From: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org (JMDL Digest) To: joni-digest@smoe.org Subject: JMDL Digest V2011 #234 Reply-To: joni@smoe.org Sender: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk Unsubscribe: mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe Website: http://jmdl.com JMDL Digest Saturday, August 13 2011 Volume 2011 : Number 234 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- Authenticity NJC [Mike Pritchard ] Re: Cold Blue Steel (what Joni says it is!) ["Cassy" ] jonibob njc [Marianne Rizzo ] RE: JMDL Digest V2011 #233 [Mary Morris ] Re: Authenticity NJC [Bob Muller ] New Library item: Christopher Cross feels his age [TheStaff@JoniMitchell.] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:31:41 +0200 From: Mike Pritchard Subject: Authenticity NJC Lately I have been listening a lot to Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings *The Harrow and the Harvest* album, and enjoying it immensely, and more recently I read John Mulveys interview with Gill and Dave in the August edition of UNCUT magazine. The interview is well done and informative but there is one thing that appears there that I wish I hadnt read because its giving me a lot of things to think about, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I quote: Their backstory has rankled with some country fans ever since Welchs debut, *Revival*, appeared in 1996. For those hung up on notions of authenticity, it grated to hear Welch sing of leasing 20 acres and one Ginny mule from the Alabama trust. She was after all, the adopted daughter of an LA showbiz family who had met Rawlings in the cloistered environment of Bostons Berklee School of Music. Quote ends. Rawlings also says at one point that he has no interest in traditional music except to steal from it and to enjoy it as a listener, which worries me a little less. So, what is authenticity? There are more obvious, and laughably exaggerated, examples of inappropriate cover versions; imagine Maria Osmond doing a cover of Polly Jeans *Lick my Legs*, or Brian Ferry starting to sing, There is a town in north Ontario... But those are cover versions and the rules are different here, I think. There are millions of excellent cover versions, of modern music, of traditional music, of cross-genre music, and I have no problem with that. I like em or I dont, but I dont reject them for their bastardisation. I think my (slight but niggling) problem with Gill and David is that they are not performing and changing traditional songs, but writing songs that sound like they are authentic. As I write, *Tennessee* has just finished and Im listening to *Down Along the Dixie Line*. She sings, I spent my childhood, walking the wild wood, down along the Dixie Line... I was so happy with momma and pappy, down along the Dixie Line. *Tennessees* lyrics include let me go, my honey-o, back to Tennessee. Her albums contain many other examples; *Red Dirt Halo* comes to mind too. When Emmylou sings about fixin up a 49 Indian, I can believe it. When Ry Cooder sings Leadbelly, or Joe Jackson sings Cab Calloway, I have no problem... Which leads me to the question; is authenticity more about geographical place than individual personality? I love all Gillians work, and many thanks to John VT and Claudia for introducing it to me, and I will continue to buy it and to enjoy it, but I wish Mulvey had left those remarks out of the interview. mike in bcn NP Gill and Dave  The Harrow and the Harvest ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 07:24:36 -0700 From: "Cassy" Subject: Re: Cold Blue Steel (what Joni says it is!) From: Randy Remote <<>> I'm coming late to this party, I know but for some reason this song always reminded me of the soldiers who came back from Vietnam as junkies. Bashing in veins for peace seemed so representative of those who "fought for peace" that found "Lady release" with a needle. Guns are made of cold blue steel and they fire, the duality rang for me even though not all the lyrics referred to soldiering the junkies who came home certainly had one eye "for the beat police" as they shot up. Then again I could be full of it LOL Warmly, Cassy ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 15:46:47 +0100 From: Anita G Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC Hi Mike I find your question about what it is to be 'authentic' a fascinating one to try and unpick. I had a most interesting email correspondence with Miles a couple of weeks back about how important it is or not to have walked in the path of the songs. Miles was pointing out that great artists, song writers and interpretors of work very hard at their artistic craft and not everything has to be autobiographical. Of course, Joni herself went through many stages from the paper thin personal of something likel 'Blue' onto all the jazz and observational that keep many of us hooked into JMDL. It sounds like you really enjoy the music of Gill and David, but, at the same time say: "I think my (slight but niggling) problem with Gill and David is that they are not performing and changing traditional songs, but writing songs that sound like they are authentic." You then write some of the lyrics that they have written that sounds long way from their personal life experiences. When I read that, Mike, I wondered if you felt slightly conned by them? You are clear about the difference between covering a song, but this seems to have a different flavour. For me, your email poses some interesting questions (which Miles also alluded to) about what our expectations as listeners are of those who write and perform the music that we love. Do they literally have to have leased the 20 acres and the ginny mule to write and/or sing about? I have to say, I really don't have an answer about this one, but I do find it personally well worth exploring. Joni wrote about the Magdalene Laundries and a more haunting, chilling expression of the experience of the women who suffered there would be hard to find, yet Joni fortunately didn't go into the Laundries - though, of course, she understood in her bones the stigma of a child out of wedlock.. I played The Magdalene Laundries with survivors from the Industrial schools and laundries with whom I'm worked for a while. The haunting description Joni used of 'lame bulbs' deeply moved each and everyone of them, as did the cries within the music. She expressed something that the people I met had been unable to express. Joni's song was a contemporary song with a contemporary sound and I am not familiar with the music you are writing about here, but it sounds from your description that the music does sound extremely traditional. Perhaps it sounds something that it's not? (I'll go and find some and take a listen). For a song to sound 'authentic', maybe there is a deeper thread of something else that's understood about the nature of what it is to be human. You feel that the person really KNOWS the place. Perhaps it isn't neccessarily 'geographical' in the outer sense, but more of an internal, shared place. Our internal landscapes. You may be an LA girl of a showbiz family and wealthy but an internal understanding perhaps makes it okay to be walking some Dixie Line with your parents, sounding like you're in 1880. Gillian and Dave maybe drop into a different place when they are writing that does, in some way, empathise with what they are writing about which gives the song an authentic feel. But perhaps it's an internal geography rather than an external one. Anyway, you have got me thinking which is always good. I could say, Mike, that you've made me feel, miiiiiighty real! Yours thoughtfully Anita ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 10:59:44 -0400 From: Marianne Rizzo Subject: jonibob njc Where's my boyfriend? Is he back yet? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 10:48:30 -0700 From: Mary Morris Subject: RE: JMDL Digest V2011 #233 "Amelia dying to fly" Thank you Oddmund for that wonderful poem. GREETINGS FROM THE TRIPLE M Down a gravel road, where the barb wire meets the sky. MARY M. MORRIS > ------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 11:52:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Bob Muller Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC Hi Mike! I didn't know that about Gillian but it doesn't bother me or take anything away from her great work. Her new record may be my favorite. Bob NP: They Might Be Giants, "You Probably Get That A Lot" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 23:16:16 -0600 (MDT) From: TheStaff@JoniMitchell.com Subject: New Library item: Christopher Cross feels his age Title: Christopher Cross feels his age Publication: San Antonio Express-News Date: 2011.5.8 http://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=2402 ------------------------------ End of JMDL Digest V2011 #234 ***************************** ------- To post messages to the list, send to joni@smoe.org. Unsubscribe by clicking here: mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe -------