In this issue:
Vic's Music Corner -- Tanya Savory
Washboard Jungle
Kate Rusby Gig, American angle
Re: house concerts
Recent Folk Additions to Musi-Cal
Re: Jonathan Pointer
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Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 20:32:02 -0400
From: Victor K Heyman <victor@heymanmail.com>
Subject: Vic's Music Corner -- Tanya Savory
This is the first Vic's Music Corner CD Review and Commentary column in
several months. I've been busy with several showcase selection committees,
reviews for SingOut!, and running my own musical venue.
We should have been in Kerrville this weekend except for Reba coming down with
something that barely let her walk for several days. She is a little better
now, but 10 days in the heat, humidity, smoke, and rough terrain of the
Pleasant Valley Ranch were more than we could face this week.
So let me tell you about a four-time Kerrville new folk winner, Tanya Savory
and her partner/accompanist Kim Wallenhaus. This review will appear in the
next issue of SingOut! and is printed here thanks to SingOut!
Tanya Savory
TOWN TO TOWN
Grand Prairie 094
Tanya Savory is the William Faulkner of folk music. Her songs are stories of
people, places, and events. Here are floods, trains, Kentucky bluegrass, her
dad’s experience as a minister, an old-timer named Reuben Brown, Interstate
Highways. Even the love songs are surrounded by structures and descriptions.
Listening to the sparse, generally simple presentations of her songs takes you
back to a different time and space.
The opening cut is not the usual over-produced radio throwaway. Rather, it is
an interesting story of Tanya’s grandmother growing up in Kansas, living in a
big town, which became a small town, which became no town at all. Typical of
most of the songs on the album, it is somewhat long -- 5 1/2 minutes. Savory
lets her songs go as long as they need to, rather than fitting them into the 3
minute radio straitjacket. This is somewhat surprising since her first album,
Better Shade Of Green, made #10 on the Gavin Americana Chart, and stayed in
the top 13 for 8 weeks.
There are not many instruments backing the vocals but they are used well. The
first cut is heavy on cello and keyboard. The next cut features a well-played
dobro. The 3rd cut has a lightly played guitar. Each cut has a distinctive
sound, appropriate to the lyrics and supporting the vocals which themselves
are moderate. Tanya doesn't belt out songs or have a large vocal range, but on
these songs she doesn't have to.
One of the fascinating aspects of Tanya’s writing is the use of metaphors to
lead into reflections on emotions and relationships. “Reason Enough” starts
off talking of golden leaves falling from trees, of geese flying from their
summer homes, and then the lover pacing the floor looking for reasons to go.
“And oh, don't the north wind blow/just a little bit colder because/if you're
thinking of leaving and needing a reason/that’s reason enough.” Shades of Joni
Mitchell.
I love this album. It is one of the three or four best albums I have heard in
1997. I have listened to it a dozen times and find more to like with each
listening. Do yourself a favor, call NOMA and buy it.
- -30-
- -----------------------------
Victor K Heyman / victor@heymanmail.com
Heyman Mailing Service Inc.
5609 Fishers Lane #3B
Rockville, MD 20852
301-881-4685 / 301-984-6257 fax
<http://www.dc.net/vheyman>Vic's Music Corner
<http://www.heymanmail.com/>HMS Business
- --------------------------------
[ Stuntie sez: Tanya is on the Web at http://songs.com/tanya . ]
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Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 11:35:36 -0500
From: Kenn Marash <km45@cornell.edu>
Subject: Washboard Jungle
Does anyone know how to contact the band Washboard Jungle (email or snail
mail)? I think they're from NYC and a few years back put out a wonderfully
clever disc "The Wash Cycle".
Private replies, please.
Kenn Marash
Nonesuch Producer
WVBR
227 Linden Avenue
Ithaca, NY 14850
km45@cornell.edu
WVBR, 93.5 FM
http://wvbr.com/
WVBR Nonesuch, "Music in the Folk Tradition"
Sunday 10:30 am - 2:30 pm
31 years on the air and still counting!
[ Stuntie sez: I can't find any current info for Washboard Jungle, if they're
still playing together. WASH CYCLE is from around 1990. I think that the
fiddle player, Henry Hample, is a frequent contributor to Vibe, but I'm not
sure. Please do as Kenn asks and send replies privately to him at
km45@cornell.edu . ]
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Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 17:29:37 GMT+1
From: "Bill Branthwaite Moser" <bmoser@fs1.scg.man.ac.uk>
Subject: Kate Rusby Gig, American angle
A wonderful evening at the Queen's Head, Belper, about eighty
sqeezed in to see Kate's gig. She'd travelled down from Barnsley
Yorkshire with her Mum and both were busy setting up the amps
and sound testing.
Kate's repetoire of traditional folk songs, in her melliflous style,
(found on her lastest CD "HOURGLASS". (I love it!)) was augmented by
her easy manner and humerous raport between the songs. A delightful
evening.
Her final offering was Iris Dement's .. "Our Town" , She'd
caught Iris in Glasgow and was inspired by her songs. I caught up
with her at the end of the gig whilst her and her Mum were packing
the gear up. In a brief chat she said how much she likes the N. American
folk scene and we found commonality in our love of "Revival" Gillian
Welch.
