From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V3 #122 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 Monday, April 9 2001 Volume 03 : Number 122 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] Pyle High [RockinRonD@aol.com] Re: [RS] Pyle High [patrick t power ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2001 11:33:40 EDT From: RockinRonD@aol.com Subject: [RS] Pyle High I don't know if many of you on this list have even heard of Chuck Pyle, much less seen or heard his music. But he played at our local Folk Music Society concert series last night and he just blew me away. He was in drop D tuning almost the whole evening, yet his songs and melodies never were dull or monotonous. If you haven't hear him, and you love Richard, I recommend Pyle highly--either his first CD, "Step by Step" or his next to latest, "Endless Sky." Man, can this guy pick. I've included my review of the show, below. If you don't care to read it, just delete. Pyle, by the way, will be playing at Tim Blixt's Log Cabin house concert series next weekend. All you Jersey peeps (you know who you are) should make haste and get there. To be published in Music Matters Review Online: He's been called the "Zen Cowboy" but it is a bit of a misnomer for what Chuck Pyle truly is, monikers aside, is a great entertainer. Pyle's songs do indeed conjure the American west, but in an entirely original way. His vision is at once romantic and cosmic, transcribed in melodic tunes that capture the spirit, landscape and cowboy ambiance of life on the prairie with the Colorado Rockies never too far away. Pyle played to an almost-full house at the Folk Music Society of Huntington's Main Stage show on Saturday, thoroughly winning the audience over with his smooth, satiny voice, nimble, open-tuning "Rocky Mountain Slam Pickin'" guitar style and witty banter-an hysterical amalgam of Eastern Zen and Old West horse sense. Performing songs from his various five CD's, with a particular emphasis on tunes from his latest efforts, "Endless Sky" and "Keepin' Time by the River," the Iowa-born songwriter has a way of seducing an audience into believing every word he sings. And says. If there is a more emotive and captivating voice in folk music I've not heard it. Pyle can lay it on thick, yet his ballads and love songs are never cloying or saccharine sweet, just wise and revealing, made all the more entrancing through the use of drop D tuning he employed most of the evening. The tuning, which can sound repetitive and dull in the hands of an unskilled guitarist, is perfect for Pyle's thoughtful and highly melodic songwriting and he used it with great inventiveness and efficiency. Tunes he covered this evening like "Colorado," "Endless Sky," "Drifter's Wind" and "Sedona Ramona" were truly mesmerizing in their eloquent lyricism and unforgettable melodies. And while Pyle's voice may have seen better days, particularly at the higher registers, he never wasted a note where his guitar picking was concerned. Indeed, Pyle demonstrated just how expert and versatile a musician he is, picking intricate jazz and blues influenced riffs now and again that revealed a formidable fancy for musical genres beyond folk. Throughout the evening, Pyle would alternately wear, then remove, his cream-colored, slope-brimmed high crown cowboy hat to reveal his cleanly saved head, making what appeared to be a costume change of sorts, from Colorado wrangler to Buddhist philosopher. Between those stark, seemingly incongruous sensibilities, Chuck Pyle rides tall in the saddle, guitar in hand and tongue planted firmly in cheek. --Ralph DiGennaro ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2001 11:47:12 -0400 From: patrick t power Subject: Re: [RS] Pyle High Yes, besides being a good player, Chuck Pyle is a terrific songwriter. I saw him a few years ago in Memphis and was duly impressed. Pat ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V3 #122 ***********************************