From: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org (JMDL Digest) To: joni-digest@smoe.org Subject: JMDL Digest V2011 #235 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 Sunday, August 14 2011 Volume 2011 : Number 235 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- Re: Authenticity NJC [Miles Parks Grier ] Re: Authenticity NJC [Dave Blackburn ] Re: Authenticity NJC [Anita G ] RE: Authenticity NJC [Susan Tierney McNamara ] RE: Authenticity NJC [Susan Tierney McNamara ] RE: Authenticity NJC [Em ] Re: Authenticity NJC [Miles Parks Grier ] Re: Authenticity NJC [Anita G ] Authenticity NJC ["Jim L'Hommedieu" ] Re: Amelia - dying to fly [Moni Kellermann ] Re: Authenticity NJC [Dave Blackburn ] Re: Authenticity NJC [Anita G ] Re: Authenticity NJC [Dave Blackburn ] Re: Authenticity NJC [Dave Blackburn ] Fwd: A Day in the Garden [Sharon Watkins ] Re: Authenticity NJC ["Mark" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 03:40:15 -0400 From: Miles Parks Grier Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC I just wanted quickly to Mike and Anita's comments an authenticity. I think most of us mean "true to a genre" when we say authentic. But I once read an article once by an academic and songwriter, she noted that the word authenticity comes from a Latin word meaning "from the author."(Her name is Sarah Dougher, and the article is in a book called _This is Pop: In Seach of the Elusive at the Experience Music Project_). I think "authentic" as "from the author" (from her own life) touches on MIke's slight discomfort with Gillian Welch. I happen to love her music. So, I guess, when I'm listening to music, I want it to sound true to its genre (even if it is making up its own genre). I'm not terribly interested in every single aspect being autobiographical. I mean, don't we change every day? Surely, some days Joni felt more like the woman singing "Carey"--while other days must have felt like "Amelia" or "Lead Balloon" days. So, if my relationship with myself gets to change constantly, then I don't think there is a consistent self for me to write or sing from. And hasn't Randy Newman made an entire career of writing great songs from a third-person perspective? In the end, I think what makes good *sound* is just knowing how to make music with whatever instrument, and in whatever style you are using. Those are my thoughts. But I also want to thank Mike for his very thoughtful post and Anita for her compliments and her own insights on this perennial question. - -------------------- Thanks 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 Mulvey s 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 hadn t read because it s 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 > Welch s 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 Boston s 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 Jean s *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 don t, but I don t 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 > I m 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 . *Tennessee s* > 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 Gillian s 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 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: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 08:00:28 -0700 From: Dave Blackburn Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC I think we may each have our own sense of what is authentic in art. In the case of musicians, some may go by whether the "sound" or"vibe" of someone's music is strongly derived from the sound of prior recordings that have been deemed "classic". Robert Johnson's recordings for example have long been anointed as the real deal when it comes to delta blues, so imitators/practitioners down the line are compared to those as to whether they measure up. Keith Richard has described how he studied every lick of those records to derive his own style. Another angle on authenticity would be to sense how truthful an artist is to his or her own experience. Joni is clearly deeply authentic in that sense but a major innovator in the other sense of being faithful to what went before. But even that can be hard to discern from the outside. Look how many times we have assumed something Joni wrote to be deeply autobiographical and then found out in an interview she was writing from a persona that sounded really "authentic". Frank O'Hara's poems are presented as the capture of fleeting instants of immediate feeling and experience, like walking around with a videocam while narrating what it sees, but it turns out his poems were carefully wrought and rewrought to give them the ring of authenticity. Sometimes the whole point of a project is to ring spot-on true to a bygone era: Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, Madeleine Peyroux sounding creepily like Billie Holiday, Joss Stone's soul records, even Amy Winehouse rip. I suspect artists have always strived to capture what was great about prior movements since that seems to confer its own authenticity. However, as with the examples I just gave, some people will dismiss their work as "pale imitations" (especially when it is white artists doing the sound of black artists.) But others will see it as continuing an evolving tradition, like the Rolling Stones doing their take on delta blues. So, authenticity is an elusive quality to pin down, both in what we think we mean by it, and in whether the experience captured is real (whatever THAT means) or is carefully crafted to appear real, which is more likely. And camps will form around both sides, some saying an artist is true to themselves or a prior tradition, and others will dismiss it, saying there's nothing new there and it's all recycled and diluted from the "authentic" stuff. I think it's all part of the big mystery about art. We don't really KNOW anything objectively; we're going on our own individual senses and our own life experiences to determine if something feels good to us and that is about as much as we have to go on. Hell, one can't even define what music is. We just know it when we hear it. Dave ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 16:15:29 +0100 From: Anita G Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC On 13 August 2011 08:40, Miles Parks Grier wrote: > I just wanted quickly to Mike and Anita's comments an authenticity. I think > most of us mean "true to a genre" when we say authentic. But I once read an > article once by an academic and songwriter, she noted that the word > authenticity comes from a Latin word meaning "from the author."(Her name is > Sarah Dougher, and the article is in a book called _This is Pop: In Seach of > the Elusive at the Experience Music Project_). Miles, I was once talking with someone about a gardening fork and I realised about half way through she was talking about something I would call a trowel. Words are curious things and defining what one means by a word is another fascinating aspect of communication. I had not considered the word 'authentic' to be 'true to a genre' - but, of course, it certainly is. The Latin meaning adds another layer about whatt exactly 'from the author' could be. It implies many things and certainly include the observational, the autobiographical, stories and everything else in betwixt and between. You go on to say: > > I think "authentic" as "from the author" (from her own life) touches on > MIke's slight discomfort with Gillian Welch. I happen to love her music. So, > I guess, when I'm listening to music, I want it to sound true to its genre > (even if it is making up its own genre). I'm not terribly interested in > every single aspect being autobiographical. I mean, don't we change every > day? Surely, some days Joni felt more like the woman singing "Carey"--while > other days must have felt like "Amelia" or "Lead Balloon" days. So, if my > relationship with myself gets to change constantly, then I don't think there > is a consistent self for me to write or sing from. This is another intriguing idea to grapple with, especially when we are looking at the idea of 'authenticity.' When you say 'if my relationship with myself gets to change constantly, then I don't think there is a consistent self for me to write or sing from' maybe your inconsistency is consistent! :~) Therefore, this constantly changine (evolving?) self is truly, what I would call, authentic. You are a songwriter who is being authentic. It's truly you and who you are in varying moods of joy, reflection, sad etc. Now, just before I implode in the effort that goes into explaining my words and what I am trying to express, when I think of an artist being authentic, I feel that they truly believe and feel everything they are singing or expressing. And Dave says: "I think it's all part of the big mystery about art. We don't really KNOW anything objectively; we're going on our own individual senses and our own life experiences to determine if something feels good to us and that is about as much as we have to go on" It certainly is a mystery! In the case that Mike brought about Gillian Welch, she seems to honestly believe and feel what she's expressing in way that I would call real/authentic. She seems to be tapping into something (some feeling or thought) that belongs to her or IS her in order to sing those songs. In that way our 'individual senses and life experiences' do determine what 'feels good' to us. Maybe Gillian hasn't bought the mule nor walked along some dirt railroad, but she may feel somewhere in herself some resonance with that expereince. .REM wrote 'Everybody Hurts' sometimes and, of course, everybody does hurt sometimes. We also feel joy, sadness, laughter and all the complexity of human emotions and existential concerns. We all share these. Great songwriters can tap into the existential concerns (death, freedom,meaninglessness,isolation) as Joni did so often. 