Murder Ballads

I said a couple weeks ago that I would do a post of Murder Ballads, and I guess Halloween is an appropriate time to do that. So here they are.

To start off here is Ralph Stanley and Patty Loveless performing "Pretty Polly".



Many murder ballads originated somewhere on the British Isles, and then the events were relocated to this side of the ocean when they were brought over and performed in the United State. "The Knoxville Girl" originates from an Elizabethan poem titled "The Cruel Miller". Here is Jim & Jesse McReynolds' version of that song.



Most of the videos of murder ballads are by men, but here is Joan Baez performing "The Lily of the West". Also in this one—unlike the previous two—it is not the girl that gets murdered.

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I am not sure if this last song counts as a murder ballad or not. It deals with the consequences of a murder, and not the murder itself. But I am including it anyway. Also—compared to the previous songs—this is a recent song, having been written in 1959 by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin. Here is Dave Matthews and Emmylou Harris' version of "Long Black Veil".

1929 Stock Market Crash

The 1929 Stock Market Crash happened 80 years ago this week. So here are a couple songs on the general theme of money and depression.

The sales of records dropped after the crash, and many recording artists at the time lost their contracts and sank into obscurity. The Carter Family—A.P., Sara and Maybelle—were one of the few recording artist with careers that survived the crash. So to recognize that I am including their song "No Depression In Heaven". Of course this was long before film or video, and I don't want to include anyone else doing the song. So here is the audio of their recording.



The Carter Family first recorded in Bristol Tennessee in the summer of 1927. These Bristol Sessions are generally considered to be the first recordings of Country Music. Also recording there was Blind Alfred Reed, one of the many artist who sank into obscurity during the depression. His song—recorded in 1929—"How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live" is still performed today. Bruce Springsteen has covered it, and here is a video of the song sung by Ry Cooder.



It was not my intention to do a post of performers who recorded at the 1927 Bristol Sessions, but since we already have two we might as well add another one. Jimmie Rodgers also made his first recording their. His career almost certainly would have survived the depression, but he died from tuberculosis in 1933. Here is his song "Hobo Bill's Last Ride".



One last song unrelated to anyone from the Bristol Sessions. Here is Del McCoury performing a John Herald song, "Moneyland".

Rodrigo y Gabriela

I went ot see Rodrigo y Gabriela at the Rams Head Live Saturday night. It was a great concert, but a little crowded since the place was sold out, and I got there late. It is pretty amazing when a totally instrumental show can sell out a place like Rams Head Live. So, of course, I am posting some of their videos today. Unless you see them you cannot appreciate that all of the music is coming from two acoustic guitars, when it sounds like there is an entire band playing.

Their latest Album is 11:11. Titled this because there are 11 tracks dedicated to 11 different artists who inspire them. Here is a performance of "Hanuman", off ths album.



I usually just include music videos, but in this case I am including the following Tavis Smiley interview that followed the performance in the previous video.



This song, "Diablo Rojo ", is off their first album.



Here is their version of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" with the audience singing the words. They did this the first time I saw them. I am amazed by the number of people who were not born when Pink Floyd broke up, but still know the words to this song.

Trombone Shorty - Pt. 2

I did a post on Trombone Shorty a couple weeks ago, but since then two really good videos from the Salmon Arm's Roots & Blues Festival turned up. So here he is playing the trumpet with his band Orleans Avenue.

First, the Marvin Gaye song, "Let's Get It On".



Second, the standard New Orleans jazz song, "St. James Infirmary".

Ralph Stanley

Last week Ralph Stanley released his autobiography, Man of Constant Sorrow: My Life and Times. Diane Rehm has interviewed him about the book. You can listen to the interview here. Also there was an article in the New York Times.

I have downloaded the book to my Kindle. As soon as I finish the book I am reading now, this is what I plan to read next.

So here are a couple Ralph Stanley videos. From the time that he performed with his brother, Carter, as the Stanley Brothers, here is "Rank Strangers".



After Carter Stanley passed away in 1966, Ralph continued with his band the Clinch Mountain Boys. For a while Keith Whitley sang lead for Ralph. There are several good videos of that line up you can see at this link.

Here is a video with two songs, this first is "Rocky Island", the second is "Angel Band".



I could not pass up this last video, even though it is not a video for a song. Here is a video of Ralph Stanley and the Obama Girl making a video.

Kasey Chambers And Shane Nicholson Concert

Just a short post today. Mountains Stage has rebroadcast a great concert of Kasey Chambers nnd Shane Nicholson. They play several songs off their Rattlin' Bones album. You can listen to the concert on this page.

Fall

A chill is in the air and the leaves are starting to turn, so I have decided to post a couple fall songs.

First, Cheryl Wheeler performing her song "When Fall Comes to New England".



Eva Cassidy performing "Autumn Leaves". The words for this song were written by Jacques Prévert, who also wrote the script for my favorite movie, The Children of Paradise.




Finally—because I have not posted any classical music yet—here it a video with "Autumn" from Vivaldi's "Four Seasons".

Billie Holiday Covers

To finish out the week, a couple covers of songs that Billie Holiday also did.

First, Elvis Costello's version of "Gloomy Sunday". I don't think I have yet posted any songs about suicide, so now we also have that covered.



From one of my favorite singers of the 80's, Alison Moyet performing "That Ole Devil Called Love".



And from one of my favorite voices of the current century, Madeleine Peyroux performing "Sunny Side of the Street".

Lizz Wright

A couple Lizz Wright videos. This first video is of one of the songs I saw here perform Saturday at the Billie Holiday Tribute, "I Love You Porgy". This video is actually from a tribute to Nina Simone, but then a lot of people have done this song.



The next two songs were not performed at the concert I saw. but they are some of my favorite Lizz Wright videos. First a performance of "Hey Mann" with Toshi Reagon. This song is off here most recent album, The Orchard.




There was a video of Wright doing "Amazing Grace", which was my all time favorite version of that song. I think that video has been taken down, because I have not been able to find it for a while. So here is another good song off of her album Dreaming Wide Awake, "Hit the Ground".

Billie Holiday

This weekend I went to Philadelphia. On Saturday night I saw Lizz Wright and the Danilo Pérez Trio do a Billie Holiday Tribute concert. On Sunday I saw Billy Crystal perform his one man show "700 Sunday". Both performances were incredible. It just so happens that Billie Holiday was a friend of Billy Crystal's Family. Crystal's father and uncle were in the Jazz record business. Billie Holiday actually took Billy Crystal to see his first movie, "Shane". He was five years old at the time.

So here are a couple videos of Billie Holiday. Lizz Wright performed this first song, "I Love You Porgy", at the concert last night.



Here is a video of "Fine and Mellow". The video starts with part of an interview with Billie Holiday.



Finally, here is Billie doing the song for which she is probably most famous, "Strange Fruit". The record of this song was produced by Billy Crystal's Uncle, Milt Gabler. Because this song is about lynching in the South, Holiday's record company, Columbia, would not let here record it. There was fear of a backlash against the company if they released this song. Holiday convinced Gabler to record the song for her, and it was released on another record label. In 1978 the recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

IBMA Awards Pt. 5 - The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers

The second group to be inducted into the IBMA's Bluegrass Hall of Fame was The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers. This group was in existence form 1938-1966. It consisted of members of the Cline family as well as other individuals at different times.

I do not see any video of the group, but here an audio recording of "Windy Mountain".



Members of the group went on to play with other well known bluegrass artists. Here is a video of Bill Monroe & the Bluegrass Boys performing the instrumental "Roanoke". One of the two fiddlers in this clip is Charlie Cline, one of the Cline brothers. The other is Bobby Hicks.



There is also a great video of Curly Ray Cline performing "Orange Blossom Special" with Ralph Stanley. That video cannot be embedded, but it is worth following this link to see it.

IBMA Awards Pt. 4 - The Dillards

The Dillards were one of two groups inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame by the IBMA. The Dillards became widely known when they appeared as the Darling Brothers on the Andy Griffith Show. Here is a performance of a song they did on the TV show, "Salty Dog".




Here they are performing Dueling Banjo's with Banjo and Mandolin.





Here they are performing a song they wrote, "There Is A Time".

IBMA Awards Pt. 3

The IBMA's Recorded Event of the Year went to the group Daughters of Bluegrass for the song "Proud To Be a Daughtet of Bluegrass".





The Song of the Year award went to the song "Don't Throw Mama's Flowers Away". This song was written by Chris Stuart & Ivan Rosenberg. The performance that won was done by Danny Paisley & The Southern Grass.





The Emerging Artist of the Year went to The SteelDrivers. Here they are performing "If It Hadn't Been For Love".





Here is video for their song "Sticks That Made Thunder".

IBMA Awards Pt. 2

Winning the IBMA'sInstrumental Group of the the Yesr
was Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper. In addition, they also won Instrumental Recorded Performance of the Year for this song, "Jerusalem Ridge".



Dan Tyminski won Male Vocalist of the Year, as well as Album of the Year for the album Wheels. Dan also performs with Alison Krauss' Band Union Station, and is the voice that comes out of George Clooney's mouth when he sings in the movie "O' Brother Where Art Thou". Here is Dan performing the title track from his album.



Dale Ann Bradley won the award for Female Vocalist of the Year. This is the third yeat in a row that she has won this award. Here she is performing the Kris Kristofferson song that Janis Joplin made famous, "Me and Bobby McGee".

IBMA Awards Pt. 1 - Dailey & Vincent

Last Thursday the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) handed out it's award for 2009. I am going to devote my posts this week to the winners of these Awards.

Winning both Entertainer of the Year and Vocal Group of the Year was Dailey & Vincent. This is Jamie Vincent, who formerly performed with Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, and Darrin Vincent, who formerly performed with Ricky Skaggs.

The three videos below are of songs off their latest album, Brothers From Different Mothers. Here is a video of them doing the Gillian Welch and David Rawlings song "Winter's Come and Gone"





Here they are performing a song recorded by the Statler Brothers, "Years Ago".





In addition to winning Entertainer of the Year and Vocal Group of the Year, Vincent & Dailey also won the award for Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year for this song, "On The Other Side".

Animation

Two of my favorite animated video.
A claymation version of Nina Simone performing "My Baby Just Cares For Me".

An animated video of "Funny the Way It Is" off the Dave Matthews Band's most recent album.