Here’s Dave Carter with Tracy Grammer from 2002, singing a song he had just written at the Sisters Folk Festival in Sisters, Oregon.
“Gentle Arms of Eden,” live on stage. This song may be the duo’s best known and has been incorporated into at least one Unitarian Universalist hymnal. It’s hard to write about Carter without starting at the end. On the morning of July 19, 2002 in Hadley, MA, Carter went out for a run. When he returned to the hotel, he suffered a heart attack. Tracy wrote their fans in an open letter on their website:
Dave Carter was 49 years old. It doesn’t embed here, but there is a nice 2002 interview with the couple (and they were a couple, as well as a duo) from ArtsBeat Oregon from Oregon Public Broadcasting here. More background on Dave and Tracy can be found in a review and interview by David Bulla in the Music Matters Review. Some highlights from that story: Carter describes his parents: steeped in math and science and also touched by the Holy Spirit and evangelism. Dave eventually made his way to Portland, OR to study math there. He worked as a computer programmer and mathematician before turning to folk music in his 40s. Meanwhile, Grammer studied English and anthropology at UC Berkeley:
Carter cites a number of songwriting heroes, including Joni Mitchell, the Beatles’ psychedelic period and the Dukes of Stratosphear (an XTC project to produce records in the late 1960s psychedelic pop style), as well as “Leonard Cohen, Emmylou Harris, Sean Colvin, Buck Owens, Miles Davis, Dwight Yokum, Steve Earle, Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin and Waylon Jennings.” Grammer described meeting Carter in Portland:
Carter on songwriting:
Joyce Marcel, a writer and fan, wrote an obituary for Carter (and Alan Lomax, who died the same day) in which she contemplated the recipe of Carter’s songwriting:
A week after Carter’s death, the duo were scheduled to perform at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. Tracy Grammer went alone. From a review by Jennifer Hanson in Rambles:
In place of Dave and Tracy’s set, Grammer sang Carter’s “The Mountain” to open a series of performances of Carter’s songs. She closed with “Gentle Soldier of My Soul.”
Tracy Grammer continues to perform Dave Carter’s songs and has released music they had recorded before his untimely death. As a duo, they had always performed Carter’s songs. After his passing, Grammer wrote her first original composition, a eulogy for Carter called “The Verdant Mile”:
At Falcon Ridge on the 10th anniversary of Dave Carter’s death: [Bonus for Grammer and NFS fans: you can find her cover of Carole King's "Wasn't Born to Follow" on Spotify]
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The Indigo Girls, Emily Saliers and Amy Ray, each write individually, although they have performed together since they were teenagers. Closer To Fine, their biggest early hit, was written by Saliers. In an interview with the website Songfacts.com, she spoke about the song:
The Indigo Girls were nominated for a best new artist Grammy following the release of their self-titled, second album which contained “Closer to Fine.” They lost that Grammy to… guesses? Milli Vanilli. Harsh. Their recording of the song featured members of the Irish band Hothouse Flowers (on mandolin, tin whistle, bodhran and backing vocals). You might remember Hothouse Flowers’ song “Don’t Go”: The song also featured backing vocals from Luka Bloom (Christy Moore’s younger brother), a great songwriter and performer in his own right. The Girls must have been in some sort of Irish phase. I learned how to play guitar around the time “Closer To Fine” came out and it was one of those songs that people passed along because the chords are just a little bit different from standard but if you master them, you sound just like the record. (Or so we told ourselves.) In particular, this was a moment when the C9 chord was huge. Learn this chord and it seemed like you could play a whole bunch of songs. Just on acoustic guitar, you hear C9 on “Closer To Fine” (1989) and Guns n Roses’ “Patience” (1989) and the same chord shape is used in Lyle Lovett’s “If I Had a Boat” (1987) and Oasis’ “Wonderwall” (1995). On electric, you can hear it on “Welcome to the Jungle” (1987) (Izzy Stradlin’ must like this chord) and the GoGos’ “Head Over Heels (1984).
