From: owner-lucy-list-digest@smoe.org (lucy-list-digest) To: lucy-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: lucy-list-digest V4 #252 Reply-To: lucy-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-lucy-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-lucy-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk lucy-list-digest Monday, November 4 2002 Volume 04 : Number 252 In this issue: [lucy-list] Lucy in Concord, MA-11/2 [lucy-list] Lucy in Concord, Part 2 [lucy-list] Lucy in Concord, Part 3 [lucy-list] Air Guitar Update ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2002 19:29:09 -0800 From: "Benay Bubar" Subject: [lucy-list] Lucy in Concord, MA-11/2 (Warning: This post contains much chatty prefacing, which may range from mildly interesting to somewhat boring...for actual reviewing, see Parts 2 and 3 to come) Hello, everyone! I must begin this with the fact that I am NOT at home, but at a friend's house at the start of a much-needed vacation, on a computer that has only this evening been resurrected from the dead...also, I am here amidst circumstances in which interruptions are VERY possible...so we'll see what happens, but I'll forge ahead with the review that's been percolating in my head for 24 hours or so. So yes, as you can guess, I managed to make vacation plans that just happened to land me in the Boston area for Lucy's show at the Emerson Umbrella in Concord last night...a place I managed to actually travel to thanks to my ability to corral my friend Fran, whom I'm visiting, into driving me to the show from her home 45 minutes away. A small sidenote here: Lucy's current "example of true love" that she uses to introduce Ten Year Night is the fact that she went to a Philadelphia Eagles game with Rick recently. Well, in that vein, let me say that one definition of true FRIENDSHIP, for me, is the fact that my friend Fran has taken me to see Lucy twice even though she is not especially into Lucy's music! It's not that Fran DOESN'T like Lucy exactly...she just has so much going on in her life that seeing live music of any kind is one of the last things she'd ordinarily have the time or energy to even contemplate. Last year, I had to explain to Fran who Lucy was and work my way around to the fact that Lucy was doing a concert in Concord while I'd be in the area and wouldn't it be VERY nice if we could go... Well, THIS year, realizing resistance was futile, Fran heard me mention Lucy's name and just said, "OK, we'll be there when the doors open." A true friend indeed. (I did buy HER ticket as well as mine, by the way...I'm not THAT much of a tyrant!) So there were Fran and I, driving through the streets of rural Massachusetts (tree-lined streets with nice romantic names like Thoreau and Walden, on which I promptly felt totally lost..take me out of the grid system of New York and I'm clueless!), only to arrive in Concord for an 8:00 concert at...5:45. Even I had to admit it was silly to go straight to the venue that early, and we hadn't eaten, so we found ourselves in a nearby Dunkin' Donuts. As we sat down with our muffins (yes, a fine, balanced dinner!), the only other customer, an older man at a table near us, asked for directions to Stow Street, and we realized he was going to Lucy's show too. Now, you may think _I_ am impassioned about Lucy, but this man, whom I'd never seen before (and I don't believe he's on this list) had me beaten. As soon as he'd pegged me as a fellow Lucy fan, he looked at me intently, eyes blazing with fervor, and intoned (yes, INTONED): "Kaplansky! Is! The! Springsteen! Of! Folk!" I wasn't sure what to reply...given the forceful way he said it, it would have worked better as a bumper sticker than as a conversation-starter. I nodded uncertainly, at which point he went on to make several less forceful but more confusing observations about Lucy's authentic voice and how it might be threatened by her bringing Duke Levine to accompany her (my verdict---nope, Lucy's authentic voice seems in pretty good shape to me, with a guitarist or without, and Duke is especially cool---was none too popular with him). Anyway, it was an...interesting, to say the least... prelude to the Lucy show. When we'd all finished our muffins, he followed us to the venue, then pretty much disappeared from our view. I couldn't help thinking for a moment that perhaps he was some mysterious messenger from another plane (or planet?), sent to our world briefly to eat muffins and to deepen ordinary human beings' understanding of the Kaplansky/Springsteen dynamic that clearly holds the entire universe together...well, the musical universe, at least... More to come... Benay ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2002 19:30:12 -0800 From: "Benay Bubar" Subject: [lucy-list] Lucy in Concord, Part 2 So finally Fran and I, sans Fervent Fan from Dunkin' Donuts, found our way into the Emerson Umbrella, an old high school converted into an artists' space. We were still a good hour and a half early for the show, so we entertained ourselves by staring at the paintings on the walls and listening to soundcheck, thrillingly easy to hear even outside the closed auditorium doors. I think I heard some of You're Still Standing There, and THEN I was very surprised to hear...well, more on that in a moment! Shortly after soundcheck ended, Fran and I managed to connect with Beth Simons from this list, and we all had a nice time chatting until we were able to enter the auditorium and claim front-row seats. There was no opener for this show, so we were treated to TWO SETS from Lucy and Duke! Here's how things went: Angels Rejoiced Written on the Back of His Hand End of the Day The Tide (with disclaimer..."things are better now...a lot of therapy...and money...to the therapist, that is!"