Tag Archives: Folk

Various Artists: ‘Twas the Night Before Hanukkah

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Jews sing of both Hanukkah and Christmas

A musical battle between Hanukkah and Christmas is really no battle at all. As the popularity of recorded music grew through the twentieth century, so did the Christian-to-Jew population advantage. A 50:1 advantage in 1900 grew to a 150:1 advantage by 2000, and magnified by Western commercialization of Christmas, its celebrants produced an unparalleled abundance of popular holiday music. Hanukkah, in contrast, mostly made good with candles, dreidels, latkes and music that bore more resemblance to traditional Jewish melodies than the top of the pops. Sure, there’s the catchy “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel,” but it’s more of a nursery rhyme than a hit single, and Adam Sandler’s “The Hanukkah Song” (covered by both Neil Diamond and the hardcore rockers Yidcore) was a heartfelt, but ultimately self-conscious response to the dearth of Hanukkah songs. Beck, They Might Be Giants and Ben Kweller, to name a few, have given it a shot, but don’t expect to be humming along to a Muzak™ version of Tom Lehrer’s “I’m Spending Hanukkah in Santa Monica” any time soon.

Even with the LeeVees’ Hanukkah Rocks on the shelves, Hanukkah fights the musical battle with both arms tied behind its back. If Christmas is the Beatles, Hanukkah is at best a lounge band covering the Four Seasons (cf: The International Battle of the Century). The relentless repetition of Top 40 hits, on the radio and in stores, has made dozens of Christmas songs icons of the season. And in keeping with the secularization of Christmas as aU.S. celebration, many of the best-loved Christmas songs were written or sung by Jews. The Idelsohn Society’s two-disc set traces the transformation of Christmas from a religious holiday to a popular bonanza, and further emphasizes the second-banana position into which the relatively minor holiday of Hanukkah was pressed. The songs on disc two demonstrate how Christmas cut across cultural lines to become as much a secular seasonal feeling as a religious celebration. As the set’s liner notes point out, American Jews celebrated Christmas “not because it was Christian, but because it was American.”

At the same time, the designation of Christmas as a national holiday in 1870 set off a desire among some Jews for Hanukkah parity. And though Hanukkah songs were written and revived, none ever reached true popular acclaim. Disc one, “Happy Hanukkah,” includes historical odes, folk songs (including Woody Guthrie’s “Hanukkah Dance”), traditional melodies, klezmer, cantorial standards, children’s songs, chorals and humor. The disc’s one hit is Don McLean’s “Dreidel,” which just missed the Top 20 in 1972, and is really only Hanukkah-themed in its title. Disc two is filled with popularly familiar artists (The Ramones, Bob Dylan, Benny Goodman, Sammy Davis Jr., Herb Alpert, Mel Torme), all of whom are Jewish. The song list features many perennials, including Irving Berlin’s classic “White Christmas,” which author Phillip Roth characterized as subversively turning “Christmas into a holiday about snow.”

The two discs and accompanying 36-page booklet are entertaining and thought-provoking. The story of Jewish assimilation into American society is perhaps nowhere more evident than the secularized national celebration of Christmas, and the failed (and perhaps misguided) attempt to bring Hanukkah to parity. Christmas iconography – Santa, reindeer, snow, trees, candy canes, decorations, lights and brightly wrapped presents – are generally more visible than Christian religious symbols, and the holiday’s musical hits, even when referencing historical places and people, have more often taken a general celebratory tone than one of liturgy or dogma. Jews may sing a Hanukkah song or two by the menorah, but the soundtrack to most holiday gatherings, office parties and shopping – for Jews and Gentiles alike – is filled with Christmas music. [©2012 Hyperbolium]

The Coal Porters: Find the One

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Bluegrass-tinged progressive folk from former Long Ryder

The Coal Porters are often billed as an alt.bluegrass band, and while there’s bluegrass to be heard in their harmonies and acoustic picking, their loose-jointed joy rings more of the 1960s folk revival than of modern-day bluegrass festivals. Band leader Sid Griffin has been widely quoted as wanting to make acoustic bluegrass-styled music lyrically relevant to current audiences, but the album’s themes – simple joys, forsaken relationships, biblically-inspired stories and historically rooted dramas – are more timeless than contemporary. The album’s two covers – a fiddle and harmonica take on David Bowie’s “Heroes” and a harmony-laden version of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black” – may be modern in sentiment, but they’re nostalgic in form. The Porters’ music is influenced both by the progressive folk of Griffin’s adopted England and the bluegrass of his native Kentucky; which makes sense, since both bluegrass and blue grass (that is, poa pratensis) have roots in Scotland, Ireland and England. The enhanced CD edition of this release includes a short video documentary about the band, providing a glimpse of Griffin as a bandleader, and the band as an ever-evolving outlet for his musical interests. [©2012 Hyperbolium]

