From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V7 #264 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, November 7 2005 Volume 07 : Number 264 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [RS] Wis-teary-a [Chris Foxwell ] [RS] ed's tabs [Jim Colbert ] [RS] more Wisteria ["Beth DeSombre" ] [RS] Wis-teary-a [John McDonnell ] [RS] more Wisteria [John McDonnell ] [RS] Standard Wisteria [RockinRonD@aol.com] [RS] In Need Of... [RockinRonD@aol.com] Re: [RS] Wis-teary-a [Lisa Davis - home ] [RS] The Next Best Western (revisited): Berkeley show 11/6 [hopedancing@a] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 15:28:02 -0500 From: Chris Foxwell Subject: Re: [RS] Wis-teary-a On 11/7/05, Gene Frey wrote: > > Hey you guys, > > For what it's worth, and I know I've told this story here before, Wisteria > brought tears to the eyes of my daughter, then age 15, because it reminded > > her of her grandparents' old house. > > Richard, in this song as well as so many others, brilliantly conveys a > universal emotion through a specific scene or act, and does it as well as > any modern songwriter. While I hesitate to speculate what emotions a song > will evoke in anyone else, the sense of being unable to recapture the past > is what I get from this song, and I hear it in my head when I think about > the places I've lived, the people I've known, or, really, anything in my > life that is gone and will never come back. Word to that. Beautifully put. John, d'ya think the house Richard is referring to is "of clay and wattles made"? ;-) --Chris - -- "We were born in a dark age out of due time (for us). But there is this comfort: otherwise we should not know, or so much love, what we do love. I imagine the fish out of water is the only fish to have an inkling of water." - -- J.R.R. Tolkien ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 15:34:46 -0500 From: Jim Colbert Subject: [RS] ed's tabs > I found Ed's site, but I can't seem to expand the folders, Maybe you > will have better luck than I did? Might be a firewall issue at work. > http://users.ameritech.net/edupas/tab.htm > > I took Ed's TAB and RG's chord shapes and put together a recognizable > version. > Jim (not Chris!) offers: I've always had problems viewing this site; on a Mac for me the folders themselves used to be invisible- they'd be there but I'd have to go to the left side and just kind of click around at random. Now I get some link to anyfa or something... Jim ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 07 Nov 2005 15:50:32 -0500 From: "Beth DeSombre" Subject: [RS] more Wisteria I have a mental jukebox that plays songs I know sparked by things I see or am thinking about -- basically there's always some piece of music running through my head until some other song comes along and knocks it out. For instance, driving the 6 hours on the highway back from a conference yesterday, every time I passed a Best Western or a Kenworth you can imagine what jumped into my head. This year I'm spending the year in exile in north central Florida (I usually live in Boston) and guess what the name of the apartment complex I'm living in is? Wisteria Downs. You can imagine what I start and end each day singing . . . Beth ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 17:12:37 -0500 From: John McDonnell Subject: [RS] Wis-teary-a Hi All, Gene wrote: >>So, how 'bout them Giants, eh?<< Glad you didn't mention the Jets, Gene, or I really would have lost it! Then Chris wrote: >>John, d'ya think the house Richard is referring to is "of clay and wattles made"?<< No, but you raise the issue of sentimentality, one of the reasons I dislike Yeats, but find that RS does it so well. Yeats' pining for some idealised rural residence in late nineteenth century Ireland, without any reference to or seeming awareness of the poverty and devastation visited upon the rural population by the famine some 40-50 years prior, makes Michael Brown look like Che Guevara. Talk about an ivory tower! For those RS songs that are somewhat sentimental, they are not overdone, but, as Gene said, capture the universal in the specific, and for me, do it in a way that often undercuts their becoming maudlin. I'm thinking, for example, of Sparrows Point: ostensibly typical folk-dirge of forced exile, but William Taylor, it appears, came from money, so he's not one of the the typical downtrodden, and I almost find him hard to root for. "May," also, while a little overproduced, still has the practical sense that while the fugitive is on the run, he still has to send a few quid when he can. I find this grounding in the commonplace, the everyday exigencies his great strength as a songwriter--it even informs those more overtly religious songs which were discussed in previous posts. And before all you English majors (of whom I am one) and Yeatsophiles think I regard RS as a better poet than W.B.Y. I do not--I just get more pleasure from his work. Have a hard time getting past the crypto-fascist eugenics anyway. John McD. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 17:40:14 -0500 From: John McDonnell Subject: [RS] more Wisteria Hi All, Beth wrote: >>This year I'm spending the year in exile in north central Florida<< Odd convergence, here. Beth, I spent grad school in north central Florida (Gainesville), which I grew to like before left. However, when I returned to visit a friend some 13 years later, the wind in the sycamores couldn't carry back to New York quickly enough. No misty-eyed reminiscence for me! I'd rather remember it as it was when I left, and I'm not tempted to ring that bell. John McD. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 19:01:42 EST From: RockinRonD@aol.com Subject: [RS] Standard Wisteria I think I remember Ed tabbing Wisteria in standard tuning with basic chord shapes, capoed way up, maybe on eight. I used to play it that way, though it doesn't quite sound as good as it does in DADGAD. Ron ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 18:57:59 EST From: RockinRonD@aol.com Subject: [RS] In Need Of... Does anyone on this list own, or have access to, the Fast Folk compilation recording that has Richard doing Dylan's "She Belongs To Me" on it? My friend Charlie Backfish, the Sunday Morning DJ on WSUB FM (90.1) at Stony Brook University, is planning a Dylan marathon for Mr. Z's 65th birthday that is coming up and really wants to play this song on his show. He's having a devil of a time coming up with this track by RS. If you can help, email privately. Thanks Everyone. _RockinRonD@Aol.Com_ (mailto:RockinRonD@Aol.Com) P.S. Have you all discovered Antje Duvekot yet? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 07 Nov 2005 20:48:00 -0500 From: Lisa Davis - home Subject: Re: [RS] Wis-teary-a I take exception to your characterisation of The Lake Isle of Innisfree! OK so maybe I am also sentimental, but whether or not a poet's body of work taken as a whole might be considered escapist or irrelevant or what have you, does not mean that one beautifully composed and evocative poem has to go down in flames. Give us bread AND roses. And fond though I am of "Wisteria," I have to say that actually I find it slightly MORE sentimental, or maybe I just mean less concise. As compared with, for instance "I Saw My Youth Today" that is basically perfect. This may also be an argument about the different ways we find beauty in art. I love the music in Yeat's words and the pictures he paints with them. I love Richard's music for much the same reason, whether or not the meaning of the song has relevance to anything. "Sea of Fleur-de-lys" was always one of my favorites. Probably why "Sparrow's Point" remains my favorite CD. That's what music is FOR, if you ask me. Lisa Davis John McDonnell wrote: > Hi All, > Gene wrote: > > >>>So, how 'bout them Giants, eh?<< > > Glad you didn't mention the Jets, Gene, or I really would have lost it! > Then Chris wrote: > >>John, d'ya think the house Richard is referring to is "of clay and > wattles made"?<< > No, but you raise the issue of sentimentality, one of the reasons I dislike > Yeats, but find that RS does it so well. Yeats' pining for some idealised > rural residence in late nineteenth century Ireland, without any reference to > or seeming awareness of the poverty and devastation visited upon the rural > population by the famine some 40-50 years prior, makes Michael Brown look > like Che Guevara. Talk about an ivory tower! > For those RS songs that are somewhat sentimental, they are not overdone, > but, as Gene said, capture the universal in the specific, and for me, do it > in a way that often undercuts their becoming maudlin. I'm thinking, for > example, of Sparrows Point: ostensibly typical folk-dirge of forced exile, > but William Taylor, it appears, came from money, so he's not one of the the > typical downtrodden, and I almost find him hard to root for. "May," also, > while a little overproduced, still has the practical sense that while the > fugitive is on the run, he still has to send a few quid when he can. I find > this grounding in the commonplace, the everyday exigencies his great > strength as a songwriter--it even informs those more overtly religious songs > which were discussed in previous posts. > And before all you English majors (of whom I am one) and Yeatsophiles think > I regard RS as a better poet than W.B.Y. I do not--I just get more pleasure > from his work. Have a hard time getting past the crypto-fascist eugenics > anyway. > John McD. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 07 Nov 2005 21:03:50 -0500 From: hopedancing@aol.com Subject: [RS] The Next Best Western (revisited): Berkeley show 11/6 Hello fellow listers, I am back from Berkeley, and boy was it a fantastic show! What a beautiful venue: St. John's Presbeteryian Church on College Ave. Simply Gorgeous. High (and I mean astoundingly high!) wood ceilings and a beautiful old organ on the left wall. The place was packed. We got there a half hour early and, even then, the line streamed out the front and around the side. All seats appeared to be full, including the additional fold down chairs that were added above the pews. I would say there were between 400 and 500 people. Lucy sang first, solo, then Richard joined her on a few songs. There was an intermission half way through followed by Richard solo, then Lucy joining in on a few songs, then an encore with both of them. As much as I can recall, this was Richard's set list. Help me out (those of you who were there, anyone?) as I may be missing a song or two: Mavis Reunion Hill Senor (Bob Dylan cover) Cancion Sencilla Che Guevara T-Shirt Fenario The Last Fare of the Day (w/ Lucy) Mercy Street (w/ Lucy) Fishing Transit Encore (with Lucy): The Kid and Cold Missouri Waters Richard was in great form, and seemed to have a spring in his walk. Someone had brought some beautful dark peach colored roses for Lucy and left them on the stage. When Richard came out they joked with each other about who the roses were intended for. Lucy was asking Richard to share them, and Richard was retorting "I can't share something that is not mine." It was cute exchange. The highlight of the evening for me was "Cancion Sencilla" which I had hoped he would sing. He asked if anyone in the audience spoke Spanish and one lone guy in the front raised his hand (I did too, but Richard didn't see me as I was along the side wall). Richard proceeded to have a brief conversation in Spanish with this young man. I was out of earshot of what they were saying to eachother, but it was nice to hear the dialogue. Richard'sintroduction to the song ended with... "and then I conjugate a few verbs and then it's over." The, when he actually got to the part in the song where he started "conjugating verbs" there was a chuckle in the audience. I think anyone who has ever studied a language can relate to the recitation of conjugated verbs... and I think this, along with Richard's intro, was what brought the smiles. At one point in the evening Richard thanked the people of Berkeley and said how much he loved the town. He said that if he ever returned to the United States that there were only two places he thought he could live and one of those was "Berkeley." After a short pause... he said... "and the other one is Canada" which brought a lot of laughter. He held up his bright red "Che Guevara T-Shirt" and said that it included a little "R" for registered trademark (more smiles) and that they were available on his website (said his brother would send one out if you are interested but they are a bit of a hassle to carry around to shows) I can only imagine-- I am thinking of airports with all these Che Guevara T-Shirts... No Bousouki that I saw (but that doesn't mean it wasn't there). He did play the electric guitar which was really nice. He did some incredible guitarwork all evening and even did an unrehearsed electric guitar solo when joining Lucy on Blue Northern for the first time (totally unrehearsed) which was absolutely phenomenal. I think he may have borrowed Lucy's acoustic for the Cry 3 encores which were stunning. All in all a simply wonderful concert in a gorgeous setting. Five hours up, five hours back. Totally worth it. Can't wait to do it again. Candace on the central coast ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V7 #264 ***********************************