...Fran, who doesn't necessarily subscribe to the sad-songs-can-make-you-happy theory, was relieved to hear this!) Secret Journey (air guitar story) Loch Lomond And no, the first set wasn't yet over, but I must break into the setlist to say that HERE was where Lucy spoke The Magic Words! The words I'd been awaiting for what seemed like ages, the words that set my heart racing with delight, the words that I had been hoping for but hadn't been sure when I would hear. Yes, Lucy said... "I'm going to be making a new album..." !!!!! (OK, OK, so I know a new album isn't imminent...it could take ages from Lucy's mentioning it to its appearing in stores...still, I hereby declare that Lucy has mentioned it onstage and therefore we on the Lucy-list may enter the early phases of Anticipatory Excitement!) And then things got even more fun. Lucy said she was soliciting feedback on what should be ON the new album, and she was going to do a song she'd just learned, and she was thinking she might record it, and it was by Dave Carter, and we should let her know what we thought. And then she sang, flawlessly, what I'd heard her trying out in soundcheck but hadn't dared hope she would perform...Cowboy Singer! It actually wasn't what I would have pegged as one of my favorite Dave Carter songs, nor something I would have ever thought about Lucy singing, but I was instantly wowed by her rendition...and I hope that our beloved "Springsteen of Folk" does in fact decide to record it! Anyway, first set continued: Don't Mind Me I'm Looking Through You (I am REALLY campaigning hard---although I lack funding and the backing of special-interest groups---for this to be on the new album. Lucy may have started doing it by happy accident, but it's SUCH a gem!) I Had Something Ten Year Night (INTERMISSION) Again, to be continued... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2002 19:31:11 -0800 From: "Benay Bubar" Subject: [lucy-list] Lucy in Concord, Part 3 Set Two: The Kid One Good Reason Guilty As Sin Nowhere This Is Home Land of the Living Hole in My Head You're Still Standing There By Way of Sorrow Every Single Day Scorpion Encores, after much debate: Guinevere It Ain't Me, Babe (with complete forgetting of lyrics in the middle...I was powerless to assist on that one...after fielding some less-than-successful audience suggestions ["let's try that...no, that's not it"], Lucy simply hummed her way enchantingly through the troublesome phrase and was off and running with it again) It was a magnificent show. Lucy was in top form, telling some of her funny stories about her mom. One new one was how she'd lost 10 pounds and her mother had been happy, and then recently she'd lost four more pounds and her mother had been suddenly horrified: "In times of trouble, you need stores of fat!" At one point, Lucy also asked thoughtfully, "What is it that makes women INSANE when they become mothers?" Predictably enough, somebody in the audience responded: "Children!" and that cracked up everybody including Lucy. Lucy was even funny with tuning...she had a considerable amount of trouble, and she kept starting songs and then stopping to fix the tuning and begin again. At one point she said, "I need to start using the tuner and not the expression on Duke's face!" and at another point she admitted that she was only tuning for Duke, and if he weren't there, she wouldn't bother! In short, a show well worth the trip to Concord. And to my great pleasure, my long-suffering friend Fran really enjoyed it too! So, anybody up for printing us some "Kaplansky: The Springsteen of Folk" T-shirts? :-) Benay P.S. To anyone who cares on the list in general (for of course I know you ALL care DEEPLY about my personal life), and specifically to a couple of people here to whom I most definitely owe personal email: I'm going to be on vacation for the next week and a half (next stop: Arizona! But no Lucy shows there...), and I don't know what my Internet access will be like, and the reviewing has been all I can manage for tonight. So please have patience with me...I haven't forgotten anybody and I'll be in touch to whatever extent I can. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 07:37:55 -0000 From: "donald.anderson" Subject: [lucy-list] Air Guitar Update I was browsing in a cd shop yesterday and came across , believe it or not , "The Best Air Guitar Album In The World Ever !" I'm not sure if it's available in the USA so if you want to practice your air guitar skills check it out on www.amazon.co.uk Donald ------------------------------ End of lucy-list-digest V4 #252 ******************************* This has been a posting from the Lucy Kaplansky mail list digest To unsubscribe send mail to Majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe lucy-list-digest" in the body of the message