New Music Highlight: These Wilder Things by Ruth Moody

July 7, 2013June 26, 2013 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

I cut my teeth listening to Joan Baez and Pete Seeger, and knew all the words to at least a half-dozen Woody Guthrie songs before I went to school, so when folk music comes across my desk and it’s not of old-school character, I tend to shy away. However, I found Ruth Moody’s new album, These Wilder Things, to be an interesting mix of old and newer pop styles, with quite a bit of character.

Moody, an award-winning folk singer from Winnipeg, has a lovely voice that changes with each type of song. She can sound remarkably like Loreena McKennitt, then switch to Edie Brickell, then switch up again to sound like Natalie Imbruglia. Her rendition of Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” is catchy, but at the same time strange in that it incorporates different rhythms, pauses, and instruments than the listener is used to – it turns out what I thought was a ukulele is actually a mandolin, and mandolin is not what I normally think of when I think of Springsteen.

While some of the tracks can have that old-school flair of guitar and banjo, the songs never lapse into the deep-country twanginess that scares many people away from folk music. Most of the music is quite mainstream, a blend of soft pop that would be totally at home on WRCH or any soft-music station.

My favorite track is perhaps the first one, “Trouble and Woe,” because I like the light touch of banjo that to me signifies folk music. Not enough to make you break out reruns of Hee Haw, but a gentle touch to give depth to the guitar work. “Trees for Skies” is pretty, and of course “Dancing in the Dark” will stick in your head, a new twist on an old favorite – and this time you can understand all the words!

Susan picks music: Chants! Chants! Some of Them From France!

June 27, 2013June 24, 2013 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

Most people are familiar with school yard chants, jump rope rhymes, and various sports chants, yet most people think of musical chants as only belonging to monks in the Middle Ages and quickly run away. Not true! Popular music is full of rhythmic chanting, from rock (think Blondie’s “Rapture”, or the opening to Paul Simon’s “Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes”) to rap music to new age drum circles to American Indian dances to soundtrack music from such films as Lord of the Rings and Temple of Doom. The tune O Fortuna’s been used in hundreds of films and commercials – you might not know the title, but you’d know the music. Chants are all around us! And chants aren’t the same as a cappella music; chants can be accompanied by anything from nothing at all up through a full orchestra, every bit as musically complex as a Handel chorale. Here’s a variety of great chant music that is sure to please just about everyone:

Buddhist Chants and Peace Songs: This album knocked me off my feet! I expected that ho-hum Gregorian motif, and what I found was a light, bright, happy tune filled with undulating harmonies that sank into your head and had you singing along in phonetic Chinese. Composed of two long (40-minute) tracks, this is fabulous background music for artwork, writing, relaxing, or meditating. Absolutely delightful and unexpected.

Enigma: Love Sensuality Devotion – Enigma, my long-standing New-Age relaxation group. Enigma dances along the line of New Age-Rock, filled with chants, beats, echoes, and whispers. Wonderful for relaxation or background at a cocktail party. My favorite track? Principles of Lust.

Chant: Sure, it’s your traditional French Benedictine Nuns wailing in plainsong, but the rhythms get under your skin and the choral is magnificent. Even if you aren’t up to stroke on your Latin or care about the religious aspects, let yourself get carried away by the sheer beauty of the form.

Acoustic Africa: Not so much a direct chant, but a lovely album incorporating rhythms and music we aren’t used to in our pop-rock society. A great album to try if you’re bored with radio music but don’t particularly care for folk music.

Nendaa – Go Back by Jerry Alred and the Medicine Beat: New-Agey Native-American-style music with chants, wails, guitars, and drums. Perfect for a dark night and a campfire.

Give one a try, or some of our other Chants, whether Benedictine, Russian, or popular! And don’t forget the O Fortuna!

Jazz Titans Tony Bennett and Dave Brubeck

June 11, 2013June 5, 2014 / Linda / Leave a comment

Pioneers of jazz, longtime friends, and performers, Tony Bennett and Dave Brubeck only have one recorded performance together and it was a spur of the moment, once in a lifetime event.

On August 29, 1962, the Kennedy administration organized a concert at the Sylvan Theater on the grounds of the Washington Monument as a token of appreciation for the corps of college students who had summer internships in the capital. It featured separate sets by Mr. Bennett – who had just released I Left My Heart In San Francisco, and the Brubeck quartet, one of the most popular jazz groups in the country. At the end of the concert, Mr. Bennett joined members of the quartet for four songs – totally unrehearsed. The full concert lasted about an hour and was recorded, but it somehow was lost in Sony Records’ vaults. It wasn’t until Dave Brubeck’s death in December 2012, that Mr. Bennett recalled the concert and that prompted Sony Music’s archivists to search for the recording.

The CD,Bennett/Brubeck: The White House Sessions, Live 1962, has just been released and is available for your listening pleasure from the Cheshire Library.

Other music CDs by both Mr. Bennett and Mr. Brubeck can be found in the library’s Jazz section. Mr. Brubeck’s newest CD is The Best of Dave Brubeck.

Mr. Bennett has a new biography called Life Is A Gift, also available at the Cheshire Library.

Mr. Bennett was recently interviewed on CBS This Morning. You can watch that interview here.

Richie Havens, 1941-2013

May 13, 2013May 6, 2013 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

Richard Pierce “Richie” Havens was an American singer-songwriter guitarist who passed away on April 22, at the age of 72. His music appealed to a wide variety of listeners, encompassing elements of folk, soul, and rhythm and blues. His career was amazing and wide-reaching, and chances are, with 29 albums to his name, even if you don’t know his name, you’ve heard his work.

Havens began his career in Brooklyn, organizing neighborhood street-corner singing by the age of 16, moving on to gospel, folk, and signing on with Bob Dylan’s manager in the mid-60’s. By 1969, he was the opening act for Woodstock, taking the stage for nearly three hours. He ran out of material and wound up improvising the folk-song inspired “Freedom,” which became one of his most famous hits. In the 70’s, he branched out into acting, both on stage and in films such as Greased Lightning. He made popular television appearances on both Ed Sullivan Show and Johnny Carson. While his albums climbed onto the Billboard charts, Havens began writing and performing highly successful commercials for Amtrack, Maxwell House Coffee, the cotton Industry (“The Fabric of Our Lives”), and others.

Havens was a firm supporter of various ecological and charitable concerns. He founded the Northwind Undersea Institute, an oceanographic children’s museum on City Island in the Bronx, which led to the creation of the Natural Guard, to teach children how they can help the environment. He was a performer at The Benefit Concert for The Longest Walk, an American Indian spiritual walk, the Tibetan Freedom Concert, the fundraising concert for Pete Seeger’s 90^th birthday, and many others. He was honored with the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award, the American Eagle Award by the National Music Council, and was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2006. He played the Cannes film festival, and President Clinton’s inauguration.

Havens died suddenly of a heart attack, following several years of kidney issues. His cremated remains are scheduled to be scattered across Yasgur’s farm this summer, where the original Woodstock took place.

You can check out some of the superb Richie Havens legacy at Cheshire Public Library with the following CD’s:

A Different Drummer

May 6, 2013April 22, 2013 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

Do you ever listen to a song and have the wrong words go through your head? Do your kids substitute different words to Achy Breaky Heart? If you think that’s funny, you or your kids may enjoy listening to ‘novelty music,’ or a parody band. Parody bands take popular songs and twist the words to make a new song, or they may write original songs that are amusing but not your average “commercial” material. Many people may familiar with the vocal antics of Spike Jones, or songs like “The Purple People Eater,” “The Monster Mash,” Kip Addotta’s fish tale “Wet Dream,” or the “Chipmunk’s Christmas Song” – all once popular radio plays. The TV show Chicago Hope made frequent use of Tom Lehrer’s song “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.” If you listened to WHCN in the ’80’s, they often played Barnes & Barnes’ “Fish Heads.” (Trivia fact: Barnes & Barnes is the band name of actor Bill Mumy and his best friend. Bill is best known as the young Will Robinson in Lost in Space, or Lennier on Babylon 5.)

Product Details Perhaps the most popular parody musician is three-time Grammy winner Al Yankovic. Yankovic boasts such hits as “White and Nerdy,” “Eat It,” “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and other ear-catching twisted tunes. Like many parody musicians, Yankovic got his first airtime on the Dr. Demento radio show, which has been running sinc e1974. Dr. Demento plays parody and comic songs that may or may not make it into popular culture. Yankovic’s “Yoda,” a parody of The Kinks’ “Lola,” was first played as a basement tape on Dr. Demento, as was “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” (Personally, I like the basement tapes better than the commercials versions.). The aforementioned Fish Heads remains the number one requested song on his program. Dr. Demento is no longer in syndication, but can still be found streaming on the internet.

If you like songs that are a little off kilter, you might try some filk music. Filk? Don’t you mean folk? Filk is a term that came from a typo sometime before 1955, and it refers to fandom – usually but not always science fiction or fantasy – folkmusic. If you like a book series or a movie or a TV show, chances are someone somewhere has written a song about it. A song about Game of Thrones? Oh yes. Batman? Him, too. Want to hear Homer’s Odyssey encapsulated to fit the tune from Gilligan’s Island? The Boogie Knights have got you covered. Filk music is serious business, with several large conventions in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and England, resulting in the Pegasus Award for Excellence given at the Ohio Valley Filk Fest every year. For a sampling, check out The Brobdignagian Bards “Memories of Middle Earth,” filed among CPL’s folk music, or their Fairy Tales, for their awesome Jedi Drinking Song.

Our music selections include a wide variety of creative music you won’t find on the beaten path, including Yankovic, Lehrer, Dr. Demento, Brobdingnagian Bards, The Chromatics (excellent a capella performed by real rocket scientists), Monty Python, Harry and the Potters, and more.