Showing posts with label not Joan Baez. Show all posts
Showing posts with label not Joan Baez. Show all posts

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Happy Birthday To You-*Once More Into The Time Capsule, Part Two- The New York Folk Revival Scene in the Early 1960’s-Joan Baez

Happy Birthday To You-

By Lester Lannon

I am devoted to a local folk station WUMB which is run out of the campus of U/Mass-Boston over near Boston Harbor. At one time this station was an independent one based in Cambridge but went under when their significant demographic base deserted or just passed on once the remnant of the folk minute really did sink below the horizon.

So much for radio folk history except to say that the DJs on many of the programs go out of their ways to commemorate or celebrate the birthdays of many folk, rock, blues and related genre artists. So many and so often that I have had a hard time keeping up with noting those occurrences in this space which after all is dedicated to such happening along the historical continuum.

To “solve” this problem I have decided to send birthday to that grouping of musicians on an arbitrary basis as I come across their names in other contents or as someone here has written about them and we have them in the archives. This may not be the best way to acknowledge them, but it does do so in a respectful manner.   



Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Joan Baez performing Hedy West's "500 Miles" amd Phil Och's "There But For Fortune".

CD Review

Washington Square Memoirs: The Great Urban Folk Revival Boom, 1950-1970, various artists, 3CD set, Rhino Records, 2001


Disc Two: Dave Van Ronk on “He Was A Friend Of Mine” and You’se A Viper”, The Chad Mitchell Trio on “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream”, Hedy West on “500 Miles”, Ian &Sylvia on “Four Strong Winds”, Tom Paxton on “I Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound”, Peter, Paul And Mary on “Blowin’ In The Wind”, Bob Dylan on “Boots Of Spanish Leather”, Jesse Colin Young on “Four In The Morning”, Joan Baez on “There But For Fortune”, Judy Roderick on “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?”, Bonnie Dobson on “Morning Dew”, Buffy Sainte-Marie on “Cod’ine” and Eric Von Schmidt on “ Joshua Gone Barbados”.

Joan Baez on “There But For Fortune”. I have been running a series on female folk singers from the 1960s who had great talent but who didn’t make it- or at least didn’t become “queen of the hill”, a title reserved, and probably justifiably so, to Joan Baez. That said, unlike Bob Dylan whose work then (and somewhat now) has been profusely reviewed in this space because at some primordial level it “spoke” to me that is not the case with Joan Baez. Except for some early covers (that I really did like and remember memorizing) like the Child ballad “Geordie” and other such fare as “Copper Kettle”, etc. I early on closed my ears to her songs. (Her sister Mimi, along with husband Richard Farina, was different story.) In a sense all the problems that I had listening to most of Baez apply here to this song. She does not “speak" to me even forty years later.

"There But For Fortune"
Joan Baez


Show me the prison, show me the jail
Show me the prisoner, whose life has gone stale
And I'll show you, young man,
With so many reasons why
there but for fortune, go you or I......mm.mm

Show me the alley, show me the train
Show me the hobo, who sleeps out in the rain
And I'll show you, young man,
With so many reasons why
there but for fortune ,go you or I, mm.mm

Show me the whiskey, stains on the floor
Show me the drunkard, as he stumbles out the door
And I'll show you, young man
with so many reasons why
there but for fortune go you or I, mmm,mm

Show me the country, where the bombs had to fall
Show me the ruins of the buildings, once so tall


And I'll show you, young land
with so many reasons why
there but for fortune go you and I, you and I.

