Music
November 27, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Singer/songwriter/composer Randy Newman celebrates his seventy-ninth birthday tomorrow. I can only say that he has written some of my favorite songs of love and loss. They have naturally attracted brilliant interpreters. I’ll take the songs of feeling and leave the political satire behind. I want to take the occasion to look back on a small slice of his work this morning. We first heard “I Don’t Want To Hear It
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November 20, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Jesse Colin Young turns 81 this Tuesday. I wrote up this installment of my Sunday Morning series a year ago in honor of his 80th birthday. Listening to Albert O hosting Highway 61 Revisited on WUMB yesterday, I was alerted to his birthday this week. It vaguely reminded me that I had put something together for him and went looking for it on our search engine. I want to give
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November 15, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I started this brief series featuring modern folk artists with recollections of the late Red House Records president Bob Feldman. Bob alternated hosting KFAI’s old Sunday morning Urban Folk with Marian Moore. Bob’s theme song for his shows was John Gorka’s “The Gypsy Life.” Bob always played the whole thing. I think he heard in it the story of the artists he loved from their point of view. I must
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November 14, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Richard and Linda Thompson came out of the English folk movement. Richard made his name in Fairport Convention and then moved on to record a series of six classic albums with his wife, Linda Thompson. Richard’s Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice, 1967-1975, was published last year and is now out in paperback. He continues as a solo artist — he has a United States tour starting next
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November 13, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I’m winding down this brief series featuring modern folk music over the next few days. Bob Dylan is the tutelary spirt. For those following along I want to post the live version of Dylan’s “Ring Them Bells,” the title track from Baez’s 1995 double album. On this track Baez is joined by Ireland’s Mary Black. The harmony is beautiful on this cover of a Sunday morning song, Dylan style. In
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November 12, 2022 — Scott Johnson
We interrupt our brief series on modern folk music to bring you “Brian Wilson” by former Barenaked Ladies front man Steven Page. Page is touring in his trio with guitarist Craig Northey and celloist Kevin Fox. They made their first American stop before a packed house last night at the Dakota in downtown Minneapolis. I snapped the photo of Page from Table 150, right in front of him, but too
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November 11, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Before founding the Byrds with Gene Clark and David Crosby, Roger McGuinn was a folk nut. He returned to his first love in music with Roger McGuinn’s Folk Den, where he posts new recordings of old songs monthly. McGuinn celebrated the 27th anniversary of his Folk Den here this month. He did the honors with “Shady Grove.” No one told me arithmetic would be required, but I believe that means
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November 10, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I have rethought this brief series in light of the downbeat events of this week. Rather than cancel it, I thought I might try to keep it in tune with the times. The first song that came to mind was Phil Ochs’s “No More Songs” from his bitter, ironically titled Greatest Hits (1970). It is the concluding track on the last studio album released before he ended his life in
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November 9, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Patty Griffin is a modern folk artist with a loyal following. I saw her play to a full house at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul back in 2007. Someone up in the balcony shouted out for Griffin to play “Rain” after every number. We were all praying for “Rain.” When Griffin played it for her encore, she looked up into the balcony. It is a song that suits my
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November 8, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Bob Dylan seems to have written “When the Ship Comes In” after a hotel clerk insulted him for his shabby attire. So Joan Baez told Anthony Scaduto for his influential Bob Dylan: An Intimate Biography (1972). Last year the University of Minnesota Press published transcripts of Scaduto’s interviews for the bio in The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talkin’ Early Bob Dylan (2021). Most recently, Clinton Heylin refers to
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November 7, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday I started posting a song a day in the vein of modern folk while Steve Hayward is over in Europe. Let us take a detour to check in with one of the British groups that was inspired by Bob Dylan and the Byrds to explore their folk tradition. Fairport Convention has existed in one iteration or another since 1967. Liege and Lief (1969) was their fourth album. The Liege
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November 6, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I think Steve Hayward is off to Europe. He says it’s for work, not play, and he’ll be contributing as he can along his way. In the meantime, he has scheduled a number of posts to be published over the next week. Steve’s departure made me think it might make sense to post a song of the day while he is in Europe. When he was off to Scotland on
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November 2, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Taking a break from the news, I attended the 2022 edition of the annual Grateful Dead Meet-Up at the suburban AMC multiplex in Eden Prairie, Minnesota last night. This year’s Meet-Up featured a showing of the Dead’s April 17, 1972 concert at the Tivoli Concert Hall in Copenhagen, Denmark. The footage derived from what was advertised as the first-ever broadcast of a a live concert on Danish television. Last night’s
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October 30, 2022 — Scott Johnson
If you listen to the right radio stations at this time of the year, you will hear a few songs associated with Halloween. On WUMB’s Highway 61 Revisited show yesterday, host Albert O devoted the entire four hours to songs fitting the day. He plays oldies ranging from the traditional “Long Black Veil” (The Band’s cover) to Donovan’s “Season of the Witch” (this year the original and a cover by
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October 28, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I wrote an appreciation of singer/songwriter Don McLean in this 2019 installment of Sunday Morning Coming Down. I also interviewed Don for this 2020 installment. We have just received this statement condemning anti-Semitism from Don’s public relations outfit: Lately a flood of antisemitic invective has been triggered by the ranting of a stupid attention-seeking fool we all know. I want to say I stand with my Jewish friends and I
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October 18, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Lonny Price’s Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened is one of my favorite documentaries. If you’re a Sondheim fanatic, you will recognize the title of the documentary as a play on one of the songs in the legendary Sondheim flop Merrily We Roll Along (book by George Furth, produced by Hal Prince). Price himself played one of the leads in the show. The film is a riveting and
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October 13, 2022 — Scott Johnson
An email from the New York Review of Books this morning notes that today is Paul Simon’s 81st birthday. I believe they have even posted Daniel Drake’s essay “Paul Simon: Fathers, Sons, Troubled Water” outside their paywall to observe the occasion. Simon is inarguably one of the great American songwriters in the tradition of the American songbook. He has earned his own place in it many times over. I think
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