From: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org (jangle-poets-digest) To: jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Subject: jangle-poets-digest V8 #15 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, March 29 2006 Volume 08 : Number 015 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [JP] WSJ article on Roger McGuinn ["Frank Hartge" Subject: [JP] WSJ article on Roger McGuinn Roger McGuinn Pilots Folk Music Into the 21st Century By BARRY MAZOR March 28, 2006; Page D8 It's been more than 40 years since Roger McGuinn first fronted the talented band that was called "America's answer to the British Invasion," the Byrds' homegrown folk-rock electrifications of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and Pete Seeger's "Turn, Turn, Turn" having hit the airwaves in 1965. Those smash singles put Mr. McGuinn's unmistakable (if much-imitated) voice and jingle-jangle 12-string guitar sound on the map -- and, it can be argued, played an ironic role in putting nails in the coffin of the commercial folk boom that had preceded them. "Well, I agree with that," Mr. McGuinn said, speaking from his Orlando, Fla., home in a recent phone conversation. "I was in some way guilty of taking the focus off of folk music in favor of something else. That was a good experiment; we followed it through as far as we could, and loved it. I think the Byrds stuff still holds up. But I prefer to be a folk singer now -- a traditional artist." Right in keeping with that current focus is his new release, "The Folk Den Project, 1995-2005," an elegant four-CD boxed set of 100 simple, story-followable, yet distinctively McGuinn-styled takes on traditional songs that demarcate the song bag of the folk revival of the '50s and early '60s - -- ones once taught in public schools ("The Erie Canal," "On Top of Old Smokey"), the more adult tales that weren't ("House of the Rising Sun," "Delia's Gone"), the cowboy songs and sea shanties ("Buffalo Skinners," "The John B's Sails"), the bits of blues, jugband jive, country and upbeat gospel. In keeping with the origin of the project as a series of tunes made available, one by one, on Mr. McGuinn's "Folk Den" Web site and by podcast, the CD set is being sold only through Web music retailers and that original site ( www.rogermcguinn.com). "I started the Folk Den on the Internet about 10 years ago," he explained, "just to keep the songs going. I sensed that people didn't know that this stuff even existed any more, because the music business had kind of pushed traditional folk under the rug, in favor of more lucrative things. I understand the balance between art and commerce, but this had been pushed so far that I worried about it. The term 'folk singer' had become just a singer-songwriter, or anybody who played an acoustic instrument." While the folk revival had had something of an antimodern, antitech tone, the man who wrote songs about astronauts and jet pilots and pushed folk rock "Eight Miles High" had always shown a keen interest in technology. Since the advent of the public Internet, Mr. McGuinn, now 63 years old, has been known to take part in Web discussions of his work and surprise fans who've mentioned his music online with personal emails. "I was online already, and I thought, 'This is a great opportunity to get some of these songs up there to share with people around the world. It's a grass roots thing, and I love the Internet for that, and also more one-on-one. Sitting in front of a computer, it's more like the oral tradition, with somebody singing the song to you, than it is if you're being broadcast at by TV. And I must say, in the last 10 years, since I started doing that, folk music seems a lot healthier, and mostly because of the Internet, with hundreds of other sites that do folk song, maybe with just a lyric and a little MIDI file, not as elaborately as the Folk Den does it -- but it's all healthier now." Traditional songs make up a good chunk of Roger's live shows now, along with his Byrds and solo hits -- whether accompanied by his famed 12-string Rickenbacker electric or the new seven-string acoustic guitar he designed for Martin. But he hadn't had many opportunities to get out there alone, playing traditional folk, in his pre-Byrds club and coffeehouse days. He'd backed the Chad Mitchell Trio on guitar, and played with the Limelighters, but was soon mixing Beatle beats with the songs and fluid picking he'd studied as a teen at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, making the move to rock 