From: owner-lucy-list-digest@smoe.org (lucy-list-digest) To: lucy-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: lucy-list-digest V5 #89 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 Saturday, April 19 2003 Volume 05 : Number 089 In this issue: [lucy-list] Benay's "Can't See The Horizon For Verizon" blues [lucy-list] Benay's Rules/Kris Delmhorst and Mark Erelli Re: [lucy-list] Oh, no! She's BACK! [lucy-list] Lucy in New Haven 4/9-Part 1 [lucy-list] Lucy in New Haven 4/9-Part 2 [lucy-list] Lucy in New Haven 4/9-Part 3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 09:55:26 -0500 From: "Timothy Bruce" Subject: [lucy-list] Benay's "Can't See The Horizon For Verizon" blues >>>I have absorbed the central tenets of Verizon's customer service philosophy, part of which runs as follows: >>>I will...dedicate my next original guitar song ...And it might even have...TWO chords!<<< BENAY, we know that you have learned the E minor chord (two fingers). Add an A minor (three fingers) and you've got yourself the blues! And, girl, YOU GOT THE BLUES BAD! We've seen your talent for writing parodies. Why not try your hand at writing lyrics? You can call it the "Can't See The Horizon For Verizon" blues. Timothy in south Minneapolis (who gets to see Lucy with Susan Werner next Thursday and Dar with band next Sunday. Three of the most intelligent and funny female singer-songwriters out there! Hope there's no "let-down" afterwards!) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 13:43:58 -0400 From: Elwestrand Subject: [lucy-list] Benay's Rules/Kris Delmhorst and Mark Erelli Benay - Your phone company post was not funny. Why? Because it is absolutely accurate to a fault. I couldn't have put it any better myself. The company I work for was very happy to escape from the clutches of SBC Global when it moved to Verizon territory. Hah. What fools we were! I have a friend who is now working for a cell phone company in customer service. She says what we have all suspected all along is correct - they are trying to *&^%$ us! One piece of advice from her - never trust what a cell phone dealer has to say unless you see it in writing. Better subject: I just got home from seeing the first night of Kris Delmhorst and Mark Erelli's tour. They're sort of like the junior RS and Lucy combo. I love them both. I didn't know how much they would play together, but it turns out they did most of their numbers together. I was in ecstacy. I was stunned. I cried. I could barely go to sleep last night I had such a buzz. Need I say more? See these two together. You won't regret it! Happy Holidays to those celebrating! :-) Lisa ________________________________________________ Get your own "800" number Voicemail, fax, email, and a lot more http://www.ureach.com/reg/tag ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 15:36:54 -0400 From: Michael Guarnaccio Subject: Re: [lucy-list] Oh, no! She's BACK! I had the opposite experience compared to Benay's below. I was in New York this morn and visited a music store on 18th called ACADEMY. I too always look for Lucy and they had none. But they had Richard and Christine Lavin, Patty Griffin and many more. I purchased an opened copy of Dar's Beauty of the Rain for $8.00 (brand new) and a sealed copy of Patty Larkin's new one Red=Luck for $6.00. For those of you in the New York Area visit Academy. They have many used CDs from 99 cents. Mike - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Benay Bubar" To: Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2003 9:43 PM Subject: [lucy-list] Oh, no! She's BACK! >> But here I am...somehow I broke the cycle at last, and am back in touch with > the world. To celebrate, I decided tonight that I was going to go and buy a > CD at a major chain bookstore, something I almost never do...but I had the > dregs of a gift card to use up (hence a bookstore and not a music store). It > was a remarkable experience. This major chain store had a large music area > including a decently sized and not totally hidden folk section...but that > folk section contained the single WORST folk selection I'd ever seen. I went > in thinking I'd be happy to get Patty Larkin...or Patty Griffin...or Lucinda > Williams...or Roseanne Cash. NONE of them were there (and I checked the pop > section too---no dice). The paucity of choices, especially in such a big > store in such a big city, was stunning. Some Joan Baez was there. Some Bob > Morrissey, from which I learned the grammatically important fact that what I > thought of as Love Song New York has a slash: Love Song/New York. A bunch of > random singers I hadn't heard of. They had Dar, but only Beauty of the Rain. > They had Richard Shindell, but only one copy of Courier... > > Yet HERE was the weird part. In this store with so little folk selection, > this store that was missing all those big names entirely and most of the > medium names...they had Lucy. And not just a lone copy of Every Single > Day...they had ALL FOUR of Lucy's CDs! (Of course I know because I had to > compulsively paw through them, as if there might suddenly be a Lucy CD I > didn't already own!) Now I guess this could mean simply that all those other > artists sold out at that store and Lucy was left behind...but somehow it > didn't look that way. In a sense this actually impressed me more than when > Every Single Day made it to #1 on Amazon.com. When the store with the worst > folk selection in New York (of stores that HAVE a folk selection, that is) > still manages to carry Lucy's entire oeuvre...well, how much clearer a > signal could there be that Lucy has made it to the highest echelons? > > I still owe those who are interested a couple of reviews, I'm afraid...I > fear they will seem very dated...but I have to put things off a little > further because time's been short and work's been long... > > Anyway, it's good to be back (and I hope at least MOST of the rest of you > will agree!). > > Benay ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 23:34:25 -0400 From: "Benay Bubar" Subject: [lucy-list] Lucy in New Haven 4/9-Part 1 So I've been having this debate with myself (a long one, involving many digressions, emphatic pronouncements, and doors slammed in exasperation, albeit entirely in my head), and the question on the table has been: Shall I still review the Lucy shows I saw last week, even though they are verging on ancient history now, and even though the posts after tomorrow night's Barns of Wolf Trap show will soon render reviews of last week's shows irrelevant? (And I REALLY want to see posts on that show from certain people---you know who you are---especially given that I had long been planning to swing down to D.C. again to attend it. Sadly, I was forced to realize that I may be a BIG Lucy fan, but I am not a RICH Lucy fan...and I don't drive, as everybody knows...and Amtrak has this silly rule that if you want to travel on their trains, you have to actually possess a ticket.) Anyway, I've come down on the yes side on the reviews. So...New Haven. Please (well, only if you want to) transport yourself mentally back to LAST Wednesday, April 9th. It was the early era of my phone troubles, when I thought (oh, how young and innocent I was then!) that Verizon might still be a decent company that was just experiencing a minor glitch...and I stayed home from work all morning to wait for Phone Technician #1. I was tired already from having stayed out late the night before for dinner with friends after several of us saw Rosanne Cash performing at Barnes & Noble. (A special experience for me, as---in case I haven't mentioned this here---Rosanne Cash was my first-ever favorite singer. "Seven-Year Ache"---which she sang LIVE at Barnes & Noble!---came out when I was seven years old, and I heard it on the radio and was convinced that the song by that title was actually somehow ABOUT being seven years old. I made my parents buy me the tape...I couldn't get enough of it, for ages.) But the point is that I was tired last Wednesday, and already getting a little antsy about the phone troubles, and sometime in the morning (on my cell phone, using my precious few weekday minutes) I called Gerry, my faithful Connecticut concert companion, and informed him that I was suddenly NOT happy about taking a train back from New Haven to New York in the wee hours of the morning after that evening's Lucy/Richard concert. Amazingly, Gerry didn't say any of the things he could very reasonably have said, things along the lines of "You idiot---you've planned on this show for months and only NOW, on the day of the show, you figure this out?" No, Gerry didn't say that, though he could have. He in fact said, even at the last minute, that I was welcome to sleep on his couch...actually, he would have given up his bed, but I convinced him the couch would be more than fine. (I tried to think of an appropriate reward for this level of kindness, and I decided that knighthood would be good. I think Gerry should be knighted, and I will be contacting the queen any time now to make the arrangements.) Trust me, some of this actually becomes kinda relevant later, if you can stick with it that long. But on to the review... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 23:35:36 -0400 From: "Benay Bubar" Subject: [lucy-list] Lucy in New Haven 4/9-Part 2 So I arrived in New Haven on the planned train, leaving just enough time for Gerry to pick me up at the station and for us to get to the concert. It was a rainy, cold day (are there any other kinds of days anymore?) and I was relieved to see Gerry coming in my direction as soon as I got outside the station. And then came a sign that sometimes things are just meant to be---as we crossed the street back to his car, I noticed that just in front of where he was parked was a taxi. Not just any taxi, though. Unlike ALL the other taxis in the vicinity---and I did look---this ONE taxi sported the unusual colors of pink and white. And---I kid you not---emblazoned on the side of the cab door, on just this ONE cab closest to us, were the words LUCY'S TAXI. I was actually a little bit disappointed when it did not pull out ahead of us and lead us to the concert! We found the show location even