Once you master that C9 — and figure out the strumming pattern — “Closer To Fine” sounds great. There aren’t too many oddball covers of the song, but here’s a small selection of other versions: “Closer To Fine” with male voices, from two guys from Sister Hazel A punk version:
The Indigo Girls play “Closer To Fine” at every concert (fans might not go home until they do). They claim they are not tired of doing the song, in part because they invite their opening act, audience members or other guests to sing along so it’s always a little different. So here’s… sigh… a version with ADA Claire Kincaid — I mean, actress (and former Toronto busker) Jill Hennesy: For some reason Jill keeps giving the satan salute. Not sure if I like her more or less because of it. On his website, Oen Kennedy describes himself as a singer-songwriter-naturalist. He’s performed all over the country, written scores of songs, including “Annapurna” which won WUMB’s Boston Folk Festival songwriting contest in 2008, and he’s an avid birdwatcher and expert bird caller. I suppose we should expect nothing less from the man who wrote “Loon,” a contemplation of the natural world and the narrator’s place in it. At first listening, I thought the song “Loon” was about birds, but after carefully reading over the lyrics, I understood the song to be about music and creativity, and uses the bird as a metaphor for a kind of creative flow or artistic muse. Oen came over to talk about "Loon" but he wouldn't pin down a single meaning for a song that he says arrived almost fully formed. He did tell me the story of how he came to write the song. (This Q & A has been condensed and edited for clarity.) A loon and its chick I was camping out in Lubec, Maine, which is as far east as you can go in the United States. This was in 1998 -- 1999 -- 2000 around the summer solstice. Lubec is an anagram for Clube I woke up to the sound of a loon. It was the middle of the night. The stars were incredibly bright. I got out of my tent, naked, and walked down the pine needle-y path down to the water. I climbed down to the water's edge. The water was perfectly smooth and calm. I could see all the stars reflected in the water, and I realized that that particular moment, the tide had just crested to its absolute maximum. I could feel it, this plump thing, right up against my toes, my feet in this very cold water. And I was just taking in the silence that was the aftermath of this echoing loon cry. I stood out there for a little while, and then went back to sleep. I got up a few hours later. I had breakfast and then walked out on some islands. It was low tide at the time. I went from one island to another, out into the bay. I found a nice place to sit in the shade, overlooking Passamaquoddy Bay -- the second highest tides in the world are there. And there's a gyre, a giant gyre swirling in the water. And then suddenly, I see some movement about 80-100 feet from where I was sitting. Two loons came up. The loons started circling around one another, with their bills pointed toward each other. They were circling and then they would dive under water and come up with their bills still pointed at one another and they kept getting closer. It was really beautiful. I had never seen a loon's dance. They were obviously a mated pair, they were making these little clucking noises and making this beautiful spiraling dance. Then I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was a fish that had jumped out of the water and was right by the water's edge. I walked down thinking "oh wow, there's a fish, right in the rocks." I went down and I collected the fish. It was a mackerel. It had jumped out of the water. I just held him for a minute and looked at his rainbow colored iridescence. I put him back in the water and when I looked up, the loons were gone. They had been only about 40 feet off shore. As far as I can see, over this giant bay, there wasn't a sign of them. I waited a minute -- a whole minute -- and still nothing. I didn’t know what to think. Maybe I was distracted longer than I thought. Then, in the exact spot where they had been, a seal popped up. Looking right at me with big dark brown eyes. We're never gonna survive unless we get a little crazy I didn't know what to make of the situation. It seemed like the loons spun around, and spun around and turned into a seal. It was the only "logical" explanation! I hiked back. By this time, the tide had come in and I had to throw my boots across to the next island and swim the channel to get back to where I was. I got back, had a snack, took out my guitar and the song just came out, in a very short period of time. It was done in twenty minutes or something like that, done to the point that the verses and chorus were finished, and just needed a little tidying up. I was infused with loon, from the call in the middle of the night to the dancing loons in the morning. All of these things were filtering down and by the time I got back to my camp, it came bubbling back up. Not just from this day but from a whole lifetime of interactions with loons. I think I was just deeply inspired in that moment and my inspiration was through the lens of loon. So I wanted the song to have that beauty of what I'd experienced. so that’s where the line came, “Let this song be a loon.” [Not embedding! Please click through to see Oen performing "Loon" at a house party] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbeXaVblIdc You are amazing at doing bird calls, and I know from your website that you are an avid bird watcher. Have you