The soundtrack of my life, after Steve

Transitions playlist

Rest in Peace, Steve Jobs. You helped me fill my life with music. All Things Must Pass.

Greg Laswell, How the Day Sounds
George Harrison, All Things Must Pass
John Martyn, May You Never
Gillian Welch, Dark Turn of Mind
Imogen Heap, Wait It Out
Iron & Wine, The Boy With a Coin
The Civil Wars, 20 Years
Joni Mitchell, A Case of You
Jude Cole, Right There Now
Fountains of Wayne, All Kinds of Time
Ingrid Michaelson, All Love
Madeleine Peyroux, Dance Me To The End of Love
The Jayhawks, Tampa to Tulsa
J. D. Souther, Faithless Love
Jackson Browne, Fountain of Sorrow
Jonatha Brooke, No Net Below
Jennifer Warnes, It Goes Like It Goes
Jane Siberry, The Life is The Red Wagon
Kate Bush, This Woman's Work
Joan Baez, Simple Twist of Fate
Fleet Foxes, White Winter Hymnal
k. d. lang, Simple
The Antlers, Shiva
The Wailin' Jennys, Calling All Angels
Jane Monheit, Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Tunesday revived: The Wailin' Jennys' Bright Morning Stars

A while back, I had a little feature here called Tunesday, in which I highlighted an artist or album of which I had become enamored. And of course, I got horribly distracted and dropped it. But I think it might be fun to reopen a conversation about music right now as we are all in the doldrums of winter. I hope some of you out there feel like I do. So here is Tunesday 16, revived, hopefully not like Young Frankenstein.


The Wailin' Jennys, Bright Morning Stars

The Wailin' Jennys are an amazing trio of musicians, currently including Ruth Moody (soprano), Nicky Mehta (mezzo-soprano), and Heather Masse (alto). They sing in amazing tight harmonies as well as play fiddle, ukulele, guitar, bodhran, accordion, upright bass, and banjo, and probably other instruments of which I am unaware so far because I get so distracted by their beautiful music. Their sound fits no single category. Is it roots music? Folk? Alt-country? World music? All of these and more.

One of my current favorites of their is a cover of Jane Siberry's "Calling All Angels" that they released as a single a couple of years ago. But I was waiting avidly for the release of their third studio album, which came out on February 8 of this year. And I must say, this was worth the wait.

This third album, Bright Morning Stars, brings some of the great harmonies and inventive instrumentation that fans of the Jennys have come to expect. Musically and lyrically, the Wailin' Jennys respect the roots that ground their music while still having many surprises in store both lyrically and melodically.

"Away But Never Gone" uses the beauty of nature to remind us that nothing leaves us forever and became a special song to me as I went through the aftershocks of the anniversary of my Dad's passing at the end of January, and "You Are Here" encourages to take charge of our destinies and live life to the fullest. "Storm Comin'" is a bluesy throwback, a gospel-tinged fist-shaking anthem good for helping you get through an annoying day at work or at home. "The Last Goodbye" is an upbeat shot in the arm to a loved one whose heart fails them for fear of being hurt. "Cherry Blossom Love" sounds like it is straight out of the Andrews Sisters' work, which will make sense for those of you who are boomers like me and listened to your parents' 78s on the stereo.

All of the rest fo the songs are wonderful, and I don't just say that. I have a amajor pet peeve about modern albums having one or two good songs and the rest is absolute rubbish. This is definitely not one of those albums. These ladies create music that speaks to my depths. I hope that it does to you as well.

Summer Playlist #1

What's on the iPod right now?

1. Better Than Nothing at All- Admiral Twin
2. All That I Am Now- Assembly of Dust (featuring Richie Havens)
3. Red Vines- Aimee Mann
4. Oh, Atlanta- Alison Krauss
5. The Crow- Steve Martin
6. Redneck Friend- Jackson Browne
7. Do You Realize??- The Flaming Lips
8. Galveston- Jimmy Webb
9. Shotgun Down the Avalanche- Shawn Colvin
10. I Was A Bird- Mary Chapin Carpenter
11. Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk- The New Pornographers
12. Take a Bow- Greg Laswell
13. Love You Till The End- The Pogues
14. Stars and Boulevards (acoustic version)- Augustana
15. I Should Have Known Better- She & Him
16. Cactus Tree- Caroline Herring
17. You Don't Mess Around With Jim- Jim Croce
18. Shut Up and Kiss Me- Mary Chapin Carpenter
19. My Baby Don't Tolerate- Lyle Lovett
20. Mull of Kintyre- Ashley MacIsaac
21. Sea of Heartbreak- Rosanne Cash (with Bruce Springsteen)
22. I Hope You're Happy Now- Nik Kershaw

Christmas Playlist '09

Ho!
Ho!
Ho!

