Spins: Darol Anger and Mike Marshall, The Duo

I recently had the pleasure of catching the latest ensemble led by fiddler Darol Anger, the Republic of Strings. The basic concept is to take a string quartet, replace the viola with guitar (Scott Nygaard), and steer the group all over the place--Texas-style fiddle tunes, twisty neo-trad Swedish music, Brazil choro, bebop... Superb.

Meanwhile, Anger's 1983 album with Mike Marshall, The Duo, has been reissued by Rounder and spending a lot of time in my CD player. All the hallmarks of their music, together and separately, are here: stellar acoustic playing, giddy eclecticism (Bach to folk to funk), with a sense of both adventure and humor.

Find out more about Darol Anger and Republic of Strings.

Read a short review I wrote of a previous Anger and Marshall album, At Home and on the Range: The Duo Live.

Chris Whitley celebrations

Several events celebrating the music and life of Chris Whitley are in the works, including one 2/11 in Bellows Falls, Vermont--where CW lived as a teenager and also recorded Dirt Floor years later.

You can find details here.

James Taylor on the marketing of music, 1991

My musical style developed really in a vacuum. It developed in North Carolina with a lot of time on my hands--empty, open time--and I think that’s true of a lot of musicians who develop their own thing. It takes a lot of time to practice, and it takes a certain amount of alienation to want to do that instead of wanting to do social things. It means that you in some way are cut off. It’s always a funny and, I think, jarring thing when you bring these things to market, when it starts to be something that happens in a public context. It’s a very iffy transition for a lot of players.... The marketing side is taken very seriously and gets a lot of attention and a lot of interest. It’s validated, and it eats your music--it eats it up.

From the book The Complete Singer-Songwriter: A Troubadour's Guide to Writing, Performing, Recording, and Business

Dave Matthews on the allure of acoustic guitar, 1999

I think in the first place it was a percussive thing. Also it’s lighter and there are less things you need with it, so when I was younger and just traveling around, doing a lot of walking, it was always easier to have an acoustic. So I sort of grew attached to how portable it was. And when you’re 16 and you can play “Father and Son” by Cat Stevens, [sings] “It’s not time to make a change . . .” all of a sudden you’re making out.

From the book Rock Troubadours

Woody Guthrie on musical electricity, 1940

Music is some kind of electricity that makes a radio out of a man and his dial is in his head and he just sings according to how he is feeling.

From a letter to Alan Lomax, dated September 19, 1940, in the Library of Congress Archive of American Folk Song. See the complete handwritten letter, with many insights on the songwriting process, here.

Sad news about Bob Feldman of Red House Records

Just heard that Bob Feldman, founder of Red House Records and friend/supporter of many musicians, died. He was a good soul and responsible for putting an awful lot of great music into the world, from Greg Brown onward...

Red House Records website

Songflowerman on teaching music to young kids, 2005

They’re missing the personal aspect of music. Everything’s like a cartoon--they watch so much cartoons. And there’s hardly anybody out there who’s just doing a live show, somebody who’s actually a person and will talk to them and listen to them. I think that’s what’s missing. I think that’s why I wanted to be a music teacher.

From a profile of the music teacher Songflowerman (a.k.a. comedian and opera singer Tom Anzalone), on NPR's All Things Considered

Pete Seeger on learning from Woody Guthrie, 2001

I learned the genius of simplicity. He didn't try and get fancy, he didn't try to show how clever he was. He had done a lot of thinking, and he read voraciously. I remember the time he got hold of Rabelais and got through it all in one or two days, and in the following weeks you could see him trying some of the same stylistic tricks of piling on adjective after adjective. However, he once said, "I must steer clear of Walt Whitman's swimmy waters." I think he decided that if he was going to write songs, he wanted the lines to rhyme, and he liked things to be in meter.

From a Pete Seeger interview in Acoustic Guitar.

For a thrilling, chilling read, check out this transcript of Pete Seeger's interrogation by members of the congressional Committee on Un-American Activities, August 18, 1955.

Ani DiFranco on "the new alternative," 1997

The pop music realm has a huge disrespect for our elders. It’s all about worshipping youth. Youth has a lot of energy, and there’s a lot of important shit that goes down in youth culture, but I don’t think that means you ignore your elders or where you come from. People may constantly want to be inventing the new alternative, which so quickly gets co-opted and turned into just a cookie-cutter formula, with just a slightly more distorted guitar or something, whereas they might be ignoring the fact that they could take the same old tools--an acoustic guitar--and be working in an old, crusty medium like folk music, and do something totally new.

From the book Rock Troubadours

Workshop for beginning songwriters

Here are some songwriting tips and techniques, just published in Acoustic Guitar magazine, with thoughts from Beth Nielsen Chapman, Steve Seskin, Ferron, and Dan Bern.