Contemporary Rootsy Americana-y Type Stuff

[A Lark Ascending]

Train spotting and loving current day sounds are NOT musically exclusive. IMHO

My perspective entirely. With country/bluegrass I'm more engaged by the contemporary but enjoy exploring into the past. With rock music the reverse is true - I'm happiest in the past of my youth and before it...occasionally I'll venture into the present but 99% of the time I hit a brick wall. But I put that down to my lack of sympathy, not anything inherently wrong with all current rock music.

My interest in outside-the-immediate-mainstream music has been a mainly solitary affair. My friends, relations, work colleagues see it as an eccentricity. Which actually makes me more sympathetic to their perspective. Music may be an only occasional pleasure in their lives but their enjoyment is honest and heartfelt. They don't need me telling them that what they listen to is second-rate.

Did you check out the CW Stoneking stuff? Pretty good, I reckon! AND he's still alive and kicking!

I haven't, but I'll look into it.

[kenny weir]

They don't need me telling them that what they listen to is second-rate.

I'm sure that happens often in all sorts of ways.

But when I make the effort I allus try to put spin on it - "if you like that maybe, maybe this will do it for you".

My interest in outside-the-immediate-mainstream music has been a mainly solitary affair. My friends, relations, work colleagues see it as an eccentricity.

We've all done time in that style, but I count myself incredibly blessed to have enjoyed also many weighty, intense and gratifying musical adventures across a range of styles in a face-to-face way, making lifelong friendships. And as time has gone on, those stylistic barriers seem to be becoming less and less substantial. A blues buddy met 20+ years ago is these days likely to enthuse about all my interests with me - simultaneously. These relationships have been focussed on cities (London, Melbourne, New Orleans), a radio station (RIP PBS) and a record shop (Hound Dog's Bop Shop).

Denys at Melbourne's Hound Dog's Bop in Melbourne has noticed the change after 30+ years in business. When he first opened, he had blues customers and rockabilly fans and soul nuts and '60s poppers and so on - and never the twain shall meet. Nowdays, almost all of 'em - me included - are notorious sluts. Although I still get a chuckle when I buy a sunshine pop disc from him and he mutters: "Geez, you get around a bit, don't you, Curly?"

Forums such as this have smoothed out the bumps in the social side of our musical lives, too, maybe not always for the better - but mostly so!

Edited April 6, 2010 by kenny weir

[A Lark Ascending]

I'm sure that happens often in all sorts of ways.

Oh, quite. I'll get just as waspish with someone who tut-tuts at me for listening to old jazz records when I should be listening to this or that contemporary indie band as I will with someone who tut-tuts at me for enjoying something current rather than a 1932 78 rpm version of a Mississippi blues song (much the same thing is going on - 'look how exclusive my tastes are, look how hard I am to please').

But when I make the effort I allus try to put spin on it - "if you like that maybe, maybe this will do it for you"..

I'm all for evangelising - just think it works best with the focus on the beauties of the saved rather than the sins of the damned.

Denys at Melbourne's Hound Dog's Bop in Melbourne has noticed the change after 30+ years in business. When he first opened, he had blues customers and rockabilly fans and soul nuts and '60s poppers and so on - and never the twain shall meet. Nowdays, almost all of 'em - me included - are notorious sluts. Although I still get a chuckle when I buy a sunshine pop disc from him and he mutters: "Geez, you get around a bit, don't you, Curly?"

I think that's an all round cultural phenomena. Concert halls and arts centres that were once very restricted in what the put on have now had to respond to a much broader set of genres. The idea that the person turning up for a Beethoven piano sonata would not be interested in a bluegrass band or a singer from Tibet is long gone. There's a radio programme on the BBC that has been going for ten years or so that mixes up jazz, blues, contemporary classical, world music and Medieval/Renaissance type music. Tends too veer a bit to far to the ambient for my taste but I think it reflects the times we are in.

There are, of course, grumpy buggers who dismiss it all and insist we should all choose one area and get to really know it. An option, yes. An imperative, certainly not.

I envy you having the record shop you talk of there - they hardly exist in the UK any more (the subject of many another thread).

[kenny weir]

I envy you having the record shop you talk of there - they hardly exist in the UK any more (the subject of many another thread).

It's not the social hub (i.e. site of rampant guzzling of beer on a once-a-week basis - minimum) it once was, but I always meet someone there to have a yarn with.