'Hejira' just poped into my mind as the song that says everything I ever wanted to say! It's a paradox that we are all so very,very different and so much the same. I wonder if the truly great songwriters, musicians and artists tap into that source and somehow, in some mysterious way, as listeners we hear it, sense it and know it on a very deep and profound level. Anita ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 11:31:29 -0400 From: Susan Tierney McNamara Subject: RE: Authenticity NJC This is a great thread, and I wasn't going to jump in but it reminds me of an experience I had in listening to the Avett Brothers. My 19-year old niece is a devotee and goes to All Good and has violin hole tatoos on her beautiful back, and she turned me AB about two years ago. She also recently acquired a ukelele. The Avett Brothers sounded "authentic" to me in a blue grass tradition until in the middle of a song they start screaming ala Kurt Cobain and banging on their acoustic instruments. I loved it!!! This seemed more of a hybrid grunge/blue grass to me, innovative and working the style of the current brand of young hippie that all my young nephews and nieces seem to be embracing. I haven't heard the new Eddie Vedder ukelele album, but I'd like to. I agree with Dave, too ... all we know is we don't know, you know? ;-) Sue ________________________________________ From: owner-joni@smoe.org [owner-joni@smoe.org] On Behalf Of Dave Blackburn [beatntrack@sbcglobal.net] Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2011 11:00 AM To: Miles Parks Grier; joni LIST; Anita G Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC I think we may each have our own sense of what is authentic in art. In the case of musicians, some may go by whether the "sound" or"vibe" of someone's music is strongly derived from the sound of prior recordings that have been deemed "classic". Robert Johnson's recordings for example have long been anointed as the real deal when it comes to delta blues, so imitators/practitioners down the line are compared to those as to whether they measure up. Keith Richard has described how he studied every lick of those records to derive his own style. Another angle on authenticity would be to sense how truthful an artist is to his or her own experience. Joni is clearly deeply authentic in that sense but a major innovator in the other sense of being faithful to what went before. But even that can be hard to discern from the outside. Look how many times we have assumed something Joni wrote to be deeply autobiographical and then found out in an interview she was writing from a persona that sounded really "authentic". Frank O'Hara's poems are presented as the capture of fleeting instants of immediate feeling and experience, like walking around with a videocam while narrating what it sees, but it turns out his poems were carefully wrought and rewrought to give them the ring of authenticity. Sometimes the whole point of a project is to ring spot-on true to a bygone era: Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, Madeleine Peyroux sounding creepily like Billie Holiday, Joss Stone's soul records, even Amy Winehouse rip. I suspect artists have always strived to capture what was great about prior movements since that seems to confer its own authenticity. However, as with the examples I just gave, some people will dismiss their work as "pale imitations" (especially when it is white artists doing the sound of black artists.) But others will see it as continuing an evolving tradition, like the Rolling Stones doing their take on delta blues. So, authenticity is an elusive quality to pin down, both in what we think we mean by it, and in whether the experience captured is real (whatever THAT means) or is carefully crafted to appear real, which is more likely. And camps will form around both sides, some saying an artist is true to themselves or a prior tradition, and others will dismiss it, saying there's nothing new there and it's all recycled and diluted from the "authentic" stuff. I think it's all part of the big mystery about art. We don't really KNOW anything objectively; we're going on our own individual senses and our own life experiences to determine if something feels good to us and that is about as much as we have to go on. Hell, one can't even define what music is. We just know it when we hear it. Dave ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 12:44:32 -0400 From: Susan Tierney McNamara Subject: RE: Authenticity NJC I just had another thought about this ... how does this relate to Joni's calling Dylan a plagiarist? Would she say Gillian Welch is a plagiarist? hmm. ________________________________________ From: owner-joni@smoe.org [owner-joni@smoe.org] On Behalf Of Susan Tierney McNamara [sem8@cornell.edu] Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2011 11:31 AM To: Dave Blackburn; Miles Parks Grier; joni LIST; Anita G Subject: RE: Authenticity NJC This is a great thread, and I wasn't going to jump in but it reminds me of an experience I had in listening to the Avett Brothers. My 19-year old niece is a devotee and goes to All Good and has violin hole tatoos on her beautiful back, and she turned me AB about two years ago. She also recently acquired a ukelele. The Avett Brothers sounded "authentic" to me in a blue grass tradition until in the middle of a song they start screaming ala Kurt Cobain and banging on their acoustic instruments. I loved it!!! This seemed more of a hybrid grunge/blue grass to me, innovative and working the style of the current brand of young hippie that all my young nephews and nieces seem to be embracing. I haven't heard the new Eddie Vedder ukelele album, but I'd like to. I agree with Dave, too ... all we know is we don't know, you know? ;-) Sue ________________________________________ From: owner-joni@smoe.org [owner-joni@smoe.org] On Behalf Of Dave Blackburn [beatntrack@sbcglobal.net] Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2011 11:00 AM To: Miles Parks Grier; joni LIST; Anita G Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC I think we may each have our own sense of what is authentic in art. In the case of musicians, some may go by whether the "sound" or"vibe" of someone's music is strongly derived from the sound of prior recordings that have been deemed "classic". Robert Johnson's recordings for example have long been anointed as the real deal when it comes to delta blues, so imitators/practitioners down the line are compared to those as to whether they measure up. Keith Richard has described how he studied every lick of those records to derive his own style. Another angle on authenticity would be to sense how truthful an artist is to his or her own experience. Joni is clearly deeply authentic in that sense but a major innovator in the other sense of being faithful to what went before. But even that can be hard to discern from the outside. Look how many times we have assumed something Joni wrote to be deeply autobiographical and then found out in an interview she was writing from a persona that sounded really "authentic". Frank O'Hara's poems are presented as the capture of fleeting instants of immediate feeling and experience, like walking around with a videocam while narrating what it sees, but it turns out his poems were carefully wrought and rewrought to give them the ring of authenticity. Sometimes the whole point of a project is to ring spot-on true to a bygone era: Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, Madeleine Peyroux sounding creepily like Billie Holiday, Joss Stone's soul records, even Amy Winehouse rip. I suspect artists have always strived to capture what was great about prior movements since that seems to confer its own authenticity. However, as with the examples I just gave, some people will dismiss their work as "pale imitations" (especially when it is white artists doing the sound of black artists.) But others will see it as continuing an evolving tradition, like the Rolling Stones doing their take on delta blues. So, authenticity is an elusive quality to pin down, both in what we think we mean by it, and in whether the experience captured is real (whatever THAT means) or is carefully crafted to appear real, which is more likely. And camps will form around both sides, some saying an artist is true to themselves or a prior tradition, and others will dismiss it, saying there's nothing new there and it's all recycled and diluted from the "authentic" stuff. I think it's all part of the big mystery about art. We don't really KNOW anything objectively; we're going on our own individual senses and our own life experiences to determine if something feels good to us and that is about as much as we have to go on. Hell, one can't even define what music is. We just know it when we hear it. Dave ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 10:24:54 -0700 (PDT) From: Em Subject: RE: Authenticity NJC I think we're so deeply post-modern now that we're lucky anything even vaguely SEEMS or feels authentic. As far as art, the 20th century is still being re-chewed and re-chewed. I see it everywhere - in music, in movies, even in TV commercials. (thinking the Levi's ads) I can't foresee that changing until after the flood/fire/next World War - whatever cataclysmic thing is going to come. After that, maybe the remaining humans will create some authentically new kind of art. The only real forward progress now seems to be in technology But the happy for thing for me, is that we do have these many, many younger groups that sound so real-deal you can barely discern that they're not really from the 20th century, even though they are very much of the 20th century. Am I off-base and really, really stupid? or does that make sense? dunno....I'm just happy to have all these groups that incorporate some of the good-ol' sound - or in the case of Gillian W.. I'm just thankful she was so attracted to that sort of sound that she took it as her own. By the way, I've not yet heard her most recent one. Others, in other places, have said it is not their fave of her's and Dave's. :) Happy Sat! em ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 14:45:48 -0400 From: Miles Parks Grier Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC The accusations of Dylan's plagiarism entail his stealing lyrics verbatim from poets and other sources. A person inclined to criticize Gillian Welch for writing about things she has never experienced would have to call her, at worst, a fake. But I haven't heard anyone call her a plagiarist. On Sat, Aug 13, 2011 at 12:44 PM, Susan Tierney McNamara wrote: > I just had another thought about this ... how does this relate to Joni's > calling Dylan a plagiarist? Would she say Gillian Welch is a plagiarist? > hmm. > > > > > ________________________________________ > From: owner-joni@smoe.org [owner-joni@smoe.org] On Behalf Of Susan Tierney > McNamara [sem8@cornell.edu] > Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2011 11:31 AM > To: Dave Blackburn; Miles Parks Grier; joni LIST; Anita G > Subject: RE: Authenticity NJC > > This is a great thread, and I wasn't going to jump in but it reminds me of > an experience I had in listening to the Avett Brothers. My 19-year old > niece is a devotee and goes to All Good and has violin hole tatoos on her > beautiful back, and she turned me AB about two years ago. She also recently > acquired a ukelele. The Avett Brothers sounded "authentic" to me in a blue > grass tradition until in the middle of a song they start screaming ala Kurt > Cobain and banging on their acoustic instruments. I loved it!!! This > seemed more of a hybrid grunge/blue grass to me, innovative and working the > style of the current brand of young hippie that all my young nephews and > nieces seem to be embracing. I haven't heard the new Eddie Vedder ukelele > album, but I'd like to. > > I agree with Dave, too ... all we know is we don't know, you know? ;-) > > Sue > ________________________________________ > From: owner-joni@smoe.org [owner-joni@smoe.org] On Behalf Of Dave > Blackburn [beatntrack@sbcglobal.net] > Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2011 11:00 AM > To: Miles Parks Grier; joni LIST; Anita G > Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC > > I think we may each have our own sense of what is authentic in art. > In the case of musicians, some may go by whether the "sound" or"vibe" of > someone's music is strongly derived from the sound of prior recordings that > have been deemed "classic". Robert Johnson's recordings for example have > long been anointed as the real deal when it comes to delta blues, so > imitators/practitioners down the line are compared to those as to whether > they measure up. Keith Richard has described how he studied every lick of > those records to derive his own style. > Another angle on authenticity would be to sense how truthful an > artist is to his or her own experience. Joni is clearly deeply authentic in > that sense but a major innovator in the other sense of being faithful to > what went before. But even that can be hard to discern from the outside. > Look how many times we have assumed something Joni wrote to be deeply > autobiographical and then found out in an interview she was writing from a > persona that sounded really "authentic". Frank O'Hara's poems are presented > as the capture of fleeting instants of immediate feeling and experience, > like walking around with a videocam while narrating what it sees, but it > turns out his poems were carefully wrought and rewrought to give them the > ring of authenticity. > Sometimes the whole point of a project is to ring spot-on true to a > bygone era: Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, Madeleine Peyroux sounding creepily > like Billie Holiday, Joss Stone's soul records, even Amy Winehouse rip. I > suspect artists have always strived to capture what was great about prior > movements since that seems to confer its own authenticity. However, as with > the examples I just gave, some people will dismiss their work as "pale > imitations" (especially when it is white artists doing the sound of black > artists.) But others will see it as continuing an evolving tradition, like > the Rolling Stones doing their take on delta blues. > > So, authenticity is an elusive quality to pin down, both in what we think > we mean by it, and in whether the experience captured is real (whatever THAT > means) or is carefully crafted to appear real, which is more likely. And > camps will form around both sides, some saying