listened to him playing on “Nashville Cats” ten thousand times while trying to capture and replicate that great lead he did on his big Fender. When he passed away in 2002, Rolling Stone ran his obituary and quoted Sebastian on his playing: “He could play like Elmore James, he could play like Floyd Kramer, he could play like Chuck Berry. He could play like all these people, yet he still had his own overpowering personality. Out of this we could, I thought, craft something with real flexibility.”

Thirty-three years after it first came out, Del McCoury and his band covered it on his album The Family. Although I’m not able to confirm it, I think he may also have performed it with Steve Earle on The Jools Holland Show in 1999. In addition to Johnny Cash’s version and the Homer and Jethro parody, it was also done by Flatt and Scruggs. And while I hate to throw in this pretty awful novelty record, for you completists out there, this is The Lovin’ Cohens.

Nashville cats, play clean as country water
Nashville cats, play wild as mountain dew
Nashville cats, been playin’ since they’s babies
Nashville cats, get work before they’re two

I’ll close this out with Tony Jackson, the former Marine and banking executive who had a viral video (over ten million Facebook views) with George Jones’ “The Grand Tour” a couple of years ago. Hustled into a studio to record his debut album that came out in May 2017, he was backed by an incredible group of musicians and covered “Nashville Cats” for his first single, featuring John Sebastian, Vince Gill, Steve Cropper, Billy Thomas, Glen Worf, and steel guitar legend Paul Franklin. It’s a mighty fine version of the classic song that takes me right back to those late nights in my bedroom alone with my Silvertone, tryin’ hard to “pick more notes than the number of ants on a Tennessee ant hill.”

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