Sundance

I love an outdoor concert in the mountains like last night's Bluebird concert at Sundance with Gretchen Peters, Matraca Berg and Marshall Chapman. It was a perfect night. Comfortable temperature with the threat of a shower that never materialized. I went mainly to see Matraca Berg, but the others were pretty awesome too! Matraca sang 3 of the songs from her new album. They were: Your Husband's Cheating On Us, Oh Cumberland and the title track The Dreaming Fields. Thank goodness her compatriots talked her into performing the latter. She thought it might be too much of a downer. How wrong she was! The audience loved it. A significant omission was You and Tequilla which is climbing the charts for Kenny Chesney. His version with Grace Potter is outstanding, but I'm kinda taken by Matraca's. Love that low voice! She and Gretchen sang a song they co-wrote which I believe they called Nashville Girls. It was a tribute to Tammy Wynette and was a hoot. Too bad it's never been released. Matraca also sang a song Martina McBride recorded called Cry On the Shoulder of the Road from Martina's Wild Angels album. I wasn't aware that was one of Matraca's, but she's written so many great songs for so many people I'm not surprised to have overlooked it.. Another high point of the evening, not even a musical one, was when Marshall Chapman read en excerpt from her book, They Came to Nashville. It was about interviewing Willie Nelson. I guess it's not easy to get to meet him even for a Nashville regular like her. It was an interesting tale. I wouldn't mind reading the book. As you might guess, it's about singers/songwriters in Nashville.This was the most well received of the Bluebird concerts I've attended. The concert ended much too soon and the audience showed their approval with a standing ovation.The performers came back for an encore even though the house lights had come on and some people had already left. I loved it! I got a chance to meet Matraca afterwards for an autograph. She's as nice in person as she appears to be on stage. Great evening!

Kathy Mattea

I've been writing this blog since February and haven't written about Kathy Mattea yet. To anyone who knows me, that's about the most impossible thing to imagine!  I've been a fan of Kathy for many years, going back to when country wasn't cool in my world. Somehow she managed to break thru my prejudice. Pretty stupid prejudice when you consider how open to diversity country was back then. I heard her song Time Passes By and was gone. Went out and bought the cassette version of the album of the same name and played it to death. I drove my family nuts playing From a Distance over and over again so I could finger pick along (Bette Midler eat your heart out!). I was re-aquainted with Kathy after acquiring a cd player for my commuter car a number of years ago and checking out all her stuff from the Orem public library. Turns out one of the librarians, Sue Phelps, is Kathy's fan club president, so as you can imagine the library's collection of KM albums is pretty complete! I became an official fan and have followed Kathy closely since. Kathy's had 2 careers, one as a country star on a major label and one as an independent Americana artist. Like many another big star she's been privileged to have a second career out of the lime light doing the kind of music she has passion for without having to please record execs. She really started to bend her career away from commercial country with the release of the Time Passes By album with it's many Celtic influences. That just might explain my original fascination with that work. It came about as a result of her making acquaintance with Scottish folkie Dougie MacClean. Kathy has been socially active most of her career. Her latest cause is opposing mountain top removal mining, a method of coal mining that's destroying the beauty of the Appalachian range, poisoning the streams and displacing people from their homes. It's pretty appalling and is a cause I can agree with. From that came the impetus for her latest album titled simply Coal. Coal is a wonderful collection of coal mining songs and at least to me represents the most country album of her entire career. I'm sure the recording industry would disagree, but to me this kind of music represents the heart of true country, harkening back to Jimmy Rodgers and the Carter family. This album garnered  a Grammy nomination, her first in many years. It lost out to Pete Seeger's At 89. Too bad for bad timing and going up against a legend. Coal is the superior album! All tracks are good, but my favorites are:

The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore
Red-Winged Blackbird
Green Rolling Hills
Coal Tattoo

Green Rolling Hills was written by Utah Phillips. I find it ironic that a Westerner could capture the spirit of West Virginia so effectively. A fine tune!

Kathy's rendition of You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive is also very good, but I must give Patty Loveless credit for the definitive version.

As you might surmise from the photo, Mary Stuart produced Coal and was a tremendous help and support for Kathy doing something with such a rootsy flavor. I was hesitant to review this album just now, expecting something new from Kathy any time now. Seems like she's over due. Anyway, this album is so relevant, it needed comment and if she comes up with a new record any time soon I'll have more grist for the mill!

Happy listening and have a great 4th!

A Few Odds and Ends

Searching for Lori McKenna news, I ran across an article claiming to reveal the story behind the song The Luxury of Knowing. There may be some question as to whether the article tells the whole story, but there are some pretty interesting facts coming out of it. Perhaps the most important news is that the song is now available for sale on Itunes as a single or as part of Keith Urban's digital Get Closer album. Prior to this release it was only available as a bonus track on the deluxe cd from Target. Not sure how these bone-headed marketing decisions happen, but at least someone realised that this might be the best track on the album (my opinion!). Lori's thoughts about Keith Urban's playing are interesting and the part Faith Hill played in getting Keith to pick up the song is also pretty cool. Nice to see that friendship still going strong. Lori also has some interesting thoughts on her approach to songwriting. Check out the article at:

http://www.theboot.com/2011/06/03/keith-urban-the-luxury-of-knowing-lyrics/

In that same search I came across another singer from the Boston area that I really like. Her name is Amy Black and she's ANOTHER low voiced female Americana artist. Check out this vid:

Love that vibe! Her website is at:

http://amyblack.com/

This week I had 4 cds arrive from Amazon. They are:
Follow Me Down - Sarah Jarosz
Daybreak - Sierra Hull
The Dreaming Fields - Matraca Berg
Judy Collins 3 & 4 - Judy Collins

As previously reported on Sarah Jarosz, her new album is fantastic! I haven't changed my opinion. The others will provide opportunity for future posts. The Judy Collins is actually 2 cds for the price of 1 and although a moldy oldy provides for some interesting listening.

I got tickets for both Matraca Berg and Lori McKenna at Sundance in July. Looking forward to both performances with anticipation.

I really enjoyed my daughter's birthday party last night, but in doing so I missed seeing Brooke White perform locally. That's twice now! Hoping to catch up to her sometime. That's all for now. Happy listening!