an artist is true to > themselves or a prior tradition, and others will dismiss it, saying there's > nothing new there and it's all recycled and diluted from the "authentic" > stuff. > > I think it's all part of the big mystery about art. We don't really KNOW > anything objectively; we're going on our own individual senses and our own > life experiences to determine if something feels good to us and that is > about as much as we have to go on. Hell, one can't even define what music > is. We just know it when we hear it. > > Dave ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 19:47:05 +0100 From: Anita G Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC On 13 August 2011 18:24, Em wrote: > > Am I off-base and really, really stupid? or does that make sense? > dunno.... More grist to the mill, Em. I just read my own post and didn't understand a word of it! LOL. It's so dense! I think I have some vague sense of what I am trying to explore.........but whether it makes sense or not is another matter. And does it have to make 'sense'? Maybe Dave's point about it all being a 'mystery' is a sound one and a good place to be. Anita ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 14:50:24 -0400 From: "Jim L'Hommedieu" Subject: Authenticity NJC This is an interesting angle! For my part, I have no problem with Muddy Waters singing the blues. But when lynyrd skynyrd did a medley of blues songs, skimming only the best lines from each song, it was grating. Waters was not performing in the 1920s but he *sounded* like he was. You could put a Muddy Waters song on a scratchy 78 record and it would be believable. skynyrd sounded like a party-time 70s band. And I'm not knocking skynyrd; I just don't want them messing with the blues. I like their song "Curtis Low" for example, which ironically, is about a neighborhood blues man. I don't think the authenticity problem stems from geography, at least not for me. skynyrd is from the south. If I remember right, waters had one foot in the south and one foot in Chicago. If I remember it right, waters didn't have purity of geography on his side. I think his sound was authentic. That's what Gillian Welch has going for her. And Emmylou too. You wouldn't want Emmylou to do an album of Door's covers because you wouldn't believe it. I think maybe the illusion of authenticity is actually believability. Jim L'Hommedieu mike in bcn wrote, in part, >..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.... 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?> ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 21:06:04 +0200 From: Moni Kellermann Subject: Re: Amelia - dying to fly Am 11.08.2011 23:26, Wie Oddmund Kaarevik so vortrefflich formulierte: > The late Jimmy MacCarthy > wonderfu irish songwriter > wrote warmer for the spark > in the late eighties- > made famous by mary black > but sung be severals. I only know Mary Black's version - she is one of my favourite singers anyway :) Here she is, singing "No Frontiers" live: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvABIMOkaGQ moni k. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 12:58:14 -0700 From: Dave Blackburn Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC Just to throw this into the pot... Our culture is founded on the ersatz. As a result, "the watchful ones among the slaves know all that's genuine will be scorned and conned and cast away." In reaction, we, the watchful ones, make it a point to seek out the genuine, the authentic, the original, what they call the "Ur text" in Lit Crit. Of course someone came before Robert Johnson (name your genuine article) and influenced him, but we have no recordings of THAT person since the technology was brand new. So partly by accident, certain people get anointed as the originators. The BBC series Prog Rock Britannia tried to find the Ur text of Prog Rock, and chose Sgt. Pepper's. The latest crop of books about Singer-Songwriters and Laurel canyon are all trying to name their Ur text, the person who began the movement, and so on. We distrust the new these days, as it represents polish and phoniness, and find comfort in the unpolished, as it must therefore be authentic. The Sex Pistols got anointed as the liberators from polish in 1977 and others have come and gone who appear to give hope that the future will not be all gloss and spin. Of course, the minute punk rock or anything else comes along to offer an alternative against the corporate machine, the machine happily assumes it and sells it as the new commodity. I remember the T-Shirts with safety pins for $50 at Neiman Marcus. Dave On Aug 13, 2011, at 11:50 AM, Jim L'Hommedieu wrote: > This is an interesting angle! For my part, I have no problem with Muddy Waters singing the blues. But when lynyrd skynyrd did a medley of blues songs, skimming only the best lines from each song, it was grating. Waters was not performing