You'd love her over there, but she admits she's a home-town
girl, even though she's touring with the Poozies next!
Manchester University
bmoser@man.ac.uk
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Date: Mon, 01 Jun 98 14:59:00 PDT
From: "Moore, Scott" <Moores@washpost.com>
Subject: Re: house concerts
Scott Duncan's announcement of the May 6 Alisa Fineman house concert "for
those in L.A. (or know someone in L.A. to tell)" reminds me of his posting
last month, which contained much the same wording for a Vance Gilbert
show.
Though I like Vance quite a lot, I knew I wouldn't be traveling the 3,000
miles to see the show -- besides, I'd already seen Vance three times this
year. But I did start to think about whom I could tell in LA. One of my LA
friends, in turn, passed on the note to another friend, who issued the
following report two days later:
"I had an unexpectedly delightful time! I didn't know what to expect,
sitting in what could have been a suburban midwest living room with a bunch
of 60+ year old fuddy duddies, but when the off-kilter funkiness of Vance
Gilbert stepped on stage, I loved every second.
He's an African-American, fun-loving, benevolent spirit that sings folk
songs that are honest and passionate. He also singled me out in the
audience as one of the only two "chips in the cookie", light-heartedly poking
fun at the "whiteness" of the crowd. His ethnicity, in fact, never seemed
at odds with his folk repertoire. He alluded to it in his funniest song,
a simultaneous ode to rap and country music.
I bought his CD and would be happy to lend it to you. When I spoke to him
after the show, he expressed interest in making guest appearances and/or
writing
for TV. His music is great; he'd bring a breath of life into whatever he gets
involved in.
Thanks again for the recommendation."
So, I'd like to remind everyone to keep spreading the word about these
shows and this thing called folk music that occupies the better part of many of
our lives. And if you know someone in the Washington, DC area, refer them
to my shows. :-)
Scott Moore
Moore Music (In the House)
Rockville, MD
mooresp@erols.com
http://www.erols.com/mooresp
Coming up:
June 26 -- Maria Sangiolo and Jerry Bresee
Aug. 2 -- Greg Greenway
[ Stuntie sez: As you know, individual gig announcements are usually verboten
here on FOLK_MUSIC, because we want you to post them to Musi-Cal, Tourdates.com,
etc, and make sure your web page points there -- otherwise they would clog up
the Digests. But we've made a conscious decision to encourage the House Concert
phenomenon by granting them an "exemption." If you give house concerts, please
do BOTH things: post your schedule to resources like Musi-Cal, Dirty Linen, etc;
and let us know at FOLK_MUSIC with a simple announcement for your upcoming show.
Also, if you present house concerts, we'd like to know about it - there's a
simple Web form version of the questionnaire I posted the other day at:
http://ifolk.org/hc/hcdbsub.html
- -- it will email the results when you press Submit. TMN ]
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Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 16:33:12 -0400
From: <skip@orca.automatrix.com>
Subject: Recent Folk Additions to Musi-Cal
In the past week, five or more new items tagged "folk" were added to
Musi-Cal for the following artists:
Terri Allard, Apricot Jam, Frankie Armstrong, Blue Muse, Lance Brown,
Jon Carmen, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, J.P. Cormier, Crystal Rose,
Deborah Bartley, Mark Dvorak, Richard Gilewitz, Arlo Guthrie, Greg
Jacobs, Jim's Big Ego, Grit Laskin, Christine Lavin, Eileen
McGann, Peter Mulvey, Leon Rosselson, David Roth, Livingston
Taylor, The Nonchalants, Doc Watson, Cheryl Wheeler, Ken Whiteley
This actually represents only a moderate fraction of the new folk dates
added to Musi-Cal. If you added a bunch of dates recently for yourself or
someone you submit for, but aren't listed above, check out the Musi-Cal
Notes Index submission page at
http://concerts.calendar.com/addstatic.shtml
Skip Montanaro | Musi-Cal: http://concerts.calendar.com/
skip@calendar.com | Conference Calendar: http://conferences.calendar.com/
(518)372-5583
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Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 20:03:43 -0400
From: dbroida@juno.com
Subject: Re: Jonathan Pointer
Someone said something nice about Jonathan Pointer on this list recently,
and that got me to pull his CD out of the give-away bin, and just in
time, too.
So I gave a 2nd listen, and what a pleasant listen it's been. "Yard
Sale" is the song that's jumped out at me. It tells the story of
love-gone-bad, and the central metaphor for the protagonist is the bed
for sale: it's "2 times too wide". With just those four words, you know
what happened, why he's having a yard sale. I guess it's a central
tenent of songwriting - say more with less. At least that's what my
English teacher in high school taught us about writing.
(Of course, my music teacher said "less is more", too, but then he
admitted he really said "lessons more".)
The album has rich, raspy, emotional-filled vocals and great instrumental
solos. I'm glad I pulled it back.
David Broida
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End of FOLK_MUSIC digest V1 #2408
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