From: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org (jangle-poets-digest) To: jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Subject: jangle-poets-digest V3 #111 Reply-To: jangle-poets@smoe.org Sender: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk jangle-poets-digest Wednesday, July 4 2001 Volume 03 : Number 111 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [jangle-poets] Review in the Washington Times [Jay Votel Subject: [jangle-poets] Review in the Washington Times Visit the site www.washingtontimes.com. Click on arts and scroll down to Now Hear This. Published 6/30/01 THE KENNEDYS Positively Live (Jiffyjam) The jangle of the Kennedys' guitars makes pop music seem almost as if it had continued on a Beatlesque path from the mid-1960s to the present day. Nobody writes songs like these anymore in any genre. This Reston-based married duo have remained vibrant and productive under the big tent of folk music since teaming up in the mid-1990s. "Positively Live" is the first of Pete and Maura Kennedys' five CDs to capture the energy of their stage show they trade percussive guitar leads, sing dead-on harmonies and visit Pete Kennedy's bottomless well of licks and riffs time and again. The two are scheduled to celebrate the release of this disc with a concert at 7:30 tonight in Reston Town Center. Recorded in four venues including two favorite Kennedy hangouts, Andy's in Chestertown, Md., and Happy Endings in Maura Kennedy's hometown of Syracuse, N.Y. the live album is a natural follow-up to the 2000 release of "Evolver," the duo's foray into layered electronic pop. Stripped down to just two voices and two acoustic guitars, the Kennedys reprise title cuts from their 1995 and 1996 recordings "River of Falling Stars" and "Life Is Large." But the live record includes some previously unrecorded material that the two have been performing the past few years, traditional bluegrass songs such as "The Coo Coo," and a medley of "Cross the Big Sandy," "Black Mountain Rag" and the fiddle-favorite "Orange Blossom Special." These jaw-dropping arrangements never sounded better. Some of Pete Kennedy's older originals also are featured, including the bluegrassy "Rappahannock" and New-Agey "Shearwater," the title cut from his first instrumental disc. He also shows the depth of his artistry on guitar, honed by years of touring with such big names as Nanci Griffith and Mary Chapin Carpenter and by sitting in with orchestras at the Kennedy Center (no relation). Who but Pete Kennedy would have imagined inserting a snippet of Ludwig van Beethoven's "Fur Elise" into the Robert Johnson blues standard "Come In My Kitchen"? How many folk-rock duos can get away with playing Johann Sebastian Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" in a college-town bar? "Positively Live" answers these questions but begs one more: What will they think of next? -- Jay Votel Check out the Kennedys' Official Home Page: http://www.KennedysMusic.com/ Fab photos, the Official tour diary, dashboard Buddha haiku, groovy merchandise...what more could you ask for? ------------------------------ End of jangle-poets-digest V3 #111 **********************************