Notes from ND
This week, we've been offering a First Spin of the new Elizabeth Mitchell album The Sounding Joy, featuring songs pulled from Ruth Crawford Seeger's American Folk Songs for Christmas. It's a wonderful disc that includes collaborations with everyone from Natalie Merchant to Mike Merenda & Ruthy Ungar (you can listen to it at that link above). And, it brings up a timely question: What are your favorite holiday albums or off-the-beaten-path holiday songs? Share some recommendations in the forum, or just keep reading for some highlights from the past week...
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Close-Up on One of the Year's Best Albums:
Aoife O'Donovan - "Fossils"
by Kim Ruehl
It takes a lot of nerve to imagine you can sing a song better than - or, at least, as well as - Alison Krauss. Let's just start there. Granted, Aoife O'Donovan wrote "Lay My Burden Down", the song Krauss included on her last Grammy-nominated album with Union Station, Paper Airplane. But Krauss has become famous precisely because she is able to immediately hone in on the essence of a song and sing straight at it. From "The Lucky One" to "Down to the River to Pray", once she's touched a song, that's pretty much the best... More
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Dave Van Ronk - "Down in Washington Square"
by Doug Heselgrave
It's been nearly forty years since I first heard an old Dave Van Ronk record at a friend's house near my old high school, and it's probably been about a dozen years since I've given his music much thought at all. There was a flurry of tributes in the music press when he died in 2002, and I think I pulled out a few old LPs around that time and gave them a spin... More
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Water Liars Seek Truth through Rock Music
by Neil Ferguson
Since forming in 2010 as a duo consisting of drummer Andrew Bryant and guitarist Justin Kinkel-Schuster, Mississippi-based band Water Liars have been gaining an increasing fanbase of admirers who have become infatuated with the group's rich, Southern-tinged songwriting and no frills rock and roll. Their latest album, Wyoming, is unquestionably one of... More
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Mr. Harper's Opus - Ben Harper Plays the Walt Disney Concert Hall
by CJ Gronner
In the final show of Ben Harper's fall solo acoustic tour, he single handedly brought down the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. One guy. A whole bunch of instruments. A completely rapt (and totally diverse, from race to age to gender) audience. You know it's going to be good when there's a standing ovation just because someone walks onstage... More
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First Spin
ND First Spin:
Elizabeth Mitchell - "The Sounding Joy"
It's very nearly Thanksgiving, which means it might be a smidge early to talk about Christmas music, but this new album from Elizabeth Mitchell isn't teeming with your typical "Jingle Bells" repetition. It's a wonderful collection of holiday music performed with Mitchell's signature sparseness. Acoustic instruments, hand claps, and a community of skilled singers is always at the ready. In this case, that means Natalie Merchant... More
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 T Bone Burnett - The Invisible Man
by Lloyd Sachs
The last time T Bone Burnett was spotted in his own spotlight was way back in 1992. That's the year his most recent album, The Criminal Under My Own Hat, came out - and the year he dropped out as a solo recording artist. Criminal had some oddly arresting moments, wicked commentary and choice twists of hate - notably "Humans From Earth". It was good enough to get nominated for a Grammy. But the artist, who had been "slowing down on the recording thing - I hated the whole deal"... More
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Lucinda Williams' Rough Trade Album Set for Re-Release in January
by Amos Perrine
As a follow-up to my summer post, the 25th anniversary re-release of Lucinda Williams' Rough Trade Album is set for January 14, 2014 on 12th Street Records. The two-disc reissue features remastered versions taken from the original analog tapes of the original recordings, as well as a bonus disc containing a previously unreleased live recording of a... More
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Greg Trooper - Incident on Willow Street
by Hyperbolium
Extraordinary country, rock, folk and soul - If you didn't know better, but you knew enough to have heard both Greg Trooper and Bob Delevante, you might swear they are brothers from different mothers. Their voices can sound so similar as to really complicate the actual brotherhood of Bob and Mike Delevante (a/k/a The Delevantes). Both Trooper and Delevante trade in country-rock, and... More
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