Y2KT10 May 1999

Y2K T10

Curtis Lynch

Director of Millennium Musicology

Playgrounds Division

Greetings class, and welcome to this month’s lecture on Millennium Musicology. As self-appointed head of this department, I have noticed a widespread stirring of excitement and trembling anticipation over the current musical crisis we find ourselves in, and much discussion as to the relative merits of certain genres has resulted, so let’s go over the rules briefly:  A previously unknown Y2K “bug” will eradicate, erase, and exterminate all forms of recorded music precisely on 01/01/00!!!  Using modern techniques (mostly involving Juicy Fruit gum and Pixy Stix), we are able to save exactly 10 CDs.  Tim Chitwood, ever the investigative reporter, tried to pin us down to specific genres, singles vs. albums, etc...but we’ll have none of that, Tim!  You pick ‘em: country, jazz, Albanian polka music, it’s up to you! Pick ten songs, 10 CDs, 10 Andean prayer chants, I don’t care, the fate of 21st century music is in your hands.

Last month’s choices were outstanding, and so are the selections this month: Jane & Sonny from Radar Rose wade into the fray, and Jane’s reasoning for eliminating classical music from consideration is especially on target.  But don’t let that influence you, send your own Y2K top ten lists in!

Hello Curtis....Sonny (of Radar Rose) here.  I love this idea.  It's cool!

Here's my list:  I couldn't come up with any particular order.  It's really hard to pick 'em, much less in any order. 

 1.  The Allman Brothers " Live @ the Fillmore East"

 2.  Doc Watson  "Memories"

 3.  Jimi Hendrix  "Are you experienced"

 4.  Duke Ellington  "The Pianist"

 5 . Little Feat  "Waiting for Columbus"

 6.  Joni Mitchell  "Miles of Aisles"

 7.  Frank Sinatra  "The Reprise Years"

 8.  Paul Simon  "Graceland"

 9.  Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young  "Four Way Street"

10. Various Artists  "Will the Circle Be Unbroken"

You may have noticed that most of these are "LIVE" recordings.  That's because I love live recordings.  I always have and probably always will.  :-)

Thanks for getting this together.   Lovepeace,  Sonny:-)

Who!!!!!!!!!!???????????? WHERE???? This is nuts.

Keith Rowland, webmaster, www.artbell.com

Name: Warren Kurtz

Occupation: Volunteer music reviewer for arts and entertainment magazines for over 20 years and an accounting manager at General Electric for 20 years.

I was asked as a music critic (although I don't think I'm too critical, I hope) to pick my Top 10 CDs (LPs) of All Time in case of a Y2K deletion disaster. It was a tough assignment from Playgrounds Magazine in Columbus, Georgia, but here it goes and it is probably different from the next person's, but at least I picked 10 acts that everyone has heard of (I think).

If the Y2K glitch deleted all music and I had to pick 10 CDs out of our over 2000 choices in our home, below is my list and why. It is somewhat chronological.

Rubber Soul - Beatles There has to be Beatles in the Top Ten. This is the first recording after the band stopped touring in 1965. They swore that if they stopped touring and playing the same songs over and over and focused on songwriting and recording, things would be better. This album is the proof. Others might choose Sgt. Pepper, The White Album, or Abbey Road, but I think song for song this is the consistent winner.

Surrealistic Pillow - Jefferson Airplane 1967 and San Francisco. If the British Invasion wasn't enough, look what we did in America. Like the Beatles, this group has boasted 4 lead singers from time to time. Some might pick 1975's Red Octopus including me, but I think Surrealistic Pillow was the foundation for so much.

It's A Beautiful Day - It's A Beautiful Day I've been quoting the impact of this San Francisco band for years. Electric violin of David LaFlamme and "White Bird." I would take "White Bird" over "Free Bird" any day and I love "Free Bird."

Aqualung - Jethro Tull British rock had Sticky Fingers - Rolling Stones and Who's Next - Who in this era, but this flute driven religion challenging classic would be my pick.

