Notes - Von Schmidt and Cahn's musical friendship grew out of ill-fated road trips, rebelliousness, and of course, a shared love for the blues. As Cahn writes, "What we had in common was a feeling about life, and this wonderful direct music that expressed our experience in that life." This album conveys that feeling.

Rolf Cahn (1924 -1994) was a folk musician, author, and social activist. Born in Germany, he and his family, who were Jewish, fled from Hitler’s oppression and arrived in the US in 1937. They settled in Detroit; Michigan. Cahn later moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Cahn died in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he had been living for many years and was a well-loved local personality.

Cahn played guitar and recorded several albums of folk music during the time he lived in Berkeley. He was married for a time to the folk singer Barbara Dane, and their son, Jessee Cahn, also became a folk musician.

Eric von Schmidt was an influential folk-blues guitarist on the Cambridge, Massachusetts folk music scene in the late fifties and the sixties. Eric was born May 28, 1931, the son of Harold von Schmidt, who illustrated western stories for the Saturday Evening Post. Eric grew up in Westport, Connecticut and planned to follow in his father's footsteps as an artist at an early age. While he was in high school he first heard Ledbelly on the radio and was transformed by the experience. He bought a guitar, learned Ledbelly's songs, and also absorbed the influence of Woody Guthrie, Burl Ives, Josh White, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, Richard Dyer-Bennet, and John Jacob Niles.

Eric's travels in New York city, Mississippi, the Caribbean, and the Library of Congress in Washington contributed to his musical education. He spent time in the army from 1952 to 1954, and in 1955 he won a Fulbright scholarship to spend a year painting in Italy. He taught at Sarasota School of Art in Florida for a while, then in the summer of 1957 he moved to Cambridge and discovered the bubbling folk music scene. His first solo album was The Folk Blues of Eric von Schmidt in 1963. He painted dozens of album covers for Joan Baez, Odetta, John Renbourn, and many other folk musicians. In June, 2000, he was presented with the the ASCAP Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He died February 2, 2007, at the age of 75.

This is their LP from 1961

http://lix.in/-2a50f9

Fill your ears

Posted by Joski at 9:36 AM | 2 comments  
Labels: Eric Von Schmidt, Rolf Cahn

Posted by Joski at 8:59 AM | 0 comments  
Labels: Cry Cry Cry, Dar Williams, Lucy Kaplanski

It was The Pozo-Seco Singers' debut album which showcased Williams' lead vocals. Lofton Kline had sung with Williams in The Strangers Two and with Susan Taylor the three became The Pozo-Seco Singers.

The group formed in Texas in 1964 and was signed to Columbia Records. Two of their songs, I Can Make It with You and Look What You've Done, made the Top 40. “Time” was considered a modest pop hit. The group disbanded in 1971.

The group disbanded in 1970.

What a wonderful group from the 1960's!

As to whatever happened to them?

Well Don Williams went on to become one of Country's best male artists. Susan Taylor continued to sing and write. She now lives in Tennessee, and goes by the name Taylor Pie. Lofton Kline writes and performs, and lives in Texas.

This is especially for my good friend Marc VDH

http://lix.in/-266d11


Enjoy this brother

Posted by Joski at 8:48 PM | 1 comments  
Labels: Pozo-Seco Singers

Beirut have always been all about Europe. Ever since Zach Condon started mingling electronica and indie-rock with traditional East-European music, his little band has been redolent of the old world.

And though "The Flying Club Cup" has a more modern flavour to some of its songs, the feeling of wistful, melancholy nostalgia still hangs heavily over these exquisitely orchestrated pop tunes. Think early twentieth-century France, as seen through sepia photographs and a band's sad tunes.

It opens with a haunting chorus of wailing horns, before switching to the smooth, swaying melody of "Nantes." Condon sings mournfully, "Well it's been a long time/long time now/since I've seen you smile/and I'll gamble away my fright... and in a year, a year or so/this will slip into the sea..."

It's much the same throughout the remaining songs, which tend to be bittersweet in tone, with a backdrop of horns and stately pop rhythms. Mellow dance tunes, Eastern European marches, mournful accordion-piano ballads, and pretty folky tunes. Not to mention, of course, combinations of all of the above.

In the second half, we're even graced with some upbeat songs -- the twittering violin and swirling melody of "In The Mausoleum." And the sprightliest music on the album is "Un Dernier Verre (Pour La Route)," a peppy pop tune that sounds like something Snoopy would dance to as the World War I flying ace.

If one were to compare Condon and Beirut to any other artist, it would probably be Sufjan Stevens -- polished, multilayered music with rich vocals. But the music of "The Flying Club Cup" is all nostalgia, bittersweet and weariness, mingled with a rich, over-the-top quality. It's so much BIGGER than Beirut's past work -- in sound, in scope, in feeling.

