I first saw Leonard Cohen play at the Newport Folk Festival in 1967. Joni Mitchell, in an orange striped mini-dress, led him out.He looked like a rabbinical student. He played ‘Suzanne’ as I remember, and I vowed to buy it as soon as it was out. I have bought virtually everything he has done. I …
Tag: Music
RIP: Merle Haggard,1937- 2016
We are losing a lot of the great ones…. UPDATE: a great tribute from Wisconsin’s Kirk Hogan, MD, scientist, patent lawyer (!) elk hunter, gourmand, and neo- beat, whose letters often read like poems… Great “Kern River”. My top pick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aILGaYsv_bc Didn’t even make the list of Merle’s top 35! A day hasn’t gone …
Rhiannon
Stunning music, from Carlos:
Coming Attractions
Back from almost a week in Boston, where I went to see and hear Tom Russell’s debut of his new Ballad of the West, The Rose of Roscrae; also to see my 90 year- old mother, whose birthday I had missed, my siblings– 4 of out of 8 of them still live there, as well …
The Rose of Roscrae
Tom Russell’s magnum opus, his “Western Opera” or “Cowboy Musical” will be out in mid-April, debuting at Passim at 47 Palmer Street under Harvard Square, once the home of the legendary Club 47. It was one of the very few venues that kept a sort of vernacular American music alive even as it morphed into …
La Loca
First there were my old friend John Davila, Catron County rancher, world traveler, jack of all trades… in the old days and today. and his then wife Becky… They were among the first friends I made in New Mexico. They are in Querencia- the- book in several places, and came up to Albuuquerque to comfort …
Music Lessons
Q loves rock and country, but Libby and I were brought up on classical and love it too. Both she and Jackson can play well; to my eternal regret I never learned. We liked this essay in defense of obligatory lessons for the young, written in response to one against the idea. “I do think …
Free Association
I have been kicking a few unrelated (?) things around, having plenty of material but not feeling, with our tough environmental conditions (no water, heat, impending possible rain making it an uncomfortable mix of steamy and dusty) much like writing a long essay. I was rambling freely through these things to L. and suddenly thought: …
Friends & Family, Music & Words, Past & Present
Everything seems to come around again. Last week, Tom Russell and his sideman Thad Beckmann played at Passim, a cellar room in Harvard square where I heard the likes of Ian Tyson as far back as 1966, when it was the legendary Club 47. My sister Karen Graham, here with Tom, her husband George, and …
Guadalupe
Tom Russell’s song from “Blood and Candle Smoke”, sung by Gretchen Peters, and Guadalupe herself, painted by Tom. You can see his paintings, including I believe the original of this print, at Rainbow Man gallery in Santa Fe. He began last week’s show with this haunting song. We do have an oddly eclectic “collection”– she …