Once Again Haunted By The Question Of Questions-Who Represented The “Voice” Of The Generation Of ’68 When The Deal Went Down-And No It Was Not One Richard Millstone, Oops, Milhous Nixon




By Seth Garth

I have been haunted recently by various references to events in the early 1960s brought to mind by either seeing or hearing those references. First came one out of the blue when I was in Washington, D.C. on other business and I popped in as is my wont to the National Gallery of Art to get an “art bump” after fighting the dearies at the tail-end of the conference that I was attending. I usually enter on the 7th Street entrance to see what they have new on display on the Ground Floor exhibition areas. This time there was a small exhibit concerning the victims of Birmingham Sunday, 1963 the murder by bombing of a well-known black freedom church in that town and the death of four innocent young black girls and injuries to others. The show itself was a “what if” by a photographer who presented photos of what those young people might have looked like had they not had their precious lives stolen from them by some racist KKK-drenched bastards who never really did get the justice they deserved. The catch here, the impact on me, was these murders and another very disturbing viewing on television at the time, in black and white, of the Birmingham police unleashing dogs, firing water hoses and using the ubiquitous police billy-clubs to beat down on peaceful mostly black youth protesting against the pervasive Mister James Crow system which deprived them of their civil rights.
Those events galvanized me into action from seemingly out of nowhere. At the time I was in high school, in an all-white high school in my growing up town of North Adamsville south of Boston. (That “all white” no mistake despite the nearness to urban Boston since a recent look at the yearbook for my class showed exactly zero blacks out of a class of 515. The nearest we got to a black person was a young immigrant from Lebanon who was a Christian though and was not particularly dark. She, to my surprise, had been a cheer-leader and well-liked). I should also confess, for those who don’t know not having read about a dozen articles  I have done over the past few years in this space, that my “corner boys,” the Irish mostly with a sprinkling of Italians reflecting the two major ethic groups in the town I hung around with then never could figure out why I was so concerned about black people down South when we were living hand to mouth up North. (The vagaries of time have softened some things among them for example nobody uses the “n” word which needs no explanation which was the “term of art” in reference to black people then to not prettify what this crowd was about.)
In many ways I think I only survived by the good graces of Scribe who everybody deferred to on social matters. Not for any heroic purpose but because Scribe was the key to intelligence about what girls were interested in what guys, who was “going” steady, etc. a human grapevine who nobody crossed without suffering exile. What was “heroic” if that can be used in this context was that as a result of those Birmingham images back then I travelled over to the NAACP office on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston to offer my meager services in the civil rights struggle and headed south to deadly North Carolina one summer on a voting drive. I was scared but that was that. My guys never knew that was where I went until many years later long after we had all gotten a better gripe via the U.S. Army and other situations on the question of race and were amazed that I had done that.         
The other recent occurrence that has added fuel to the fire was a segment on NPR’s Morning Edition where they deal with aspects of what amounts to the American Songbook. The segment dealt with the generational influence of folk-singer songwriter Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ as an anthem for our generation (and its revival of late in newer social movements like the kids getting serious about gun control). No question for those who came of political age early in the 1960s before all hell broke loose this was a definitive summing up song for those of us who were seeking what Bobby Kennedy would later quoting a line of poetry from Alfred Lord Tennyson call “seeking a newer world.” In one song was summed up what we thought about obtuse indifferent authority figures, the status quo, our clueless parents, the social struggles that were defining us and a certain hurried-ness to get to wherever we thought we were going.
I mentioned in that previous commentary that given his subsequent trajectory while Bob Dylan may have wanted to be the reincarnation Plus of Woody Guthrie (which by his long life he can rightly claim) whether he wanted to be, could be, the voice of the Generation of ’68 was problematic. What drove me, is driving me a little crazy is who or what some fifty plus years after all the explosions represented the best of what we had started out to achieve (and were essentially militarily defeated by the ensuing reaction before we could achieve most of it) in those lonely high school halls and college dormitories staying up late at night worrying about the world and our place in the sun.
For a long time, probably far longer than was sensible I believed that it was somebody like Jim Morrison, shaman-like leader of the Doors, who came out of the West Coast winds and headed to our heads in the East. Not Dylan, although he was harbinger of what was to come later in the decade as rock reassembled itself in new garb after some vanilla music hiatus but somebody who embodied the new sensibility that Dylan had unleashed. The real nut though was that I, and not me alone, and not my communal brethren alone either, was the idea that we possessed again probably way past it use by date was that “music was the revolution” by that meaning nothing but the general lifestyle changes through the decade so that the combination of “dropping out” of nine to five society, dope in its many manifestations, kindnesses, good thought and the rapidly evolving music would carry us over the finish line. Guys like Josh Breslin and the late Pete Markin, hard political guys as well as rabid music lovers and dopers, used to laugh at me when I even mentioned that I was held in that sway especially when ebb tide of the counter-cultural movement hit in Nixon times and the bastinado was as likely to be our home as the new Garden. Still Jim Morrison as the “new man” (new human in today speak) made a lot of sense to me although when he fell down like many others to the lure of the dope I started reappraising some of my ideas -worried about that bastinado fate.  

So I’ll be damned right now if I could tell you that we had such a voice, and maybe that was the problem, or a problem which has left us some fifty years later without a good answer. Which only means for others to chime in with their thoughts on this matter.         

*Once More Into The Time Capsule, Part Two- The New York Folk Revival Scene in the Early 1960’s-Hedy West

Happy Birthday To You-

By Lester Lannon

I am devoted to a local folk station WUMB which is run out of the campus of U/Mass-Boston over near Boston Harbor. At one time this station was an independent one based in Cambridge but went under when their significant demographic base deserted or just passed on once the remnant of the folk minute really did sink below the horizon.

So much for radio folk history except to say that the DJs on many of the programs go out of their ways to commemorate or celebrate the birthdays of many folk, rock, blues and related genre artists. So many and so often that I have had a hard time keeping up with noting those occurrences in this space which after all is dedicated to such happening along the historical continuum.

To “solve” this problem I have decided to send birthday to that grouping of musicians on an arbitrary basis as I come across their names in other contents or as someone here has written about them and we have them in the archives. This may not be the best way to acknowledge them, but it does do so in a respectful manner.   



Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Hedy West performing "Cotton Mill Girl" on Pete Seeger's 1960s television show, "Rainbow Quest".

CD Review

Washington Square Memoirs: The Great Urban Folk Revival Boom, 1950-1970, various artists, 3CD set, Rhino Records, 2001


Except for the reference to the origins of the talent brought to the city the same comments apply for this CD. Rather than repeat information that is readily available in the booklet and on the discs I’ll finish up here with some recommendations of songs that I believe that you should be sure to listen to:

Disc Two: Dave Van Ronk on “He Was A Friend Of Mine” and You’se A Viper”, The Chad Mitchell Trio on “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream”, Hedy West on “500 Miles”, Ian &Sylvia on “Four Strong Winds”, Tom Paxton on “I Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound”, Peter, Paul And Mary on “Blowin’ In The Wind”, Bob Dylan on “Boots Of Spanish Leather”, Jesse Colin Young on “Four In The Morning”, Joan Baez on “There But For Fortune”, Judy Roderick on “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?”, Bonnie Dobson on “Morning Dew”, Buffy Sainte-Marie on “Cod’ine” and Eric Von Schmidt on “ Joshua Gone Barbados”.


Hedy West on “500 Miles”. This is a pure classic of the modern American folk songbook and thus needs no further comment from me on that score. What is interesting though about Hedy West is that she, unlike most of the other folk performers who emerged in the early 1960s, is an authentic product of the rural mountain roots. That music was among the types of music that we were searching out as we tried to make sense of the American historical experience that we felt had gone haywire in those times. That said, Ms. West has an interesting comment in the profuse booklet that accompanies these CDs about the arrogant way she was treated by the 'guardians' of the folk faith down in the wilds of Greenwich Village. Apparently, at least one person was not impressed by the surface “holy quest” for roots of, basically, upper middle class white kids who latched onto this music and snubbed the real thing. Interesting. Kudos, Hedy.

"500 Miles"-Hedy West

If you miss the train Im on, you will know that I am gone
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles,
A hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles,
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.

Lord Im one, lord Im two, lord Im three, lord Im four,
Lord Im 500 miles from my home.
500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles
Lord Im five hundred miles from my home.

Not a shirt on my back, not a penny to my name
Lord I cant go a-home this a-way
This a-away, this a-way, this a-way, this a-way,
Lord I cant go a-home this a-way.

If you miss the train Im on you will know that I am gone
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.