without the guidance of LUCY'S TAXI, and the parking gods smiled upon us. The concert was in one of three churches on a large green expanse in the middle of town, which would probably have been lovely except that the weather was so awful. We made our way promptly inside. It was your fairly standard congregational-church folk venue, with the requisite inadequate restroom facilities...but THIS place, we were told with great excitement in the introduction to the show, had the distinction of having the crypts of its founders underneath where we were sitting! There was sporadic commentary about this throughout the evening, some from Lucy, but audience reactions were muted, as no one seemed quite sure whether to be fascinated or repulsed. The sound was probably the best I have heard in a church concert. Richard actually went second, but since this is a Lucy review, in the spirit of building up to Lucy, I'm going to put his set list first: I Am Waiting for the Storm (I wished Lucy would sing on this, since her harmonies were so nice on the album, but I guess they hadn't rehearsed it) Che Guevara T-Shirt Gray Green Last Fare of the Day Cold Missouri Waters (with Lucy) Mary Magdalene (with Lucy on harmony) Are You Happy Now? (with Lucy) Transit Reunion Hill Lucy's set list: Cowboy Singer Written on the Back of His Hand Love Song/New York (a.k.a. "The Bill Morrissey Song") The Thread (think I know all the lyrics now, and still think it's a great song) Ten Year Night (with Richard) I Had Something (with Richard) Scorpion (with Richard) Don't Mind Me (Talk about the dead people underneath us...how she only knew one ghost song, something from Gilbert & Sullivan...she did a couple of bars but admitted she didn't really know it) (Atkins Diet story involving her mother...incidentally, did everybody hear that Dr. Robert Atkins himself just died? Of a head injury from a fall, of all things...now why does that seem so creepy?) This Is Home Land of the Living Just You Tonight (Thank heavens she made use of the piano at least that once! Some of us can never get enough of Lucy on the piano.) By Way of Sorrow (with Richard) Encores were The Kid and Farewell to St. Delores; both sounded, as usual, AMAZING. I thought it was maybe the best Lucy and Richard show I'd ever seen...until, that is, I hit Huntington two days later! Benay ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 23:38:48 -0400 From: "Benay Bubar" Subject: [lucy-list] Lucy in New Haven 4/9-Part 3 OK, to be fair, that last part was technically the end of the New Haven Lucy review. This is really just a little personal postscript, so skip it if you don't like my little personal postscripts. After the show, Gerry and I drove back to his apartment, and under the suspicious eyes of his cat---who, by the way, has truly perfected the menacing glares I was unable to utilize today in trying to listen to Lucy on Mountain Stage, but who is nonetheless a VERY NICE cat---I bedded down on his couch. And that was when I discovered something important: Gerry, though humble about it to a fault, has The Most Comfortable Couch in the World. It was soft...it was blue...it was by most counts better than my bed at home. Had it not been so unwieldy to transport, and if I could have convinced myself he wouldn't miss it, I would have seriously contemplated making off with Gerry's couch in the morning. I slept blissfully for the whole six hours until I had to get up to get back to the city for work. In fact, I was so moved by the experience that I was compelled to compose my second guitar song...or maybe it is still only half a song, since I have had no guitar as yet on which to perfect the nuances. My new song (although Gerry himself has not heard it yet) is called Ode to Gerry's Couch. I feel pretty sure it is still in E minor; people have shared other chords with me, but I am not yet convinced I have exhausted the glories of E minor. This song adds the innovative feature (well, innovative as far as MY songwriting goes) of background vocals...although I am not yet certain whether they are sung or simply spoken, the way Lucy has described speaking on Bryan Ferry's album. But in any case, there is a voice in the background of my song that repeats, "Ge-e--e-rry's COUCH! Ge-e-e-ry's COUCH!" And the song itself goes like this: It was so soft and n-i-i-ice, (Ge-e--e-rry's COUCH!) And well worth the pri-i-ice, (Ge-e--e-rry's COUCH!) Especially since it was free. But should this rep-o-o-ort (Ge-e--e-rry's COUCH!) Spawn a tourist res-o-o-ort (Ge-e--e-rry's COUCH!) Don't tell Gerry you heard it from me! Still a work in progress, I admit. A true artist is always reaching toward perfection, after all. But I am personally stunned by the lightning pace of my growth as a songwriter...it's practically exponential, as you can doubtless tell. OK, quite enough for one evening. Benay fervently hoping Gerry continues speaking to me now that I have exposed the wonders of his couch to the world ------------------------------ End of lucy-list-digest V5 #89 ****************************** 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