written other songs about birds? Oen Kennedy's first cd, Aluminum Green, named for an individual bird My first record is called Aluminum Green. The title track is about a particular, individual dusky seaside sparrow who was named Aluminum Green by Fish and Wildlife. They had banded him as a baby, then captured him, when he was one of the last of the dusky seaside sparrows and attempted to breed him to try to keep the species from going extinct. At that time it was considered to be a subspecies but now it's been recognized that was a species. [The last dusky seaside sparrow was seen in 1987.] So yes, I have bunches of songs that have birds in them. I only have 2 songs that have actual bird whistles in them. One song that has some woodpecker drumming. On your live album, “Loon” sounds like it was performed in the key of E (correct me if I’m wrong). Chris Eastburn's arrangement steps it down to D to accommodate the low and high ranges of choral parts. How important is key when you are writing? It’s in the key of E, I wrote it in E. Chris put in D because he thought it would work better for the Family Folk Chorale, or maybe he's more comfortable in D, I don't know. [Family Folk Chorale performing "Loon" with Oen in the key of D] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uMTYw78gxI Is that a different song (in D)? Yes. It is. But it's different anyway with the whole choir doing it, but I'm fine with it. It really did feel weird initially, I was really taken aback, but that just lasted a minute and then, “okay we're in D now.” Because I have pretty strong key feelings. D has a feeling and E has a different feeling and D minor and all of them have a different feeling. When I hear D minor, I really get a strong olive green thing. I have at different times had distinct synaesthesia experiences. Because I have something called temporal lobe epilepsy, and when the seizures get going, the boundary between sound and sight and smell and touch becomes very amorphous. The the other big change in the song is lyrically, from the individual to the group. “Loon” tells a story of an individual's relationship to music and nature, like David Henry Thoreau in Walden. Chris Eastburn’s arrangement for chorus makes it more anthemic as many voices join together to affirm, “Gonna keep my heart open!” What do you think of that change from solo voice to group singing? It’s fine. I’ve performed with them (the Family Folk Chorale). Being there in the midst of that is really nice. It’s a great sensation, there’s a lot of joy. I could hear people's love for the music all around me and going through my body. I’m glad that the song has inspired anyone to do something fun like that. It makes me happy. I’m often writing songs that come directly from my love of nature, from my love of planet and species, so it’s a direct thing. Someone else who’s interested in that, who feels the way I do, is going to pick up on that. And I think that Chris is in that category. And many of the other people in the Family Folk Chorale are, too, I mean look at the types of lives that people are attempting to live: trying not to be harmful to the earth, being conscious about what they do and what they use, and how they live... Building a community... Building a community! to engender more of that and amplify that and carry the joy forward. It’s really great. And I do believe that the type of community building that’s going on with you and Chris and people like you, that's the answer to our ills. I asked my kids if they had any questions for you. My son wants to know how the fast part came about? You mean, [sings] "When it comes to me in the midnight hour..."? I don’t even know why really, I just know I was really happy right then, and that’s what came out. I was just joyous right then, joyously experiencing that whole thing. I was in the sunlight in Lubec, ME, one my favorite places in the whole world, and it was beautiful and quiet and there were loons and birds and trees and it sounds great and it smells great and it looks great and it feels great and I was in the middle of writing a song and I was in my element and I felt the overflowing joy and that's what came out of that. My daughter asks, Do you have a favorite song that you wrote? Any recommendations for listeners who love "Loon"? That's a hard one, I have so many songs. I have 5 CDs, plus a children’s cd that I did collaboratively. Every one of those cds has my love of nature in it, has deep inspiration in it. I think the Oook cd -- that has "Wings" on it, has "Home and has Million Legged," has "Big Dark Eyes" -- that cd is a really joyous cd. Generally speaking it’s a funky, happy, alive cd. Each song is one take only. I went into the studio, did one take, did the next song, did all the songs almost in a row. Then me and my friend Bill put bass and electric guitar and backup guitars and percussion and voices and some natural sounds over the voice and acoustic guitar track. At the end of "Big Dark Eyes," there’s one of my all time favorite moments from any of my songs because of what we did with it. You should listen to "Big Dark Eyes" in a quiet place, listening to it in stereo. I play a nylon string guitar solo on the outro there, and that’s one of my favorite things I’ve done musically. And then, things start to happen... I’ll also check out Aluminum Green. Don’t download the MP3s, get the actual cd because the insert material has artwork from my sister and has all the lyrics written down and has the story of Aluminum Green written on the inside cover. Do you have a preference