Sunday, February 10, 2019

Happy Birthday Eric Andersen -Folk Music For Aging Children- The Music Of Judy Collins And Friends- The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love-1967-Folk Music For Aging Children- The Music Of Judy Collins And Friends

Happy Birthday Eric Andersen -Folk Music For Aging Children- The Music Of Judy Collins And Friends




CD Review

Wildflower Festival, Judy Collins, Eric Andersen, Tom Rush, Arlo Guthrie, Wildflower Records, 2003



Okay, just when you thought there could not possibly be any more country folk, urban folk, suburban folk, folk rock, rock folk, semi-folk, or quasi-folk music from the folk revival of the early 1960 to review here I am again reviewing some of the stars of that time-in their dotage. Well, maybe not dotage, but we are all, including Judy Collins, Eric Andersen, Tom Rush, and Arlo Guthrie, getting a little long in the tooth, and no one can dispute that hard fact. The real question is whether the artists in this compilation still have it, at least for those of us in that dwindling, graying, arthritic, prescription-needing folk audience that fills the small church basement “coffee houses” on this planet. And they do. Still have it, I mean.

That said, this little Wildflower Festival setting in 2003 provided Judy and her guests with a chance to show their stuff, new and old. Now, for those who have heard Judy Collins sing back in the day the question is why she did not challenge Joan Baez for the “queen” of folk title. She had the voice, the style, and the looks (ya, that WAS important, even then) to do so. I have been running a “Not Joan Baez” series and will deal with that question there at some other time but her work here is pretty good, especially her well-known cover of Ian Tyson’s “Someday Soon”. Eric Andersen, who I have already looked at in a “Not Bob Dylan” series hold forth on his “Blue River”. Tom Rush, ditto, on “The Remember Song”. Finally, Arlo, whom I have covered in relation to his father’s, Woody Guthrie, music “steals” the show here with his storytelling, notably the kids’ story, “Mooses Came Walking”.

Someday Soon
Ian Tyson


There's a young man that I know whose age is twenty-one
Comes from down in southern Colorado
Just out of the service, he's lookin' for his fun
Someday soon, goin' with him someday soon

My parents can not stand him 'cause he rides the rodeo
My father says that he will leave me cryin'
I would follow him right down the roughest road I know
Someday soon, goin' with him someday soon

But when he comes to call, my pa ain't got a good word to say
Guess it's 'cause he's just as wild in his younger days

So blow, you old Blue Northern, blow my love to me
He's ridin' in tonight from California
He loves his damned old rodeo as much as he loves me
Someday soon, goin' with him someday soon

When he comes to call, my pa ain't got a word to say
Guess it's 'cause he's just as wild in his younger days

So blow, you old blue northern, blow my love to me
He's ridin' in tonight from California
He loves his damned old rodeo as much as he loves me
Someday soon, goin' with him someday soon
Someday soon, goin' with him
© 1991

Saturday, October 27, 2018

Once More Into The Time Capsule, Part Three- The New York Folk Revival Scene in the Early 1960’s-Richard &Mimi Farina

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Richard and Mimi Farina performing on Pete Seegers' "Rainbow Quest".

CD Review

Washington Square Memoirs: The Great Urban Folk Revival Boom, 1950-1970, various artists, 3CD set, Rhino Records, 2001


Except for the reference to the origins of the talent brought to the city the same comments apply for this CD. Rather than repeat information that is readily available in the booklet and on the discs I’ll finish up here with some recommendations of songs that I believe that you should be sure to listen to:

Disc Three: Phil Ochs on “I Ain’t Marching Anymore”, Richard &Mimi Farina on “Pack Up Your Sorrows”, John Hammond on “Drop Down Mama”, Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band on “Rag Mama”, John Denver on “Bells Of Rhymney”, Gordon Lightfoot on "Early Morning Rain”, Eric Andersen on “Thirsty Boots”, Tim Hardin on “Reason To Believe”, Richie Havens on “Just Like A Woman”, Judy Collins on “Suzanne”, Tim Buckley on “Once I Was”, Tom Rush on “The Circle Game”, Taj Mahal on “Candy Man”, Loudon Wainwright III on “School Days”and Arlo Guthrie on “The Motorcycle Song”


Richard &Mimi Farina on “Pack Up Your Sorrows”. Okay, if you have gotten tired (as I sometimes have in all truth) of my going on and on about “the king”, Bob Dylan, and “the queen”, Joan Baez of the old folk revival of the 1960s then try this pair on for an alternative. Joan’s late sister, Mimi, and Bob’s greatest writing competitor before his early motorcycle death in 1966. Mimi’s mountain harp and their nice harmonies on work that he wrote still sound good. This one, by the way, is definitely in the modern American folk songbook. That, my friends, says it all. Richard’s “Birmingham Sunday” is a classic of topical political songwriting. Powerful stuff.

"Birmingham Sunday"

Come round by my side and I'll sing you a song.
I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong.
On Birmingham Sunday the blood ran like wine,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
That cold autumn morning no eyes saw the sun,
And Addie Mae Collins, her number was one.
At an old Baptist church there was no need to run.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom,

The clouds they were grey and the autumn winds blew,
And Denise McNair brought the number to two.
The falcon of death was a creature they knew,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom,
The church it was crowded, but no one could see
That Cynthia Wesley's dark number was three.
Her prayers and her feelings would shame you and me.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.

Young Carol Robertson entered the door
And the number her killers had given was four.
She asked for a blessing but asked for no more,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
On Birmingham Sunday a noise shook the ground.
And people all over the earth turned around.
For no one recalled a more cowardly sound.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.

The men in the forest they once asked of me,
How many black berries grew in the Blue Sea.
And I asked them right with a tear in my eye.
How many dark ships in the forest?
The Sunday has come and the Sunday has gone.
And I can't do much more than to sing you a song.
I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong.
And the choirs keep singing of Freedom.

Once Again Haunted By The Question Of Questions-Who Represented The “Voice” Of The Generation Of ’68 When The Deal Went Down-And No It Was Not One Richard Millstone, Oops, Milhous Nixon