Pictures At an Exhibition - Emerson, Lake & Palmer I watched my classical music loving friend almost die in horror listening to this. What a powerful interpretation of classical music. If that isn't enough, "Nutrocker" is the encore. Eldorado by the Electric Light Orchestra is more listenable but this one is truly classical…sort of.

Machine Head - Deep Purple They were at their peak with "Highway Star" and "Smoke on the Water." So more so than Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, or Uriah Heep, all favorites from that time, I pick the tightness of Deep Purple at the foundation of the "metal" movement.

Summer Breeze - Seals & Crofts Folk / rock, acoustic guitar and mandolin, more so than the 3 guitars of the America self titled debut, I think this one captures a great sound with "Hummingbird," the title track and others.

Beauty and the Beat - Go-Go's We waited from the Shangi-La's to the Go-Go's, about 20 years, for the ultimate "all girl group" with "We Got the Beat," "Our Lips Are Sealed," and others, this is great.

Christmas Album - Amy Grant It is so believable. Listeners are convinced of her devotion with the tender "Heirlooms" and powerful "Emmanuel." This is the high point of Christian rock.

Why Not Me - Judds This album is the foundation of what the Dixie Chicks, Deana Carter, and others today are basing their successes on. "Love is Alive" can capture the Linda Rondstadt crowd and the title tune can put kick in your cowboy boots.

There have been many recordings over the past 15 years or so of greatness, but I thought it best to go back to some roots to help understand what we are enjoying today.

Thanks, Warren...A very comprehensive, well-thought-out survey of music well worth taking into the 21st century!

I posted a copy of the Y2KT10 press release on www.delphi.com, in the Pet De Kat Forum and received this response from Craigory...

If I could only pick just 10 CD’s for the new millenium...I think I would rather face Armageddon.

(The Pet De Kat Krewe are a motley group of dedicated festivalists.)

I was so happy to hear that the creative folks at Playgrounds have discovered a way to save the 10 of the greatest pieces of music for all time!  You all are always ahead of the rest of the universe. 

I have eliminated classical music as Beethoven, Mozart and others have survived centuries in written form as all music will.  What we will miss is the absolute genius of our great singers, the great licks of our guitarists and the blend of great bands.  Here's my list!  You'll be hearing from the rest of Radar Rose, be interesting to see our different tastes.

Love ,Jane Gabrielle, Radar Rose

1.  Bridge over Troubled Waters, Simon & Garfunkel

2.  Fever, Peggy Lee

3.  Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Judy Garland

4.  White Christmas, Bing Crosby (otherwise the holiday will have to be cancelled

5.  When I was Seventeen, Frank Sinatra

6.  Me & Bobby McGee, Janis Joplin

7.  Star Spangeled Banner, Jimi Hendrix

8.  El Paso, Marty Robbins

9.  Unchained Melody, Righteous Brothers

10.  Melissa, Allman Brothers

Hundred Word Highlights December 2012

     …when ninety-nine and a half won’t do.

Jason Isbell &The 400 Unit

Live From Alabama

Lightning RodRecords

This is what a live record should be. This is a definitive look at a band at the top of their game. A moment in 4/4 time that combines where they are with where they came from, along with a hint as to where they’re going.  Isbell writes potent songs that mix rock, country and soulful blues and here, he blends songs from his time with the Drive-By Truckers, more recent work, and two covers (Muscle Shoals soul singer Candi Staton’s Love On a String and a powerful take on Neil Young’s Like A Hurricane). 

Picks: Decoration Day, Alabama Pines.

