Damn right! Is there a difference between cool and hip? I think there is. They're definitely cool, but also pretty definitely not hip, no? Am I wrong? Am I...unintentionally hip?!!
What fun! You're much more country and blues than I expected. May I recommend Soul Journey by Gillian Welch? One of my favorite acquisitions from the last year. This reminds me I've been meaning to get some Dylan, since I don't have any in my collection. I didn't expect to like listening to shuffled music, but the element of surprise kept it interesting.
Here's my 10:
1. Cassandra Wilson- Waters of March, Belly of the Sun
2. Beck - Nicotine & Gravy, Midnite Vultures
3. Natalie Merchant - The Worst Thing, Motherland
4. Marcus Roberts - It's Maria's Dance, Blues for the New Millennium
5. Pablo Casals - Track 08, Bach: Suites for Cello 4-6
6. The Bad Plus - Silence is the Question, These Are The Vistas
7. Lucinda Williams - Am I Too Blue, Lucinda Williams
8. Des'ree - I Ain't Movin' [Percussion Reprise], I Ain't Movin'
9. Liz Phair - Take a Look, Liz Phair
10. Diana Krall - Devil May Care, When I Look In Your Eyes
I've been thinking about getting Soul Journey. I've been listening a lot to Time (the Revelator) lately. And I don't know if I'm country exactly; more folk and blues, than country and blues, don't you think?
Don't really enjoy it, to be honest. Not for lack of trying either. But some old-timey stuff that's probably considered bluegrass, like Doc Boggs and Buell Kazee, I love.
I'm pretty sure Kazee and Boggs are considered "old-time" (whatever that means) rather than bluegrass. Bluegrass is a pretty formalized style, I think--mandolin, fiddle, banjo, guitar, lots of virtuousic solos--starting more or less with Bill Monroe. Transition figures might be J.E. Mainer's Mountaineers, which had the instrumentation but not so much the improvisational style, and guitar-mandolin brother singing acts like the Monroe Brothers, the Blue Sky Boys, and the early Stanley Brothers, which were more or less vice versa (fewer instruments, played the same way). You might like the Stanley Brothers, BTW, if you haven't heard them--they've got the spooky quality you get from Kazee and Boggs.
Are there any Buell Kazee CD reissues? I keep hoping someone will box up his complete early recordings.
I saw Ralph Stanley late last year. I can only imagine that Ralph Stanley Jr. is a disappointment to his father, but they were selling CDs of the Stanley Brothers performances at the University of Chicago Folk Festival from the 60s, and man, there's a really great rendition of "Rank Stranger" on it. That high and lonesome sound, man.
I think the formalization of bluegrass is pretty interesting, especially the way newer bluegrass ensembles make a virtue of adhering to old standards and tradition--very anti-creative; I mentally associate it with bartending and iconography (also: "To be original was to admit that you could not do a thing the right way, so you could only do it your own way", p. 89 of The Recognitions. At the folk festival last year one group praised another for playing songs just they way Bill Monroe wrote 'em.
who says Johnny Cash, the Anthology of American Folk music, Blind Willie Johnson, and Alan Lomax's recordings aren't cool?
Posted by TomF | Link to this comment | 01-14-05 10:29 AM
I was just about to say what TomF said. Leo Kottke, too; the whole Takoma brigade got a lot of attention during the John Fahey renascence.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-14-05 10:31 AM
Damn right! Is there a difference between cool and hip? I think there is. They're definitely cool, but also pretty definitely not hip, no? Am I wrong? Am I...unintentionally hip?!!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-14-05 10:32 AM
True cool runs deep. Hip is on the surface.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-14-05 10:36 AM
For some reason, that explanation didn't keep me from getting my ass kicked by the "hip" kids in middle school. Or high school for that matter.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-14-05 10:49 AM
Dude - I LOVE PJ.
Thanks for the affirmation.
Posted by bg | Link to this comment | 01-14-05 12:08 PM
What fun! You're much more country and blues than I expected. May I recommend Soul Journey by Gillian Welch? One of my favorite acquisitions from the last year. This reminds me I've been meaning to get some Dylan, since I don't have any in my collection. I didn't expect to like listening to shuffled music, but the element of surprise kept it interesting.