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Jimmy LaFave: Depending on the Distance

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Soulful album of singer-songwriter folk, country and rock

“Singer-songwriter” usually labels someone who sings their own songs, but in Jimmy LaFave’s case, it describes someone who’s as talented at originating material as he is in lending his voice to others’ songs. His first studio album in five years balances eight new songs with five covers, three of the latter selected from the catalog of Bob Dylan. Perhaps the most surprising reinterpretation is his resurrection of John Waite’s “Missing You” from its 1980s chart-topping power-ballad origin. As a writer of emotionally-laden songs, LaFave could hear the finely-tuned angst of Waite’s lyric, and reconstruct it into rootsy rock ‘n’ roll. The production’s guitar adds a touch of Southern soul, and the emotional choke in LaFave’s voice mates perfectly with the song’s mood.

The Dylan covers “Red RiverShore,” the oft-covered “Tomorrow is a Long Time,” and Empire Burlesque’s “I’ll Remember You.” LaFave adds something special to each, reading the first in slow reflection, and warming the latter from the chilly production of its original version. The album’s fifth cover is Bruce Springsteen’s recently released (though earlier written) “Land ofHopes and Dreams.” LaFave strips the song of its E Street bombast to better reveal the tender heart of its inverted allusions to the gospel-folk classic “This Train.” LaFave uses the covers as a launching point for his original songs, weaving a continuous thread through expectation, melancholy, sadness and second chances.

There’s aNew Orleansgroove to “Red Dirt Night,” gospel devotion in “Bring Back the Trains” and righteous grief in “It Just is Not Right.” The latter ruminates on the numbness society often displays towards its most helpless members, and the album closes with a farewell whose metaphor neatly twines people and places. Throughout the album, LaFave sings with deep soul, harboring a waver in his notes that may remind you of Steve Forbert. He takes his songs at tempos that provide room for thought and expression, as befits the songs he writes and covers. This album will appeal to your ears on first spin, and grow in your thoughts over time. [©2012 Hyperbolium]

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Alvin Lee: Still on the Road to Freedom

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Forty years after, Alvin Lee is still picking up a storm

It’s been five years since Alvin Lee’s last album, Saguitar, but it’s been nearly forty years since he shucked off the arena-level fame of Ten Years After and recorded 1973’s country-rock On the Road to Freedom with Mylon LeFevre, George Harrison, Steve Winwood and others. His latest collects songs written and recorded over a four-year period, mixing rock, blues, rockabilly, folk and country. Lee still sings well, but it’s his guitar – both electric and acoustic – that will raise the hairs on the back of your neck. Whether he’s blistering through a hard-rocker, playing a shuffle or Bo Diddley beat, riffing on the blues, or fingerpicking folk-country, Lee’s playing shines in both rhythm and extended solos. Lee closes the album by revisiting “Love Like a Man” in a style that leans more to NRBQ than Ten Years After. A sweet acoustic bonus track is hidden at disc’s end, providing a restful capstone to an album full of energy. [©2012 Hyperbolium]

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The New Christy Minstrels: A Retrospective – 1962-1970

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The preeminent folk chorus of the ‘60s revival

The New Christy Minstrels were a relentlessly upbeat folk revival group. The Minstrels generally hewed to the lighter side of the folk revival, often appearing in coordinated ensembles, and more likely to be seen on a mainstream television variety program, such as the Andy Williams show, than at a social demonstration or political rally. Aside from their musical roots in traditional material, their entertainment style had more in common with 1950s vocal choruses than with 1960s protest singers. Their hits were celebratory rather than confrontational, starting with a cover of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” that (to be fair, like several other covers of the time) didn’t touch any of the socially-charged verses.

Over the group’s core folk years of 1961-65, a number of folk, pop and rock luminaries passed through its ranks, including Barry McGuire (whose co-write withSparks, “Green, Green,” was a hit for the group), the Modern Folk Quartet’s Jerry Yester, and future Byrd Gene Clark. Randy Sparks had formed the group inLos Angelesin 1961, and led them artistically and commercially into 1964. Upon his departure, the group’s stage direction was turned over to Barry McGuire, and with McGuire’s subsequent departure, they expanded into pop and comedy, truing the variety of their show to the 19th century group after which they were named. The comedy team of Skiles and Henderson added skits to the show, and Kenny Rogers and Kim Carnes cycled through the group on their way to greater fame.

