Category: Folk Music

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Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography By Andrea Warner

BSMBioCover

The Buffy Sainte-Marie authorized biography will be released on September 25, 2018. It’s a powerful, intimate look at the life of a beloved folk icon and activist.

The Saskatchewan-born Cree singer-songwriter “has made her voice heard through her music, art, and activism, establishing herself among the ranks of folk greats such as Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan,” according to publisher Greystone Books.

“But Sainte-Marie is so much more than a musician; she is also an entrepreneur, a pioneer in digital art, and an important cultural activist who has worked tirelessly advocating for and protecting Indigenous rights and freedoms.”

Painter-and-Big-Smile

“Warner’s book draws decades of incredible, world-changing accomplishments together to make an irrefutable case for Sainte-Marie’s place among the rock n’ roll and songwriting greats.” Tanya Tagaq – Experimental vocalist, and artist

Buffy Sainte Marie

Andrea Warner is a writer, critic, broadcaster, and Podcaster focusing on music, arts, pop culture, and feminism. She’s also the author of the acclaimed 2015 book, We Oughta Know: How Four Women Ruled the ’90s and Changed Canadian Music (Eternal Cavalier Press). Andrea is an associate producer at CBC Music and co-hosts the weekly podcast, Pop This!.

Andrea has also written An Essential Guide to Buffy Sainte-Marie for those who want to discover the gems in Buffy’s 20 album catalog prior to obtaining her book.

Pre-orders for the book may be placed:

1) In Canada at your local bookstore, Amazon, or Indigo.
2) In the USA, at your local bookstore/Indiebound, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble

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Tim Hardin, Live In Concert

I was driving home from church when for some inexplicable reason the music of Tim Hardin entered my head. I began to hear the strains of “If I Were A Carpenter” and I drifted back to seeing Tim Hardin perform live at Staples High School in 1971. I could picture him at the piano in the darkened auditorium singing through his tortured soul to us.

This prompted me when I got home to play some Tim Hardin via Tidal over the home entertainment network. It gave the perfect chance to try out the Google Chromecast 2 device wirelessly via the Sony Blu-Ray Home Theater system.

I played Tim Hardin, Live In Concert, which made Sunday afternoon lesson planning less arduous  🙂

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Folk City: New York and the Folk Music Revival

I have focused more of late on folk music and New York City. I met with a lack of well researched Web information, which served as a frustration. As it turns out my resource needs were recently answered. The Museum of the City of New York has curated an exceptional show, Folk City: New York and the Folk Music Revival. 

In the 1950s and 1960s, folk music blossomed in New York City, especially in Greenwich Village, where clubs and coffee houses showcased singers like Pete Seeger and Odetta and nurtured a generation of newcomers, including Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Dave Van Ronk, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, and Peter, Paul and Mary. The multi-media exhibition Folk City: New York and the Folk Music Revival, features original instruments, handwritten lyrics, and video film footage. The event traces the roots of the revival, its growth in New York City, the major players, and folk’s impact on American political and social culture during the tumultuous 1960s.

There is also a companion book, Folk City written by authors Stephen Petrus (curator of the Folk City: New York and the Folk Music Revival exhibit)  and Ron Cohen. Their collaboration captures the exuberance of the times by introducing readers to a bevy of characters who brought a new style to one of the biggest audiences in the history of popular music. Among the savvy New York entrepreneurs committed to promoting folk music were Izzy Young of the Folklore Center, Mike Porco of Gerde’s Folk City, and John Hammond of Columbia Records. The authors portray Greenwich Village coffee houses not simply as lively venues but as incubators of a burgeoning counterculture, where artists from diverse backgrounds honed their performance techniques and challenged social conventions. Accessible and engaging, fresh and provocative, rich in anecdotes and primary sources, Folk City is lavishly illustrated with images collected for the accompanying major exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York in 2015.

