From: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org (JMDL Digest) To: joni-digest@smoe.org Subject: JMDL Digest V2011 #237 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 Tuesday, August 16 2011 Volume 2011 : Number 237 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- Authenticity NJC [betsyblue82@gmail.com] Re: Questions... [Anita G ] Re: authenticity, now SJC [Anita G ] Termination Rights NJC [betsyblue82@gmail.com] Jeff Bridges (NJC) [Steve Dulson ] authenticity (little) JC [Miles Parks Grier ] Re: Jeff Bridges (NJC) [Lieve Reckers ] Re: Jeff Bridges (NJC) [Steve Dulson ] Clouds, IDKWIS [betsyblue82@gmail.com] Re: Clouds, IDKWIS [David Lahm ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:11:59 +0000 From: betsyblue82@gmail.com Subject: Authenticity NJC If my college English classes had been anything like this thread, or like most of the discussions on the list, I would have gone more often. Unfortunately, I didn't and have nothing to add. All I can do is second Dave's "awesome" comment. NP Shiny Happy People Betsy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:54:43 +0100 From: Anita G Subject: Re: Questions... Sam, you could contact her management company with a request and you never know, you might get lucky. As for contacting Joni 'directly', those who on this site seem to have been blessed to have direct contact with Joni on various auspicious ocassions seem to have achieved that through good fortune, great timing, bottles of champagne and/or the sharing of cigarettes it seems to me! :~) Anita Also, and this may be pushing it, does anyone know how I can > contact Joni directly? > > Thanks so much, > Sam ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:15:41 +0100 From: Anita G Subject: Re: authenticity, now SJC On 14 August 2011 16:31, Dave Blackburn wrote: " Even in politics one person may feel total authenticity coming from, let's say, a public figure making a speech and be eager to vote for them based on that feeling, while to others it is plain as day he/she is a charlatan and downright liar. We each have our own authenticity filters, I suspect, and calibrate them individually. Any thoughts on that?" I think 'authenticity filters' is a great term, Dave, but I imagine that these filters constantly change and shift according to how we are in ourselves, and I think it may have something to do with what we need from others and project on to them. I have certainly experienced times in my own life (usually if I have been quite needy about something) when I can happily convince myself that something or somebody is genuine. I just don't want to know otherwise. I guess most of us have had crappy relationships at one time or another and carried on while everyone else said we were crazy. Yet, at the same time, when we look back we often, at the heart of our very being, we knew that something wasn't quite right. Our own needs just take over and make us blind to the truth. Having said that, I do believe that a lot of people are pretty bang on when it come to smelling out phonies and I also believe that about music. People are not always able to describe what a great performer or a great song does to them, but they sure do know it in their bones. And how I wish I was with you guys in the run up to Wednesday! It will be WONDERFUL, I'm sure. I shall look forward to a desciption of every note - even those that don't seem authentic! :~)) Love Anita x ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:30:08 +0000 From: betsyblue82@gmail.com Subject: Termination Rights NJC Any comments on copyright issues? I don't know much about the legal/financial part of the music industry, but some of you must have opinions. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/arts/music/springsteen-and-others-soon-eligible-to-recover-song-rights.html?hp Betsy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:25:28 -0400 From: Steve Dulson Subject: Jeff Bridges (NJC) There is a front-page-of-the-Calendar-section story on Jeff's musical endeavors in today's LA Times, titled "Dude Can Play". They must have known Lieve was heading to town! :) I'll save it for you, LR. *************************************************** Steve Dulson Costa Mesa CA FAR-West (Folk Alliance Region - West) tinkersown@ca.rr.com www.far-west.org ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:19:43 -0400 From: Miles Parks Grier Subject: authenticity (little) JC Some thoughts after Mike Pritchard's latest on empowered people speaking for others: One of the interesting things about the authenticity debate is that it is often stoked by people who are *not* from subordinated groups. The jazz wars (Dixieland vs. bebop), for example, were carried out by white record collectors and critics. After all, how could the black musicians playing bebop be any less authentically black than their predecessors who had played Dixieland? That wouldn't make much sense. So, it was the nostalgia of certain middle-class consumers that drove the authenticity debate, not a large crowd of black New Orleanians objecting to beboppers changing their music. So, my questions would be: how many miners, farmers, or the like have objected to Gillian Welch? How many people who work in the country or bluegrass genres appreciate what Welch does as an homage from a talented person who works in their style? And a related question: who is to say that she is singing about *herself* as if she were a country girl? I brought up Randy Newman a long time ago, who writes songs using "I" and "we" but where he is not the narrator. Joni has done it too, many times. Anita already pointed out "Magdalene Laundries," but dozens of other songs as well: "Dry Cleaner from Des Moines," "Beat of Black Wings," and "Cold Blue Steel" (a recent topic of discussion) come to mind, although others will also name other songs where she takes on a persona. I think what bell hooks was talking about was slightly different from what Welch is doing. Welch is not on a crusade to speak for miners agrarian workers, as far as I can tell. I have never seen her put herself out front, on a pedestal, speaking for other people. My understanding is she is quite shy. She is working within a style. What hooks is talking about is more like the opinion many people have of the film and novel *The Help*. It's a very fine distinction, and one could say Welch crosses *hooks*' line. But, then again, hooks is not