The Minstrels’ folk-era albums included many traditional songs, but Real Gone’s collection focuses more heavily onSparks’ original material. On the one hand, this leaves the group seeming unconnected to folk tradition, on the other,Sparks’ material is musically apiece with the traditional tunes they revived on their albums and in concert. The darker themes heard in other groups’ recordings are omitted here, as the track list sticks primarily to upbeat celebrations, historical tales and comedic romps. The Christys were built for entertainment, rather than social commentary, and though their contrast with the folk movement grew in the era of Dylan and Ochs, their entertainment value never diminished.

These twenty-five tracks trace the group’s transformation from an earnest folk chorus to a crossover pop act in search of direction. Their three biggest chart hits, “Green, Green,” “Saturday Night” and “Today,” are here, along with a previously unreleased studio outtake of their concert opener, “Walk the Road.” A wonderful Art Podell live performance of “(The Story of) Waltzing Matilda.” shows off the group’s impressive charisma, deftly mixing folk history, story-telling, harmonies, comedy and audience sing-along. The group’s post-RandySparksdrift into pop, gospel and film themes produced covers of “Chim Chim Cher-ee” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” backings from HugoMontenegro’s orchestra, and eventually the soft rock “You Need Someone to Love.” By the time the latter was recorded in 1970, the original membership and their folk roots had both been obliterated.

The track list includes a taste of the group’s post-Sparks years, but without distracting from their more emblematic folk chorus sound. The selections include group harmonies and spotlight vocals (including a Kenny Rogers-led cover of Mickey Newbury’s “Funny Familiar Feelings” that was shelved at the time of its 1966 recording), and four new-to-CD tracks that include Gary Fishbaugh’s original “Door Into Tomorrow,” “Walk the Road,” “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” and “You Need Someone to Love.” The set is mastered in stereo and includes a 20-page booklet with photos and extensive liner notes by Tom Pickles. For a deeper helping of rare sides (including non-LP singles), check out the 2-CD The Definitive New Christy Minstrels, but for a single-disc survey, this one’s hard to beat. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

Turnpike Troubadours: Goodbye Normal Street

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Strong country, folk and Cajun sounds from Oklahoma quintet

Opening with banjo, fiddle and a strong backbeat, thisOklahomaquintet’s third album quickly grabs your attention. Vocalist Evan Felker evinces both sorrow and anger as he surveys evidence of infidelity, singing with end-of-his-rope angst that brings to mind the heartbreak of Material Issue’s Jim Ellison and the melancholy of the Gin Blossom’s Robin Wilson. But the Turnpike Troubadours are no guitar-and-drums power pop band; they play hard-driving country that celebrates cheating the devil and laments soldiers stumbling into a revolving door of service. Felker highlights his characters with nearly invisible every day details, drawing a warm portrait of a neighborhood bar on “Morgan Street” and recounting the memories of a breakup in “Good Lord Lorrie.” There’s Cajun accordion, fiddle and second-line beats on several tunes, some Dylan-esque harmonica, and folk-styled finger picking accompanying the worried hopeful of “Empty as a Drum.” The Troubadours deft mix of roots musics might be too complex forNashvilleto market, but this will go down well with anyone who likes hard-lived country, folk and roots-rock music. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

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Suburban Dirts: Suburban Dirts

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Superb 60s-styled electric folk blues

Suburban Dirts are a British electric folk blues band that’s heavily influenced by Dylan’s mid-60s classics, Bringing it All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited. Their original “Lost in Transcription” riffs closely on Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” “Tombstone Blues,” and other of his sing-song electrics and harmonica-laced ballads. Frontman John Wheatley lists Dylan and the Beatles as primary influences, which, given their influence on one another in 1965, makes a lot of sense. Suburban Dirts also bear ‘60s and early-70s influences from both sides of the pond, including Hot Tuna, early Fleetwood Mac, Big Brother and the first generation bluesmen from which they all took inspiration. There are hints of country-rock, suggesting the Allman Brothers and, in the case of “Someday, Baby,” Mike Nesmith’s post-Monkees sides or perhaps Glen Campbell-era Jimmy Webb songs.

The album isn’t all Dylan-esque electric blues, as “Ada” turns on a country waltz, “Stoned” edges into psychedelia and “The World it Turned” is a ukulele ballad. Wheatley has enough rasp on the edge of his voice to put across the pain and dislocation of these songs, which just as often center on existential weariness as they do on direct emotional disappointment. That said, there are plenty of lyrics grounded in romantic turmoil, and “I Ain’t Cut Out for Working 9 to 5” turns on the workingman’s plight. Guitarist Dave Moyes picks some fiery leads, and guest pianist Joe Glossop adds some twinkling piano in the background. Suburban Dirts’ Americana sounds surprisingly American for a band from Hertfordshire (the birthplace of Graham Green, among others), which suggests the “American” in “Americana” has fully transcended its geographical roots. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

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