in the 1920s but he *sounded* like he was. You could put a Muddy Waters song on a scratchy 78 record and it would be believable. skynyrd sounded like a party-time 70s band. And I'm not knocking skynyrd; I just don't want them messing with the blues. I like their song "Curtis Low" for example, which ironically, is about a neighborhood blues man. > > I don't think the authenticity problem stems from geography, at least not for me. skynyrd is from the south. If I remember right, waters had one foot in the south and one foot in Chicago. If I remember it right, waters didn't have purity of geography on his side. I think his sound was authentic. That's what Gillian Welch has going for her. And Emmylou too. You wouldn't want Emmylou to do an album of Door's covers because you wouldn't believe it. I think maybe the illusion of authenticity is actually believability. > > Jim L'Hommedieu > > > mike in bcn wrote, in part, > >..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.... > > 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?> ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 22:32:01 +0100 From: Anita G Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC Johnny Rotten now promotes British butter on TV Anita. On 13 August 2011 20:58, Dave Blackburn wrote: I remember the T-Shirts with safety pins for $50 at Neiman Marcus. > > Dave ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 14:53:16 -0700 From: Dave Blackburn Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC Oh, the irony! Would you choose a food industry spokesman named Rotten? On Aug 13, 2011, at 2:32 PM, Anita G wrote: > Johnny Rotten now promotes British butter on TV > Anita. > > On 13 August 2011 20:58, Dave Blackburn wrote: > I remember the T-Shirts with safety pins for $50 at Neiman Marcus. >> >> Dave ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:06:59 -0700 From: Dave Blackburn Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC Jim said it right. On Aug 13, 2011, at 11:50 AM, Jim L'Hommedieu wrote: > I think maybe the illusion of authenticity is actually believability. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 21:50:40 -0500 From: Sharon Watkins Subject: Fwd: A Day in the Garden Sent from my iPhone Begin forwarded message: > From: Sharon Watkins > Date: August 10, 2011 8:12:12 AM CDT > To: "joni@smoe.org" > Subject: A Day in the Garden > > William thank you so much for posting this! It was amazing. > Anita, way over here in Texas I did the same thing, except I went to bed and watched the show on my iPhone. What a terrific way to finish my day, relaxing to Joni's music. > Regards, > Sharon > > Sent from my iPhone ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2011 22:32:26 -0700 From: "Mark" Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC Dave, I think you found the perfect lyric from Joni's work in your post for this thread. And I absolutely agree that Jim really hit on a key element of authenticity. In looking at the online Merriam-Webster dictionary entry, two of the five definitions for the word stand out for me: not false or imitation : real, actual true to one's own personality, spirit, or character I've been reading all the thoughtful and intelligent posts in this thread with great pleasure. They have provoked a lot of thoughts of my own to go flying through my head. So many that I couldn't think of a way to put them into any kind of coherent form that would ultimately express what I wanted to convey. Then today I read a review in the Seattle Times of k. d. lang's performance last Wednesday night at the Woodland Park Zoo. The reviewer's description of her performance brought back the memory of the first time I ever saw k. d. She opened a concert for Dwight Yoakum in about 1986 or 7 at Seattle's yearly Bumbershoot Festival. My late partner Edward loved country music and wanted to see Dwight. I had heard about a Canadian singer based in Vancouver who was saying she was the reincarnation of Patsy Cline. She had even named her back-up band The Reclines. I had recently 'discovered' Patsy Cline and so I was curious. I don't know what I expected but it wasn't what I witnessed on the stage at that concert. There was this tall woman with crazy looking hair, wearing a long black skirt and what looked like combat boots. The music was like nothing I had ever heard before. It's a clichi by now, but it really was like rockabilly crashing head-on into punk rock. But when this bizarre looking creature opened her mouth to sing, I was floored. After that concert I started telling people that k. d. lang was going to be a star and someday would be known as a great singer. She's been through a lot of different changes of style since then but the reviewer of Wednesday night's concert said 'the strapping diva danced with quirky abandon; skipped and marched and shimmied'. I remembered her energy and quirkiness from that 