Carol of the Bells- Straight No Chaser
I'll Be Home for Christmas-- Aimee Mann
The Coventry Carol-- Alison Moyet
Dona Nobis Pacem-- Christine Lavin
Sweet Secret Peace-- Neil Finn
Calling on Mary-- Aimee Mann
Maybe This Christmas-- Ron Sexsmith
Gabriel's Message-- Sting
What Child is This?-- Kristin Chenoweth
Linus & Lucy-- Vince Guaraldi Trio
O Holy Night-- Avril Lavigne and Chantal Kreviazuk
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear-- Sixpence None the Richer
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen-- Bare Naked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan
Let it Snow-- Harry Connick, Jr.
Tacobel Canon-- Christine Lavin
Baby It's Cold Outside-- Dean Martin
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)-- Straight No Chaser
Please Come Home for Christmas-- Aaron Neville
I'll Be Home for Christmas-- Kristin Chenoweth
The Christians and the Pagans-- Dar Williams

Tunesday 17: Be True to Your School

What's that? A whiff of summer wafting ever so seductively near?

Has there ever been a summer more necessary? Has there ever been summer more anticipated? Not since childhood, I think. So let me start with the last dress code violations I will have to encounter for two months, and then move on. Enjoy

"Girls in Their Summer Clothes," Bruce Springsteen
"High School Never Ends," Bowling for Soup
"Long Hot Summer Night," Jimi Hendrix
"Three Little Birds," Bob Marley
"Summertime," The Sundays
"Live and Learn," The Cardigans
"Be True to Your School," Beach Boys
"Wise Up," Aimee Mann
"Summertime," Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong
"Me and Julio Down by the School Yard," Paul Simon
"Vacation," The Go-Go's
"The Summer Wind," Madeleine Peyroux
"Teach Your Children," Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
"You Learn," Alanis Morissette
"Bye Bye Baby," Bay City Rollers
"It Must Be Summer," Fountains of Wayne
"One Big Love," Patty Griffin
"Summer Dress," Shawn Colvin
"Rock 'N' Roll High School," The Ramones
"My Old School," Steely Dan

Tunesday 16: Neko Case, Force of Nature

Neko Case, Middle Cyclone

Every now and then, you need to listen to something that has a power that just drags you out of your tired brain and sets you on a new path. This album is a powerful example of such art. I don't know how I never discovered Neko Case until this year, but all's well that ends well.

In the few weeks that this has been out, it has become one of my favorite things. Neko Case launches this, her fifth solo album, with her amazing voice in fine, powerful form. Some call Neko an "alt-country queen," but since that puts her in the company of Wilco and Uncle Tupelo (both of whom she can sing circles around for all their genius) this is quite a complement. This album has a finer rock edge to it than previous works, such as her debut The Virginian.

The title track, of course, starts off speaks to the emptiness of heart that this time of year always pulls me toward: "Baby, why'm I worried now, did someone make a fool of me/ 'Fore I could show 'em how it's done?/ Can't give up actin' tough, it's all that I'm made of./ Can't scrape together quite enough to ride the bus to the outskirts of the fact that I need love." "This Tornado Loves You" has the great line, "Carve your name across three counties," which is an image with which only someone who has emerged shaken after hours under a mattress to the tune of storm sirens can relate. "Polar Nettles," is haunting and disturbing and lovely, a paean to longing that I think of every time I hear someone rewrite history every time they think of someone they've lost-- with every day that passes, the more perfect that lost love appears to be, and the less reality has any claim upon the memory.

Probably my favorite song on the entire album is "Magpie to the Morning," a somnolent snapshot easing along on a warm breeze of acoustic guitars and Neko's insistent alto slices and slides into the slip skimming along like a purple martin over the tops of prairie grass.

Magpie comes a-calling
Drops a marble from the sky
Tin roof sounds alarm
And wake up child
Let this be a warning says the magpie to the morning
Don't let this fading summer pass you by
Don't let this fading summer pass you by

Black hands held so high
The vulture wheels and dives
Something on the thermals
Yanked his chain
Smelled your boring apex
Rotting on the train tracks
He laughed under his breath
Because you thought that you could outrun sorrow
Take your own advice
Thunder and lightening gets you rain
Run an airtight mission, a Cousteau expedition
To find a diamond at the bottom of the drain
A diamond at the bottom of the drain

Hear the mockingbird sing
In the middle of the night
All of his songs are stolen so he hides
Stole them out from whipporwills
Screaming car alarms
He sings them for you special
He knows you're afraid of the dark
Come on sorrow
Take your own advice
Hide under the bed
Turn out the light
Stars this night in the sky are ringing out
You can almost hear them saying
"Close your eyes now, kid,"
"Close your eyes now, kid."