for where fans buy your music? If you’re coming to my shows, that’s the best, to buy it directly from me. But you can also go to my website and go through to Nimbit.com. The least corporate way to do it is to buy them off me, but Nimbit is a local company so I would buy it off my website, as opposed to iTunes or Amazon. Thanks, Oen, for taking the time to talk about a great song and giving us a peak into the creative mind of a naturalist/songwriter! You can find more about Oen, including upcoming shows, at his website, oenkennedy.com. First off, I have to protest the egregious punctuation in the song’s title. “Octopus’ Garden,” please! Okay, now that I’m off that soapbox, what’s to say about this song? The song is credited to Richard Starkey (aka Ringo Starr), and according to George Harrison this was only the second song Ringo ever wrote! In 1981, Ringo talked about writing the song:
Why did Ringo want to be “under the sea, too”? Well, he took the trip in the midst of the recording of the White Album, as he felt he needed a break from the fractious nature of the Beatles at the time. So bad feelings led to the a joyous experience and song. There’s probably a parable or koan in there. In the film Let It Be, there is a scene where George is helping Ringo work out some chord changes, but Ringo is given full writing credit. George was one of Ringo’s biggest boosters, perhaps because they could relate to the long shadow cast by their band’s primary songwriters. Back in 1969, George had this to say about his bandmate and his song:
Do octopi really make gardens? I’ve heard that they do, but I’ve never seen one. Apparently their homes are not decorated with shiny stones, but rather littered with the detritus of the mollusks that served as meals. Don’t know anything else about the song but I have heard some amazing stories about octopi. Here is a fascinating magazine story about establishing a relationship with an octopus at the New England Aquarium from Orion Magazine. A volunteer at the NE Aquarium told us how smart the octopus is. At one point, the Aquarium was missing fish from its tanks and suspecting a thief, installed a nighttime videocamera. What the camera found was the octopus getting out of its own tank, and attacking and eating fish from other tanks before returning home! The animals are so smart that to stimulate them, they encase their meals in multiple locked boxes, forcing the octopi to solve puzzles to get to their food. (There’s more about this in that Orion article.) The most amazing video (well, besides the octopus on land [love the Minnesotan accent at 1:19]) is the octopus vs. shark: Any guesses as to what happens when a sea lion meets an octopus?
Wait, this is supposed to be a music blog. Sorry. Back to “Octopus’s Garden”: Not the most effective mashup ever, but since we mentioned Blondie (back here), I thought I’d link to “Glass Octopus” (Heart of… , … Garden). The backing vocals at 1:38 are nice.
And here’s a link to a parody video with lyrics about Ringo wanting to contribute more to the band. I had no idea that The Tide is High was not a Blondie original. The song was written by John Holt, but who is John Holt? John Holt (b. 1947) is a Jamaican songwriter and former member of the band The Paragons. Here’s the Paragons’ hit from 1967, a song told from the point of view of a man pursuing a girl and featuring a great violin solo by “White Rum” Raymond, starting at 1:33.
The Paragons were a rocksteady group — rocksteady describing a pre-cursor to reggae that really only lasted from 1966 to 1968 and featuring soulful R&B type singing over a musical track that emphasized off beats. Reggae developed out of rocksteady but has more elaborate bass lines, electronic keyboard parts, and more percussive rhythm guitar. Here’s John Holt’s recording of Tide is High after he left the Paragons for a solo career (from around 1971-2). Prominent, melodic bass, cleaner production, more electronic and less acoustic (bye bye violin) — this is reggae! Ten years later, in 1980, Blondie, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein (also a romantic couple) recorded the Tide is High. In 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh, Harry is quoted: “I first heard ‘The Tide Is High’ on a compilation tape that someone had given me while we were in London. Chris (Stein) and I both fell in love with the song and decided it was too good to resist.” Blondie is a quintessential New Wave band, but what that actually means is sort of up for grabs. New Wave began with a punk-sort of subculture, but then swallowed rap, reggae and other world musics, electronic music and disco to spew out pop hits from the late 1970s through the 1980s. The Tide is High is Blondie’s take on Jamaican music (they had a rap song with Rapture and disco with Heart of Glass and Call Me). They added horns and strings and lots of percussion (according to Stein, this included “8 tracks of drum sticks tapping on a piano bench”). They also apparently hired a director on drugs to make the video (crazed but sane enough to remain on the right side of The Empire of Copyright that is Lucasfilm): Weird. Okay, so you can’t keep a good song down (and we have to keep John Holt’s royalty checks flowing) so in 2002, Atomic Kitten, an oddly tanned trio of British women recorded The Tide is High (Get the Feeling). See what they did there? They added a bridge to get a little bit of that songwriting royalty money. Pop in the early 21st century: processed guitar riff, lots of keyboards, and a passive, fun-loving version of