Lyle Lovett - Live in Dublin 1989

Among the country artists whose music has been labeled 'new traditionalist,' Lyle Lovett is surely the least bound to country-music traditions. The Texan singer and songwriter, who performed at the Beacon Theater on March 18, fuzzes the ordinarily sharp distinctions between country and more urbane pop-rock styles of performance. Onstage, he wears his bushy hair in a tangled post-punk cockscomb and addresses the audience in a tone of deadpan irony.
Although many of his songs deal with loving and losing in an earthy country vernacular, a streak of perverse sexual humor runs through lyrics that tend to portray women as voracious wild animals. And Mr. Lovett's mild-mannered folkish crooning, which shows almost no traces of a Southern rural twang, stands in sharp contrast to his lustier upbeat songs that have strong roots in Texan swing and the blues.
At the March 18 concert, Mr. Lovett performed with an ensemble that included, in addition to an excellent rhythm section, three horn players; a cellist, John Hagen from Austin, Tex., and Francine Reed, a spectacular blues singer from Phoenix who has become a vital staple in his musical entourage. The range of the instrumentation handsomely showcased the stylistic contradictions of Mr. Lovett's music. Embellished with Mr. Hagen's beautiful long-lined cello playing, ballads like 'Closing Time' and 'If I Had a Boat' acquired an extra edge of poignancy. The horn section also gave a brawling, guttural intensity to songs like 'Cryin' Shame,' from Mr. Lovett's bluesy new album.  From: https://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/26/arts/review-country-lyle-lovett-s-song-styles.html  

Dalila Kayros - Animami

When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What about music and/or sound drew you to it?

In my childhood, I used to sing Italian pop songs mixed with nonsense freestyle lyrics. My passions were music and video games. Lots of songs and sounds drew me into this life. I love many different music genres, and every one of those has something special that motivates my desire.

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

I usually dream with sound, even songs! Most of them are on my albums. When I listen to music, new dimensions appear in my mind, and my imagination vibrates. Sound shapes the world around us.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

I work on my inner self-growth, training my awareness. This kind of approach in life reflects the evolution of my artistry.

Please tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist.

Personality is a never-ending development process. From that perspective, identity must be considered fluid. It’s too important to be in constant evolution. My identity is not perfectly defined, so I consider myself a being in progress. That’s why my music has so many influences. Variety is the spice of life!

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

The key ideas behind my approach to music and art are: Letting my mind be able to express my deepest feelings and putting everything under the guidance of my intuition. Most important are listening to music, reading about different subjects, and paying attention to the soundscape I am involved in.

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

From my perspective, music has to be a timeless portal to an imaginary future. When that future turns present, then past, it becomes a tradition. There's no contrast between originality, innovation and timelessness and perfection, but I think they are great companions regarding a piece of art. I'd like to add one more ingredient to the "magic formula", which is the artist's deep soul.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools? and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

The main instrument throughout my development has been fostering my culture and living the life I want to live at all costs. Will and constancy are the essentials. The most promising strategy for working with such instruments is finding a way to be happy with yourself, despite all difficulties.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

I love composing concept albums. After choosing the topic of interest, I start my research. Later I let my mind work intuitively by speaking the language of creativity through the archetypes of the inner self. In the case of my last release, Animami, I worked with the electronic musician Danilo Casti. We found the right sound to better express the concept. The music composition process was very collaborative in different ways.  Before recording and composing the whole album, we experimented a lot together by releasing a few live EPs of real-time compositions. That was very intense and useful to dig deeper into the research of our new sound.

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

Creating music alone is a "mystic trip", and I love it. But every process needs to be powered and renewed through multiple sights. Both solitary and communal activities have the same importance, so being aware of when is the right moment to go private or collaborative is the key.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

My creative work is related to the human inner world. As music is culture, it has the role of connecting people through the grammar of the soul and spirit.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music - both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

The process of composing music is a kind of "magical" activity. During the music composition process, a part of me related to the past dies. A new album means a new me. A new me means that an old me has to die. By experiencing that, I can say death and loss are doors to a new rebirth. On the other hand, during a concert, I feel a great connection to other people and the world around me. In that case, I think I'm experiencing the core of life.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?

The connection between music and science is undeniable. Science means research. Sound research expands the borders of musical genres, allowing the constant evolution of that art. Science means innovation as well. In terms of new technologies regarding sound processing, producing and listening stuff, the music grows at the same level as science. As the medium influences the composition of a piece, we cannot think about music without thinking about the medium. So the medium is deeply influenced by science.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

There is not such as a big difference between making a great cup of tea and writing music if you love what you are doing. But you may prefer one particular thing more than everything because it makes you feel your soul connected with your body and your blood as red as never, ever after! That's the music to me.

From: https://15questions.net/interview/fifteen-questions-interview-dalila-kayros-syk/page-1/

The Seldom Scene - Muddy Waters

The Seldom Scene made a series of landmark albums in the early- to mid-'70s that climaxed with Live at the Cellar Door, a glorious set of 23 songs from the band's broad repertoire. To those familiar with the band's earlier albums, classic pieces like "Rider," "City of New Orleans," and "Small Exception of Me" will be familiar. The initiated will also know that these songs sound just as fabulous live, and that no one would want to miss the seven-minute version of "Rider." A number of tasty items also make their debut here. Mandolinist John Duffey sings a lovely version of Dylan's "Baby Blue," while guitarist John Starling offers a sterling take of Carter Stanley's "The Fields Have Turned Brown." The band's spacious sound, with Tom Gray's ever-present bass and Mike Auldridge's ringing dobro, reproduces well in a live setting. Likewise, the Seldom Scene's trademark three-part harmony loses nothing outside of the more rarified air of the studio. The group, it should be noted, also has a keen sense of humor. The band's old-timey parody of "Hit Parade of Love" is guaranteed to offend anyone addicted to the high-pitched, whiney brand of traditional bluegrass. As if to make up for such effrontery, respectful renditions of "Georgia Rose" and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" are also offered. Arguably, the Seldom Scene never got any better than this. Live at the Cellar Door is a progressive bluegrass classic, and sounds as fresh and alive today as it did in 1975.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/live-at-the-cellar-door-mw0000203934#review 

The Nields - Check It Out

We Nields have never had a number one hit single on the radio, nor have we appeared on National TV on a late night talk show.We’ve never ridden on a tour bus and we’ve (sadly) never had action figures made to resemble our personages. Nevertheless, in the 8 years of our existence, we feel we’ve lived the full gamut of a rock and roll career worthy of a VH1 Where Are They Now? special. For the first seven years, we were widely touted as The Next Big Thing, which was fun for awhile, though we tired of well meaning friends saying, “I had an idea for you!You guys should be on Conan! If you went on Conan, you’d be famous!”(Courteously, we’d thank each one of these good people, saying, “Yes, what a fine idea! Why didn’t we think of that earlier?” While inside we were tempted to grow bitter and cruel, self-mocking and depressed. But we fought this temptation with all our might!) As obedient Next-Big-Things-To-Be, we left our homes in February, 1996 to chase the Rock and Roll Dream in our sweet Dodge Ram Van, Moby, all the while fantasizing about traveling in a tour bus. We played in venues ranging from beautiful theaters, gorgeous outdoor festivals to little scummy clubs redolent with beer and excrement, with dressing room graffiti that would make Marilyn Manson blush.
We wrote what we hoped and prayed were catchy sell-out hit singles only to have our record company A&R guy and our publisher tell us they were merely “more cerebral Nields songs about teen agers.” Rats! we cried. By the fall of 1997, our van, Moby, began a slow and excruciating death march across Texas. News from the home front was that our record company, Guardian, was about to fold. When we called them, concerned for their health, they said, “What are you doing talking to us on the phone?! Get back on the road–we need you to keep promoting Gotta Get Over Greta.” “But we have so many new songs!”we whined. “We want to make a new record. Or two.” “Tough,” they said kindly but with tough love.”We’re busy trying not to become a nonentity. Your petty concerns distract us. Meanwhile, go to California where we have a gig for you that will make you famous, put you on TV and in magazines and get you a tour bus. ”Obediently (for we were nothing if not obedient!), we flew to California to become famous, finding ourselves in the Bloomingdale’s at the Stanford Mall, performing a song about a teen age prostitute to a group of extremely nervous and self conscious fifteen-year-old-winners of an amateur model search (as well as the losers-they weren’t so happy either.) Curiously, this did not directly lead to our fame and fortune, or even a mention in Seventeen Magazine. For the rest of the fall, we played all over the North American continent. In late October, 1997, we took a break in Sewickly, PA to learn the backlog of new songs we’d accumulated. This was the smartest thing we’d done in years. For when the record company did fall, and we found ourselves with no van to travel around in, in that darkest hour between 1997 and 1998, we looked around the room at each other’s dear faces and shrugged. Someone said, “We can still play.” Well, play we did. We hunkered down at Sackamusic Studio in Amherst and spent the next third of a year recording the 13&1/2 songs on ‘Play’, determined to create something that would make our fans proud of us. On June 13, 1998 we held a fundraising concert called Jam for the Van and bought a new van (Nessie, the Loch Ness Vanster) to replace Moby, and that same month, we signed a record deal with Zoe/Rounder/Mercury/PolyGram on the theory that if one record company buys you lunch, four must feed you for at least four meals.  From: https://nerissanields.com/how-play-came-to-be-and-how-we-came-to-play/