**********

This all makes me muse about the nature and desirability of train spotting in general.

A few weeks' back, my son's mum said to me - referring not to my music interest, but instead to my zeal to sample the wares of every single cheap ethnic noshery in Melbourne (a neverending task!) - "At least you really know what you're into, what you love, Kenny - most people are not so lucky".

I've often thought how lucky I am in that regard, and simply can't imagine life without music food books and (not so deep or fervent) sport. I know stacks of people who have no such singular focus in their lives, except maybe their kids. They tolerate their jobs, love their footy team within limits, love going to flicks - but there isn't that single overwhelming passion that defies logic and explanation.

I'm VERY wary of pitying such folks, as that way lies the sort of misplaced snobbery already discussed on this thread.

I just don't understand them, that's all. I can't imagine a greater gulf between human beings.

For my dad it was motorcycles and fishing.

For his brother, my uncle, it's definitely fishing - tying his own flies, stalking the fish and then throwing them back into the river. He's caught so many, he can't be bothered taking them anymore.

Obviously, for assorted of our fellow forum members, it can variously be beer, wine, sports, politics, books - and, oh yeah, music!

Whatever it may be, I recognise and acknowledge the spirit involoved.

Edited April 6, 2010 by kenny weir

[Tom Storer]

This is a great thread. I'm taking notes of the recommendations.

May I recommend Levon Helm's 2007 "Dirt Farmer," a sort of comeback album after a bout with throat cancer. Very rootsy and old-timey with a sort of rustic rock feel, lots of traditional material as well as some more contemporary stuff. Fantastic singing from Helm, who's from Arkansas and grew up on a "dirt farm"--in other words, he has real personal roots in this style.

[A Lark Ascending]

This all makes me muse about the nature and desirability of train spotting in general.

A few weeks' back, my son's mum said to me - referring not to my music interest, but instead to my zeal to sample the wares of every single cheap ethnic noshery in Melbourne (a neverending task!) - "At least you really know what you're into, what you love, Kenny - most people are not so lucky".

I've often thought how lucky I am in that regard, and simply can't imagine life without music food books and (not so deep or fervent) sport. I know stacks of people who have no such singular focus in their lives, except maybe their kids. They tolerate their jobs, love their footy team within limits, love going to flicks - but there isn't that single overwhelming passion that defies logic and explanation.

I know what you mean. I think of someone I know very well who led a very full and exciting life but never developed a passion for anything like music or sport or whatever. In retirement he is lost. Nostalgia, raging at the papers and TV news and constant revisiting his own personal past is all that is left to him.

One of the problems with the often solitary nature of trainspotting is that it can often be a bit of a jolt when you end up somewhere like here and find you are not alone. You've worked out your worldview on the music you love and suddenly - bang - someone is challenging it. Might explain quite a few of the hairy exchanges that take place.

[A Lark Ascending]

May I recommend Levon Helm's 2007 "Dirt Farmer," a sort of comeback album after a bout with throat cancer. Very rootsy and old-timey with a sort of rustic rock feel, lots of traditional material as well as some more contemporary stuff. Fantastic singing from Helm, who's from Arkansas and grew up on a "dirt farm"--in other words, he has real personal roots in this style.

Thanks for the recommendation - seems to get rave reviews all over.

I'm always a bit wary about recordings by individual members of great bands (solo project syndrome) - been burnt so often by indifferent recordings. But this one looks interesting.

[six string]

This is a great thread. I'm taking notes of the recommendations.

May I recommend Levon Helm's 2007 "Dirt Farmer," a sort of comeback album after a bout with throat cancer. Very rootsy and old-timey with a sort of rustic rock feel, lots of traditional material as well as some more contemporary stuff. Fantastic singing from Helm, who's from Arkansas and grew up on a "dirt farm"--in other words, he has real personal roots in this style.

I like Dirt Farmer a lot too. I wouldn't put it up against the best of The Band but it is much better than what Bev is alluding to about members of groups putting out marginal albums because they can but don't have the skills of the original band to pull it off.

I've had similar experiences with buying music by people I liked in a band only to find out that they really didn't have what it takes to make a recording that I like as much as the original band. I can't think of any examples at the moment but I too have been burned. That is one of the nice things about message boards such as this and samples on websites to listen to for help in purchasing new music. As Bev mentioned, you soon find out you're not alone with your love of X music or Y musician today compared to twenty years ago. Especially if you live in a small town. I feel like with the computer nowadays you can live almost anywhere and be able to hear about music and have it delivered to your house with ease. Relative ease I might add as it still does take some effort to search out for this stuff but if you really want it, it's available.

[Tom Storer]

That shock of the web community after years of solitary train-spotting is probably not quite the same phenomenon for younger people who have grown up with web access, and whose trainspotting developed in that very context. But I was well into my thirties when the web started to explode and I discovered jazz message boards. For years I had been the one guy in my successive social circles with an obsessive interest in jazz; it was exciting when I had a single friend in the same city who shared the passion. Therefore, like Bev said, my tastes were rarely challenged and my authority was accepted as a matter of course. Comes the web and boom, I'm just another schmoe who doesn't know even a fraction of it all. After that first cold shower, though, what an amazing opportunity.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

A few weeks' back, my son's mum said to me - referring not to my music interest, but instead to my zeal to sample the wares of every single cheap ethnic noshery in Melbourne (a neverending task!) - "At least you really know what you're into, what you love, Kenny - most people are not so lucky".

I've often thought how lucky I am in that regard, and simply can't imagine life without music food books and (not so deep or fervent) sport. I know stacks of people who have no such singular focus in their lives, except maybe their kids. They tolerate their jobs, love their footy team within limits, love going to flicks - but there isn't that single overwhelming passion that defies logic and explanation.

I do wonder whether this is a class thing. In my experience, the middle classes are what they do. In the South Wales industrial valleys, people are identified by what the middle classes disparagingly call their "hobbies" and a job is just a job to enable them to pursue those "hobbies". But that is what they think of as their "real" life. And they're as passionate about whatever it is as we are about whatever it is (and it ain't only jazz, or even music).

Or maybe it's the other way round, with us. Maybe we (well, I) have that working class attitude just because I'm a fanatic about some kinds of music, and my wife about African wildlife. I dunno.

MG

That shock of the web community after years of solitary train-spotting is probably not quite the same phenomenon for younger people who have grown up with web access, and whose trainspotting developed in that very context. But I was well into my thirties when the web started to explode and I discovered jazz message boards. For years I had been the one guy in my successive social circles with an obsessive interest in jazz; it was exciting when I had a single friend in the same city who shared the passion. Therefore, like Bev said, my tastes were rarely challenged and my authority was accepted as a matter of course. Comes the web and boom, I'm just another schmoe who doesn't know even a fraction of it all. After that first cold shower, though, what an amazing opportunity.

Yes, too true.

If you all knew as much about the music of the West African Sudan as I do, you'd know I'm nowhere near an expert

MG

[kenny weir]

I do wonder whether this is a class thing. In my experience, the middle classes are what they do. MG

I'm sure class has something to do with it, although you cite a very specific example.

There have been plenty of times - for years at a time - when my own sense of self-definition has certainly been much dictated by what I do (journalism).

However, the most intense of those times were undoubtedly when my journalism was thoroughly - actually, only - devoted to music in particular and the entertainment industry in general. That was fun, but I'm glad it's over (for now ...) I even enjoy paying for records again!

So these days, even though the ink continues to course through my veins, I am quite happy with the work to be just work and my passions to live elsewhere. (That no doubt has something to do with the fact that I have never been seen as senior management material ("too crazy by far"), have been quite content to be perceived that way, and these days all my bosses are considerably younger than me.)

But I seriously doubt that makes me working class!

[Guest Bill Barton]

I'd recommend Christine Santelli if you haven't already discovered her. She's an old friend from the days I lived in upstate New York. Back then, in the mid-1990s, she was pretty much a blues artist. Over the years she's developed significant depth as a songwriter, and her current music is more Americana than it is blues.

Christine Santelli on MySpace

[A Lark Ascending]

I do wonder whether this is a class thing. In my experience, the middle classes are what they do. In the South Wales industrial valleys, people are identified by what the middle classes disparagingly call their "hobbies" and a job is just a job to enable them to pursue those "hobbies". But that is what they think of as their "real" life. And they're as passionate about whatever it is as we are about whatever it is (and it ain't only jazz, or even music).

Or maybe it's the other way round, with us. Maybe we (well, I) have that working class attitude just because I'm a fanatic about some kinds of music, and my wife about African wildlife. I dunno.

MG

Probably illustrates the dangers of trying to draw broad stereotypes about class - the demarcations between working and middle class are far more blurred than they once were. An awful lot of working class people have middle class lifestyles (perhaps without the intellectual pretensions that education can bring); and an awful lot of middle class people affect a working class persona, embarrassed of being middle class. My dad started working class (farm labourer, head of the family at 13) - I'm not sure he defined himself by his job (in the RAF) or any particular hobbies. He defined himself by his determination to make something of himself. The result was that by the 70s he had an essentially middle class lifestyle and his kids emerged as educated members of the nouveaux middle class.

Most of the people I work with are just that - nouveaux middle class, that very wide tier that emerged as a result of post-war prosperity/social policies. They are educated, aspirational but don't come from wealthy backgrounds or have parents with established businesses to fall back on. They are totally varied in their response to leisure-time interests - for some, their career matters most; others get excited by sport or mountain climbing or just building a home in a very personal way.

[Big Beat Steve]

I do wonder whether this is a class thing. In my experience, the middle classes are what they do. In the South Wales industrial valleys, people are identified by what the middle classes disparagingly call their "hobbies" and a job is just a job to enable them to pursue those "hobbies". But that is what they think of as their "real" life. And they're as passionate about whatever it is as we are about whatever it is (and it ain't only jazz, or even music).

What's wrong with or derogatory about referring to your "special-interest" leisure activites as a "hobby"??

Actually that's the term I'd more or less automatically connect with what we are talking about here, i.e. (in our case) an area of leisure activity, exploring or collecting that far exceeds any casual level of interest and that you engage in on a regular/permanent basis over a long period of time (maybe all your life) outside your day-to-day job. The French call it "passion" but that word's connotations would be a bit different in English, I guess.

I find that Bev's earlier remark that those who never got into any subject of personal interest that really kept them busy, interested and concentrated would invariably wither away once they had reached retirement really is spot on. While I find those oft-heard remarks that "no I am in retirement I need to get a hobby" to be highly superficial (if you really are interested you don't just "get" a hobby like you don a cap or a jacket but rather it has got to be something that strikes that special chord (or your interests) with you) it really is so IMHO that everybody ought to have a "hobby" of their own to keep them INTERESTED (i.e. prepared to actively and individually - on your OWN terms - pursue an activity that goes well beyond simple consumption of what you are exposed to through the mass media day in, day out).

I am not so sure it is a class thing either. I know a lot of people of (more or less) working class background who have "hobbies" that they really live for to a quite extreme degree (though admittedly jazz record collecting isn't usually among them ).

And they, too (like the middle class that I would consider myself part of), definitely do define their lives through those "hobbies". A job is a job and you got to do it well (ya gotta eat ) but it is those "hobbies" where you really come into your own. And I'd know more than one (me included) who build a huge part of their private lives around their "hobbies" (e.g. in the sense that your private agenda is built around them - haven't we all scheduled a trip to a far away town in accordance with, maybe, a particular concert we'd like to attend there or a record fair we just NEED to check out in that town? ).

Edited April 8, 2010 by Big Beat Steve

[Neal Pomea]

South Carolina Broadcasters are three people playing guitars, fiddle, and banjo. Great old time singing! (Great name, reminding me of Da Costa Walz' Southern Broadcasters)

This is how they do the Delmore Brothers' Take Away This Lonesome Day. I had to play it over and over again!

http://scbroadcaster.bandcamp.com/track/take-away-this-lonesome-day

This one is a duet of David Sheppard and Ivy Lindley Sheppard.

Edited July 2, 2012 by Neal Pomea

[Neal Pomea]

I like this group, too, the Foghorn String Band. They play "both" kinds of music: AM and FM (American music and French music!) http://foghornstringband.com/2010/11/16/foghorn-trio-tours-alaska/foghorntrio-3428-3/ I caught them backing up Jesse Lege and Joel Savoy doing Cajun music!

Red Stick Ramblers. More swing country, less Cajun than you would think. My Suitcase is Always Packed. http://www.redstickramblers.com/music.html

(The leader, Linzay Young, even played a prominent role in the boucherie that Tony Bourdain visited on the Travel Network food show, No Reservations!)

Edited July 3, 2012 by Neal Pomea