sexuality that is in direct contrast to Deborah Harry’s aggressive growling. Someone should write a thesis about the evolution of feminine sexuality in pop music using these two tracks. Or, you could just watch The History of Wooing Men through pop music. The Telegraph UK included Atomic Kitten’s Tide is High in a list of 5 worst cover songs ever. Then in 2008, The Tide is High fully enters the hip-hop era as a backing track for rapper Kardinal Offishall on a track called Numba 1 (Tide is High). The music is totally reworked, emphasizing rhythm with the sung chorus being the only bit of melody left. While Keri Hilson sings the chorus vowing to be Numba 1 (perhaps even more passively than the Atomic Kittens), Kardinal Offishall raps about how he’s happy to have the girl as a “trophy piece” and she’s never going to be his wife. Canadian hip hop, represent, yo! There are a ton more cover versions of this song, but I just wanted to highlight a few more just for giggles. Here’s Siw Inger singing in German, Die Zeit ist Reif (I can think of two decent pop songs in German and they are both about space technology. Coincidence or national character? You decide): Rockin’ the pantsuit. If you ever imagined an alternate reality where Hilary Clinton was a Europop star, here is a window into that world. (No space technology but a cardboard robot appears in the instrumental break.) Okay, so by now you’ve figured that I’m not a big fan of Atomic Kitten, so I won’t post their Spanish version of the song. Instead here’s an acoustic cover by two women who call themselves Sundae Street: This song is called Ser Tu Pasion. According to Google Translate, here are some sample lyrics:
There’s another Spanish version with different lyrics called La Numero Uno. Here’s Nydia Rojas (who looks a bit like a young Linda Ronstadt) with La Numero Uno. I like the backing track which uses a lot of the melodic elements of the Blondie version but with a Mexi-Californian instrumentation and feel. I couldn’t find a transcription of the lyrics, but if you understand Spanish, which translation do you like more? Comment! Finally, just to totally drive this song into the ground, here’s Lilian, a multi-hued alien who sings in English and… Vietnamese? Okay, we’ve gotten a bit far off the beaten track here. A final quote, from Sean Lennon talking to Rolling Stone in 2006 about his dad, John Lennon:
Did you ever learn a new word and suddenly found that it was ubiquitous? Was the word “ubiquitous”? Well, a few things have popped up that reminded me of the Newton Family Singers so I thought I’d point them out for people who want to look them over. ITEM: Zadie Smith wrote about her epiphany with Joni Mitchell in a December issue of the New Yorker (subscription required). The reflections were less about Mitchell per se, and more abou how art can sneak up on you and overwhelm you for reasons that are beyond, well, reason. Smith describes being turned off by the Joni’s angular melodies and odd singing style and demanding her husband turn off the music on a road trip. On that trip, they stopped at Tintern Abbey and Smith found that Mitchell’s music had wormed its way into her brain and suddenly she was obsessed with it, and crying over it. ITEM: Showtime is airing a documentary, “History of the Eagles,” in two parts this Friday and Saturday (Feb 15 & 16, 2013). The two main Eagles, Glenn Frey and Don Henley discuss their history in the New York Times. Will the film include a version of Seven Bridges Road? We can only hope. The trailer for the doc: ITEM: The Grammys happened. I was busy watching Downton Abby. But I was happy that one of my favorite records of this past year was a nominee in the Folk Album category: Leaving Eden by the Carolina Chocolate Drops (cd/mp3). If you like beautiful voices singing in harmony, accompanied by banjo, guitar and mandolin, I recommend this highly. The album consists of originals and covers of traditional songs and the production is great. I’ve listened to previous Carolina Chocolate Drops albums, but this is the one that got me hooked and stayed in the cd player for a long time. ITEM: Okay, there’s no real news here, but I’ve been totally obsessed with Gillian Welch’s song Hard Times and just need to share it with other people. Watch Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings Play ‘Hard Times’ on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour. (The sound is not so good on this amateur recording, but I had to include it for her introduction at 1:47 which reveals that Andy is a Gillian Welch-type banjo player.) Okay, that’s it for a quick look backwards. Stay tuned for more news on the songs for the Spring Concert! The Tide is High
Songs Reflecting on the Water Get ready to dive into the warmer weather with the Newton Family Singers as they perform their Spring concert … The Tide is High. Go with the flow, and join us for a program of tender, poignant and rocking water-inspired songs by an eclectic mix of artists including the Beatles, Lyle Lovett, Blondie, the Grateful Dead and the Indigo Girls. Sunday, May 5th, 4pm at the Memorial-Spaulding Elementary School Auditorium, 250 Brookline Street, Newton. Bring your family and come sing with us! Tickets can be purchased ONLINE. Limited seating! The December 9th show at Memorial Spaulding auditorium, The Music of Carole King and Joni Mitchell, was a huge success (and a sold out hall), thanks to the incredible efforts of all the singers and of course our incomparable director, Chris Eastburn. Thanks so much to everyone who came out to see us!