'n' roll as he tired, he stresses, not of the music of the Pete Seegers and Odettas and Bob Gibsons, "the real folk singers," but of the bandwagon imitations of the already watered-down likes of the Serendipity Singers - -- acts that would be fodder for satire in the "A Mighty Wind" film. The historic, handed-down folk music has never lost its appeal. "I don't know what it is!" he admitted. "You could write it off to genetic memory or something, but it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. When I hear these old songs and play them, it gives me goosebumps. I just love them, in some sort of emotional way that defies logic." One of Mr. McGuinn's lesser-known pre-Byrds gigs was playing with Bobby Darin in a serious folk set that was incorporated into the pop singer's club shows. "Bobby was partly responsible for steering me over to rock from folk in the first place," Mr. McGuinn recalled. "I would ask him about how to make it in the business, and he would say 'You've got to be in rock 'n' roll; from rock you can go anywhere -- be an actor, sing anything,' as he'd done. He made it sound like it was easy to get out once you got in it. Now I'm kind of trying to move on myself!" Mr. Mazor writes about country and pop music for the Journal. 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? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 22:42:30 EST From: Kennedylst@aol.com Subject: [JP] Kennedys April 2006 Newsletter: PA, NY, MA, NJ, CT Welcome to The Kennedys' E-Newsletter for April 2006! In This Issue: 1) Kennedys' March tour diary entry 2) Kennedys' April tour dates 3) Kennedys' endless tour continues 4) Sirius Friends and Family special deals! 5) Kennedys weekly radio show on SIRIUS Satellite radio 6) Kennedys announce 4-day music cruise, January 2007! Miami, Key West, Cozumel 7) Mercantile Be sure to check our website www.KennedysMusic.com for future dates and up-to-the minute news! ******************************************* 1) March 2006 Tour Diary: Notes From the Road: The Highway 40 Blues Pulling out of Claremont tonight, after gigging at the Folk Center, Ben Harper's funky shop in this little bohemian village. Southern California's not all strip malls, by any means. The funky stuff is here, but you've got to get off the freeways and snoop around to find it. Altadena was great, like Cambridge with palm trees, and a couple of nights ago we saw a pod of whales spouting off the rocky coast of Cambria, up near Morro Bay. Today we cruised Ventura Boulevard, running a few errands and soaking up the culture of neon signs: "Expressway Church of God", "No Credito, No Problemo". Barstow: This is the jumping off point before the Mojave Desert. It's the "Star Wars cantina," the last frontier. The rat traps by the door of this cheap motel room indicate that the place has a colorful natural history. Tomorrow, the desert, the "Grapes of Wrath" in reverse, going west to east. Same sand, same scorpions and rattlers, same mountains of the moon. Nelson Riddle's "Route 66 Theme" is running through our heads as we cross the Mojave. You don't take any blue highways out here, with gunnery ranges on both sides. Ludlow is the only oasis before Needles, and then we climb the plateau up to cool, green Flagstaff. After a day hiking around the red rock canyons and hanging out at Ravenheart, the "everybody with an iBook" coffeehouse in Sedona, it's time to head east again. We've got weather on our tail now, the "Pineapple Express," a big storm system rolling in off the Pacific. We've done this run before, across the country, just ahead of a big front. The main thing is to keep moving. On the border of Arizona and New Mexico, in the heart of the Navajo nation, we drive into a massive amphitheater of storm cells. It's dry where we are, but we can see that we're in a circle of thunderstorms fifty miles wide. We figure that if we keep the right pace, we could stay in the eye, but then we'll be stuck in the middle all the way across the nation, and it could get really nasty out on the plains. We make a run through the leading edge, and as we roll into New Mexico, we hit a wall of hail and blinding snow. Ten miles east, we're out of that frying pan and into a different fire. The front is kicking up a sandstorm in its path, as it bulldozes the dead air of this dry winter. Big rigs disappear into a fog of red desert sand, and westbound trucks come looming out of the whirlwind like sandworms from "Dune." When we finally come down off the mesa into the Rio Grande Valley and the lights of Albuquerque, we're far enough ahead of the front to get some sleep before it catches up to us. We cruise across the panhandle, stopping at the half-buried Cadillacs long enough to sing "Half a Million Miles." Then it's all the way across Oklahoma and Arkansas, the mile markers rolling by. We skirt around to the north of Memphis and hit the Carl Perkins highway. The storm has rumbled up to the North, spawning tornados, but we've got the all-clear to make tracks. We take the 440 around Nashville, through the Knoxville traffic jams, and roll it easy over the edge of the Smokies into the Shenandoah Valley. The freewill Baptists still have their neon cross over the church door, but the megachurches, massive stadium-style sheds, are eating up the little guys, just like the big box retailers are doing to the little fish in their sea. I guess it's important to belong to some mass movement, although that notion seems really odd to a couple of Broadway tumbleweeds who spend the days crisscrossing the country with their worldly goods in backpacks and gig bags. Anyway, every time we pass a church the size of the Roman coliseum, I say "Blessed are the meekb&," and I try to picture the Nazarene carpenter inside, checking his hair and makeup on the big Jumbotron screen. It's a long way from the Sangre de Christo peaks to the sermon on this mount, but that's America. Big place, with lots of room for people and their baggage loads of belief. For our part, we try to keep our own beliefs compact enough to fit into the aforementioned backpacks. Like Woody Guthrie said, "A ballad singer walks across political lines, color lines, conventional and superstitious lines. Everybody welcomes him, everybody suspects something. The real fight is against the weather itself, and against his own feelings of the lost and found kind. His terrible lonesomeness is paid back by a look he sees in people's eyes, and the words that they dig out of their deeper selves are his pay and his learning." We're proud to roll down the same roads that Woody did, and sometimes we see the same look in people's eyes when we sing, and that makes it all worth the long, strange trip. Peace. ******************************************* 2) Kennedys' April tour schedule: Sunday, April 2, 2006 - Tin Angel, 20 South 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19108, w/Full Frontal Folk. This is the last Full Frontal Folk show for the foreseeable future, so come and help The Kennedys bid them a fond farewell, and wish them well on future endeavors. 7:00pm showtime. Tickets $12.00. 215-928-0770. www.tinangel.com Friday, April 7, 2006 - Bodles Opera House, 39 Main Street, Chester, NY 10918. With Peter Spink. Doors open at 6:30pm. Showtime is 8:00pm. Tickets $15.00 Call 845-469-4595 for tickets and directions. http://www.bodles.com/ Saturday, April 8, 2006 - First Encounter Coffeehouse, located at The Chapel in the Pines, 220 Samoset Road, Eastham, MA (Cape Cod). First Encounter provides a rare opportunity to listen to a variety of fine music in a smoke and alcohol free environment on Cape Cod. They offer home-baked treats and hot and cold beverages. Children are welcome and admitted free, so it's a great place to go as a family. 8:00pm showtime. Tickets $12.00. Call 508-255-5438 for tickets and info. www.firstencounter.org Saturday, April 15, 2006 - Tremedal Coffeehouse, Located at the 1st Parish Church, 35 Church Street, Watertown, MA 02472. Part of the proceeds benefit Watertown's sister community in El Salvador. 8:00pm showtime. Tickets $13 advance/$13seniors/$15 at the door. 617 782-8718. http://www.tremedalconcerts.org/ Friday, April 21, 2006 - Just Music, Located at St. Mary's Church, 17 Pompton Ave, Pompton Lakes, NJ 07442. Plenty of free parking. Refreshments available at intermission. Doors open at 8:00pm, showtime is at 8:30pm. Tickets $20. 973-865-9890 or 973-616-5242, or email: jehubert@charter.net. Tickets available through mail up to 2 weeks prior to concert. Tickets also available at Pompton Electric or Amazing Grapes Wine Shop, both in Pompton Lakes, NJ. www.justmusicconcerts.org Saturday, April 22, 2006 - People's Voice Cafe, 45 East 33rd St., New York City (between Park & Madison, north side of 33rd St.). The Peoples' Voice Cafe is an alternative coffeehouse offering quality entertainment. They provide a space for the artistic expression of a wide variety of humanitarian issues and concerns. The cafe is run as a not-for-profit collective, and is not affiliated with any political organization. New participating members are always welcome. Doors at 7:30pm. 8:00pm showtime. Tickets $12. 