Darrell Scott and Tim O’Brien

We’re Usually A Lot Better Than This

Full LightsRecords

The title’s an inside joke, an offhand comment. But no one could be better than Darrell Scott and Tim O’Brien, two of the most respected and accomplished multi-instrumentalists in Nashville, sitting down in a live environment to play acoustic music together. The thirteen tracks, culled from two benefits in 2005 and 2006, feature originals and covers by Gordon Lightfoot, Hank Williams, Keith Whitley and Townes Van Zandt, and are filled with jaw-dropping, virtuoso picking and airtight harmonies. And I thought they couldn’t be any better than 2000s Real Time. 

Picks: Scott’s Long Time Gone and Van Zandt’s White Freightliner Blues.

Curtis Lynch

Playgrounds Magazine

December 2012

TybeeDawg’s Pick of the Litter 2012

               …Or, 2012? Where did THAT come from?

I've always really liked this line: Guy Clark’s late wife Susanna used to say Guy’s short-term memory was so bad he could hide his own Easter eggs. Those of us who have searched fifteen minutes for the car keys that are wedged firmly in our hands can relate, right? 

So I think it’s important to remember that Ruthie Foster’s amazing record, Let It Burn, came out way back in January.  When I was working up a list to share with y’all, I had listened to this thing for so long and often that it was like an old friend, so if anything deserves the Pick of the Litter’s Pick of the Year, it’s Let It Burn.

Otherwise, in no particular order, are my own favorite Easter eggs: 

Let It Burn - Ruthie Foster
Down At The Well of Wishes – Jon Byrd
Nothing’s Going To Change The Way You Feel About Me Now – Justin Townes Earle
Prior Convictions – Grant Peeples
Heat Lightning Rumbles In the Distance – Patterson Hood
I Like to Keep Myself In Pain – Kelly Hogan
Live In Alabama – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
There Is a Bomb In Gilead – Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires
Mountain Air – Bibb City Ramblers
Gloryland – Kevin Gordon
This Ones for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark – Various Artists

Best of the rest:

Force of Nature Award: Delta Rae – Carry The Fire - Good looks, better harmonies.

What Sophomore Jinx?: Alabama Shakes – Boys & Girls - The groundswell of support that took them from a fire barrel in Alabama to the stage of the Ryman in twelve months shows no signs of abating.

Best Live Performance:  (tie) Mike Cooley solo at Standard Deluxe (10/6) and Mike Cooley with the Drive-By Truckers Georgia Theatre (8/24)

Best festival: Junkfest 2012 – Organic. 

Best tour name: The “Stop Fucking Around and Play Outfit” Tour. Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit.

Best Spotify Find - Nigeria 70 – a seriously funky collection of 70s Nigerian music that’s every bit as fresh today as it was forty years ago.

Curtis Lynch

Playgrounds Magazine

December 2012

Hundred Word Highlights - November 2012

 ...when ninety-nine and a half won't do.

Patterson Hood

Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance

Ato Records

The Drive-By Truckers frontman’s third solo record is also his best. The fallout from an unfinished novel, these songs exhibit the same southern literacy Hood is known for, but this time the themes are slightly interwoven, like flashbacks and echoes rumbling in the distance. Crunchy guitar anthems are traded for introspective tunes punctuated by banjo, pedal steel, piano and cello, then fleshed out with lines like the sky was as gray as an open chord. With help from fellow Truckers, Centro-Matic and vocalist Kelly Hogan, Patterson Hood has explored the forces of his nature and crafted a work of art.

Gov’t Mule

The Georgia Bootleg Box

Evil Teen Records

Webster’s definition of juggernaut doesn’t include guitar, bass and drums, but if he gave a listen to these sixty-two slabs of bluesy rock from three successive nights in April 1996 during the band’s slash and burn swath through Athens, Atlanta and Macon, he’d be more than willing to reconsider. Warren Haynes, one of the best true rock guitarists of the day, leads bassist Allen Woody and drummer Matt Abts, with help from fellow guitar slingers Derek Trucks and Tinsley Ellis, through Mule catalog stalwarts and covers from Little Feat, the Grateful Dead, Blind Faith, ZZ Top, Steppenwolf, and Chuck Berry.

