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Category: Roots

Gettin’ Ready for Folk Favorite: Jesse Winchester

So the other night I ordered my tickets to go to see Jesse Wnchester at The Tin Angel here in Philly. I’ve been a fan of Jesse’s music since my wife introduced his music to me in the early 70’s. “Yankee Lady” was the first song see loved. Through the years she hasn’t listened to Jesse as much as I have, but I think we’re both going to love the show! So to get ready tonight I’ve been listening to a block of Jesse’s music. Right now “Mississippi, You’re On My Mind” probably my all time favorite song of Jesse’s and one that I think captures a “sense of place”  better than almost any song, is on!! In the block I listened to songs from: Gentleman of Leisure: “Club Manhatten”, and “Freewheeler”, and “No Pride at All”, Learn to Love It “Pharoah’s Army” and “Mississippi, You’re on My Mind” Humour Me: “They Just Can’t Help Themselves”, Sweet Loving Daddy” and from his latest album Love Filling Station Jesse’s great cover of Sam Cooke’s “Stand By Man”, “Wear Me Out”,  and “Eulalie”. What I’ve discovered is that I’ve never met a Jesse song I didn’t like, I just like some songs more than others! Read More

New Friend: johnsmith – Gravity of Grace

So one of the albums that I’ve been listening to over the last several days is johnsmith’s sixth album Gravity of Grace. Now johnsmith is another of those great artist unknown to me! I’ve seen his name over the last year on several charts and the album is currently number 42 on the Roots Music Report Folk Chart and once again shame on me! I really have enjoyed this album more on every listen. Great voice and great lyrics and the folks at Kerrville, Telluride, Rocky Mountain Folks, and Falcon Ridge folk festivals already know that because John has won numerous songwriting awards at those Festivals. The album was co-produced with Tom Prasada-Rao,(another artist who I’ve recently heard in the Village on XM Radio’s rotation) and was recorded in Dallas, TX, A bunch of my artists that I enjoy and have written about helped out on the album folks like: Tim O’Brien,Darrell Scott, Jonathan Byrd, and Jimmy LaFave. In addition Tom Prasada-Rao, Jagoda, Radoslav Lorkorvic, and Ray Bonneville (whose song “Run Juliene,Run” I know from Slaid Cleaves cover of the song) From his website: Read More

Folk Monday – Doug Jayne – Folk University

So in the Top 5 new adds for one of the Americana Music Chart this morning, I saw a name that I didn’t recognize, Doug Jayne with an interesting album titled Folk University So I went to Rhapsody and found the album, gave it a quick listen. I liked what I heard. So later today, I put the album on the Sansa and have been enjoying it all evening!

Doug Jayne is the host of two radio shows, and co-owns one of the few remaining independent record stores, the Last Record Store, in Santa Rosa, California. He also heads Jackalope Records, a label releasing local artists’ work. Folk University is a collection some of my folk music favorites mostly from the 60s and 70s by artist like Phil Ochs “Draft Dodger Rag”, Gordon Lightfoot “Early Morning Rain”, “Lonesome Traveller” by The Weavers and Kingston Trio, oh and one from the 1860s Stephen Foster ” Hard Times Come Again No More”. My two favorites are fine covers of Fred Neil’s “The Other Side of This Life” and Richard Farina’s “Pack Up Your Sorrows” From an article at Bohemian.com Read More

Twang Tuesday – The Blackberry Bushes

So as I looked down the Folk DJ list of airplay for the month of October 2010 the group at number 25 (32nd Top Artist) caught my attention The Blackberry Bushes and their new release Little Bit of Grace. So I headed over to Rhapsody and downloaded the album onto the ZenV. Their music certainly fits in the Americana genre there music is high energy and infectious and certainly will set your toes a tapping. Here’s a description of their music from their Myspace page Read More

Folk Monday – Tim Harrision – Grey County

At lunchtime today I was listening to The Village on XM Radio and the artist on sounded good. I had seen the name Tim Harrison before so I downloaded his 2005 release Grey Country onto the mp3 player and gave it a listen this afternoon. As usual I was glad I did! Also as usual, or at least at a high percentage rate lately, he’s Canadian!! It seems that most of my new favorites are Canadians, see John Wort Hannam, Tim Hus, and Rob Lutes to name a few. After listening I check out his webpage and found that Tim has been involved in music for over 45 years! From his biography at Reverbnation Read More

Folk Monday – From Owens to McTell

So this morning I reviewed the Roots Music Report and made a list of several names and gave each a quick listen and the artist that stood was Abby Owens. First I listened to several of the tracks on her recent EP Indiantown and liked what I heard and then I put her album ‘Fore the Light Comes and I loved the album by this young singer songwriter who calls Waycross, Georgia home. The album was produced by Jason Isbell and here’s what he says about Abby: Read More

Tuesday Powered by Bluegrass!

So I listened to a lot of bluegrass today. I started the day with XM Radio Bluegrass Junction and on the way to work I heard a song by Steve Gulley and I thought about the new album that I read about the day that he did with Tim Stafford. So I went to Rhapsody to look for it but they didn’t have it, actually,  I don’t know if it has even been released yet. Anyway they did have other albums so I listened to Tim Stafford’s album Endless Line and then Steve Gulley’s album Sounds Like Home. Both albums were very good listens from two of bluegrass’ best! Tim Stafford was a founding member of Blue Highway,  whose first album won  IBMA’s Album of the Year Award in 1996.  In the February 2010 edition of Acoustic Guitar magazine Endless Line was named one of the best Acoustic Guitar Albums of the last 20 years!  and says that Tim Stafford is  ‘…possibly the most influential guitarist in contemporary bluegrass.’. Other albums that were on the list that Tim appeared or worked on includes: Blue Highway’s Midnight Storm, Michelle Shocked’s  Arkansas Traveler, Alison Krauss’s Now That I’ve Found You,  and The Infamous Stringduster’s Fork in the Road. Read More