Morning is too far lit
They are waiting waiting
They are waiting...

Here is her performance of "This Tornado Loves You" on Letterman:


And as a bonus, here's one of my favorite classics of hers: "Hold On, Hold On."

Tunesday 15: I Wanna Be Sedated

Hey kids-- what time is it? Depending on where you are, it is
1) Swine flu season
2) Prom season (with all the prama that implies)
3) AP Exam season
4) State testing season
5) Stupid field trip to the amusement park for physics season
6) Commencement season
7) Allergy season
8) or, as a special journey around the verges of Hell, all of the above season!

So here is my special playlist for such fun-doings!

1. "Keep Your Hands to Yourself," Georgia Satellites
2." We Can Work It Out," the Beatles
3. "Ain't That a Kick in the Head," Dean Martin
4. "Over My Head," Fleetwood Mac
5. "Prom Theme," Fountains of Wayne
6. "Drive," the Cars
7. "Head Over Heels," the Go-Go's
8. "Tightrope," Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble
9. "Livin' On a Prayer," Bon Jovi
10. "As Sure As I Am," Crowded House
11. "Under Pressure," David Bowie with Freddie Mercury
12. "I Can See Clearly Now," Johnny Nash
13. "Through Being Cool," DEVO
14. "Pressure Drop," the Specials
15. "If I Only Had a Brain," Ray Bolger and Judy Garland
16. "She Can't Dance," Marshall Crenshaw
17. "A Girl in Trouble (is a Temporary Thing)," Romeo Void
18. "My Best Friend's Girl," the Cars
19. "Can't Get It Out of My Head," ELO
20. "The Loco-Motion," Grand Funk Railroad
21. "Treat Me Right," Pat Benatar
22. "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," the Platters
23. "Tempted," Squeeze
24. "I Wanna Be Sedated," the Ramones

Just keep breathing. It's the only way to get through. And sing one of these songs! LOUD!

Tunesday 14: Couldn't Stand the Weather

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, Couldn't Stand the Weather

Since it's spring, and I am tired of the rain, it has given me the Blues. Not depression-- I mean The Blues. And who else comes to mind than Stevie Ray Vaughan for those of us who are children of the 80s? This classic album came out on May 15, 1984, and still sounds so powerful and fresh nearly twenty-five years later. In honor of the upcoming anniversary, I pay homage to one of the truly great guitarists of our time. I first heard his genius on David Bowie's "Let's Dance," which was one of Stevie's biggest breaks outside of Texas. He later recorded several albums with his band. How sad that Stevie was killed in a tragic helicopter crash in 1990.

Stevie starts off strong showing off the extreme manual dexterity with a little 90 second gem called "Scuttle Buttin'." The title track follows with more innovative work. On this album Stevie also does the memory of Jimi Hendrix a solid with his impassioned cover of "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)." But for sheer fun, nothing can beat "Look at Little Sister." It's still one of my favorites all these years later. Especially since I had a sister like that.

And here's a bit of trivia for you: the slang term "raising sand" (also the name of a fine album by Robert Plant and Allison Krauss) shows up twice in the lyrics on this album.

So for your viewing and listening pleasure, here is a longer version of "Scuttle Buttin'" from the 1985 Montreux Festival. Be amazed!

Tunesday 13: I'll Fly Away

What can compare to the songs of spring? The tiny birds trill welcome as the redbuds shed a rosy carpet below each branch outside my window.

"And Your Bird Can Sing," Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs
"Flowers in the Window," Travis
"Mockingbird Hill," Leo Kottke
"Sky," Joshua Radin
"Highway in the Wind," Arlo Guthrie
"Birds Fly Away," Theresa Andersson
"Tree Hugger," Kimya Dawson & Antsy Pants
"The Littlest Birds," The Be Good Tanyas
"Velvet Sky," Los Lonely Boys
"Flightless Bird, American Mouth," Iron & Wine
"Further to Fly," Paul Simon
"Break the Sky," The Hush Sound
"Little Bird," Annie Lennox
"Bye Bye Blackbird," Joe Cocker
"Little Bird," Jonatha Brooke
"Little Wing," Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble
"Blackbird," Sarah McLachlan
"All Things New Again," The Wallflowers
"Skylark," k. d. lang
"Over the Rainbow," Jane Monheit

Tunesday 12: Indigo Girls, Poseidon and the Bitter Bug

The Indigo Girls, Poseidon and the Bitter Bug

This album has only been out for a couple of weeks, but already it has won a place in my heart. As a guitarist myself, I have always been a fan of folkies given that that is how I learned to play guitar: "El Condor Pasa," the Sound of Silence," and John Denver's Back Home Again-- the entire album. So I was pretty amazed when a young lady I met at the Eisenhower Presidential Library out slightly east of TheMiddleofNowhere, Kansas (and yeah, I know that just about describes everywhere in Kansas) told me about this wonderful duo back in the early years of their amazing twenty year career.

This two disc set contains 23 songs, including acoustic versions of several of the songs. Poseidon and the Bitter Bug marks the Girls' first foray into the indie scene, and I am so glad they did, since it is obvious that they relished not having to kowtow to some fatheaded music exec. To me, this album hangs right there with my favorites Rites of Passage and Strange Fire.

Amy channels Bob Dylan on "Second Time Around," the song from which the phrase "bitter bug" of the album title originates. Both versions of "Sugar Tongue" include the inventive chord structures and tight vocal harmonies that the Girls always deliver. But probably my favorite is "Fleet of Hope:"

The fisherman comes up
Puts his two poles in the sand
He stares out at the sea
Just exactly like me
But I've got a book in my hand
We will have caught on to something by the end of the day
But mostly we think about the one that got away.

I've seen like a bird
What pleasures the surface can bring
I've lost my best craft
Going foolishly back
To where to Sirens sing
I've stared up at the place where the water meets the sky
And though I stopped breathing I still believe I should try
Maybe a boat in search of lost treasures will pass by.

'Cause the fleet of hope is so pretty
When she's shining in the port
And the harbor clings to the jetty
For protection and support
Out in the choppy waters the sharks swim and play
You're all washed up when Poseidon has his day.

I've walked through the desert
Climbed over mountains so high
Through jungles and plains
I took buses and trains
And airplanes across the sky
But none as seductive as ocean before me alone
And now I know why
You layered your pockets with stones.

'Cause the fleet of hope is so pretty
When she's shining in the port
And the harbor clings to the jetty
For protection and support
Out in the choppy waters the sharks swim and play
You're all washed up when Poseidon has his day.

When I was a girl
All of my fancy took flight
And I had this dream
Could outshine anything
Even the darkest night
Now I wait like a widow for someone to come back from sea
I've always known
I was waiting for me

'Cause the fleet of hope is so pretty
When she's shining in the port
And the harbor clings to the jetty
For protection and support
Out in the choppy waters the sharks swim and play
You're all washed up when Poseidon has his day.

Sadly, there are no videos yet available that I can find of songs from this album. Therefore, let me treat you to a performance with Sarah McLachlan and Jewel that I originally heard on the Lilith Fair album. Nothing like a classic to make you appreciate an artist's ability to make the familiar new and and renewed.

Tunesday 11: Holy Week

Have a blessed Holy Week, and try out some of these songs:

"Heavenly Day," Patty Griffin
"Praise Song for a New Day," Suzzy and Maggie Roche
"Hymn," Brooke Fraser
"Calling All Angels," Jane Siberry
"Faithful," Brooke Fraser
"A Living Prayer," Allison Krauss and Union Station
"Blind," Jars of Clay
"Heaven (Acoustic Version)," Live
"Heaven to Me," Madeleine Peyroux
"Psalm 104," Amy Grant
"Angel Standing By," Jewel
"My Heaven," Mary Chapin Carpenter
"Jesus Maria," Leo Kottke
"Jesus Was a Crossmaker," Rachel Yamagata
"How Great Thou Art," Amy Grant and Vince Gill
"Ship Wreck," Jars of Clay
"Anyway," Suzzy and Maggie Roche
"Shield of Faith," Allison Krauss and Union Station
"Morning Has Broken," Cat Stevens
"God Will Lift Up Your Head," Jars of Clay
"Saving the World," Brooke Fraser

Tunesday 10: Aimee Mann, @#%&! Smilers

Aimee Mann, @#%&! Smilers

Aimee Mann is one of my very favorite artists, for a variety of reasons. She's the most indie rocker I know, an artist (and student of boxing) who has gone fifteen rounds against the mediocrity and pablum that is shoved upon us by the American recording industry. As an independent artist, she took the bold, iconoclastic step in 1999 by starting her own record label, SuperEgo Records, and releasing her third solo album, Bachelor No. 2 (Or the Return of the Dodo), all by herself, and in doing so she showed that trusting her own instincts rather than kowtowing to industry talking heads produced an amazing piece of art, and I recommend this album to you as well. Mann's work is TRUE. I think of her as the Joni Mitchell of her generation, which is, for me high praise indeed.