The Grass Roots - Let's Live For Today

The Grass Roots was originated by the writer/producer team of P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri as a pseudonym under which they would release a body of Byrds/Beau Brummels-style folk-rock. Sloan and Barri were contracted songwriters for Trousdale Music, the publishing arm of Dunhill Records, which wanted to cash in on the folk-rock boom of 1965. Dunhill asked Sloan and Barri to come up with this material, and a group alias under which they would release it. The resulting "Grass Roots" debut song, "Where Were You When I Needed You," sung by Sloan, was sent to a Los Angeles radio station, which began playing it. The problem was, there was no "Grass Roots." The next step was to recruit a band that could become the Grass Roots. Sloan found a San Francisco group called the Bedouins that seemed promising on the basis of their lead singer, Bill Fulton. Fulton recorded a new vocal over the backing tracks laid down for the P.F. Sloan version of the song. The Bedouins were, at first, content to put their future in the hands of Sloan and Barri as producers, despite the fact that the group was more blues-oriented than folk-rock. However, the rest of the group was offended when Fulton was told to record their debut single, a cover of Bob Dylan's "The Ballad of a Thin Man," backed by studio musicians. When that single, released in October of 1965, became only a modest hit, the Bedouins -- except for their drummer, Joel Larson -- departed for San Francisco, to re-form as the Unquenchable Thirst. Sloan and Barri continued to record.
Amid the machinations behind Where Were You When I Needed You, no "real" Grass Roots band existed in 1966. A possible solution came along when a Los Angeles band called the 13th Floor submitted a demo tape to Dunhill. This group, consisting of Warren Entner (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Creed Bratton (lead guitar), Rob Grill (vocals, bass), and Rick Coonce (drums), was recruited and offered the choice of recording under their own name, or to take over the name the Grass Roots, put themselves in the hands of Sloan and Barri, and take advantage of the Grass Roots' track record. They chose the latter, with Rob Grill as primary lead vocalist. The first track cut by the new Grass Roots in the spring of 1967 was "Let's Live for Today," a new version of a song that had been an Italian hit, in a lighter, more up-tempo version, for a band called the Rokes. "Let's Live for Today" was an achingly beautiful, dramatic, and serious single and it shot into the Top Ten upon its release in the summer of 1967.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-grass-roots-mn0000070773#biography 