Here's my 10:
1. Cassandra Wilson- Waters of March, Belly of the Sun
2. Beck - Nicotine & Gravy, Midnite Vultures
3. Natalie Merchant - The Worst Thing, Motherland
4. Marcus Roberts - It's Maria's Dance, Blues for the New Millennium
5. Pablo Casals - Track 08, Bach: Suites for Cello 4-6
6. The Bad Plus - Silence is the Question, These Are The Vistas
7. Lucinda Williams - Am I Too Blue, Lucinda Williams
8. Des'ree - I Ain't Movin' [Percussion Reprise], I Ain't Movin'
9. Liz Phair - Take a Look, Liz Phair
10. Diana Krall - Devil May Care, When I Look In Your Eyes
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 01-14-05 3:21 PM
I've been thinking about getting Soul Journey. I've been listening a lot to Time (the Revelator) lately. And I don't know if I'm country exactly; more folk and blues, than country and blues, don't you think?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-14-05 3:31 PM
How do you feel about bluegrass?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-14-05 3:43 PM
Don't really enjoy it, to be honest. Not for lack of trying either. But some old-timey stuff that's probably considered bluegrass, like Doc Boggs and Buell Kazee, I love.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-14-05 3:46 PM
personally, I feel good about bluegrass.
Posted by TomF | Link to this comment | 01-14-05 3:46 PM
I think bluegrass is the bee's knees. Here's the results of me doing it, if anyone cares:
Samla Mammas Manna - Mjölk
Guapo - Five Suns 1
Black Forest/Black Sea - Orion
Ex + Tom Cora - Sukaina
Thinking Plague - The Guardian
Bill Monroe & Doc Watson - Banks of the Ohio
Richard Thompson - Genesis Hall
Murcof - Ulysses
Brian Eno - Golden Hours
Satoko Fujii - The Sun in a Moonlight Night
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-14-05 5:17 PM
I'm pretty sure Kazee and Boggs are considered "old-time" (whatever that means) rather than bluegrass. Bluegrass is a pretty formalized style, I think--mandolin, fiddle, banjo, guitar, lots of virtuousic solos--starting more or less with Bill Monroe. Transition figures might be J.E. Mainer's Mountaineers, which had the instrumentation but not so much the improvisational style, and guitar-mandolin brother singing acts like the Monroe Brothers, the Blue Sky Boys, and the early Stanley Brothers, which were more or less vice versa (fewer instruments, played the same way). You might like the Stanley Brothers, BTW, if you haven't heard them--they've got the spooky quality you get from Kazee and Boggs.
Are there any Buell Kazee CD reissues? I keep hoping someone will box up his complete early recordings.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-17-05 12:08 PM
The early stuff would be great to have. There's this, but it looks like recordings he made much later.
I got to see Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys play a few years ago. Lots of fun, though still, a bit more bluegrass than not, for my taste.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-17-05 12:17 PM
I saw Ralph Stanley late last year. I can only imagine that Ralph Stanley Jr. is a disappointment to his father, but they were selling CDs of the Stanley Brothers performances at the University of Chicago Folk Festival from the 60s, and man, there's a really great rendition of "Rank Stranger" on it. That high and lonesome sound, man.
I think the formalization of bluegrass is pretty interesting, especially the way newer bluegrass ensembles make a virtue of adhering to old standards and tradition--very anti-creative; I mentally associate it with bartending and iconography (also: "To be original was to admit that you could not do a thing the right way, so you could only do it your own way", p. 89 of The Recognitions. At the folk festival last year one group praised another for playing songs just they way Bill Monroe wrote 'em.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-17-05 2:49 PM
). Crap.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-17-05 9:24 PM
For what its worth -
1) Dust My Broom - BB King
2)Witchcraft- Sinatra
3)Alex Chilton - The Replacements
4)Streams of Whiskey - The Pogues
5) Clash City Rockers - The Clash
6) That's the Way Love Is - Marvin Gaye
7) Tumbling Dice - Stones
8) Knocking on Heavens Door - Dylan and the Band
9) Trying your Luck - The Strokes
10) Meet Me at Mary's Place - Springsteen
Bonus Tracks:
11) Kiss - Prince
12) Lawyers Guns and Money - Zevon
13) Slow Turning - John Hiatt
14) Essence - Lucinda Williams
15) Drive in Movies and Dashboard Lights- Nanci Griffith
Posted by benton | Link to this comment | 01-17-05 10:06 PM
1. Binary Star - The Saga Continues
2. Talib Kweli - Good to You
3. Elvis Costello - My Little Blue Window
4. Aimee Mann - Red Vines
5. Sigur Ros - Myrkur (Darkness)
6. Azure Ray - Displaced
7. And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - How Near, How Far
8. Sonic Youth - Burdocks
9. All-Time Quarterback - Factory Direct
10. Quarkspace - Sturm and Calm
11. El-P - Squeegee Man Shooting
12. Charles Mingus - The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife Are Some Jive-Ass Slippers
13. Del tha Funky Homo Sapien - Lyric Lickin'
14. Devin the Dude - Ligole Bips (Southern Girls)
15. The Pernice Brothers - Flaming Wreck
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-17-05 10:38 PM