Ryan Adams - Ashes and Fire (live, acoustic)
Title track from his new album. He sounds so great. Remember when DRA was on Tumblr and all was right with the world?
New album? How… how did I not know about this?
Yeah, Ryan Adams was a pro at Tumblr. Wish those days would come back again.
Civil Wars’ Poison and Wine
Thanks, Micah! Hadn’t heard them before, but I’d heard of them. Good stuff.
The first sentence of the article:
When 35-year-old singer-songwriter Josh Ritter was in college at Oberlin in the mid-90s, he created his own major: “American History Through Narrative Folk Music.”
Clearly, I missed my calling.
William Wilkerson and Valerie Miller - Yours Alone
From “Heartless.”
Heartless: The Story of the Tin Man
I was at John Carrington’s house last night, and he showed me this video from the talented Whitestone Motion Pictures group. The short film is well done, to be sure, but I really liked the song they wrote for the girl in the story, which is also performed for the credits. I’ll post it separately, as Whitestone Motion Pictures makes all of their films and music (and some of their sheet music!) available for free from their website.
Rosie Thomas and Sufjan Stevens - Much Farther To Go
This song came up on shuffle in my iTunes, and I hadn’t heard it in ages. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it!
Andrew Bird performing “Sectionate City” live at the Guggenheim
Seriously beautiful. I think that Andrew Bird is the musician of whom I’m the most jealous, musical ability-wise. Be sure to watch it in HD for the best quality!
I picked it up, since I generally love Sufjan Stevens and it was Amazon’s $3.99 mp3 album of the day.
It’s not bad, but I really love his less electronic work. There’s some of it here, just not as much as I would choose if I got to pick exactly how a new Sufjan album would sound.
The Wailin’ Jennys - Glory Bound
From Live at the Mauch Chunk Opera House
But wait, there’s more.
This is the first Wailin’ Jennys song I ever heard; it popped up on a Pandora station I had going. This is the live version, of course, but it sounds a lot like the studio version.
The Wailin’ Jennys - Bold Riley
From Live at the Mauch Chunk Opera House
I bought this album on Amazon yesterday for $8 or $9, and I don’t regret skipping dinner tonight to make up for it. I’ve been enjoying The Wailin’ Jennys for awhile now, and this CD is everything I love about them, but more of it with super-tight harmonies over Appalachia-tinged bluegrass/gospel. This whole CD makes me want to move out to a place in the upper-Midwest or the Northeast where the winters are harsh and the stoves burn wood and where the filaments that bind me to a suburban life orbiting a big city are loosed. And you can come too.
I’ll probably be posting more of these songs throughout the week.
I’m listening to some of these at school right now and my guts hurt and I’m wiping my nose from eating spicy potato chips and it basically looks like I’m listening to opera while crying and in a way it appears that I am but not for the obvious reasons.
Track six is the singing of a Pablo Neruda poem over a classical arrangement by Lieberson. “Amor mio, si muero y tu no mueres” (“My love, if I die and you don’t”)
It’s beautiful. Check out the write-up on it:
It’s a frightening question couples never want to face: who will die first? Set to a love sonnet by Pablo Neruda, Lieberson’s sumptuously scored music radiates the tenuous warmth of an Indian summer. And, sadly, less than eight months after this live recording was made, Lieberson himself faced the answer to that question. His wife, mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who sings this performance, died from cancer at age 52.
Oof.
Yes? Maybe? No?
Any requests?
Bon Iver - Come Talk To Me (Peter Gabriel cover)
I had sort of lost this track until today. I can’t believe I forgot how great it was.