Curtis Lynch

Playgrounds Magazine

November 2012

Americana Music Festival and Conference 2012

Americana Music Festival and Conference

Nashville, Tenn.

September 12-15, 2012 

Will Kimbrough

 Humans have always been fascinated with the cyclical nature of things. We can’t help it; we’re born into a world filled with rhythms and sequences, of life and death and rebirth. The sun comes up, then it slides behind the horizon, but it comes back again. Around us, plants and animals and friends come and go, and love may bloom, wither and fade just the same. The pain of loss and the potential for rebirth is evident in nature and it is what fills the churches every Sunday.  It’s that dichotomy that allows poets, artists and musicians to create works that touch each of us in unique ways.  And so it was during the Americana Music Festival. Time after time, performers reached out to us with the fragility of age and the passage of decades, touching both the audience and the younger performers. Those newer artists are the ones who will carry on, when the ravages of this world have partially faded the memories and words of folks like Woody Guthrie or Guy Clark.

Tift Merritt at Americanarama - Grimey's

Because the mission of the Americana Music Association is to grow and promote the Americana brand and increase awareness of the genre with the public, by necessity that means blending the newer artists with the legends. And the combination of the old and the new, that cycle of loss and renewal, gave birth to several poignant moments.  During the awards show at the Ryman Auditorium, Americana legend Guy Clark (whose tribute album This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark, won album of the year honors), sang My Favorite Picture of You, which was written about his wife Susanna, who passed away in June of this year.                           Accompanied by Shawn Camp (co-producer of the tribute record) and Verlon Thompson, Guy imbued the song with the love of his wife and, at that moment in time, his reflection and memories of their forty year marriage, so his momentary lyrical lapse during the song can be not only forgiven, but understood. The awards show, once again impeccably timed and chock full of special musical events, had no shortage of “best of” moments, from the opening Green Onions with Booker T. (Booker was given a Lifetime Achievement Award for Instrumentalist by Drive-By Truckers frontman Patterson Hood) who also sat in with the evening’s New Emerging Artist award winners, the Alabama Shakes.   It was only a year ago that less than a hundred of us were huddled around a fire barrel with the Shakes on a cold night in Alabama and now, this young band lit a fire on the hallowed Ryman stage and the crowd responded with thunderous cheering.

Delta Rae outside the Ryman Auditorium.

Showcases of new and established artists crossed each other all weekend – an all-star tribute to Levon Helm (featuring the Trigger Hippy rhythm section, Paul Thorn, Patterson Hood, Jason Isbell, Amanda Shires, and Hayes Carll) against newcomers Delta Rae (who caught the attention of everyone outside the Ryman during a TV interview with a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain) and Shovels and Rope; guitar legend Richard Thompson at the Station Inn up against the Punch Brothers; John Hiatt, Darrell Scott and Steep Canyon Rangers all taking the stage at the same time, and Rodney Crowell opposite Buddy Miller & Lee Ann Womack – it’s just all a series of choices, none of them bad. 

Sam Bush at Musician's Corner.

But if there was a defining moment, among all that I saw and all that I missed, it would be this: A Thursday afternoon showcase on Broadway, featuring legendary songwriter Chip Taylor (Angel of the Morning, Wild Thing), Will Kimbrough, Brigitte DeMeyer, and Norwegian singer Paal Flaata. Flaata had recorded a tribute record to Taylor, covering his many hit songs, titled  But before the two could play a festival in Norway, the tragic shootings at Utöya happened, and the cancelled festival became a benefit for the victims. A new song by Chip, This Darkest Day, came from that horrible incident and with the help of Flaata (who has an amazing range and is truly an incredible singer), Kimbrough, Paul Griffith and Dave Jacques (the rhythm section from Daddy), and guitarist John Platania (who played on Van Morrison’s classic Moondance), delivered up a hymn to the living and a tribute to the departed. I’m fairly sure the room was silent, save for the sounds from the stage.

Dave Jacques on bass, Chip Taylor, Paal Flaata.

So, in 2012, we’ve lost Levon Helm, Susanna Clark, 69 people in a senseless attack in Norway, and many more for many reasons, none of them good. But we know, as sure as we know the sun will rise tomorrow, that humans will continue to make art. And it may not be easy, and often it will be painful, but it will be real.

And in the words of Jim Lauderdale, THAT’S Americana.

Curtis Lynch

Playgrounds Magazine

October 2012

Vintage Memphis 45s spinning at Grimey's.

Good advice from the High Watt.

This One's For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark

Various Artists

http://www.icehousemusic.com/

As presents go, it’s hard to beat what Guy Clark’s friends got him for his 70^th  birthday. An all-star collection of buddies, road partners and fans got together and recorded 30 of his songs and called it This One's For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark. It may be for him, but thankfully, it’s also for us.

The guest list is elbow to elbow with folks like Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Rodney Crowell and Vince Gill; Texans like Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl Keen, and Ray Wylie Hubbard; Verlon Thompson, Steve Earle and John Townes Van Zandt II.  The core Nashville band of Shawn Camp, Thompson, & pianist Jen Gunderman recorded these tracks live in studio with the help of Lloyd Maines, Mike Bub and Kenny Malone and are consistently flawless throughout.   Camp co-produced with Grammy-winner Tamara Saviano, who is working with Guy on his much-anticipated biography.

The highlights are stunning: Patty Griffin pulls The Cape around her like it always belonged there; James McMurtry’s take on Cold Dog Soup is chilling; Camp delivers the best version of Homeless I’ve ever heard; and the duet Emmylou Harris and John Prine make out of Magnolia Wind make the record worth owning. And while no song is a clunker, too many add clutter. Given the number of songs Guy has written, and the artists he’s influenced, the record could easily have been twice as large.  But a better record would be half this size.

The fact that I can complain about the record being too big while silently listing three or four songs I wish had been on here tells you what kind of songwriter Guy Clark is, what an American treasure he is and why these artists lined up to be part of this.

Curtis Lynch

Playgrounds Magazine

December 2011

Bibb City Ramblers

Mountain Air

GrooveNRecords

http://www.bibbcityramblers.com/

Sometimes it seems like the creation of a record or the evolution of a band is like making a roux – you take a few, seemingly simple ingredients and when they’re blended, stirred and simmered over time, they release a balance of flavors that become something special and unique.  And that’s where the Bibb City Ramblers find themselves with their newest release, Mountain Air.  The addition of Gini Woolfolk Davidson  on bass and vocals and Wildman Steve on washboard and vocals have given the mandolin of Brian Fowler and the vocals and guitar of “Dirty “Dan Davidson the room to realize the most complete Ramblers recording yet.

The title track opens up the disc, a high-flying ode to the Rockies and features the first of four appearances from Mosier Brothers fiddler David Blackmon. Throughout the twelve tracks, you hear a band defining itself while remaining difficult to pigeonhole. Dan’s bluesy picking and Brian’s blistering mandolin playing, along with Blackmon’s fiddle, rise from the rhythmic pad laid down by Steve and Gini and combine to create high energy Americana with tinges of newgrass on the instrumentals Red Mule Ride, the mandolin workout Slick Willie, Booze Mountain, and especially the barn-burning closer Whitetail Ridge, and old-school country on Are You Cheatin’ On Me and Hangover City. Gini’s tunes Katie McGee and the chilling 3 Bullets prove that the fightin’, killin’, cheatin’ and drinkin’ aren’t just left to the boys.

Trying to stake out a corner of the musical world is a difficult thing to do, but on Mountain Air, the love of a good story and an honest tune can be something the Bibb City Ramblers can call their own.

Curtis Lynch

Playgrounds Magazine

April 2012

Pick up your very own copy at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bibbcityramblers.