By Seth Garth

I have been haunted recently by various references to events in the early 1960s brought to mind by either seeing or hearing those references. First came one out of the blue when I was in Washington, D.C. on other business and I popped in as is my wont to the National Gallery of Art to get an “art bump” after fighting the dearies at the tail-end of the conference that I was attending. I usually enter on the 7th Street entrance to see what they have new on display on the Ground Floor exhibition areas. This time there was a small exhibit concerning the victims of Birmingham Sunday, 1963 the murder by bombing of a well-known black freedom church in that town and the death of four innocent young black girls and injuries to others. The show itself was a “what if” by a photographer who presented photos of what those young people might have looked like had they not had their precious lives stolen from them by some racist KKK-drenched bastards who never really did get the justice they deserved. The catch here, the impact on me, was these murders and another very disturbing viewing on television at the time, in black and white, of the Birmingham police unleashing dogs, firing water hoses and using the ubiquitous police billy-clubs to beat down on peaceful mostly black youth protesting against the pervasive Mister James Crow system which deprived them of their civil rights.
Those events galvanized me into action from seemingly out of nowhere. At the time I was in high school, in an all-white high school in my growing up town of North Adamsville south of Boston. (That “all white” no mistake despite the nearness to urban Boston since a recent look at the yearbook for my class showed exactly zero blacks out of a class of 515. The nearest we got to a black person was a young immigrant from Lebanon who was a Christian though and was not particularly dark. She, to my surprise, had been a cheer-leader and well-liked). I should also confess, for those who don’t know not having read about a dozen articles  I have done over the past few years in this space, that my “corner boys,” the Irish mostly with a sprinkling of Italians reflecting the two major ethic groups in the town I hung around with then never could figure out why I was so concerned about black people down South when we were living hand to mouth up North. (The vagaries of time have softened some things among them for example nobody uses the “n” word which needs no explanation which was the “term of art” in reference to black people then to not prettify what this crowd was about.)
In many ways I think I only survived by the good graces of Scribe who everybody deferred to on social matters. Not for any heroic purpose but because Scribe was the key to intelligence about what girls were interested in what guys, who was “going” steady, etc. a human grapevine who nobody crossed without suffering exile. What was “heroic” if that can be used in this context was that as a result of those Birmingham images back then I travelled over to the NAACP office on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston to offer my meager services in the civil rights struggle and headed south to deadly North Carolina one summer on a voting drive. I was scared but that was that. My guys never knew that was where I went until many years later long after we had all gotten a better gripe via the U.S. Army and other situations on the question of race and were amazed that I had done that.         
The other recent occurrence that has added fuel to the fire was a segment on NPR’s Morning Edition where they deal with aspects of what amounts to the American Songbook. The segment dealt with the generational influence of folk-singer songwriter Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ as an anthem for our generation (and its revival of late in newer social movements like the kids getting serious about gun control). No question for those who came of political age early in the 1960s before all hell broke loose this was a definitive summing up song for those of us who were seeking what Bobby Kennedy would later quoting a line of poetry from Alfred Lord Tennyson call “seeking a newer world.” In one song was summed up what we thought about obtuse indifferent authority figures, the status quo, our clueless parents, the social struggles that were defining us and a certain hurried-ness to get to wherever we thought we were going.
I mentioned in that previous commentary that given his subsequent trajectory while Bob Dylan may have wanted to be the reincarnation Plus of Woody Guthrie (which by his long life he can rightly claim) whether he wanted to be, could be, the voice of the Generation of ’68 was problematic. What drove me, is driving me a little crazy is who or what some fifty plus years after all the explosions represented the best of what we had started out to achieve (and were essentially militarily defeated by the ensuing reaction before we could achieve most of it) in those lonely high school halls and college dormitories staying up late at night worrying about the world and our place in the sun.
For a long time, probably far longer than was sensible I believed that it was somebody like Jim Morrison, shaman-like leader of the Doors, who came out of the West Coast winds and headed to our heads in the East. Not Dylan, although he was harbinger of what was to come later in the decade as rock reassembled itself in new garb after some vanilla music hiatus but somebody who embodied the new sensibility that Dylan had unleashed. The real nut though was that I, and not me alone, and not my communal brethren alone either, was the idea that we possessed again probably way past it use by date was that “music was the revolution” by that meaning nothing but the general lifestyle changes through the decade so that the combination of “dropping out” of nine to five society, dope in its many manifestations, kindnesses, good thought and the rapidly evolving music would carry us over the finish line. Guys like Josh Breslin and the late Pete Markin, hard political guys as well as rabid music lovers and dopers, used to laugh at me when I even mentioned that I was held in that sway especially when ebb tide of the counter-cultural movement hit in Nixon times and the bastinado was as likely to be our home as the new Garden. Still Jim Morrison as the “new man” (new human in today speak) made a lot of sense to me although when he fell down like many others to the lure of the dope I started reappraising some of my ideas -worried about that bastinado fate.  

So I’ll be damned right now if I could tell you that we had such a voice, and maybe that was the problem, or a problem which has left us some fifty years later without a good answer. Which only means for others to chime in with their thoughts on this matter.         

Saturday, May 06, 2017

*The Not Joan Baezs- The Music Of Ronee Blakley

The Not Joan Baezs- The Music  Of  Ronee Blakley




Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Ronee Blakley performing "Need A New Sun Rising".


CD Review

Welcome, Ronee Blakley, Collector’s Choice, 1975



A couple of years ago I spend a little time, worthwhile time I think, running through the male folk singers and songwriters of the folk revival of the 1960s. The premise, at the time, was to compare the fates of those singers to the man who has stood up as the icon of the era, Bob Dylan. I went through a litany of such male artists as Jesse Winchester, Jesse Colin Young, Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Rush and the like and found no particular common denominator other than they were still performing (those who were still alive) at some level acceptable to them, if not at Dylan’s level and status.

As another aspect of that premise I looked at some (fewer) women folk singers and songwriters in comparison to the acknowledged “queen” of that folk revival, Joan Baez. Alas, other more political work interfered with a more extensive look at the “not Joan Baezs”. I will begin to make partial amends here, with the artist under review, Ronee Blakley. Oh, you are not familiar with the name? That is probably fair enough unless you might have gotten around to the local folk club circuit in the 1970s, or seen her as Barbara Jean- a Loretta Lynn prototype in Robert Altman’s classic, edgy homage to country music, “Nashville”. Or perhaps, some other movies like “Nightmare On Elm Street”.

You, in any case, probably do not know her from her two great albums produced in the early 1970s and composed of, mainly, her own songs. That is a shame because between her majestic voice and her fiery, sometimes acid-etched, lyrics, including taking on some very topical subjects like the murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton by the Chicago police and touting all the varieties of female independence and assertiveness she did some very good work. And then “puff”. No more music, at least recorded music. I have not been able to find out exactly why but she certainly takes her place in that group that I, sadly in this case, call one-note “janies”.

So what is good here: certainly the acid-etched “American Beauty”; her ode to female independence “Young Man”; the old-timey homage to home and family “Idaho Home” that I often find myself singing out of the blue; and, another grasp at autobiography “She Lays It On The Line”. Nice stuff.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

*Once More Into The Time Capsule, Part Two- The New York Folk Revival Scene in the Early 1960’s-BonnieDobson

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Tim Rose (co-writer of the song) performing "Morning Dew".



CD Review

Washington Square Memoirs: The Great Urban Folk Revival Boom, 1950-1970, various artists, 3CD set, Rhino Records, 2001




Except for the reference to the origins of the talent brought to the city the same comments apply for this CD. Rather than repeat information that is readily available in the booklet and on the discs I’ll finish up here with some recommendations of songs that I believe that you should be sure to listen to:



Disc Two: Dave Van Ronk on “He Was A Friend Of Mine” and You’se A Viper”, The Chad Mitchell Trio on “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream”, Hedy West on “500 Miles”, Ian &Sylvia on “Four Strong Winds”, Tom Paxton on “I Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound”, Peter, Paul And Mary on “Blowin’ In The Wind”, Bob Dylan on “Boots Of Spanish Leather”, Jesse Colin Young on “Four In The Morning”, Joan Baez on “There But For Fortune”, Judy Roderick on “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?”, Bonnie Dobson on “Morning Dew”, Buffy Sainte-Marie on “Cod’ine” and Eric Von Schmidt on “ Joshua Gone Barbados”.



Bonnie Dobson on “Morning Dew”. Bonnie Dobson would not be a female singer that would have made my previously mentioned lists of ‘not Joan Baez’s’ but off of this recording she could have been. That high soprano voice and mournful delivery was the epitome (for worshipful males, and maybe females as well) of how we wanted our “love” songs done. Some female folk singers have lasted, including Baez herself. I do not know the fate of Bonnie Dobson but the musical world is filled to overflowing with one-hit Johnnies and Janie’s. Folk is no exception to that rule but this song has now gained, rightly, a measure of immortality.



"Morning Dew"



Walk me out in the morning dew my honey,
Walk me out in the morning dew today.
I can't walk you out in the morning dew my honey,
I can't walk you out in the morning dew today.

I thought I heard a baby cry this morning,
I thought I heard a baby cry this today.
You didn't hear no baby cry this morning,
You didn't hear no baby cry today.

Where have all the people gone my honey,
Where have all the people gone today.
There's no need for you to be worrying about all those people,
You never see those people anyway.

I thought I heard a young man moan this morning,
I thought I heard a young man moan today.
I thought I heard a young man moan this morning,
I can't walk you out in the morning dew today.

Walk me out in the morning dew my honey,
Walk me out in the morning dew today.
I'll walk you out in the morning dew my honey,
I guess it doesn't really matter anyway,
I guess it doesn't matter anyway,
I guess it doesn't matter anyway,
Guess it doesn't matter anyway.

Thursday, May 06, 2010

*The Not Joan Baezs- The Work Of Ronee Blakley

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Ronee Blakley perfroming "Attachment".

