From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V3 #66 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Tuesday, February 27 2001 Volume 03 : Number 066 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] I Can See Clary Now... [RockinRonD@aol.com] Re: [RS] Folk Music ["Gary A. Martin" ] Re: [RS] I Can See Clary Now... [john andrew clary ] Re: [RS] I Can See Clary Now... [Rongrittz@aol.com] [RS] various stuff - HDCD, Gorka ["Neil Pearson" ] RE: [RS] I Can See Clary Now... ["Clary, John (CLRY)" ] [RS] Clary's on to something (as opposed to "on" something) [Elwestrand ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 09:08:30 EST From: RockinRonD@aol.com Subject: [RS] I Can See Clary Now... In a message dated 2/27/2001 5:07:36 AM Eastern Standard Time, jon clary confesses: > >>But, the best time I have had in years was when a new friend of mine, who > I had only known through email, visited me a while back. We played in my > living room all weekend trading songs. As I dropped him off at the airport > that early Sunday morning, I wasn't wanting for anything. We had found the > community that only folk music can provide.<< Sounds great to me. When can we all come out and play? Will I be able to have my own room? And FYI, I don't eat anchovies or liver. StrumminRon ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 09:37:19 -0500 From: "Gary A. Martin" Subject: Re: [RS] Folk Music I've enjoyed the comments here about the age-old "what is folk?" question. Plenty of insightful ideas. But... Once in a (very) blue moon I'll chime in on this with an observation which may shed some light on why the issue is so thorny. You're the victims this time. "Folk" is an adjective. Even if we knew what it meant, what exactly is it modifying? The song? The singer? What exactly is a song? Does it exist in some fixed form independent of performance, or does it come into temporary existence each time it is sung? Is each performance it's own separate entity, to which the adjective "folk" may or may not apply? If "folk" describes one or more aspects of the song (lyrics, rhyme, meter, subject matter, melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.) or performance (instrumentation, arrangement, performance style, etc.), how many of them have to be "folky" in order for the song to be "folk"? (Is an unplugged rock-and-roll song folk? Is Beethoven's arrangement of "The Miller of Dee" a folk song?) If "folk" describes the origin and transmission of the song over time within a social group, again, how many aspects of the song must have a folk pedigree in order for the song to be "folk"? (I.e., if I sing 300-year old anonymous lyrics to a tune I just made up, is it folk?) If "folk" describes the context in which the song is used, then the same song when used in two different settings can be a folk song and not a folk song. (For example "City of New Orleans" sung by friends at a party and used for a TV commercial.) If "folk" describes a singer, specifically what, where, when, how and why they sing, then we have to accept that a singer may alternate between being a folksinger and not. Or even that some aspects of their performance may be folk and others not. (Is Martin Carthy a folksinger when he sings "Heartbreak Hotel"? Would Pavarotti be a folksinger if he sang "Goodnight Irene?") Then there's the issue of whose folk music it is. Different cultures and subcultures in different societies have their own bodies of music that they create and re-create for their own use, mostly outside of the economic system. Within each of these, there may be common stylistic features uniting the songs into a genre. But an attempt to define "folk" on stylistic grounds runs the risk of missing some group's folk music, or missing a folk music that hasn't been created yet. And add to that the use of the term "folk" as a label for a bin in a record store. There it's a marketing/sales device for placing certain products where certain customers are likely to look. If a CD gets filed under "folk", it may very well be because the record label or the artist's management decided that the folk audience represented a potential market that they wanted to target. If it doesn't, maybe they decided that the "folk" label would detract from potential sales in the mainstream market. These labels have to be ignored in any serious discussion, since they are very inconsistent. For example, many of the musicians whose CDs get filed under "folk" in the U.S. get filed under "country" in the U.K. I haven't done a careful study, but I'll bet that musicians whose CDs are called "pop/rock" in Taunton, MA are called "folk" in Cambridge, MA, just 35 miles (but worlds) apart. So there you have it. Lots of difficult (and probably impossible) questions that have to be addressed in any attempt at a good definition of "folk". I'll go away now. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 08:53:49 -0800 From: john andrew clary Subject: Re: [RS] I Can See Clary Now... On Tue, 27 Feb 2001 09:08:30 EST RockinRonD@aol.com writes: > Sounds great to me. When can we all come out and play? Will I > be able > to have my own room? And FYI, I don't eat anchovies or liver. If you want to see Clary now, wait until the rain is gone. And although my folks and sibs and I used to sing that song on rainy day road trips in the Vista Cruiser, I don't consider it to be "folk." =) Richard is playing here on May 10th in Berkeley, the West Coast home of folk. Come on out. - -- john andrew clary "when i told you that my life was in control, i meant by you" ~ deborah pardes ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 12:12:00 EST From: Rongrittz@aol.com Subject: Re: [RS] I Can See Clary Now... >> Richard is playing here on May 10th in Berkeley, the West Coast home of folk. << Not to mention the home of one Tracy Grammer, a.k.a "The Yellow Rose of Berkeley." BTW, if anyone in the NY/NJ area hasn't gotten tickets to the March 30th Dave/Tracy show at Outpost in the Burns in Montclair, do it soon. Rumor says they're going fast. RG, official Dave/Tracy cheerleader. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 17:56:56 -0000 From: "Neil Pearson" Subject: [RS] various stuff - HDCD, Gorka I meant to post this last February, but forgot (hey, I've been busy!), but I played SNP on my proper system rather than in my office yesterday, and it reminded me to finally post it...... Did you know that SNP is a HDCD encoded disc (as are most of Signature releases including the new Erelli), it's not stated anywhere on the disc or packaging, so unless you have a suitable player or DAC then you're unlikely to know. Details on HDCD are at http://www.hdcd.com (I think), but basically if you can decode the format it really adds to the detail in recordings. Take the disc to your local audio dealer and ask to demo a suitable player, you'll be astounded by the difference in quality on some tracks, 'The Grocers Broom' & 'Transit' are transformed, the whole disc has a more open sound and lots of details are unearthed that otherwise go unnoticed (although strangely 'My Love Will Follow You' doesn't improve much other than separating their voices better) Players aren't too expensive (although they're not cheap either), I have a Musical Fidelity X-DAC which are around #300 or $500, but better than buying an all in one player providing you have a decent player to use as the transport. I gave a copy of the disc to my local hi-fi store and they use it as a comparison disc between normal CD and HDCD. There are loads of folk, contemporary folk, singer/songwriter (call it what you will!) discs encoded (Dave & Tracy, Chuck Brodsky, Annie Gallup, Erelli, Gretchen Peters etc etc) - well worth having a look, and it definitely adds loads of subtlety and detail to discs. - -- The new Gorka disc is released in a couple of weeks (13th March in the US, 5th March in the UK!), it's an excellent disc, we have some samples up on the website, thought you might like to hear them - it's an excellent album featuring Lucy Kaplansky, Ani DiFranco, Patty Larkin etc... real audio samples http://www.fishrecords.co.uk/audio/abraham.ram http://www.fishrecords.co.uk/audio/whatwas.ram http://www.fishrecords.co.uk/audio/shape.ram http://www.fishrecords.co.uk/audio/overthere.ram best wishes Neil - ------------------------------------------------- Fish Records Suppliers of singer/songwriter, folk & acoustic music Shrewsbury, England neil@fishrecords.co.uk tel +44 (0) 1743 231546 fax +44 (0) 1743 354354 - ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 11:08:27 -0800 From: "Clary, John (CLRY)" Subject: RE: [RS] I Can See Clary Now... Greitzer wrote: >> BTW, if anyone in the NY/NJ area hasn't gotten tickets to the March 30th Dave/Tracy show at Outpost in the Burns in Montclair, do it soon. Rumor says they're going fast. RG, official Dave/Tracy cheerleader.<< And if you need any added incentive to go to this show, Sam Shaber is also playing and she's about the best new songwriter I've heard in a long time. Ron, you got any airline miles left? I could trade you something for them. Sam's smoky voice and Tracy's sultry fiddle playing will make for a great night of music I don't want to miss. - -- john andrew clary home mailto:drewclary@juno.com work mailto:clry@chevron.com "the music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. there's also a negative side." ~ hunter s. thompson ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 15:23:29 -0500 From: Elwestrand Subject: [RS] Clary's on to something (as opposed to "on" something) I have to agree with John that the "folk" experience is really what I am looking for too. Growing up my Dad would play his baritone ukelele or tenor guitar and all my brothers and sisters would sing along. He didn't have a long song list, but we loved it. It was so fun. Even the Don Ho songs. I love to sing with other people but I haven't found alot of people to sing with. And people who played the guitar never wanted to play fun stuff just to sing along. So I gave up on them and play for myself now. But I still long for that communal experience. I am pretty sure I can fit you all in my living room so come on over. The people who lived in my house in the 70's were nudists and party-ers, one doesn't know exactly what they did with the multi-purpose room they added or all the bedrooms with keyed locks but maybe they were singing? Tiny Bubbles anyone? ;-) E ________________________________________________ Get your own "800" number Voicemail, fax, email, and a lot more http://www.ureach.com/reg/tag ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V3 #66 **********************************