Not to mention that the sound here is a bit less Balkan -- think electro-indie mingled with vintage pop melodies, then filtered through an old French radio. Lots of mellow accordion, mingled brass, rattling drums and tambourine, an acoustic guitar, some twittery fiddle melodies and a nimble, energetic piano. Here are there, a gentle layer of keyboard is laid over it all.

Condon's voice is the clincher -- this guy is not only a great musician, but he has a smooth, rich voice that slides through the music like a satin ribbon. And his songs are evocative and stirring ("A plague on the workhouse!"), with plenty of feeling ("what melody will lead my lover from his bed?/What melody will see him in my arms again?").

Beirut's second album is a stunning artistic triumph, draped in classic melodies, exquisite songwriting and sweeping instrumentation. "The Flying Club Cup" flies on its own.

I’m blown out of my shoes

http://lix.in/-284fc5

Love

Posted by Joski at 2:53 PM | 1 comments  
Labels: Beirut

Personnel: Tom Paxton (vocals, guitar); Barry Kornfield (guitar, banjo, harmonica); Felix Pappalardi (guitarron).

Not counting a rare 1962 limited-edition LP released by a tiny New York independent label, 1964's RAMBLIN' BOY was Tom Paxton's debut as a performer, although the Chicago-born, Greenwich Village-based songwriter had been gaining quite a reputation prior to this record's release.

Most notably, Pete Seeger covered several early Paxton songs on his 1963 live release WE SHALL OVERCOME: THE COMPLETE CARNEGIE HALL CONCERT; those songs, including the pointedly satirical "What Did You Learn in School Today?," the soon-to-be-classic children's song "Goin' to the Zoo," and the title track, are all presented on RAMBLIN' BOY.

Two more of these 15 tunes, the haunting ballads "I Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound" and "The Last Thing on My Mind," are among Paxton's most beloved work. The album also includes lesser-known gems, though, including "Fare Thee Well, Cisco," a sweetly touching tribute to the recently deceased Cisco Houston, and "When Morning Breaks," a chilling anti-war protest song. RAMBLIN' BOY is an outstanding debut, one of the best records of the early-'60s Greenwich Village scene.

Yet by far the most renowned song on the album was "The Last Thing on My Mind," covered by an astonishing variety of folk, rock, and pop artists, including Judy Collins, the Vejtables (who had a small folk-rock hit with it in the mid-1960s), Marianne Faithfull, Sandy Denny, the Kingston Trio, Glen Campbell, Neil Diamond, Charley Pride, the Move, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul & Mary, the Seekers, Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner, and Gram Parsons. Paxton would record half a dozen more albums for Elektra, and the still quite active songwriter has recorded several dozen albums throughout his career. "The Last Thing on My Mind" remains, however, his most beloved standard, and the standout tune on Ramblin' Boy, the record that confirmed the arrival of Paxton as a significant singer-songwriter.

Here is that first "Ramblin' Boy"

http://lix.in/-26c8d4


Fill your ears

Posted by Joski at 2:40 PM | 1 comments  
Labels: Tom Paxton

This is a classic album, listened to by generations of people interested in learning something of value about folk music (lower case folk music). I have no doubt that most of the listeners to it have been informed and entertained, as I was when I stumbled on to it some 40 years ago. Seeger is both musician and scholar, and it's hardly a surprise that the Smithsonian has chosen to reissue this record. It was of interest when it first came out because it was one of the few records of the time that accurately presented this music withour flash or fluff. Today, it's equally of interest as one of the records that inspired the "folk revival". It may not knock your socks off, but if you pay attention to the words and the music, you will understand why this album and this music remain so important.

With a stunning, single-minded focus, Seeger delivers hard-driven song after song, 24 in all, and creates a kind of summa of both American radical music and labor history. There are familiar tunes like "Peg and Awl," "Buffalo Skinners," "The Farmer Is the Man," "Hard Times at the Mill," as well as lesser known numbers like "Let Them Wear Their Watches Fine" and "My Children Are Seven in Number." In its own way, this 1957 record is as important as Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads, and just as moving.

Songs of struggle which emerged from the coal mines, textile mills and acres of farmland, and spoke of issues important to the American laborer. Twenty-four songs written about the unprecedented industrialization of the 19th century, including Peg and Awl, The Farmer is the Man, and Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues.

"Seeger's straightforward, sincere singing is accompanied by sparse, effective banjo and guitar...an important reissue." — Sing Out

http://lix.in/-2b577b

Love

Posted by Joski at 10:37 AM | 0 comments  
Labels: Pete Seeger