Tuesday, December 27, 2016

*An Encore With John Prine- My Arky Angel-The Music Of Iris DeMent

Click on to title to link to YouTube's film clip of Iris Dement and John Prine performing "In Spite Of Ourselves".



DVD Review

John Prine At Sessions At West 54th, John Prine with Iris Dement and various artists, OnBoy Records, 2001




Over the last several months I have done more musically-oriented reviews that I had expected. One of the themes that keep cropping up is that for some folk/blues-oriented musical artists like Bob Dylan my attachment was immediate, long time and on-going. For other artists like John Prine it has been more of a recently acquired taste. I had, obviously, heard Bonnie Raitt do his "Angel From Montgomery" but I never associated his name with that song. Then a couple of years ago I happened to listen to his "Hello In There" and "Sam Stone". Yes, this guy has something to say that I wanted to (on some songs, needed to) hear.

This concert represents a small selection of some of his work, although with the exception of "Sam Stone", "Lake Marie" and "Hello in There" not much in the way of classics, at least that I am familiar with. This concert would thus only rate as a pretty fair performance except that on a few songs like "When Two World Collide" he is accompanied by Iris Dement ( a powerful folk singer/song writer in her own right. She is also the wife of the folksinger/songwriter Greg Brown whom I have also reviewed in this space). Iris is also a recent acquisition. I would travel very far to hear that voice of hers (and have done so). Incidentally, I have seen both these performers in person over the past couple of years- they still have it. Still this is not the DVD that YOU need to understand either talent, but you may want it.

No comments:

Post a Comment