212-787-3903 email: ccscsusie@aol.com www.peoplesvoicecafe.org Saturday, April 29, 2006 - Connecticut Audubon Society, 1361 Main Street, Glastonbury, CT 06033. Located near the Connecticut River, the statebs major waterway, Connecticut Audubon Center at Glastonbury has taken full advantage of its unique location since opening in 1982. The center is located adjacent to the 48-acre town-owned Earle Park with its forest trails and scenic vistas of Tom's Pond, meadows and bluffs overlooking the Holland Brook River. The 2,000 sq. ft. facility offers a full range of environmental programs and a full calendar of events throughout the year for people of all ages. The center's Discovery Room features hands-on exhibits, wildlife mounts, small live animals, hands-on activities, interpretive natural history exhibits, diorama of Connecticut Riverbs Great Meadow, Four Seasons Wildlife Gardens, Bird feeding station Picnic area. Doors open at 7:00. Showtime is 7:30pm. Tickets: $15. 860-633-8402. http://www.ctaudubon.org/visit/glastonbury.htm Remember to always call venues ahead of time to confirm showtimes and locations. ******************************************* 3) Kennedys endless tour continues: ***Coming in May 2006*** 5/5/06 - May Memorial, Syracuse, NY 5/6/06 - Common Ground Coffeehouse, Pittsfield, MA 5/19/06 - 333 Coffeehouse, Annapolis, MD 5/20/06 - Spring Gulch Festival, New Holland, PA 5/27/06 - Cool Dog House Concerts, Delaware 5/28/06 - Warwick Valley Winery Bob Dylan Festival ***Coming in June 2006*** 6/3/06 - Peaceful Hollow, Westminster, MD 6/9/06 - St Andrews Church, Charleston, RI 6/10/06 - Cullen house concert, Ewing, NJ 6/16/06 - Rubin Museum of Art, New York, NY (a one-of-a-kind concert blending our more eastern-oriented music with the museum's Himalayan art!) 6/21/06 - Coffee Gallery Backstage, Altadena, CA 6/23 & 24/06 - Kate Wolf Memorial Festival, Black Oak Ranch, Laytonville, CA. http://www.katewolf.com/festival/2006.htm 6/26/06 - Coffee Gallery Backstage, Altadena, CA ***Coming in July, 2006*** 7/1 & 2/06 - New Bedford Folk Fest, New Bedford, MA 7/14/06 - Little Yough Festival, Swanton, MD 7/15/06 - Aerie Coffeehouse, Eagles Mere, PA 7/20/06 - Elm Park, Worcester, MA For info on future tour dates, and all kinds of Kennedys' info including road diary, tour photos, and more, check out our official web site at www.kennedysmusic.com. Last minute changes in the schedule can occur. Please call venues to confirm before hiring baby sitters and making the trip! ******************************************* 4) SIRIUS Satellite Radio Friends and Family deals If you've thought about tuning into our weekly SIRIUS Satellite radio shows, but are not yet a subscriber, now's the time to get your SIRIUS radio. The new friends and family deal has radios available as low as $29.99. To find out more, go to: www.sirius.com/offer/sire No promotion code is required. ******************************************* 5) Kennedys weekly radio show on SIRIUS Satellite radio Our weekly show airs on SIRIUS Satellite radio channel 24: SIRIUS Disorder, every Saturday from 7am - 10am eastern time, and every Sunday from 11am - - 2pm, hosted by us, Pete & Maura Kennedy! These are two DIFFERENT shows each weekend, not a rebroadcast! Past guests have included: Susan Werner, The Roches, Janis Ian, Susan Cowsill, Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams, Tracy Grammer and Jim Henry, Cadence Carroll, Robert Kirby, Alan Pepper, Jim Musselman and others. Anyone with requests or comments on our show should email us at: thekennedys@sirius-radio.com. We create a virtual cafe on the Dharma Cafe, and include not only great music, but poetry, commentary, and words of wisdom from the great writers and thinkers who have inspired us! We run a comprehensive list of live concerts across America. If you're interested in subscribing to SIRIUS Satellite radio, with it's more than 100 channels of commercial free music and news, visit www.sirius.com to try it for three days free on your computer. Once you subscribe, you must purchase the hardware, which can be installed in car and/or home (you will also be able to listen online). Sirius also offers a satellite boom box. Other DJs on SIRIUS that we like are Meg Griffin, Vin Scelsa, David Johansen, Dave Marsh, Andrew Loog Oldham, Kim Fowley, Michael Tearson, Cousin Brucie, Marky Ramone and others. ******************************************* 6) Kennedys announce new