If you're interested in the history of American music you should know that the Smithsonian has put together an exhibition entitled New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music. The diverse nature of our country brought together lots of different voices and traditions and resulted in many different styles of American music.

Thanks to the Utah Humanities Council (UHC), this exhibition will be in Utah in various locations from now until January 2011. Saturday, April 10th is the grand opening at the Park City Museum. Surf over to the UHC website for details on the day's activities and the schedule for the exhibition as it travels around the state. And don't forget to check out Shootin' Creek on Friday afternoons from 3 to 6 pm. Kate and Molly celebrate roots music every week and will get you tapping your toes and dreaming of your next hoedown. 

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This week's On the Media (heard locally on KCPW) is all about the music business with segments on digital file sharing, sampling, concert promotion, music charts and the individual artist trying to make a living (featuring Amanda Palmer). A mention of revolutionary, upstart internet radio stations would have rounded out the show nicely.

You can listen to the show or read more about it here.

 

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If you want to seem some vintage rock and soul, tune in to The T.A.M.I. Show, broadcast on KUED  on Saturday, March 13th at 7pm.  It is a film made from a 1964 concert at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.  It features an impressive lineup including Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, The Miracles and others, with the Wrecking Crew (famed studio musicians of the time) as the backing band.

 

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This Thursday, November 12th at 7 pm, KUED will air How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin. Here's a description from Seven magazine:

Even though The Beatles never performed in Russia, their music and rebellious style had soaked into the lives of a generation of Russian kids. This film features personal stories from members of Russia's Beatles generation, who talk about how the Fab Four changed their lives, gave them hope and helped to undermine the foundations of the Soviet system.

I haven't been able to find the video online yet. If you can't watch Thursday night, check out PBS after the air date and it might be available there.

UPDATE: This was an excellent film and should be of interest to fans of The Beatles and anyone who believes in the social impact of popular music. There are some remarkable and moving stories from the Soviet era.  It will be rebroadcast on Sunday the 15th at midnight.

 

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If you're like me, you love some music the first time you hear it. Other albums require repeated listening to grow on you. If you're old enough, there's music that has sounded great to you for decades. The appeal of other songs fades with time, sometimes even quickly.

Earlier this year, Eilen Jewell was featured at a UtahFM fundraising concert. In the weeks before the show, I revisited her album, Letters From Sinners and Strangers, which came out in 2007. I had listened to it when it was released and didn't really like it, even though it theoretically was right up my musical alley. When I listened to it again, I couldn't believe my previous reaction because I enjoyed it so much this time around.

I guess I got to thinking about this topic after my last blog on Tom Waits. As I promised there, I did revisit some of the more recent Tom Waits albums that I had dismissed pretty quickly. While I remain partial to the folk/jazz of his records from the 70s, I am happy to admit there are some songs on the recent albums that are sounding better to me.

I have to keep reminding myself that my response to music varies and may depend on the mood I'm in when I listen to it. As I get older I'm better at following my musical heart. Life's too short to listen to music just because some "expert" tells you it's good. But I've also become more patient and willing to put in a little extra effort with a new album from a favorite artist even if it isn't immediately appealing. There's no need to be embarrassed about your musical taste, even if the critics disagree with your choices. I'm reminded that Richard Thompson did a darn good Britney Spears cover a few years ago.

One of the great things about UtahFM is that you get to listen to DJs who are passionate about music and play what they love. There's no playlist coordinator (or computer algorithm) creating playlists. That doesn't mean you'll like every song you hear but at least you know the DJ is sharing it with you because they like it. That's the personal touch of community radio.

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I always approach new biographies with mixed feelings. I'm eager to learn more about the person I'm interested in but hesitant to discover they're not the person I expected them to be (how messed up is that?). Ultimately I usually find this discovery process to be helpful - it brings the artist down off the pedestal I put them on and makes them more human. Unless, of course, the book is a puff-piece, written with the glowing language of a press release. I especially love reading biographies of musicians because I am so interested in the process of making music - whether it's learning of the inspiration for a particular song or details of how a song was crafted in the studio; learning about the economics of the industry or how a musician created a new sound.

In a new unauthorized biography, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits, author Barney Hoskyns strikes the right balance between adoration and criticism. He clearly considers Waits to be one of America's finest songwriters yet isn't afraid to use his extensive critical experience to tell the reader about musical moments that don't live up to that standard. The result is an informative portrait of Waits' career from the beginning to the present. Waits comes across as private and cryptic some of the time, engaging and funny at other times (much like one of his heroes, Bob Dylan). For me, the end result of reading the book was the inspiration to give another chance to some of his more recent music, much of which I've struggled with.

You can find this book at the Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County libraries.

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If you missed this weekend's Tent Revival, you better get down on your knees and pray for forgiveness. My favorite performance was by Mike Farris and the Roseland Rhythm Revue. Last year, Mike gave a fantastic solo acoustic performance up at Snowbird, but he really hit his stride with a full band and the wonderful backup vocals of the McCrary sisters. I don't think anyone who saw that set left disappointed.

A close second for me was Mavis Staples. It was my first time seeing this legendary performer and she was everything I expected.  As she retold some of the civil rights history she experienced, you couldn't help but feel inspired. And no one belts it out like Mavis.

On a side note, here's a unrelated funny segment from a National Public Radio interview featuring Mavis.

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Elvis Costello was interviewed today by Scott Simon on NPR, speaking about his new record: Secret, Profane and Sugarcane. Costello started out as an angry, young man (or at least that was the image) but has matured into a pretty wise old man: "Fame may disappoint, but music rarely does." Listen to it here.

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Last week on Another Age I played Joe Cocker's version of The Beatles' With a Little Help From My Friends and it got me thinking about cover songs and artists. Cocker's version of that song is one of my all-time favorite covers. It's a wonderful interpretation and different enough from the original that it became his own song. I think sometimes covers don't succeed, even if they're pretty good, because they sound too similar to the original.

Most UtahFM listeners are probably young enough to have grown up with the singer/songwriters in rock and pop music. It wasn't so long ago that popular music was dominated by crooners who sang other people's songs. I, for one, think the shift to artists performing their own material has been a good change, even if it means we occasionally get stuck with good writers who sing poorly and good singers who can't write.

Eliza Gilkyson, a fine songwriter in her own right, recorded a cover of Bob Dylan's Love Minus Zero/No Limit. It's not very different from the original, but for me there's something about hearing that song from a female perspective. You can find it on a compilation called A Nod to Bob.

What are your favorite covers?

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There was a segment on National Public Radio today regarding plagiarism charges leveled against Coldplay by other artists. You can listen to it here. Every once in a while this issue surfaces. Frankly, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. I mean, rock and roll has been around for fifty or so years and it's not the most technically challenging music. Not being a musician, I'm always amazed that artists can come up with any new sounds at all.

The most famous plagiarism case was probably when George Harrison was accused of stealing the melody for My Sweet Lord from The Chiffons' He's So Fine. Another well-known case was Brian Wilson's alleged theft of Chuck Berry's Sweet Little Sixteen when he wrote Surfin' USA. The strangest story, though, was when John Fogerty was sued because his then new song The Old Man Down the Road sounded too much like Creedence Clearwater Revival's Run Through the Jungle. Considering both songs were written by Fogerty, that shouldn't have surprised anyone. Such is the convoluted world of music copyrights and the reason why musicians find themselves in legal disputes.

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