Shawn Colvin - Orion in the Sky

The first Shawn Colvin album I listened to, A Few Small Repairs (1996), was the commercial breakthrough, and though following by a full five years, the next, A Whole New You (2001), was the pop-oriented follow-up. But Fat City is a project of a very different context. Following her Grammy-winning debut Steady On (1989), Fat City features an artist not yet widely known to the average radio listener, yet also prominent and respected enough to earn guest appearances from musicians like Joni Mitchell, Bruce Hornsby, and Richard Thompson. These musicians had realized what everyone else was in the process of discovering: that Colvin is a seriously good songwriter.
Fat City opens with “Polaroids,” perhaps the most obviously folk song on the album by virtue of its repeated acoustic guitar progression and its storytelling. (The delineation between pop and folk is, to my ears, pretty vague most of the time.) It’s a compelling piece, weaving a lyrically beautiful story of an inevitably fading intercontinental relationship. From a musical standpoint, I enjoy the way the music of the verses tenses toward the end, but not at the end, returning to the steadier, calmer progression for a few more bars after. Featuring also a beautiful guitar solo on, evidently, Weisenborn Hawaiian guitar (I don’t believe I’ve seen that credit on an album before), “Polaroids” is an effective start to what proves to be a very good album.
There are a number of highlights here. After the comparably subdued “Polaroids,” Colvin kicks up the tempo with the country rock-styled “Tennessee,” an engaging track featuring prominent banjo and the aforementioned Richard Thompson on electric guitar. One prominent element of this album, perhaps first on clear display here, is that Colvin’s vocal performance is terrific. She seems especially engaged with the material, and the sound is very much as if the performance is live, guitar in hand, leading the band behind her. I don’t know how producer Larry Klein actually recorded this album, and given the litany of session men providing the instrumentation Colvin was most likely not working with a full unit at any time, but it feels that way and that’s what counts, because it creates a tangible energy that takes the material at times to another level.
“Round of Blues” is a winner too, a driving composition with an airy, breezy chorus that not only engages on its own, but also works wonderfully as a lead-in to a fantastic harmonic bridge. It’s a favorite, as is “Orion in the Sky,” a six-and-a-half-minute track that earns its length with a poetic lyric and a hell of a climax in the last couple minutes.  From: https://friendlyfiremusic.tumblr.com/post/128108736178/shawn-colvin-fat-city-1992-harrison-reviews

Sly & The Family Stone - Everybody Is A Star

This song is about how everyone is equal and how people try to change themselves to be what the media wants them to be. For black individuals, it can be about how we try to change ourselves to "act white" but in the end the system brings us down, yet we bring ourselves back up with the help of our people. This was released as a double-A-side single with "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)." The single went to #1 in the US, so under Billboard methodology at the time, the chart position is attributed to both songs combined. Like many Sly & the Family Stone songs of this era - "Everyday People" and "Stand!" among them - "Everybody Is A Star" has a message of togetherness and self-worth. These songs were set against joyful melodies that kept them from sounding preachy. They went over very well at live shows where a sense of community formed. The nonsense chorus ("ba pa-pa-pa ba...") actually makes a lot of sense - it's about the power of music, which can speak without words. In this case, the rhythmic syllables play against horn lines in a very similar fashion to Otis Redding's 1966 track "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song).”
From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/sly-the-family-stone/everybody-is-a-star

Remember how, in my post on “Everyday People,” I joked how it would be kind of impossible to see Sly Stone as one of the titular everyday people, given all of his talent and how his music was topping the charts? Well, he figured out a way around that conundrum, because of course he did. If Sly Stone, the star was everyday people, then it could only follow that everyday people were also stars!
Compared to the hard, dark funk of “Thank You (Falettine Be Mice Elf Again)” — which with it shared a 45RPM single, “Everybody is a Star” was a relatively normal slow soul song, full of lazy horns, glowing organ and of course the trademark vocal trade-offs between Sly, Rose Stone, Larry Graham and Freddie Stone.
But, of course, it is gorgeous, and the “everybody is a star” message still resonates in the social media era, maybe even more than it did in the late 60s. And, on top of all of that, “Everybody Is A Star” has a tremendous hook that takes over the back half of the song. With a great arrangement that stopped the song for each and every one of those “ooooooooohs,” “Everybody is A Star” never got out of second gear, but they were smart enough to know it didn’t need to. And so while — technically — “Thank You (Falettine Be Mice Elf Again)” was the song that got the credit for topping the charts, it probably wouldn’t have gotten there without “Everybody is A Star.”
As it turns out, “Everybody is A Star” was probably the last gasp of Sly Stone’s utopianism, as the toll of drugs and stardom and drugs sent him spiraling inwards — hell, the flipside of the single (which we’ll discuss tomorrow, duh) was literally about him dealing with, well, everything.
And, of course, both songs — plus “Hot Fun in the Summertime” — were going to be the anchor for Sly & The Family Stone’s much anticipated follow-up to Stand!, due out in 1970. But, of course, that follow-up never materialized, and all three songs made it to the epochal Greatest Hits album, instead.  From: https://medialoper.com/certain-songs-2260-sly-the-family-stone-everybody-is-a-star/