August: Shadows and Light…
Fascinating and diverse currents of life experiences and musical flavors have surfaced in the past month! I am eager to share my discoveries and remembrances with you once again...
First, a song in honor of August:
This piece creates an intoxicatingly sensuous texture through the use of deeper voices: "August" by the Irish choir Anúna...
When music has taken me to darkly beautiful places...
Folk / Folk Rock
Maddy Prior- "John Barleycorn"
I have arranged this timeless English harvest song for my online mountain dulcimer workshops, and it often reappears in my private online lessons! It tells a symbolic story of death and rebirth through the life cycle of the barleycorn, celebrating harvest time and sharing similar themes and motifs with the hymn “Now the Green Blade Rises.” This particular arrangement by Maddy Prior breaks all the rules and has the time of its life doing so! Both hypnotic and playful...
Kate Rusby- Life in a Paper Boat
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nwo1Pf4xe3AsYPINBBuD5A40e8OwUEais
Kate Rubsy, whose folk music I have loved for years, has embraced some more contemporary instrumentation and stylings in recent years. Last time, I featured her cover album Hand Me Down, but this album has a firmer hold in traditional music and weaves immersive fantasy land- and sea-scapes for the imagination. My personal highlights are "Benjamin Bowmaneer," "The Mermaid," and "Witch of the Westmoreland."
Lady Maisery- Nottamun Fair
A newer discovery… I first heard this performance while researching for my recent "Come to the Fair" workshop, and when I first heard it, I got chills that stayed my body the entire time (nearly!) The peculiar instrument that this video features is called a "bansitar"... This Donavan-esque "psychedelic" folk take on “Nottamun Town” magnifies the subversive, topsy-turvy absurdity of the lyrics. Most modern versions of "Nottamun Town," like this one, are based on the version recorded by Jean Ritchie, the grandmother of the modern mountain dulcimer. :-) Warning: This song is definitely an "earworm"!!!
More background on the song can be found here: https://mainlynorfolk.info/shirley.collins/songs/nottamuntown.html
Clever, Jazzy, Torchy Not-Love Songs
In the wake of my QuaranTune "Shadowy Love Songs" class, it occurs to me that there are a few wonderfully shadowy pieces that do not quite qualify as love songs in the traditional sense because in them, the singer, instead of outright confessing love, warns away the interested party because he or she is "no good at love"!
June Tabor- No Good at Love
June can tell such a broad range of stories with her voice because of its powerful, often masculine quality… I will certainly be featuring more of her song is the future, but for now, I want to spotlight this underrated track written by Adrian May, a hidden songwriting gem of the British folk scene. This song is tragic, clever, amusing, and, with its early-20th-century smoky-nightclub vibe and romantic tango rhythm, oddly cathartic!
Vienna Teng- I Don't Feel So Well
Vienna visited the University of West Florida several times while I was studying for my English major, but I was only able to experience her music through her recordings. Her natural musicality and poetic lyrics often strike a chord with me, as they do numerous times on the album Dreaming Through the Noise (I am thinking especially of “Blue Caravan” and “Nothing Without You”). Again, as with June Tabor, “I Don’t Feel So Well” is a "not-love song,” but this one is unique in that it makes a grammatical joke; to say "I don't feel well" would mean "I'm not good at feeling" as opposed to "I feel unwell."
Coming into the light...
Other refreshing influences gently ease us out of the shadows...
Other Beautiful, Distinctive Female Voices
Starling Arrow- Cradle
Ariana Savall- Peiwoh
When I encountered the music of Ariana Savall, in the words of Aragorn, “I thought I had strayed into a dream.” Her classically trained voice evokes luminous and transcendent visions, seeming quite at home with what I like to call “courtyard music.” A wonderful example of this kind of song is “El Llenguatge Dels Ocells” (Catalan for “The Language of Birds”).
Now for a classic…
Jo Stafford
I am surprised I have only in recent years become aware of the beautiful singing voice of Jo Stafford, whose renditions of old traditional favorites have been some of the loveliest I have stumbled upon in my ramblings.
The lyrics of this version Robert Burns’ “Green Grow the Rushes” are true to the original, but the musical setting is both modern and stunningly beautiful!
Likewise, when I was searching for a tasteful, representative performance of “Shenandoah,” I discovered that hers was ever so much more than that!
Comments