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Power in the Blood – Buffy Sainte Marie

It’s been decades since I have heard the invigorating songs and voice of Buffy Sainte Marie on the radio. I reflect upon the folk music era when she was a quintessential performer (early 1960s Greenwich Village). A halcyon period in the annals of music.

Buffy Sainte-Marie’s bold new album, Power in the Blood, begins where it all started more than 50 years ago, with a contemporary version of “It’s My Way,” the title track of her 1964 debut. Its message, about the road to self-identity and the conviction to be oneself, still resonates with the Cree singer-songwriter, activist, educator, visual artist, and winner of countless awards (Oscar, Juno, and Golden Globe, among them).

Perhaps you know Sainte-Marie from her 1960s protest anthems (“Universal Soldier”), open-hearted love songs (“Until It’s Time for You to Go”), incendiary powwow rock (“Starwalker”), or the juggernaut pop hit “Up Where We Belong,” which Sainte-Marie co-wrote and Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes sang for the soundtrack to An Officer and a Gentleman.

Power in the Blood is set to release May 12th 2015 on True North Records.

Buffy Sainte-Marie will be appearing at The Highline Ballroom in New York City on Wednesday, May 20th, 2015.

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Harry Everett Smith – Avant-Garde Museologist

We benefit from musicologists who have an adept skill of collecting, recording and documenting  American musical heritage. Three of the musicologists I respect in this vein are Alan Lomax, Samuel Charters and Harry Smith.

Harry Everett Smith is primarily known as the anthologist of the multi-volume Anthology of American Folk Music for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. The Anthology was comprised entirely of recordings issued between 1927 (the year electronic recording made accurate reproduction possible) and 1932, the period between the realization by the major record companies of distinct regional markets and the Depression’s stifling of folk music sales. Released in three volumes of two discs each, the 84 tracks of the anthology are recognized as having been a seminal inspiration for the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960 (the 1997 reissue by the Smithsonian was embraced with critical acclaim and produced two Grammy awards).

Smith with headphones at Ginsberg’s apartment. 437 East 12th St. NYC, Winter 1987 [Photo by Brian Graham] Courtesy the photographer

Harry Smith’s Archives reside at The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California. There are three major content resources available to help further your understanding of Harry Everett Smith’s prolific art collections.

Internet Resources

1. Harry Smith Symposium at the Getty

2. Harry Smith Archives

Published Resource

3. The Book In Print – Harry Smith, The Avant-Garde In The American Vernacular, Edited by Andrew Perchuk and Rani Singh

Constituting a first attempt to locate Smith and his diverse endeavors within the history of avant-garde art production in twentieth-century America, the essays in this volume reach across Smith’s artistic oeuvre.

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To My Old Brown Earth by Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger
Cover of Pete Seeger

Paul Winter dropped a reminisce about Pete Seeger in my e-mail Inbox the other day. I’d like to share it with you.

Dear Friends,

Our long-time friend and mentor, Pete Seeger, passed away on Monday. I was privileged to meet Pete at the Newport Folk Festival in 1966, and he then gave me encouragement as I was creating a new ensemble that became the Paul Winter Consort.

In the early 90s, sensing that Pete’s recordings were not being heard by younger generations, I suggested to him that he record an album of his Earth songs. He said, “My voice is shot, but if we can have a chorus to carry the melodies, I could sing along.” My Living Music colleagues and I produced the album Pete in 1996. It won a Grammy, Pete’s first. The final song, “To My Old Brown Earth” (lyrics below), is one Pete had written for a friend’s funeral. It’s the most moving “goodbye song” I’ve ever heard.

We’d like to offer it as a free download for anyone who would like to hear it. And please feel free to pass it along to your friends.

With gratitude,
For living music,
Paul

TO MY OLD BROWN EARTH

Inline

To my old brown earth
And to my old blue sky
I’ll now give these last few molecules
of “I”

And you who sing
And you who stand nearby
I do charge you not to cry

Guard well our human chain
Watch well you keep it strong
As long as sun will shine

And this our home
Keep pure and sweet and green
For now I’m yours
And you are also
Mine

— Words and music by Pete Seeger, 1958

About the song, Pete wrote: “In 1958 I sang at the funeral of John McManus, co-editor of the radical newsweekly, The Guardian, and regretted that I had no song worthy of the occasion. So this got written.”

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Donovan Appearing At The Fest for Beatles Fans

donovanWe love Donovan. We have waited patiently to see him live in concert near us. Donovan will be one of the special artists appearing at The Fest for Beatles Fans , an event I have blogged about recently. We are ticketed to attend this event. 🙂

The last time we saw Donovan live was November 12, 1971 at Madison Square Garden. It was our first big concert arena experience. There in the middle of the Garden floor sat Donovan. The stage he was perched cross-legged on slowly turned in a 360 degree fashion like a lazy susan.

Donovan’s Fest for Beatles Fans concert performances will occur in the ballrooms at the Grand Hyatt which will allow us a closer sound and visual experience.

I have listened to Donovan’s canon anticipating next month’s event. My favorite Donovan recording is Barabajagal. What’s yours?

The Real Donovan
The Real Donovan (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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In Search of Blind Joe Death, The Saga of John Fahey

In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey is a biographical documentary that visually evokes the vision of a great artist. It employs beautifully textured, non-linear, cinematic and thoroughly entertaining means that launch a wide audience into the universe constructed and inhabited by John Fahey. The film relies first and foremost on the music of John Fahey. With the active support and coöperation of both The John Fahey Trust and Dean Blackwood of Revenant Records, the second of Fahey’s own recording companies, the film presents a rich and otherwise inaccessible Fahey archive of musical recordings, moving images, photographs, prose and paintings. The visual archive of Fahey performing is very rich. The collection of photographs is equally extensive. This live action archive is further augmented by short animated sequences that evoke Fahey’s artistic, imagined universe. – Tamarack Productions (c) 2010

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Dave Van Ronk at Caffe Lena, Saratoga Springs, NY, 1974

LIVE AT CAFFE LENA : MUSIC FROM AMERICA’S LEGENDARY COFFEEHOUSE, 1967-2013
English: The front of Caffè Lena on Phila Stre...
English: The front of Caffè Lena on Phila Street in Saratoga Springs, New York (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s wonderful to see the revival of interest in the music and art of Dave Van Ronk. This is a direct result of the Coen Brothers Film, Inside Llewyn Davis that started its limited engagement in New York and Los Angeles today.

Tompkins Square Records released Live At Caffe Lena: Music From America’s Legendary Coffeehouse 1967-2013 this past summer. It’s a chock full 3 CD Box Set that is complemented by a coffee table book, Caffè Lena: Inside America’s Legendary Folk Music Coffeehouse (powerHouse Books) which brings more than 200 never seen, evocative images and stories to the public.

 “The story of Caffè Lena is the secret history of the folk-music scene. Lena was a pioneering woman in a man’s world and her story needs to be told.” —Holly George-Warren

Here is a Sound Cloud of 40 minutes of Dave Van Ronk’s set from 1974 at Caffe Lena

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Positively 4th Street

New York City’s 4th Street is at the heart of the Manhattan residential district Greenwich Village, where Dylan once lived.[17] Dylan lived from early-1962 until late-1964 in a small $60-per-month[6] studio apartment at 161 West Fourth Street[7]This area was central to the burgeoning folk music scene of the early 1960s, which centered around Dylan and many other influential singer-songwriters. For example, Gerde’s Folk City was originally located at 11 West 4th Street.

Bringing It All Back Home (Pantheon/Random House, 1986) by Robbie Woliver documents Folk City’s history and went into a second printing as Hoot (St. Martins Press, 1994).

David Hajdu took the title of the song for his 2002 book, Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina.

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