Walking In On Bruce
This morning's New York Times had an article and link to a listing of Bruce's Springsteen's "walk-in" music - the songs playing as concert attendees are arriving. It's a long and tasty mix primarily of what's generally referred to these days as "Americana" - alt.country, folk, gospel, and blues music, both traditional and contemporary - the sort of list that very closely resembles what I hear on WFUV every day. I like and admire Bruce Springsteen, who is a musician of great talent and seems to possess an uncommon personal and political integrity. I'm pleased but not surprised that his list includes so many artists whose work I also like.
There are even a few surprises that encompass some favorites of mine - several gospel cuts from Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, whose music is genuinely inspiring, "Saint James Infirmary Blues" performed by Louis Armstrong's Hot Five (I'll have more to say on the Hot Fives and Sevens, which is in my regular rotation), Sandy Bull's "Carmina Burana Fantasy", which sets Orff's classical themes to banjo, and Jay Farrar's "Barstow".
There are also a handful of names I'm not familiar with (e.g. The Handsome Family, Song Dog, Hamell On Trial). On the basis of his other selections, I'll have to look them up (along with Ozomatli, an LA band recommended in a recent comment).
There are even a few surprises that encompass some favorites of mine - several gospel cuts from Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, whose music is genuinely inspiring, "Saint James Infirmary Blues" performed by Louis Armstrong's Hot Five (I'll have more to say on the Hot Fives and Sevens, which is in my regular rotation), Sandy Bull's "Carmina Burana Fantasy", which sets Orff's classical themes to banjo, and Jay Farrar's "Barstow".
There are also a handful of names I'm not familiar with (e.g. The Handsome Family, Song Dog, Hamell On Trial). On the basis of his other selections, I'll have to look them up (along with Ozomatli, an LA band recommended in a recent comment).
posted by DJStan at 8:28 AM
2 Comments:
Wow, that would be a great collection to have on CD. Or CDs. I love that alt.country/Americana thang. Been listening to Steve Earle lately (El Corazon, the only CD of his I have; recommendations welcome). There's a streamed station out of Austin I like for that music (www.kgsr.com) -- or would, but my computer speakers suck so I don't listen to it.
Thanks to you, I've listed the Austin station on the sidebar, and I'll be listening to Steve today at work ("Train a Comin'") - he's on my current A-list ("A" means automatic buy), and I have most of his output. I'll have more to say about him later, including some recommendations in addition to "Train", an acoustic album with three other fine musicians - Norman Blake, Peter Rowan, and Roy Huskey - and Emmylou Harris on two tracks. Steve's notes on the album include this comment: "The first time I met Emmylou, she came in to sing on Guy Clark's first album. She gave me half of her cheeseburger. I wasn't the same for weeks".
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