Well, life, they say, is what happens when you are making other plans. I had to drop one countdown post from my plans, because I didn't have time to finish it. I'll try to get to it this weekend.
I'm going to get the CD today, but will not have time to give it a good listen until Thursday because of work. I'm also most likely not going to be able to post again until the weekend.
In the meantime, go here and check out some of the tracks, plus video interviews, etc.
It seems like practically every interview, article, and spotlight about Emmylou Harris makes mention of the many artists she's worked with and the many others she's championed over the years. Her reputation as a musical collaborator and a supporter of other artists is legendary. This countdown post pays tribute to one of the many things that makes me love Emmylou so much.
This hardly scratches the surface,of course. There's also Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Nanci Griffith, Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Rodney Crowell, The Whites, Delia Bell, Buddy Miller, Sam Bush, and so on and so forth....
Part 2 of a series of posts to prepare the way for the release of the new Emmylou Harris CD in June. See Part 1 here.
(Yes, I know the CD drops in a week. Yes, I know I've gotten behind again. oh well...)
It all started with one song, my love of all things Emmylou Harris. Interestingly, it wasn't one of her songs, which is kind of fitting if you start to think about the long history of collaborations she has.
I'm pretty sure I've written about this in the past, but my mother was a huge Linda Ronstadt fan, which meant that I in turn became a Linda Ronstadt fan. In fact, by a the time I was about 13 or 14, I was listening to those albums more than she was. The stereo was in her bedroom, so I had to have permission to listen to them. Sometime after my parents divorce, she sold most of her albums, but she kept the stereo and gave it to me, along with all of her Ronstadt albums.
My favorite Ronstadt album is Prisoner in Disguise, which has some great songs on it. I used to play it over and over and over. One of the songs, a traditional tune called "The Sweetest Gift," had the most beautiful harmony vocals. I asked my mom if she knew who it was, and she gave me the name, Emmylou Harris, but not much else.
Later on, I noticed the same lovely harmonies on other Ronstadt songs: "I Never Will Marry" (from Simple Dreams), "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You)" from Heart Like a Wheel. I was hooked. I had to find out more.
The first ELH solo song I heard was "Two More Bottles of Wine", which actually kind of shocked me a little. My sweet little harmony singer was singing hard-rocking, twangy country drinking songs? What was this? It took a while to grow on me, but it did. Obviously, this was an artist of great versatility, much like Linda Rondstadt.
At some point, the public library began to circulate LP's for patrons to check out. One day, I found Blue Kentucky Girl in the "new arrival" bin. And, that, as they say, was all she wrote. I checked that album out dozens of times and played it endlessly. It remains to this day one of my favorite ELH albums.
There probably isn't a better overview of who Harris is musically than BKG, an amalgam of hard-rocking country, traditional music, old time country, lovely harmonies that all work together because you can feel the love she has for the music in every song. Several of my most favorite ELH songs come from this album. (More on that later.)
BKG burned Emmylou into my brain for sure, and I've been a mad crazy fan ever since!
One week from today could very well be the first Kentucky Democratic primary where my vote actually matters in the decision. Our primary is so late that usually the nominee has all but declared victory. I got kind of excited about that possibility in the early primaries, when it started to look like the contest between Obama and Clinton would not be quickly or easily decided.
Now we're a week away from the primary. Even though he's pulling ahead in all the counts, every state is being watched and analyzed, poked and prodded, polled and sampled, looking for signs not only how the race to the nomination will go, but how things might play out in the fall. And I'm so freaking tired of it all.
I've gone from wanting my primary vote to really matter in the overall scheme of things to wishing that Clinton would see the writing on the wall and bow out gracefully. I'm willing to give up my one chance of a primary vote on something that isn't a done deal for a few extra weeks for the nominee to pull a fractured party together and get ready for the convention and November. I'll gladly trade my moment in the sun to help improve the party's chances at winning in the fall.
I only wonder when/if Clinton will say the same thing. Hopefully sooner, rather than later.
Related: Keith went to see Obama last night. (I had to work late.) He came home positively glowing. It's time to start focusing on the general election, people.
The new Emmylou Harris (aka The Goddess of Music) CD goes on sale in about a month, so I'm starting the Eddie-torial countdown. Needless to say, I am so psyched about this and absolutely cannot wait. (I'm debating taking the morning off on release day so that I can be at Ear X-tacy when it opens to get a copy. Seriously.)
All of the reviews I'm reading are glowing and what I've heard so far is fabulous.
So, to pass the time, I'm starting a countdown to release featuring highlights and some of my thoughts about songs and albums and such.
First up, the early years:
I suppose the whole Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris story has become such a part of American music history that there's no need to recap the whole thing. I do wish that more of it had been captured on film. There's simply not enough video record out there of the two of them singing together.
Even though it's his show, you can see and hear so much in her performances that speak to the performer and artist that she will become--especially those warm, achingly beautiful harmonies. I don't care who she sings with, she has such a way of elevating others' performances and adding such richness and depth with her harmonies, but she does it without ever taking over or stealing the show.
I'm not normally one for YouTube photo montages, but this one has such great shots of the two of them, plus some performance clips that I can't resist it. It's one of my favorite songs from the Gram/Emmy era:
Parsons is such a cutie in those old pics, that it almost makes you wonder what he'd look like had he lived. Would he have the rugged, survived-the-hard-life handsomeness of Kris Kristofferson?
Or the perennial hit-by-several-speeding-trains-simultaneously, lucky-to-be-alive-and-upright look of Keith Richards?
Of all the artists who have self-destructed way too early, there are only two that make me ponder the loss and imagine what might have been every single time I hear one of their songs. Parsons is one. Janis Joplin is the other.
I think that knowing what Emmylou's career has been is part of what makes me ponder what would have happened to Parsons. It's probably inevitable that she would have gone solo. She simply has too much talent not to. But would it have been a graceful parting? What would he have done post-Emmylou?
Of course, the flip side to that is what would her solo career have looked like if he were still around? She typically included a Parsons tune or two on her early albums. Would she have felt that need to keep his music alive if he were around to do it? Would she have done more songwriting in her early solo career? Would she have always made such interesting musical choices? Or would she have broken away from his influence and gone in a totally different and unexpected direction? Would we still have such a rich catalog of Emmylou Harris albums? Regardless of how differently things might have played out for her, one thing is for sure: it would have been worth listening to. Parsons may have helped her refine her talent, but her innate musicality was there from the beginning.
As for Parsons, I'd like to think that with the rise of the Americana and alt-country movements of the past ten years or so, he would have enjoyed a career resurgence on his own, which would have led to the inevitable Parsons/Harris reunion album.
One thing we wouldn't have, though, is this song, which she wrote after his passing. It rips my heart out every time I hear it.
According the standard geek-scale, I have a real low threshold for quality in my super-hero movies--I loved both the last Clooney Batman and Catwowan, after all.
There's just something about those movies that don't take themselves or their source material too bloody seriously that appeals to me. I can see some elements of that in the Iron Man previews I've seen, so I'm looking forward to seeing it. (Maybe this weekend...)
Ten things about me you probably never really wanted to know.
1. For the last two or three weeks, I've ridden between 20 and 30 miles on my bike.
2. I've been a vegetarian for just about as long as Keith and I have been together.
3. When I was 26, I quit a job that I hated without any prospects lined up. I kind of miss being able to do that.
4. I collect Catholic religious and devotional items, which amuses some people to no end. I knew I had become rather infamous for it when a friend at work brought me a statue of Our Lady of Grace that her mother (who I had not met) saved for me from the house of a friend who had passed on.
5. When I was younger, one of my favorite things to do after dinner was go back and finish off the gravy after it had gotten cold. My grandmother used to leave the gravy bowl on the table for me.
6. I'm taking this Friday off, which excites me because it's payday! I'm also going to be spending the weekend at a friend's apartment, catsitting. So, it's kind of like having a mini-vacation.
7. I need a haircut.
8. I do a lot of ordering through Amazon, but I typically get used stuff through the marketplace sellers.
9. We've seen more live music so far this year than we did the whole year last year.
10. I've been leading a financial literacy class on Monday evenings.
Spring finally sprang here a couple of weeks ago, and Keith and I have been riding our bikes pretty much ever since. I've logged between 20-30 miles a week for the last three weeks or so.
2008 has been a wet year for Kentucky, which is good because 2007 was a drought year. I've tried not too let some sprinkles here and there deter me from riding, but some times you just gotta stay off the bike or get soaked.
The other night, we were riding back from having coffee when I got this song stuck in my head. I told Keith about it and he said I ought to get one and put it on my bike. So, now I have a quest! (Actually given my collection of religious tchotchkes, it won't be too hard to find one.
I'm off this morning until 1:00, because I'm flexing out some time I picked up this week. Can't have the Eddie-tor drawing overtime, now. So I'm about ready to hop on the bike and run some errands, then find a coffee shop, hole up, and read for a bit (my favorite past time). Given that there are scattered storms predicted for today, this is a particularly appropriate theme:
These clips were going to be part of a "holiday gift to you" post this past December, but never made it that far.
One of those uniquely Japanese pop culture phenomena that usually escapes notice over here is the musical careers of anime voice actors. Some of them will capitalize on the fame of the show to boost other aspects of their performing careers.
The women who voiced the parts in Wedding Peach also performed as a group named FURIL. The music is pretty typical Japanese pop of the period, but it's still fun and kind of cute. This vid has the WP characters on the left and the FURIL singers on the right both doing the same song.
I love this one, largely because they all appear in the WP wedding dresses!
I bought two of my favorite 2007 CD releases on the same day last year. It had been a really tiring week and I headed to Ear X-Tacy to check out some new music. I was really surprised to find both of them, because I had not heard they were coming out, but it was a nice treat after a busy week. I started putting together this post, but never got around to finishing it. Since I like the songs and the artists and the vids so much, I'm salvaging it now.
This video isn't on the Kortedala CD, but it's my favorite Lekman song and video, so I'm using it instead. I'm just that way, I guess, but the CD is pretty awesome. It's got more of a folkie-confessional song kind of bent to it, but with a kind of skewed, quirky perspective to it that makes it fun to listen to over and over.
This one is on their album. What can I say? I just love these girls! (For a bunch of different reasons!) This is another CD I'm still playing over and over again. Plus, the one guy lurking off to the side in the video is kind of cute.
I yanked this off YouTube a while back when I was basically grabbing vids that suited my mood, but didn't get around to putting it up because I actually wanted to write something about it first.
Well, my new world of optimism and hope at work ran into a huge stumbling block yesterday, which means I'm not overly happy about going in today, so this seems like a good time. And a fitting song. I'm going to try to keep it in mind.
This is my all time favorite Dire Straits song, one that Keith and I used to play a lot when we were cruising around town in his old Taurus. The addition of Emmylou only makes a great song that much greater.
When I first saw this clip on the Roadrunning DVD, I thought about some stuff I had read about the Knopfler/Harris concerts on an Emmylou list I belong to. Someone was complaining about how Knopfler completely "disrespected" Emmylou by "hogging" the stage with his guitar antics and not "bothering" to sing harmonies on her solo songs. (Sometimes the music fans they can be as annoying and irrational as the comics fans.)
And then I look at this, one of those songs everyone comes to his shows to here him play, and he steps aside and they do the first verse accompanied only be her acoustic guitar. Emmylou is often self-deprecating when she talks about her guitar skills, and it is true that, like a lot of singers, she's primarily a competent rhythm guitarist, but she actually does play quite well. I thought it was pretty damn cool that a man recognized as of the greatest guitarists in music would step aside and let her do it. I think it's a beautiful summary of their collaboration throughout the Roadrunning projects. And a lovely version of a lovely song.
I really do put more effort into this blog than it might appear. I have written countless posts that never made it out of draft stage and into Blogger. I've written a bunch more that made it out of Blogger because I never got around to finishing the links or adding the pics. I'm pathetic that way.
A couple of weeks ago, I was cleaning up my stuff in blogger and I found a bunch of unfinished posts that weren't too badly out of date and could be easily cleaned up and repurposed into new posts. And, lo, Salvage Week was born!
This week I'll be trotting out a few of these stillborn posts into the fresh air of morning for the eddie-fication of anyone who happens to stumble across them. Enjoy!
Not too well, actually. Not my best time, but not my worst either. Still I was shooting for better:
It was cool and very windy yesterday, usually blowing in our faces. By the time I hit the finish, I just wanted it to be over. The wind gave me a terrible headache and I was pretty miserable.
Tomorrow is the Papa John's Ten Miler! For the third year in a row, I'll be engaging in this madness and pushing my body to get ten miles out. I'll definitely be out of blogging action for tomorrow and probably Sunday too. So here's something to enjoy until I get back:
And I can't talk about it in detail. Here's the Reader's Digest version:
I've been really unhappy and unfulfilled at work for the past year, for reasons I shouldn't go into here. However, lots of testing, resumes, and interviews didn't do any good, as far as getting a new one goes.
Today, the situation turned itself around a little. I've got some new job duties, and hopefully a new position assignment is going to follow in a few weeks.
Maybe my mood will finally lighten a little too. Which, in turn, should lead towards a greater inclination to more actively blog.
If you're really observant, you'll realize that this post explains a lot about my blogging frequency and tone over the past six months or so...
You know what I mean: one of the ones who just grabs random stuff from YouTube and calls it a post. But, I got to thinking about it this morning and came to a new conclusion.
If you've found a niche why fight it? Go with the flow!
I've always had a thing for songs especially those of a folk-ish bent that feature biblical characters or characters named after biblical persons. Jesus, Mary, and Mary Magdalene seem to be the most commonly such used. One of these days, I'm going to sit down and make a mix CD of a bunch of these songs.