80s concert. It made me smile to myself. After describing her performance of 'Hallelujah' and how 'she earned every clap of the extended standing ovation that followed' the reviewer concluded by saying 'She can goof you, or move you to tears - all the while exuding her unbridled joy in making and sharing music.' And a while after reading that review I thought to myself, that's it. That's what authentic means to me. Unfortunately I have only seen k. d. lang perform live that one time. But every time I have seen her on television, she has always exhibited that pure joy in singing. It's almost like she channels some energy or force from somewhere outside of herself. I felt the same way when I saw Joni perform the 'Both Sides Now' concert with full orchestra at Concord in 2000. For me that's part of what makes k. d. (and Joni) authentic. It's obvious that she truly loves what she does. Emmylou Harris is the same way. Rickie Lee Jones is as well. That joy in creating music would make it imperative for any one of those artists to make music that is 'not false or imitation'. As Jim put it, believability has to follow from that. And a performing artist has to be absolutely believable for a performance to rise above the level of mediocrity or to be authentic. k. d. (again, like Joni) has gone through many shifts in her musical style during the course of her career. But after reading that review I felt there was a sense of continuity that has run throughout. She has remained 'true to (her) own personality, spirit, or character'. The Big-Boned Gal from southern Alberta has been the outlandish upstart, pushing the boundaries of country music beyond Nashville's comfort level, the Lesbian chanteuse, helping push the boundaries of the American public's comfort level, the velvet-voiced crooner singing with and earning the respect and admiration of one of the acknowledged all-time great crooners of jazz inflected American pop music, Tony Bennett and a great interpreter that can leave her indelible mark on work like Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah'. And yet underneath it all one still senses that the Big Boned Gal from southern Alberta is still there. She is still 'the strapping diva', dancing 'with quirky abandon'. There is a twinkle in her eye when she is having fun with a song and an absolute commitment and sincerity when she is exploring deep emotional territory. She always feels 'real' - or authentic. Dave brought up another point about authenticity. All too often something that is truly innovative and achieves a wide audience in popular music gets picked up by the industry and exploited to the point where the initial impact of it becomes buried in the avalanche of imitative music that follows. Then there are the performers who hang on to their audience as long as they can by following or trying to anticipate the trends. Fortunately there are still a few artists that we, the 'watchful ones', recognize as genuine. We embrace them. And as long as they remain true to themselves, we continue to be loyal to them even after they have been 'scorned and conned and cast away'. And although it may seem contradictory, for a true artist, growth and change is a necessary and inevitable part of keeping faith with their own unique vision. As far as k. d. lang is concerned, I hope to see the mature artist in a live performance one day. Although the Woodland Park Zoo is not an ideal venue (I saw Rickie Lee Jones for the first time there and people talked all the way through the performance - outdoor venues seem to make people think they're in their living rooms or something) and Thursday was a work day for me, part of me regrets not making the effort to go. But if I ever do get the chance to see k. d. in concert again, I am certain that I will see a truly authentic artist who is real, actual, not false and who has remained true to her own personality, spirit and character. Mark in Seattle - -----Original Message----- From: Dave Blackburn Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2011 12:58 PM To: Jim L'Hommedieu Cc: JMDL ; Mike Pritchard in bcn ; lawntreader@googlemail.com Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC Just to throw this into the pot... Our culture is founded on the ersatz. As a result, "the watchful ones among the slaves know all that's genuine will be scorned and conned and cast away." In reaction, we, the watchful ones, make it a point to seek out the genuine, the authentic, the original, what they call the "Ur text" in Lit Crit. On Aug 13, 2011, at 11:50 AM, Jim L'Hommedieu wrote: > I think maybe the illusion of authenticity is actually believability. ------------------------------ End of JMDL Digest V2011 #235 ***************************** ------- To post messages to the list, send to joni@smoe.org. Unsubscribe by clicking here: mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe -------