Americana: class-over-mass music

Jim Fuselli in The Wall Street Journal (yes, your eyes aren't deceiving you re the source) writes about the status of Americana music.

"Inside Llewyn Davis"

A film involving folk music?

And it's not a documentary.

"Inside Llewyn Davis" in which the genesis of the lead character is the late Dave Van Ronk is being filmed by the Coen Brothers.

It's described, of all things, as a screwball comedy with seven or eight songs.

Danny Schmidt's "Firestorm"

The song is "Firestorm" from the "Instead the Forest Rose to Sing" release

and it is the perfect marriage of music and lyrics. Schmidt sings himself unconvinced that he has changed from a fly-off-the-handle avenger, the accompanying music ominously plies that same territory and the words detail the factor behind his back and forth transformation.

Sign in and listen to "Firestorm" on Pandora.

Or try this. 

The lyrics

Refrain:
I ain’t like that anymore
I don’t kick off like before
I’m more relaxed, I’m all reformed
I ain’t a firestorm

I played a show in Club Delaney
Long, but still they would not pay me
They said times were tough and I said tough times just abound
They said it’s all misunderstanding
And I should not be so demanding
In the old days I’d have burned the bastards down

Refrain

I made my way from Spain to France
A naked sort of paper dance
There were stamps to beg for and palms demanding grease
They said there’s nothing they could do
They said there’s tricks that get you through
Was a time I would have nailed those palms to trees

Refrain

Cause now you’ve turned my eyes to see
A wider view, a kinder scene
I used to blame the forest for the trees
But you hold my hand and step me back
A love that lights a charcoal past
A trail of ash and burned down memories

    Bridge:
    I used to flap my tongue like fists of flint against the granite fools
    Until sparks blazed in my eyes, it’s true
    But now I’m done with that, I haven’t
    Torched the woods to kill one rabbit
    Not for years, not until they came and fucked with you

I’m still like that some I know
There’s still kindling in my soul
It burns quiet, it burns slow
Until a firestorm explodes

Steven Hyden claps for Bob Dylan and his latest while giving the back oif his hand to the Avett Brothers and the Dave Matthew Band. Agree or disagree, it's quite the well written.

A snippet:

"...After a half-century of torturing his larynx, Dylan's vocals signify the human spirit persevering in the midst of decay. He actually sounds like death now, though his nimble, playful singing style imbues it with the nagging stubbornness of life..."

Presenting "Preston Miller"

I wish there was a higher quality version available on line but so be it. Here is Tracy Grammer singing the Dave Carter penned song "Preston Miller" -- fun, exquisitely written, something seemingly Shakespearean in its effort -- all in four and a half minutes!

 

he was born in miller's mansion when the mistress was asleep
the secret son of the chambermaid and master
and they sent him into hidin for his schoolin and his keep
with the carlysles and the other lucky bastards

now his toady tutors fawn and praise the man that he's become
though he's taken to the laudenum and faro
he walks the streets like velvet death with his daddy's money on his breath
and a shame he cannot shake down in his marrow

when day fades to black you must not listen to the killer
pretty voices keep you beautiful and bound
cause the simple, sorry fact of your existence, preston miller
is enough to bring this house of evil down

one night upon some drunken dare he writes his absent sire
sayin father i would fain come home to meet thee
and though his worthless friends guffaw this sudden show of fire
another round of bourbon and it's easy

and this letter finds his father in his tower far away
and the hoary claw that holds it shakes and trembles
is it grief over a life misspent, or love or greed or mere contempt
or something darker stirring in his temples

when day fades to black ...

a week gone by, he's wakened by a knockin at his door
and he drags himself half-wasted to the threshold
it's a message in his father's quill sayin meet me scion, if you will
at the very stroke of midnight in the meadow

now he has combed his laggard locks and hired a comely roan
and he's met his comrade fops around the fountain
and he's bidden each a grand goodbye and he's cantered off alone
to meet his aged father in the mountains

when day fades to black ...

come out come out my father dear, i honor thee tonight
he shouts as he goes weavin in the saddle
and he sees the stars go blinkin by like the twinkle in a trollop's eye
and six riders ridin madly in the shadows

this morning sailed a ship of fools across a sea of gin
with a blind and grinning reaper at the tiller
and it drove an aging jacob to his lone and bitter end
and a bullet through the brain of preston miller

More Dave Carter

Back to Dave Carter.

He was a seeker, a gentle soul but someone who had no time for those wounded by ancient accumulated dogma first collected to encumber and control, not enlighten.

Yet in the gentlest of manners, he eviscerated the mindset in certain of his songs.

Such as:

From "Happytown" -

shootin fools and starry gazers, wizard hip and button-down
i walk the occam's razor way through priests and circus clowns

From "Mother, I Climbed" -

when they called my faults against the wall i took my place in line
and put my trust in priestly men to break the ties that bind
but their straight and narrow highway's just a row of billboard signs

The standard approach is to rip and lambaste loudly, spitting fire. Dave Carter did it in his own way, just as effectively.

Learning about Josh Ritter

For those unfamiliar with the background of Josh Ritter, this article contains some interesting information.

Here is Ritter's site.

Below is a video of "Harrisburg"
 


Below is a video of "Girl In The War"



Below is a video of "Thin Blue Flame"
 

Bob Dylan's latest release

David Yaffe takes on the task of reviewing Bob Dylan's latest (last?) release, including song interpretation.