From: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org (JMDL Digest) To: joni-digest@smoe.org Subject: JMDL Digest V2011 #255 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, September 3 2011 Volume 2011 : Number 255 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- Re: Well, this made OUR day! [Lieve Reckers ] RE: Authenticity NJC [Mike Pritchard ] Back from Holycombe [B Lux ] jenny goodspeed, njc [Marianne Rizzo ] Re: jenny goodspeed, njc [Lc Stanley ] Re: Authenticity NJC [Anita G ] Re: Authenticity NJC [Catherine McKay ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2011 08:37:57 +0100 (BST) From: Lieve Reckers Subject: Re: Well, this made OUR day! Completely same sentiments here. Dave and Robin, I really feel that it would actually make Joni's day if she heard your CD. Fingers crossed that it will happen soon! Lieve >________________________________ >From: Mark >To: Dave Blackburn ; Joni Mitchell >Sent: Friday, 2 September 2011, 1:59 >Subject: Re: Well, this made OUR day! > >Yes, yes yes! > >And yes, Joni should hear 'Safaris to the Heart'. It is so obviously a loving and beautifully made tribute to her work. I can't help but believe that she would be impressed and moved by it. > >I am very happy for all of you! > >Mark in Seattle >-----Original Message----- From: Dave Blackburn >Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2011 7:48 AM >To: Joni Mitchell >Subject: Well, this made OUR day! > >From Max Bennett: > >Hi Dave, Received your CD today. This Cd is superb!!!!!!!!!! Everything on it >is in great taste! The players, the vocals, the charts ! Great harmonic >concepts & structures!! Each song is done beautifully. You all should be very >proud of this. She should hear this. Kudos to all!!!!!!!!! m > > >From me: > >Max gave me an hour long interview on Monday and I have transcribed it. I >should have it uploaded for all to read very soon - I am letting him check it >first in case he wants to reword or edit anything. A fascinating and >wonderfully down to earth man with a (so far) 63-year recording career. I'd >urge everyone to check out MaxBennett.com and read his bio and discography >before our interview goes up. You'll be amazed at who he has played with. > >Dave ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2011 13:26:09 +0200 From: Mike Pritchard Subject: RE: Authenticity NJC >>I respect what XXX is doing and like some of her songs but there is no way she would ever come close to having the soul and natural talent of say, a folk musician like Sandy Denny. XXXs stuff is all very studied and constructed; and the inauthenticity is marked when she sings in that cracked deep, folky voice - that is total copying - there's no way that is her natural voice. As someone commented she does try to sound too old. I think she goes down so well here because there are a lot of people in YYY who seem to like intellectual-style music, but for me it's all a bit too stilted and brittle; it's fussy, overworked soulfulness.<< The XXX/YYY are my edits. No, not Gillian Welch, this is a comment about Laura Marling (XXX) and her upcoming third album. Seems that authenticity is important to people off the JMDL too. YYY refers to England. mike in bcn np Billie Holiday  East of the Sun ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2011 15:26:45 +0200 From: B Lux Subject: Back from Holycombe Hello all, I think it's about time to write a report and extend my thanks to all who came to Holycombe, and especially Lucy whose efforts had such a beautiful result. There aren't many reports this time, I guess facebook has eaten some of them, but it's also because this was a fairly relaxed and low-key Jonifest, as you can see from the many beautiful photos that have been posted. There were lovely musical moments, both of singing together and of listening to performances by Chris, Les, Will, Strings, Lucy, and even Garret and John van Tiel. Oh, and by Anita who, together with Lieve and Steph, only joined us for the first day. But altogether this was more of a weekend of chilling out, going for long walks, stopping by the pub, sipping tea (and vodka). How do you review an afternoon trip to Stratford with John or a walk to Shipston (or wherever) with Mike, or meeting my favourite poster Catherine from Toronto, catching up with everyone on the first day...? Well the answer is that these things aren't really up for review, but I want to thank everyone for a great time, and of course Lucy more than anyone. Preparing events like these, and making it all seem so effortless, is one gigantic effort, no wonder it has been three years since the last time. Last time, I went home wanting to organize a Scandinavian fest. Nothing ever came of it, but I got inspired again this year - I'm thinking of somewhere in the woods of Sweden or by the Danish coast - perhaps we could rent a string of summerhouses and... and, and. I will get back to all of you if I come up with a nice plan. If anyone has any input, let me know! Love Benedicte (at the moment, a relatively unknown poster I guess) - -- *** bnw ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2011 14:11:29 -0400 From: Marianne Rizzo Subject: jenny goodspeed, njc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0iPY5JRi74&feature=results_video&playnext=1&l ist=PLD36290FE5E939EFB a beautiful song ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2011 11:21:05 -0700 (PDT) From: Lc Stanley Subject: Re: jenny goodspeed, njc And this one is very beautiful too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77AUOrvbvlQ ________________________________ From: Marianne Rizzo To: joni list Sent: Friday, September 2, 2011 1:11 PM Subject: jenny goodspeed, njc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0iPY5JRi74&feature=results_video&playnext=1&l ist=PLD36290FE5E939EFB a beautiful song ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2011 19:48:24 +0100 From: Anita G Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC Fascinating, isn't it, Mike? I can imagine Mozart playing somewhere and folk saying 'Ah, but he ain't Bach, is he? Him and that Haydn - not an original note between them.' The more I gone on in Life the more I feel that we are all of our own time and the things that sound 'real' or authentic to us are so unique and individual to us all. I know many folk made that observation during our earlier visitations to this subject. My 14 year old god daughter loves Laura Marling almost as much as I loved Joni when I was her age and feels every note Laura sings to the very core of her being. 