CD Review

Ronee Blakley, Ronee Blakley, Collector’s Choice, 1972


A couple of years ago I spend a little time, worthwhile time I think, running through the male folk singers and songwriters of the folk revival of the 1960s. The premise, at the time, was to compare the fates of those singers to the man who has stood up as the icon of the era, Bob Dylan. I went through a litany of such male artists as Jesse Winchester, Jesse Colin Young, Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Rush and the like and found no particular common denominator other than they were still performing (those who were still alive) at some level acceptable to them, if not at Dylan’s level and status.

As another aspect of that premise I looked at some (fewer) women folk singers and songwriters in comparison to the acknowledged “queen” of that folk revival, Joan Baez. Alas, other more political work interfered with a more extensive look at the “not Joan Baezs”. I will begin to make partial amends here, with the artist under review, Ronee Blakley. Oh, you are not familiar with the name? That is probably fair enough unless you might have gotten around to the local folk club circuit in the 1970s, or seen her as Barbara Jean- a Loretta Lynn prototype in Robert Altman’s classic, edgy homage to country music, “Nashville”. Or perhaps, some other movies like “Nightmare On Elm Street”.

You, in any case, probably do not know her from her two great albums produced in the early 1970s and composed of, mainly, her own songs. That is a shame because between her majestic voice and her fiery, sometimes acid-etched, lyrics, including taking on some very topical subjects like the murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton by the Chicago police and touting all the varieties of female independence and assertiveness she did some very good work. And then “puff”. No more music, at least recorded music. I have not been able to find out exactly why but she certainly takes her place in that group that I, sadly in this case, call one-note “janies”.

So what is good here: “Dues”, of course, from “Nashville” that got me tuned into her works, although the soundtrack version from that movie might be better; the above-mentioned righteously bitter “Fred Hampton”; the pathos of “I Lied”, and, the spunky “Bluebird” also from “Nashville” which I think kind of spoke for her life at that time.

From The Citizen K Blog

Monday, June 8, 2009
Ronee Blakely: Dues
SONG Dues

WRITTEN BY Ronee Blakely

PERFORMED BY Ronee Blakely

APPEARS ON Ronee Blakely (1972); Nashville: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1975)


When Ronee Blakely's character Barbara Jean sings "Dues," she provides the emotional epicenter of Robert Altman's film Nashville. Barbara Jean's heart-wrenching account of her tortured marriage connects with her fans at the same time that her preoccupied, insensitive husband remains oblivious. Hence the marvelous lines
It's the way that you don't love me
When you say that you do, baby
Better than almost any song I know, "Dues" depicts the anguish of a spouse who wants to leave the marriage almost as much as she wants to "love you the way I used to do." As much as she wants to "walk away from this battleground," what she'd sacrifice for ("I'd give a lot to love you") is to have things the way they were. Whipsawed between wanting to go and needing to stay, she's reduced to the plaintive entreaty of "how long must I pay these dues?" Sacrifice has become unbearable, too.


While consistent with Barbara Jean's character, Blakely's use of the vernacular also enables a universal expression of desperation: Fraught, complex, co-dependent relationships can and do happen to anyone. In that sense, "Dues" reaches out to anyone who knows deep down that their spouse has retreated so deeply into their "own private world" that they are "hidin'" their "blues" and "pretendin' what" they "say," to anyone in that fearsome place where communication is dead but the need to connect with that one person remains.


LYRICS

It's that careless disrespect
I can't take no more, baby
It's the way that you don't love me
When you say that you do, baby


It hurts so bad, it gets me down, down, down
I want to walk away from this battleground
This hurtin' life, it ain't no good
I'd give a lot to love you the way I used to do
Wish I could...


You've got your own private world
I wouldn't have it no other way
But lately you've been hidin' your blues
Pretendin' what you say


It hurts so bad, it gets me down, down, down
I want to walk away from this battleground
This hurtin' life, it ain't no good
I'd give a lot to love you the way I used to do
Wish I could...


Writin' it down kinda makes me feel better
Keeps me away from them blues
I want to be nice to you, treat you right
But how long can I pay these dues?


It hurts so bad, it gets me down, down, down
I want to walk away from this battleground
This hurtin' life, it ain't no good, no
I'd give a lot to love you the way I used to do
Wish I could...