I'm excited about our concert on Sunday, December 9! More information about the concert is here, and tickets can now be bought online here.
While this program retains our folk roots with some classic songs like "Circle Game" and "So Far Away," this is also our most rocking setlist. We have a superb electric guitarist in the band now, and he's really filling out some of the funkiness and psychedelia of some of Carole King and Joni Mitchell's grooviest tunes. Our bassist is also riding a high, switching from country rock to funk to arpeggiated ostinatos to tender ballads. Two other firsts for the band: a wind player and a drummer! The kids are psyched -- in fact, I think all of them have a solo of one sort or another (even if it's just one letter of the alphabet -- you'll have to see it to believe it). The women have a crazy song in Woodstock and they've added a little visual flair to the intense harmonics already cooked into that number. The men are have a backslapping good time with one of the peppier tunes: Big Yellow Taxi. I hadn't noticed how goofy some of those guys are, but they're letting it all hang out this time around. Okay, I have to admit that Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock is not one of my favorite songs in this concert setlist — I find some of Joni’s melodies very odd. That said, I love Chris Eastburn’s vocal arrangement as it gets into harmonies that are so textured and unusual. Not my favorite song, but a really great musical experience that I enjoy in each hearing. So I looked into the song some more and find I’m growing to appreciate it more and more. Joni Mitchell was not at Woodstock for the festival. She was in New York City, taping an episode of the Dick Cavett Show and watching news reports of the festival on television. She also heard about the experience from her then boyfriend, Graham Nash, who had just formed Crosby Stills Nash and Young from members of Buffalo Springfield, The Hollies and The Byrds. In the documentary film, Stephen Stills says, “This is the second time we’ve ever played in front of people, man, we’re scared sh-tless.” Joni’s version of Woodstock appeared on her landmark album “Ladies of the Canyon” and was the B-side to “Big Yellow Taxi.” Oh, and that first line about meeting a child of god? Probably a reference to Matthew 5:9, to wit, “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” (King James). Okay, so then her boyfriend Graham Nash records the song with his band (she’s going to leave him soon for James Taylor) and they rock it up a bit. Here’s a version from the 25th anniversary concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Down the rabbit hole we go! CSNY’s Woodstock did well in the States, but in the UK and Canada, the version that charted was by Ian (sometimes Iain) Matthews and his band Matthews Southern Comfort (here with groovy historical footage): Matthews was an early member of Fairport Convention and one of his bandmates from that group, guitar virtuoso Richard Thompson, performed a solo version of Woodstock for Joni at a tribute concert in 2000: Another guitar hero, and former Joni Mitchell beau, James Taylor, also did a solo acoustic version. This one has no video because it was recorded for radio: Howard Stern’s radio show (JT does Stern? Surprised me). Finally, you know how I mentioned up top that Joni’s melodies seem kind of jarring to me? She uses a lot of big, odd intervals that I’m not crazy about. Still, things could get a lot weirder, as Led Zeppelin proves: (that was an interlude pulled out of a long Dazed and Confused — they did that a lot in live shows in the early 1970s, like this one.) After all that, I’ve come to appreciate the song a lot more, and I love how the women of Newton Family Singers are singing those crazy chords. The band does some interesting things on this one (go Jethro!) but even a capella, I think the vocal arrangements alone evoke the hazy, optimistic, psychedelic 1960. |
AuthorJack Cheng directs the Clemente Course in Dorchester, excavates in the Middle East, and writes in Waban, MA. Archives
October 2019
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