my favorite theorist on such things. I think the line could be drawn more clearly in a way that separates those paying homage from those who pretend to have "discovered" a group of people or "refined" an artistic style that was already there. (Something that Joni sometimes claims in her more, um, boastful moments). A final thought: my problem with Vanilla Ice was never about whether or not he was from a ghetto or not. I thought he had terrible skills as a rapper. Whereas Eminem, I have always respected. Even though I don't buy his music or much rap at all, I know from what I've heard that he is lyrically and rhythmically adept. And that matters more to me as a music listener than color, gender, or class. Be good at what you do and don't bore me! On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 3:00 AM, JMDL Digest wrote: > I do not think it is *too* much of a stretch to see the people who felt > that > G&D were not authentic as the colonised, the subaltern, and therefore to > see, in their eyes, G&D as the colonisers, coming in from elsewhere and > singing the (inauthentic?) experiences of farmers, miners, cotton and > tobacco pickers etc. Even though these people probably hadn t read Gramsci, > hooks and Spivak, they would probably understand where they were coming > from, intellectually speaking. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 20:43:25 +0100 (BST) From: Lieve Reckers Subject: Re: Jeff Bridges (NJC) Steve, you made my day! I'm with Dave and Robin at the moment, and Robin read this out to me, so I made an instant joydance on their kitchen floor! All I can say is: if "they" knew that, I hope they told "him"! (Sorry, just being silly, I'm not even kidding myself here!) See you tomorrow - woohoo! Lieve (just getting over my first ever Margarita hangover - it's just so tough getting used to this California lifestyle...) >________________________________ >From: Steve Dulson >To: joni@smoe.org >Sent: Monday, 15 August 2011, 9:25 >Subject: Jeff Bridges (NJC) > >There is a front-page-of-the-Calendar-section story on Jeff's >musical endeavors in today's LA Times, titled "Dude Can Play". >They must have known Lieve was heading to town! :) I'll save >it for you, LR. > >*************************************************** >Steve Dulson Costa Mesa CA >FAR-West (Folk Alliance Region - West) >tinkersown@ca.rr.com www.far-west.org ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 18:18:45 -0400 From: Steve Dulson Subject: Re: Jeff Bridges (NJC) Maybe Kate Bennett knows if he's doing any more gigs up her way, around Santa Barbara? See you tomorrow! - ---- Lieve Reckers wrote: > Steve, you made my day!B I'm with Dave and Robin at the moment, and Robin read this out to me, so I made an instant joydance on their kitchen floor! All I can say is: if "they" knew that, I hope they told "him"! (Sorry, just being silly, I'm not even kidding myself here!) See you tomorrow - woohoo! Lieve (just getting over my first ever Margarita hangover - it's just so tough getting used to this California lifestyle...) >________________________________ >From: Steve Dulson >To: joni@smoe.org >Sent: Monday, 15 August 2011, 9:25 >Subject: Jeff Bridges (NJC) > >There is a front-page-of-the-Calendar-section story on Jeff's >musical endeavors in today's LA Times, titled "Dude Can Play". >They must have known Lieve was heading to town! :) I'll save >it for you, LR. > >*************************************************** >Steve DulsonB B B B B B B B B B B Costa Mesa CAB B B B >FAR-West (Folk Alliance Region - West) >tinkersown@ca.rr.comB B B B B B www.far-west.org > > > - -- *************************************************** Steve Dulson Costa Mesa CA FAR-West (Folk Alliance Region - West) tinkersown@ca.rr.com www.far-west.org ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 02:33:35 +0000 From: betsyblue82@gmail.com Subject: Clouds, IDKWIS I never listened to this album because I thought it would be all folk music. I am surprised to enjoy most of it, especially Tin Angel, The Gallery, and Midway. Chelsea Morning and BSN are almost tiresome, more from lackluster covers than anything else. The song that bugs me is "I Don't Know Where I Stand" and I've been meditating on possible reasons. These are some that I've dismissed, possibly prematurely: 1. Naove and earnest hippie girl act (current front runner-I prefer to think Joni was always a badass) 2. Barbra Streisand impression (as if the song was written on spec? also, I heart Babs) 3. Fantasy (but the theme pops up multiple times on the album) 4. Fake/inauthentic (except I like lots of other "character songs" from the first person) Can anyone shed light on this song's construction? I hope it's someone's favorite! NP Be Cool Betsy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 23:27:02 -0400 From: David Lahm Subject: Re: Clouds, IDKWIS To me, the singer/character is young and vulnerable but willing to put herself on the line by saying how she feels. She definitely wants an answer. How responsively her lover expresses himself in this very exchange is going to have a lot to do with whether or not she invests any more of herself in the affair. She believes in romance, but is this it? DAVID LAHM On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 10:33 PM, wrote: > I never listened to this album because I thought it would be all folk > music. I am surprised to enjoy most of it, especially Tin Angel, The > Gallery, and Midway. Chelsea Morning and BSN are almost tiresome, more from > lackluster covers than anything else. > > The song that bugs me is "I Don't Know Where I Stand" and I've been > meditating on possible reasons. These are some that I've dismissed, possibly > prematurely: > 1. Naove and earnest hippie girl act (current front runner-I prefer to > think Joni was always a badass) > 2. Barbra Streisand impression (as if the song was written on spec? also, I > heart Babs) > 3. Fantasy (but the theme pops up multiple times on the album) > 4. Fake/inauthentic (except I like lots of other "character songs" from the > first person) > > Can anyone shed light on this song's construction? I hope it's someone's > favorite! > > NP Be Cool > Betsy ------------------------------ End of JMDL Digest V2011 #237 ***************************** ------- To post messages to the list, send to joni@smoe.org. Unsubscribe by clicking here: mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe -------