Happy Hanukkah!!
Here ya go folks. Can’t light the candles without this great one.
Deschutes River Recordings: Eric Earley
Just got word of these recordings from a friend of mine. Pretty cool. Songs by the river, for the river.
” The river called. The indie community answered.
Deschutes River Recordings is a unique collaboration between artist and cause. Deschutes Brewery put out the call for independent artists to sing river-themed songs, from the banks of the river, to benefit the vital work of the Deschutes River Conservancy. They’re musicians as committed to the cause as they are the craft. And fearless enough to tackle whatever covers Deschutes Brewery fans tossed their way. Welcome to the riverside high wire: live, unadorned, far from a studio safety net.
Download for free or donate what you can. All proceeds benefit the Deschutes River Conservancy.”
https://www.deschutesbrewery.com/river-recordings/eric-earley
Thanks to my good friend Phil D. for bringing these recordings to my attention.
Give Me The Banjo
“Give Me the Banjo”.
“The piano may do for love-sick girls who lace themsleves to skeletons, and lunch on chalk, pickles and slate pencils. But give me the banjo….
When you want genuine music — music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whisky, go right through you like Brandreth’s pills, ramify your whole constitution like the measles, and break out on your hide like the pin-feather pimples on a picked goose, — when you want all this, just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo!”
Mark Twain in “Enthusiastic Eloquence,” San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle, 23 June 1865
Check out this documentary about the history of american folk music. It describes the banjo and the first ‘truly american’ instrument and winds us through the links between the banjo and the creation of a ‘new’ ‘american’ sound. This documentary is truly fascinating. Plus Steve Martin narrates. Need I say more?
Watch PBS Arts from the Blue Ridge Mountains: Give Me the Banjo on PBS. See more from The Arts.
Woody Guthrie’s 100th Birthday…a couple days late
Happy 100th Woody!
I’d like to rest my heavy head tonight
On a bed of California stars
I’d like to lay my weary bones tonight
On a bed of California stars
I’d love to feel your hand touching mine
And ell me why i must keep working on
Yes, I’d give my life to lay my head tonight
On a bed of California stars
I’d like to dream my troubles all away
On a bed of California stars
Jump up from my starbed and make another day
Underneath my California stars
They hang like grapes on vines that shine
And warm the lovers glass like friendly wine
So, I’d give this world just to dream a dream with you
On our bed of California stars
This is a great interview and live performance from 1944..