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Just a month ago at the Moab Music Festival we opened the season with a program about war. The original inspiration came from John Brancy and Peter Dugan who toured extensively with a beautiful program celebrating the centenary of the end of WW 1 (the armistice). I...
I'm ending this weeks posts where I started with Rhiannon Giddens. I’m drawn to this voice. It's honest, and vulnerable and strong at the same time. I'm shedding some of my musical snobbery thanks to her. Simplicity can be a beautiful thing. I don't need all my music...
Today's post isn't so much about one song. It's really about a musical force of Nature - Sister Rosetta Tharpe. She is brand new to me. But she seems too forceful, too full of musical life to ignore. A voice made of power and muscle and devotion. She came out of the...
Tom Waits has got to be one of the most original balladeers alive. His raspy voice doesn't pretend to be anything except for the experienced and world weary vehicle for his poetry. I find his music amazing in how his songs capture something that feels so specific. I...
I started talking yesterday about Country Music. As I said, I’m really not down with classifications. A good song is a good song. It tells you something about yourself, or at a minimum shows you another epoch or slice of humanity in a way you can understand. Ideally...
NO SONG IS SAFE FROM US. That’s a slogan we invented soon after we started NYFOS nearly 32 years ago. We’ve had some musical and lyrical adventures that have taken us to places we didn’t even know existed, and we have been blessed by the treasure trove of songs we’ve...