And as a bonus here's a picture of me in a leprechaun hat from last year's Rodes City Run which was held on St Patrick's Day:
You want a close-up of that?
Such Irish verve! Such athletic vigor! Such determination to cross the finish line before passing out! (Photos nicked from the official race photographer Brightroom.)
This year's City Run was this Saturday. Here's my time:
Only a minute off from last year! Yay! I spent most of yesterday recovering but there seems to be no permanent damage. Off to the Ten Miler in 2 weeks!
(Gaaah! This is dangerously close to actual content. What happened?)
Back when I worked in AIDS services, the director of our agency had a holiday tradition--every year he would dance in the hallway and sing Here Comes Suzy Snowflake. He was always kind of surprised that none of the rest of us had ever heard of the song or Suzy.
I've kind of lost touch with him over the years, but through the magic of the internet, I've found Suzy. I'd like to dedicate this post to Steve, wherever he is.
And just because, I think he'd really get a kick out of it, here's Soul Coughing's slightly more disturbing version:
So, yes, Virginia, there is a Suzy Snowflake. I hope she hasn't been visiting your area already this winter!
So I was reading the story about it in the paper, and looking at the pics, when I something struck me as somewhat familiar: the derring-do, the exploits, the fearless attitude, and, above all, those ears!
Last night was Bardstown Road Aglow, one of my favorite events of the year. Bardstown Road runs through the heart of what is considered the most “artsy” part of town. It’s not too far from our house and is a fun place to hang out and an even better place to shop. I think it’s probably got one of the greatest concentrations of locally-owned, independent-minded businesses in town. Our music shop is there. So is the best bookstore in town. And our coffee shop hang out. And my comic shop.
I admit that in recent years, there’s been an invasion of yuppie bars and trendy clothing shops that has displaced some of the antique stores, junk shops, and cooler spots, but there’s still a great selection of places to go.
Aglow was started twenty-some odd years ago as an effort to promote shopping in local businesses for the holidays. It’s a lot of fun. Musicians wander the streets. Stores run specials and give out refreshments. Everything stays open a little later than normal. It seems like Louisville is being overrun by the big boxes and huge commercial developers more and more these days, so with the economy faltering, the local guys need all the help they can get. This is a fun way to give them some support.
I took my camera with me, intent on doing a photo-commentary, but discovered that the battery was dead the first time I took it out. Curse you technology!
So, instead of a bunch of photos, here’s some quick bullet points. Follow the links to learn more about some of our cool local businesses.
The crowds were lighter than usual, although there were still a ton of people out. I think the forecast of rain later in the evening kept folks away. The smaller shops were still packed, but popular stops like Ear X-tacy were not nearly as full as usual.
Biggest disappointment: No demos and samples at the grocery. The manager told us that they had wrapped up before we got there, which meant they ended way early, because they were our first stop. And we hit the road right at the beginning of the event.
The scary conservative churches seem to have the best cookies. No Jesus, please! Just cookies!
Cider here. Hot chocolate there. I was awash in warm beverages! Still had room to end the evening with Huber’s cider at Heine Brothers, though.
Mmmmmm! Fresh cookies from Kizito. It just don’t get any better at all.
Was a little dismayed (in a good way) to find out that Josh Ritter, Tegan and Sara, and Digby all have new releases out. Looks like 2007 still has some musical treats left in it. Guess what I’ll be picking up come payday?
Lots of costumes out: Several solo Santas, plus a whole pack of Santas of various ages, size, and genders, the Grinch and all his co-stars, and a group of Victorian carolers.
Several buskers too: We watched one guy with a bagpipe get chased away from one store, while on another block there was a mandolin player and a saxophonist. And then there was the wandering harmonica player, who latched on to people and blew little tunes at them while walking in front of them or beside them, until they either gave him money or it became obvious they wouldn’t. Then he latched on to someone else. He was especially annoying because he didn’t say anything, just tooted on his harmonica. It was like being assailed by a noisy mime.
We took a smell test at one of the New Age healing places. I seemed to like the “Male Tonic” most. Hmmm…..
As usual, I spent the most money at All Booked Up, who started their December sale last night. Everything 30-50% off. I love used book stores, and they're one of the last good ones left in town. And for the third or fourth year in a row, I passed up the hardback collection of Barbarella strips to buy a small stack of other stuff. One of these days, it’s not going to be there, and I’m going to regret not buying it.
Instead, I indulged in one of my favorite sub-sub-sub-genres of reading: books by traditional Catholics decrying everything that’s changed in the Church since Vatican II. I got one about the “tragic unraveling” of the women’s religious orders and another that pretty much comes out and calls all the American bishops heretics. Fun stuff! (Okay, I admit. I’m a little weird.)