cruise, January 2007: Miami, Key West, Cozumel Fan Club Cruises presents: a 4-day Concert Cruise with The Kennedys on Carnival Cruise Line's Imagination, January 25 - 29, 2007. For all the details, visit http://www.fanclubcruises.com/kennedys.htm or call Fan Club Cruises 800-754-3170, or email kennedys@fanclubcruises.com. ******************************************* 7) Kennedys Mercantile "HALF A MILLION MILES" (August 23, 2005) Songs include: Half a Million Miles, Midnight Ghost, Namaste, Live, Listen, Nuah, 9th Street Billy, Everything's On Fire, Time Ain't Long, Here and Now, plus cover versions of Richard Thompson's How Will I Ever Be Simple Again, and Bob Dylan's Chimes of Freedom. CD-$15.00 "STAND" (2003) "Stand" features original songs by The Kennedys, as well as cover versions of Dave Carter's "When I Go," and Nerissa Nields' "Easy People." Guests include Joziah and Sharkey of Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams! $15.00 "RIVER OF FALLEN STARS" reissue, with bonus tracks (Varese Sarabande). The new reissue of our first CD contains six bonus tracks, including "Belfast", "Sendera Blessing" and "Fog" (all previously unreleased), and instrumental versions of "River of Fallen Stars," "Run the Red Horses," and "Spirit Compass". $15.00 "LIFE IS LARGE" reissue, with bonus tracks (Varese Sarabande) The reissue of our second CD, originally released in 1996, contains six bonus tracks, including "She Just Don't Care" and "And Your Bird Can Sing" (a Lennon/McCartney song), both non-album tracks, as well as acoustic remixes of "Life Is Large", "One Heart, One Soul", "St. Mark's Square," and "Sirens." $15.00. "GET IT RIGHT" (Jiffyjam Records 2002) Get It Right features "Didn't It Rain," "Pearl's Eye View," "Get It Right," "Angel and You" and more. Special guest appearances include Nanci Griffith, Pam Bricker (Thievery Corporation) and Starz Vanderlockett! This CD is an enhanced CD, and includes photos, video and more! $15.00. "POSITIVELY LIVE!" (Jiffyjam Records, 2001.) Kennedys first live acoustic concert recording! Includes seven previously unreleased songs, including "Come In My Kitchen" "Orange Blossom Special," "Rappahannock," "Distant Thunder," "Highway 10," "Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring" and the classic Pete song, "Run Red Lights!" $15.00 "EVOLVER" (Rouner/Zoe Records, 2000) Kennedys return to the incandescent pop style of "Life Is Large" with catchy hooks and splashes of psychedelia. Featuring the songs "Pick You Up," "Can't Kill Hope With A Gun," and "Down, Down, Down" CD only: $15.00 "ANGEL FIRE" (Rounder/Philo, 1998). Featuring "Jesse," "Common Bond," "Angels Cry" and "The Coo Coo." CD only: $15.00. Pete Kennedy's Solo Titles: "SHEARWATER: THE ART OF THE UNPLUGGED GUITAR" (Pete solo instrumental). Guests include Jerry Douglas, Tony Rice and Jon Carroll. CDs - $15 "CHANNEL 3" (Pete's electric solo album) Available in CD only. $10. "FINGERS ON FIRE" Pete Kennedy and Tom Principato. This is a newly released CD of a concert "Pete and Pato" played back in 1978, when they were both in their early teens. You gotta get it if only for the haircuts on the cover. And the music? Guitar swing at its finest. $15.00 Holiday CD available! "On a Night Before Christmas" - Sloan Wainwright and Friends (Kennedys are among the friends!) This Holiday Celebration CD features guest performances by The Kennedys, Cadence Carroll, Penny Nichols and Gandalf Murphy and The Slambovian Circus of Dreams. Kennedys contributions are their acoustic version of "How Beautiful Are the Feet" from Handel's Messiah, "We Three Guitarists", featuring Pete on electric sitar, and background singing and playing scattered here and there. "On a Night Before Christmas" was recorded Live at Northern Westchester Center for the Arts in Mt. Kisco, NY on December 18th, 2004. See our December schedule, above for more of these holiday shows! CD - $15.00 Sheet Music: Life Is Large/St. Mark's Square (2 song folio) $4.00 River of Fallen Stars/Day In & Day Out (2-song folio) $4.00 Send check or money order to: The Kennedys, PO Box 533, NY, NY 10276-0533, or fax your orders to our secure fax line: 1-415-329-1828. If you'd like to print out an order form, you can print it at: www.kennedysmusic.com/orderform.html Or order using Paypal by logging onto: http://www.kennedysmusic.com/order2005.html Please, buckle up, and drive safely and responsibly! Peace and Love!! Pete & Maura... The Kennedys 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 V8 #15 *********************************