GoodTimeTonight is a blog about Fiddles and Banjos and Guitars and Folk and Roots music and Country and the Blues and Americana and Chicago and the midwest and America.
Here’s a recording of Studs Terkel interviewing the great chicago banjo picker Fleming Brown. Fleming sits with Studs as he explains and plays some songs. During this interview Fleming describes the song “Flag of Blue, White and Red” as an anti-union song he picked up around mines in southern Illinois. Fleming later admitted, in an interview in I Come For To Sing magazine, that he made this song up himself and passed it off as a found song. It was a pretty big admission at the time as Fleming was somewhat of a figurehead in the scene around that time. It’s interesting compared to someone like Bob Dylan’s, who’s made a carrear out of ”creative licence” with his past. I’ve been trying to dig this interview up in the Old Town School resource center; I’ll post it when I find it!
Looks like Wilco has released a new song based on Woody Guthrie lyrics, the Jolly Banker. Head over to wilcoworld.net and download the track for an optional donation (to the excellent Woody Guthrie foundation).
Hey, look at that, the Woody Guthrie article is the featured article of the day over on wikipedia today, Saturday Jaunry 10th. I worked extensively on this article way back when it got promoted to featured, which is a huge headache of a process. I think it came out great, so go read it today. And congrats to all the folks who worked hard researching and maintaining this.
Elvis Perkins is a songwriter that I like. I played his first album Ash Wednesday a lot and I saw him when he was in chicago last time. He’s got some new tracks streaming on his site and looks to be releasing a new album in the spring.
So other sites may have their 2008 best of lists but I’m certainly not hip enough to rank anything and truth be told I spent more time this year listening to things that were released before my parents were born than anything that came out this year. But still I’d like to make a list of some stuff I listened to this year that may or may not have come out in 2008 that you should all check out in no particular order. In many cases you will be supporting some great Chicago artists.
The Butcher’s Boy - Skin and Bones, These guys have been around Chicago for a bit and have gone through a name change, but they finally got their debut album together this year. I think it has a great sound and is a great mix of Byrds country and rock and folk and blues and lots of stuff. Buy it here from GrapeJuiceRecords
The Floorbirds - Field Recordings, the Floorbirds are a folk duo from Minneapolis, they sound great and sing lovely songs. I am jealous of their talent. You can buy this from their myspace page.
Rachel Ries - Without a Bird, I am totally a sucker for 180 gram vinyl and hand written thank you notes. Both of which I got when I bought Rachel’s album Without a Bird. She has a new EP out too, but I spent a good part of this year listening to this one. She has a great voice and I love the song Chicago. I talked about her here earlier when she played at the Hideout. If you get a chance, go see her live and definatly listen to this one.
Joe Pug - Nation of Heat, Joe is a good guy, I’ve been going to see him for a while now so it’s great that he’s starting to get national attention, and rightly so as his album is quite good. Joe’s music is hard to pin down, I say I think he likes to write about pairs and colors. Anyway check out this album you’ll like it. I like the track “I do my father’s drugs”. And if you get a chance to see him live do it quick before you’ll have to pay more when he’s huge and playing at the Riv.
Laura Gibson - If You Come to Greet Me, Laura Gibson is a singer songwriter from Oregon. I saw her when she was here in Chicago opening for Colin Meloy and I snatched up her album at the show. It’s great, she plays these lovely fingerpicked melodies on her sweet sounding nylon string guitar. Technically this album came out in 2006, but it was new to me..
Bonnie Prince Billy - Lie Down in The Light, Wil Oldham has been making great music for years. This years Prince Billy release is another great relase of minimal folk tinged songs. He gets a little more ambitious with each release and it shows here. I can remember the first time I heard his band Palace Brothers album Days in the Wake and how it just blew me away. Check this one out.
Fred Holstein - Live at the Earl of Old Town, I spent a lot of time listening to Fred this year. He’s a big part of Chicago music tho I never got to meet him his shadow looms large at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. This is a great recording put out this year of a show Fred did at the Earl of Old Town in 1969, a bar in Chicago where he played often.
Mavis Staples - Live Hope at the Hideout, Mavis Staples is a staple (ha!) blues and gospel singer. I wanted to go see her record this album at the Hideout but I missed out, too bad for me. But the album that came out from that night is a great set of Freedom songs.
King Kahn and BBQ Show - Self Titled. These guys. They’re kind of punk, kind of soul, kind of blues. They are loud, and wailing blues guitar and crazy surf. I dunno what to call them but they are all kinds of awesome. I think this album came out in 2005 and 2007 in the US (!, ha, yeah I know), but somebody gave me this album this year and I listened to it a ton. Check it out.
