Dancing and singing. Running in the shadows. Hiawatha 2018

-

I keep reflecting on my astonishment during the Roanoke performance Sunday as the afternoon became evening this last July at the Hiawatha Folk Festival in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  The issue is covers.  I have let it slip that I am often experiencing peak live music performance moments of bliss when great artists known for their creative work and possessed of excellent chops cover songs I have loved.  Often, these are songs I played on vinyl until the inevitable scratches led to skips (what we called "buffering" back in the day). One example is Sarah Jarosz' cover of Paul Simon's Kathy's Song on Austin city limits some years ago (the link is a different live performance, I think).  Wow.  I got to thinking about how our experience (Sarah's and mine) are the same and different.  I don't think artists cover songs they don't think are incredible, and so we both are enjoying the artistry of the song, me along with my finely honed sense of style and beauty, and she with her killer artistic talents.  I also noted that when she performed that song in Austin, she was roughly the same age as Mr. Simon was when he wrote it.  I loved that.  

Roanoke had played the previous 2 days at the Marquette festival, so we were ready for another helping of their great original songs.  They played a few, and then they did something else altogether.  Wait, what's that? Fleetwood Mac's The Chain ? "Running in the shadows"?  OK, for myself, the album Rumours when first released in 1977 was on heavy rotation until I overdosed and then began to wonder if I myself hadn't been seduced by the overproduction, as the critics claimed the record to be an example of.  Particularly as I had been a fan of early Fleetwood when they were a rough blues band: Oh Well . Anyway, these days when I hear The Chain, in a supermarket or in a bar I am annoyed.  My enjoyment receptors for that song have been saturated to the point that hearing it imparts a reflexive desire to avoid it, like scratching an itch so much that you are starting to bleed and it hurts.  With Roanoke tearing into the song and adding mandolin spice, I was captivated.  And so was the crowd, particularly the gray-hairs.  I whipped out my air guitar and was more that pleased to add my backing vocals. I looked around and golly gosh, was I not the only one!  Really fun. I could scratch that itch anew. Roanoke and the other 20 and 30 somethings present had probably heard it and/or played it far less that my one thousand two hundred and seventy-four times.  Still fresh. 

This band from Tennessee went on to cover the Jefferson Airplane songs White Rabbit and Somebody to Love and for their encore delivered the Bob Seger meditation on youthful passion, Night Moves. So we can surmise that at least some of the Nashville cutting edge, as they play to the grays on the trad folkie festival circuit, are applying a new interpretation of the lyric from Smells Like Teen Spirit: "Here we are now, entertain us".  And while we are here, let's dance and sing. 

Notes on Roanoke
The band had decided to stay for three days in a cabin in a fairly remote wooded area in lower Michigan, and see what happens.

From The Country Note:
Mandolinist Zach Nowak recalls, “I walked down a path for a bit, and when I came back, I had a song. It felt like it was waiting there to be found.” 
 After hours of writing and exploring new sounds in new landscapes, the band would reconvene to marry musical ideas and creative visions. “We arrived and had to get reacquainted with ourselves creatively,” said Beesley, “By the second day we were writing in a group setting. By the third day, we were full steam ahead and up until 3 a.m., bringing each other’s ideas to life.” As the days progressed, the members of Roanoke collaborated to create eight new songs. Beesley adds, “I would be lying if I told you that I knew we would come home with the amount of material that we did.”
 Where I Roam is more than a collection of songs — it’s an invitation to lose yourself and to keep searching — using those moments to remember where you once were, and to find home where you are.

From Pop Matters:
Fans of the band will feel right at home with its soaring choruses, full-bodied roots instrumentation, and razor-sharp overall delivery. Newcomers to their sound will be captivated by the simultaneous tenderness and energy of the breezy, earthen roots tune.

From Atwood Magazine:
We can all relate to that moment of truth: When we throw ourselves into the ether, not knowing what might happen but knowing we’ve fallen in love, and need to share that feeling with our partner. A must-listen for folk, singer/songwriter and Americana lovers alike, Roanoke’s sophomore album Where I Roam is out later this month, June 22, 2018!

Our home for 3 days in Sisters Oregon, September 2018





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A very nice little story

-
Image
  The six of us were a bit chilled but sun soaked as we rode up to Karma Coffee Bar and Bakery in Dallas for warm-up and refueling. This was a late November Salem Bicycle Club ride, 37 miles out and back.   Someone spotted a truck parked out front, with a rear window decal featuring a combat-style weapon and the wordplay “OreGUNian”.   I facetiously suggested that we inquire as to the capacity of the magazine on that semi-automatic*. My imagined stereotype of the truck’s owner was that he voted hard right, and that he stereotyped us (bicyclists) as hippie hard-leftists.   We laughed.   Good down to 30 degrees After some good coffee and carb loading, we spent two hours replacing all our winter riding gear (seems like it sometimes), and pulled our machines out, ready to roll. One of us habitually locks the bike every time, especially since it’s a high-end custom (really a good policy for us all).  There are downsides to locking, and one we rarely consider i...
Read more

Some thoughts after not talking for 6 days.

-
Image
  Last week, I drove 100 miles north from Salem OR. and parked my borrowed car at Cloud Mountain Retreat Center . Inspired by friends and readings, I wanted to be on retreat with others seeking to deepen our meditation practice. This would be a retreat held in noble silence, no speaking, reading, phones or other digital devices.   As I walked the grounds at Cloud Mountain, I would reach in my pocket to discover that there was nothing there.   No oblong device there, my pocket had achieved what we retreatants were leaning into: emptiness.   If you attend a 6 day retreat and maintain silence for the duration, stuff happens. Questions come up: who am I?, why am I?, what's my next step? Having a daily meditation practice as I have for a number of years is helpful, but for what?   Sometimes I think my meditation is done in order to check a box to get credit in the category of “spirituality”.  As in, "i f I don’t go to religious services, pray, chant, perform s...
Read more

Maybe This Will be Fun to Read

-
Image
Discussed : sloth and torpor, things we do, survival, Koalas  I always strive to make what I write tasty, at least aromatic, in that there is something about it that draws one in.  Curiosity is what I am counting on, in the sense that I actually hope this gets read and that it offers something.  How can I describe what happens to allow this blog space to be empty for over 4 months?  There are excuses that have something to do with everyday activities and responsibilities, but they turn out to be pretty lame excuses when you dig a bit deeper.  I've put "writing" on my identity resume as a thing I do, so to actually not do it creates anxiety.  Amazing to think that at a radical (real) level, this is simply a manifestation of my innate laziness.  Amazing, I AM Lazy!! Instead of writing, I worry about not having written. Instead of writing, I wonder about what to write.  That's uncomfortably accurate.  And yet...this awareness is an opportunity t...
Read more