'Authenticity' seems more and more a subjective experience to me. > > The XXX/YYY are my edits. No, not Gillian Welch, this is a comment about > Laura Marling (XXX) and her upcoming third album. Seems that authenticity is > important to people off the JMDL too. YYY refers to England. > > > mike in bcn ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2011 17:14:03 -0700 (PDT) From: Catherine McKay Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC I probably have a helluva nerve responding to this thread, as I have to confess I wasn't paying a lot of attention to it previously, partly because I was about to head off to the UK for UK Jonifest, and partly because, well, I guess I'm just too uneducated to comment on some of it. Some of it has seeped through though, so here I go. I think I agree with your assessment though, Anita, that the whole issue of authenticity can be largely subjective: does it feel real to me? If so, then it's authentic (to me.) If not, then the artist is a fake. Coincidentally, I often listen to music before I go to sleep and I had my Ipod on shuffle last night, and up comes Laura Marling's "England (covered in snow)", which I think is a beautiful song and guess what? It sounds real to me. Mike, I think you were quoting someone commenting on Laura Marling and comparing these comments to earlier comments concerning Gillian Welch. This writer compared Laura to Sandy Denny, claiming that Laura isn't as authentic as Sandy Denny. I suspect the writer is in "our" age group (those who came of age during the 60s and 70s), and can identify with Sandy Denny, but maybe not with Laura M. I love Sandy Denny and her singing and songwriting skills and maybe she wasn't as educated in the biz and as polished as Laura M (whose father, apparently, is in the music business), and, back then, a lot of the musicians we loved (still do in so many cases) came from apparently nowhere and had no connections, and there were no music schools teaching people the art of songwriting: they learned through sharing older folk songs, reading poetry and sharing music with one another. And yet, many of Sandy Denny's lyrics were kind of oddball, possibly trying to sound old-fashioned, maybe. Here's an example from "The North Star Grassman and the Ravens," with the archaic-type lyrics surrounded by asterisks: They stood upon the deck As the ship went out to sea. The wind *it* took the sails And left the land a memory. All upon the shore *for To wonder* why the sailor goes. *All to close* their eyes And wonder what the sailor knows. Sandy Denny used this archaic style frequently and you might want to accuse her of not being authentic for that reason (or else, that maybe she was a sloppy writer?) And yet she sang a lot of genuine old folk songs ("Tam Lin", "Gypsy Davy", "Blackwaterside" and so on), which might have used similar wording and style, so the style was probably real to her and many of us, particularly anyone who might have read poetry from earlier times, identified with that style. It was possibly an attempt to recapture a less complicated era and many of us tended to romanticise that. Then the younger songwriters of today come along and maybe we don't want to trust them, because they've been taught how to write a good song hook and they have relatives in the business, or people who market them from an early age, or they've gone to schools for the arts, many of which didn't exist in the 60s and 70s. But that doesn't necessarily mean these young people are all commerce and no heart or soul. And finally, before I bore myself to tears, getting back to Gillian Welch, I recently read something about her that said that she heard some old-time bluegrass-style music and immediately identified with it, although she is not of that time or place where a lot of these old songs come from. If a person identifies closely with something that they didn't necessarily grow up with, are they not allowed to write that style? I could get all new-agey and wonder whether Gillian is an old soul channeling ideas from before her time, but maybe it's simply a matter of chancing upon a particular sound and style and feeling it fills a void of some kind. It may be similar to how many of us identified with Joni's writing at a particular time in our lives. Of course, most of us will never write a song at all, much less one in Joni's style, but, in my case, at least, that's because I simply don't think I'm capable of doing anything that good (and that's very sad!) On the other hand, when I hear some of the stupid pop songs of today that mean absolutely nothing but have a dance beat, I have absolutely no desire to imitate that whatsoever. >________________________________ >From: Anita G >To: Mike Pritchard >Cc: list >Sent: Friday, September 2, 2011 2:48:24 PM >Subject: Re: Authenticity NJC > >Fascinating, isn't it, Mike? I can imagine Mozart playing somewhere >and folk saying 'Ah, but he ain't Bach, is he? Him and that Haydn - >not an original note between them.' The more I gone on in Life the >more I feel that we are all of our own time and the things that sound >'real' or authentic to us are so unique and individual to us all. I >know many folk made that observation during our earlier visitations to >this subject. My 14 year old god daughter loves Laura Marling almost >as much as I loved Joni when I was her age and feels every note Laura >sings to the very core of her being. 'Authenticity' seems more and >more a subjective experience to me. > >> >> The XXX/YYY are my edits. No, not Gillian Welch, this is a comment about >> Laura Marling (XXX) and her upcoming third album. Seems that authenticity is >> important to people off the JMDL too. YYY refers to England. >> >> >> mike in bcn ------------------------------ End of JMDL Digest V2011 #255 ***************************** ------- To post messages to the list, send to joni@smoe.org. 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