As a songwriter, if she had stopped after "Voices Carry" back in 1985 when she was with 'Til Tuesday, I would have been satisfied, but over her career she has created a body of work that demonstrates an amazing ability to create characters and situations that are fully realized in just a few words, much the way that Lucinda Williams does-- with the prime difference being that Aimee Mann can sing (sorry Lucinda, but, really!). Not in the Carrie Underwood, American Idol kind of way, but as a mature woman who has lived through life taking responsibility for her fealty to her artistic vision. An example of her craft is the brilliant "Little Tornado" from her current album, which makes me think of people that I have known who have whirled their destruction through the lives of those around them without any concern for the consequences. Then there is this gem, "31 Today," capturing the panic of regret as it begins to settle over us even before we've lived long enough to really gain perspective on the mistakes that we have made:

Thirty-one today
What a thing to say
Drinking Guinness in the afternoon
Taking shelter in the black cocoon

I thought my life would be different somehow
I thought my life would be better by now
I thought my life would be different somehow
I thought my life would be better by now
But it's not, and I don't know where to turn

Called some guy I knew
Had a drink or two
And we fumbled as the day grew dark
I pretended that I felt a spark

I thought my life would be different somehow
I thought my life would be better by now
I thought my life would be different somehow
I thought my life would be better by now
But it's not, and I don't know where to turn
No, it's not, and I don't know where to turn
No, it's not, and I don't know where to turn

Easter comes and goes
Maybe Jesus knows
So you roll on with the best you can
Getting loaded, watching CNN

I thought my life would be different somehow
I thought my life would be better by now
I thought my life would be different somehow
I thought my life would be better by now
But it's not, and I don't know where to turn
No, it's not, and I don't know where to turn
No, it's not, and I don't know where to turn
No, it's not, and I don't know


Here she is doing a live video of the above song. Enjoy!



And now, if all of this hasn't convinced you, consider this: she played one of the German Nihilists in the Big Lebowski, one of my favorite Coen Brothers films! She was the one whose little toe was used to try to complete the con-- if you saw the film, you know what I'm talking about!

Tunesday 9: Christine Lavin, Attainable Love

Christine Lavin, Attainable Love

If you have never been introduced to the work of the amazingly talented singer songwriter Christine Lavin, poor you, we are here to rectify this situation. Christine is one of the leading artists in the genre known as modern folk, and this album is from 1990 or so. Even though that was an eternity ago, before Hilary Clinton was anything other than the first lady of Arkansas, Lavin's work stands up well here. "Victim/Volunteer" is a song that contains a metaphor I have used many times in critiquing our culture's well-established tendency to excuse any sort of egregious behavior based on mean things that have happened to you in the past.

Lavin has written some beautiful songs in her career, like "Castlemaine" and "Yonder Blue," which are particular favorites of mine from this album. But she is especially renowned for her ability to observe situations with a sharp wit, which ranges from either gently mocking to biting satire. A brief little gem is "Fly on a Plane," which just goes to show that Ms. Lavin absorbed a love of ironic endings somewhere in her early life. Then there's the completely unique "Shopping Cart of Love: The Play," which is a musical play about a clash with an unsympathetic grocery cashier, solipsism, references to "American Pie," and ends with the last laugh for our intrepid heroine as she deals with being dumped by her roommate and her fiance.

Probably one of her funniest songs ever is this one: Sensitive New Age Guys. Enjoy!



And just to show how some people sit around and combine really weird things on YouTube, and sometimes it works, here's this little bonus piece: Christine singing her classic "Regretting What I Said..." animated with clips from the Nickelodeon cartoon Jimmy Neutron.



And if you get the chance, go catch a show of hers live. She may even teach you to knit at intermission, or you'll get to watch her twirl florescent batons. I was lucky enough to see her with one of the incarnations of the Four Bitchin' Babes, a quartet of folk babes that Lavin originated years ago from the New York folk scene.

Enjoy!

And if you have a science teacher you love, consider buying a copy of the book "Amoeba Hop," which is an illustrated kids' book about amoebas that is just priceless. I have a signed copy that my kids just loved.

Tunesday 8: The Hush Sound

The Hush Sound, Goodbye Blues

You may have already heard the Hush Sound without realizing it if you are a fan of the tv shows Grey's Anatomy or House, both of which have featured the song "Medicine Man" in promotional materials. Very early in their very young careers (the band formed in late 2004) they caught the attention of members of Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco, and share a label with both bands. Genre-bending pop/rock sounds and witty lyrics unite all of these bands, but the Hush Sound seems the most accessible to me and the most mature-- ironic, since they are the youngest of the three bands.

The Hush Sound produces a lot of sound for a quartet. Lead singing duties are shared by pianist Greta Salpeter and guitarist Bob Morris. Salpeter's vocals bring to mind Leigh Nash of Sixpence None The Richer, and she emits a silky, knowing alto which is all the more amazing considering she is just twenty years old. Her keyboards also emphatically anchor the songs with a jangly, hammered sound somewhat reminiscent of a ragtime or honky-tonk piano.

Morris's voice reminds one strongly of Brendon Urie of PATD. Morris's guitar work is also rather retro, evincing a strong Telecaster tone with a growly yet clean lyricism that reminds me of Walter Becker of Steely Dan. What sets this band apart from many of its label-mates in the versatility that they mine through the combination of male and female voices and their inventive rhythm section.

"Honey" and "Molasses" are both bouncy little numbers that echoes the vibe of Aimee Mann's "Momentum" from the Magnolia Soundtrack, while "That's Okay" is a more meditative number very much in the SNTR vein. "As You Cry," features Morris on lead vocals and whirls through several musical styles verging from a Smiths- like bridge to tight vocal harmonies. The version of the album that I have also includes a video to "Wine Red," from their previous album Like Vines, which is also a fine example of the Hush Sound's style.

Tunesday 7: Andrew Bird

Andrew Bird, Noble Beast

I first heard Andrew Bird when I bought the Squirrel Nut Zippers' Hot back in the mid-90s. Then one of my students later shared a couple of songs from his solo work-- "Sovay" and "A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left." Since then I have followed his career with a lot of interest, and interest is the word. Bird is a multi-instrumentalist, utilizing violin, guitar, and whistling-- yes, whistling-- as his primary sounds in addition to his singing work.

Bird's latest offering is Noble Beast. Favorites on this album include "Effigy,""Nomenclature," "Anonanimal," and "Fitz and the Dizzyspells." As you can see, musical inventiveness that is not precious and lyrical depth are characteristics I admire. It's when you listen to artists like Andrew Bird that you realize how absolutely boring conventional radio has become, and you feel forced to turn toward burning loads of your own CDs and spending way too much on iTunes-- and curse you/I love you, iTunes Genius selections!!!

Enjoy!


Now, to see if you've been paying attention... what have the last three artists profiled had in common?

Tunesday 6: Theresa Andersson

Theresa Andersson, Hummingbird, Go!

I first heard this talented artist on NPR, as she was being interviewed about this album. Theresa Andersson is a multi-instrumentalist who provides nearly all of the sounds on this album herself, with the help of two looping machines. She also utilizes samples from great artists, especially those from New Orleans, where she has lived since 1990 since moving from Sweden. In concert, every performance of each song is different, since she starts over from scratch each night. Just watching her keep it all straight makes me feel like a complete klutz.

There are a range of emotions covered in just thirteen songs. From the meditative "God's Highway" to the intense Swedish "Innan du Gar" and the soulful "Now I Know" to the whimsical "Japanese Art" there is absolutely no telling where she is going next, but it's all an original, fantastic ride.

Here's how she does it:



Try Theresa Andersson, and put another knife into the black heart of modern commercial radio.

I've looked at love from both sides, now...

Happy Valentine's Day. Love touches us all, even the lack of it, or the lack of a fit of it, but love is therefore more of a treasure than ever. And if all you know about this song is the Judy Collins version with the harpsichord from hell, it's time to get yourself straight with Joni Mitchell. It's the best three and a half minutes you can spend today, of all days.

Joni! Mitchell!



Both Sides Now
by Joni Mitchell

Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I've looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I've looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As ev'ry fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way

But now it's just another show
You leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know
Don't give yourself away

I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all
I've looked at life from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all



And yes, I was watching Love Actually. So?????

Tunesday 5: Allison Krauss and Robert Plant

Allison Krauss and Robert Plant, Raising Sand

What? You didn't watch the Grammy Awards?

Five Grammy Awards. Five. You know, just when I lose hope in the Grammies, they pull out a Joni Mitchell tribute album last year and now this one. Almost makes up for anything Eminem has ever foisted on my poor unsuspecting eardrums. Almost.

I've enjoyed this album for over a year. It's amazing to think about putting these two truly singular voices together on an album-- and only the unfathomable mind of T-Bone Burnett could conceive of such a thing. I bow to you, sir. These two artists possess such stunning gifts that I almost want to never dirty the air with my lame warbling after their voices have echoed within the room.

What makes this album so amazing?

1. A ethereal cover of one of my favorite songs, "Killing the Blues."
2. An unusual number called "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us."
3. Outdoing the Everly Brothers on "Gone Gone Gone."
4. The country twang of "Through the Morning, Through the Night." I mean, Robert Plant singing the high harmony!

Here's Robert Plant and T-Bone Burnett discussing the project:

Tunesday 4: Dar Williams- Lucky we are when the stars leave us singing

Dar Williams, Promised Land

Here are just a few of the things I love about Dar Williams:

She wrote a song that sums up the barriers of experience both men and women of my generation underwent growing up called "When I Was a Boy." I lived this song. I remember when suddenly I was told that I couldn't do certain things or act a certain way because I was a girl. When I was little, I thought of myself as a kid, not as a girl, and so this was a shock to me. This song perfectly captures how I felt.

Now Dar has a new album, Promised Land. On this new album she helps keep Marshall Crenshaw playing-- and I have believed that Marshall Crenshaw was a genius since I listened to "Someday, Someway" over and over again in my dorm room in college. I believe that he is one of the singer/songwriters as well as guitarists who have not received nearly enough attention.

Her lyrics are mystical, and yet, in the tradition of the greatest folksingers everywhere, also often amazingly accessible. One of my favorite Christmas songs is another classic of hers, "The Christians and the Pagans." It's a screamingly funny song about what happens when a couple of NeoPagans visit their "Christ-loving uncle" at Christmas/Solstice. The imagery is amazing in this song: pies burning, hopefully instead of witches.

Then there's her cover on this album of a song by one of my favorite bands-- Fountains of Wayne-- where she does her own version of "Troubled Times." The intersection of a great singer-songwriter doing a cover of another singer-songwriter just reinforces what a blessing it is to be able to enjoy the cross-pollination of Dar's prodigious gifts with those of other current voices that speak the truth of life so clearly that it makes you ache.

Favorite songs on this new record include "The Tide Falls Away," about the gifts of experience; "The Holly Tree," about a farm wife trying to give birth; "Buzzer," about the Milgram experiments of the 1960s; and of course her cover of "Troubled Times."

Here are the lyrics to "The Tide Falls Away:"

I walked the spiraling village one night
Drawn by the word of a bell or a light
Out on the flat side it rose to a spire
All becomes clear as
The tide falls away

Parent and child and an ocean between
One is not heard and the other not seen
Too many bottles but each had a message inside
All becomes clear as
The tide falls away
All becomes clear as
The tide falls away

Lucky we are when the stars leave us singing
A hymn or a dirge when the surge of the ocean is gone
Is gone

And the old woman just stares at her hands
So many heroes have crumbled to sand
All those cathedrals were merely by men
It all becomes clear as
The tide falls away
All becomes clear as
The tide falls away
All falls away

Here is Dar discussing the album on NPR, and there is even a link to hear her performing in concert.

If you enjoy music that is both musically and lyrically rich, then Promised Land is a gift you owe yourself.

I can still remember how the music used to make me smile

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the Day the Music Died-- when Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, the Big Bopper JP Richardson, as well as the pilot, died in a plane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa, sending the youth of America into mourning and probably changing the course of rock-n-roll forever:

It's been 50 years since a single-engine plane crashed into a snow-covered Iowa field, instantly killing three men whose names would become enshrined in the history of rock 'n' roll.

The passing decades haven't diminished fascination with that night on Feb. 2, 1959, when 22-year-old Buddy Holly, 28-year-old J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson and 17-year-old Ritchie Valens performed in Clear Lake and then boarded the plane for a planned 300-mile flight that lasted only minutes.

"It was really like the first rock 'n' roll landmark; the first death," said rock historian Jim Dawson, who has written several books about music of that era. "They say these things come in threes. Well, all three happened at the same time."

Starting Wednesday, thousands of people are expected to gather in the small northern Iowa town where the rock pioneers gave their last performance. They'll come to the Surf Ballroom for symposiums with the three musicians' relatives, sold-out concerts and a ceremony as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame designates the building as its ninth national landmark.

And they'll discuss why after so many years, so many people still care about what songwriter Don McLean so famously called "the day the music died."

"It was the locus point for that last performance by these great artists," said Terry Stewart, president and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. "It warrants being fixed in time."

Clear Lake is an unlikely spot for a rock 'n' roll pilgrimage — especially in winter. The resort town of about 8,000 borders its namesake lake, and on winter days the cold and wind make the community 100 miles north of Des Moines anything but a tourist destination.


...Stewart said the deaths still resonate because they occurred at a time when rock 'n' roll was going through a transition, of sorts. The sound of Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Holly was making way for the British Invasion of the mid-1960s.

"The music was shifting and changing at that point," he said. "The crash put a punctuation point on the change."

All three musicians influenced rock and roll in their own way.

Holly's career was short, but his hiccup-vocal style, guitar play and songwriting talents had tremendous influence on later performers. The Beatles, who formed about the time of the crash, were among his early fans and fashioned their name after Holly's band, The Crickets. Holly's hit songs include "That'll Be The Day," "Peggy Sue" and "Maybe Baby."

Richardson, "The Big Bopper," is often credited with creating the first music video with his recorded performance of "Chantilly Lace" in 1958, decades before MTV.

And Valens was one of the first musicians to apply a Mexican influence to rock 'n' roll. He recorded his huge hit "La Bamba" only months before the accident.

The plane left the airport in nearby Mason City about 1 a.m., headed for Moorhead, Minn., with the musicians looking for a break from a tiring, cold bus trip through the Upper Midwest.

It wasn't until hours later that the demolished plane was found, crumpled against a wire fence. Investigators believe the pilot, who also died, became confused amid the dark, snowy conditions and rammed the plane into the ground.

The crash set off a wave of mourning among their passionate, mostly young fans across the country. Then 12 years later the crash was immortalized as "the day the music died" in McLean's 1971 song, "American Pie."

...In part because of its role in rock history, the Surf Ballroom has retained its vintage look, with a 6,000-square-foot dance floor, ceiling painted to resemble a sky, and original cloud machines on either side of the room. Ten Buddy Holly banners line the wall opposite the stage. The 2,100-capacity ballroom still hosts many national and regional performers, most of whom add their names to a backstage wall that is now crowded with drawings and signatures.

"It's quite a special place," said Nicholas, the Surf board member. "This place looks just like it did in 1959."

And they have named the Surf as a National Landmark.

There was also quite a bit of tragic irony in those who were unlucky enough to get on the plane that fateful night.

Holly began a solo tour with other notable performers, including Dion and the Belmonts, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. After a performance in Green Bay, Wisconsin at the Riverside Ballroom, on 1 February the tour moved on to the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa on 2 February 1959. Afterwards, Buddy Holly chartered a Beechcraft Bonanza to take him and his new back-up band (Tommy Allsup and Waylon Jennings) to Fargo, North Dakota, enroute to play the next leg of the Winter Dance Party tour at the Armory in Moorhead, Minnesota. Carl Bunch missed the flight as he had been hospitalized with frostbite three days earlier.[9] The Big Bopper asked Jennings for his spot on the four-seat plane, as he was recovering from the flu. Ritchie Valens was still signing autographs at the concert site when Allsup walked in and told him it was time to go. Valens begged for a seat on the plane. Allsup pulled a 50 cent coin out of his pocket and the two men flipped for the seat. Allsup lost.

The plane took off in light snow and gusty winds at around 12:05 A.M., but crashed a few minutes later. The wreckage was discovered several hours later by the plane's owner, Jerry Dwyer, some 8 miles (13 km) from the airport on the property of Albert Juhl. The crash killed Holly, Valens, Richardson, and the 21-year-old pilot, Roger Peterson. Holly's body, along with those of Valens and Richardson, was thrown from the wreckage. Holly and Valens lay 17 feet (5.2 m) south of the wreckage and Richardson was thrown around 40 feet (12 m) to the north of the wreckage. The pilot's body remained in the wreckage. All had suffered severe and multiple injuries. Without any doubt, all had died on impact, with the plane hitting the ground at 170 mph (270 km/h). While theories abound as to the exact cause of the crash, an official determination of pilot error was rendered by the Civil Aeronautics Board. Although the crash received a good deal of local coverage, it was displaced in the national news by an accident that occurred the same day in New York City, when American Airlines Flight 320 crashed during an instrument landing approach at LaGuardia Airport, killing 65. Don McLean referred to it as "The Day the Music Died".

Holly's pregnant wife became a widow after barely six months of marriage and miscarried soon after.

Holly's funeral was held on 7 February 1959 at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lubbock under the direction of Sanders Funeral Home.[10] His body was interred in the City of Lubbock Cemetery in the eastern part of the city. Holly's headstone carries the correct spelling of his surname (Holley) and a carving of his Fender Stratocaster guitar.

Maria Holly did not attend the funeral and has never visited the gravesite. She told the Avalanche-Journal: "In a way, I blame myself. I was not feeling well when he left. I was two weeks pregnant, and I wanted Buddy to stay with me, but he had scheduled that tour. It was the only time I wasn't with him. And I blame myself because I know that, if only I had gone along, Buddy never would have gotten into that airplane."

Early in 2008, Maria visited the apartment building where she and Holly lived. There, she observed musicians in nearby Washington Square Park, where Holly often played his guitar. "I gave one musician $9 because 9 was Buddy's favorite number," Maria told the Avalanche-Journal. She said that she had never come to grips with his premature death.