And the more obvious must haves.
Pete Seeger - at 89, at 89 years old Pete Seeger is still going strong with this new album. I liked it, but I loved the film The Power of Song, don’t miss either of these.
Neil Young - Live at Cantebury House 1968, this is the newest release from the Neil Young archives. It’s great for Neil’s banter between songs and his fiddling on melodies like ‘Winterlong’ when we know how great these songs will sound.
Bob Dylan - Bootleg Series 8, Outtakes from the Last three albums including 3 takes of Mississippi? Yes thank you. These bootleg releases are usually pretty good, this one is great too.
Other stuff
Good Time Tonight podcasts! Seriously the music I’ve heard live this year has far outshined anything I’ve heard in albums, I’ve spent a lot of time recording and posting the best of the grafton and Mike Alberts One Mic Stand series here on the goodtimetonight podcasts, these guys are all great and you should listen to them over and over.
Mississippi Records, I’ve picked up a couple archival releases from this Portland Record label, they put out some great anthologies of old blues, folk and gospel. I spent a lot of time listening to their excellent Life Is a Problem anthology of rock gospel, and their other folk and pre-blues anthologies.
Friends
The movers and shakers of Good Time Tonight have weighed in, here are their recommendations. thanks guys:
Mike Alberts, “Well, I was just thinking that I listen a lot to James McMurtry’s Live in Aught Three and Just Us Kids too. Good stuff.”
Mark Dvorak, “I listened a lot to Neil young’s LIVE AT MASSEY HALL while traveling. and Coleman Barks’ reading the poetry of RUMI. Can you dig it?”
Peggy Browning, “I listened to the Goldmine Pickers new cd Lonesome Gone. Mark is on that cd too. I also have been listening to Mark Dvorak’s What a Wonderful World“
Lizabeth MacDonald, “I was listening to the year end round up on Sound Opinions the other night, and other than Brittney Spears, I had no idea who the other people were. “
Dennis Harpole, “I am no help, cause I never listen to current music anymore. In the car, I’ve been listening to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Will the Circle be Unbroken album from 2002, a CD from an old Gram Parsons tribute that somebody made for me, and Diana Krall’s Live in Paris CD from 3 or 4 years back.”
So Studs Terkel passed away. I hadn’t gotten a chance to write something about him, but I wanted to get some links up. Studs was an enormously influential member in Chicago music. His book ‘And They All Sang’ has one of the best interviews with Big Bill Broonzy I’ve ever read, I highly suggest you check it out. He covers a wide range of musicians from folk to popular to jazz. On seeing the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson performing at her Chicago church he says,
“Here are parishioners, bone-weary after a week of unsung work, for a wage not worth singing about; here they are, listening to song, such as I, whose work is so much easier and whose wage is so much better, have never heard. It is at such time and circumstance that I become aware of my own arrogance.”
Studs was a great watcher, he had big ears that were open to amazing amount of art and live that moved around him. His most famous book is ‘Working’, interviews with all kinds of regular people, but I really like this musican one. Read on for more memories and links.
This is old news, but it’s new to me. Over the weekend I got a chance to watch the Jonathan Demme documentary “Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains”. The Soundtrack features some stuff from Gillian Welch and David Rawlings and Alejandro Escovedo. Aside from the good musice, that I was really engrossed in this film, Jimmy Carter really is an earnest and peaceful man. Check it out.
Eli Smith over at the Down Home Radio Show blog posted a great article on Music for Democracy. It is focused most broadly, touching on many corners of influential and protest music. Eli sums up the what and why on political music, why it has the power to resonate, even long after the movements themselves have died down.
Music is often the best remembered and loved part of social/political struggles through out history, but the most important element of political music is the music, which is why we care in the first place.
I am out of town for the next couple weeks, but recently I got to check out the Chicago History Museum. There is a nice exhibit on Chicago music and television, including this photo of Win Stracke from the set of Studs Place. Studs Place was a mostly improvised show staring Studs Terkel and friends. It’s hard to find episodes these days but there are a few on the internet. The Chicago History Museum also has an excellent research library with a lot of materials on Chicago folk folks (including episodes of Studs Place).
Overall the museum is pretty good, though I thought they tended to gloss over the less sunny bits of Chicago history. The Pullman strike, haymarket riot and 68′ convention riot only get brief displays and in general a greater note of the contributions of Chicago workers to labor history would have been nice. Dusty Grooves, Win Stracke’s Songs of Old Town
