The original Seeger sessions

For anyone enjoying Bruce Springsteen's raucous big-band folk on We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, the Pete Seeger Appreciation Page has kindly assembled a page of MP3s of the original Seeger recordings that inspired the Boss. You can find it here. Very interesting to compare, for instance, "Mary Don't You Weep" in its major-key version (Seeger) and minor-key version (Springsteen). Even with the different chords, and the drastically different instrumental backing, they strike me as having the same vibe somehow.

Again, my review of the Springsteen CD, from Acoustic Guitar magazine, can be found here. Amazing to think that arenas around the country are currently being filled with fans singing along with "John Henry" and "Shenandoah" (are they waving lighters too?).

Cathy Fink on beginning guitar, 2000

If you really want to learn stuff, get together with someone who just learned what you want to learn. They are not so far advanced that it's below them to show you, and usually they are so excited that they just learned something that they love the idea that somebody else wants to find out what it is....

It really works, and we see it happening at the [summer music] camps all the time. Sometimes we’ll specifically pair up one of our beginners with one of our intermediate players, so they can learn a little bit from each other. The intermediate players learns something just from the process of slowing down what they just learned how to play, and then the beginner has somebody just a little bit ahead of them to give them some encouragement.

From the Beginning Guitarist's Handbook.

For more on Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer's CDs and instructional books/videos, for kids and adults, see their home page.

Song downloads: where the money goes

So sales of digital tracks through iTunes et al. are rising dramatically, and they're starting to make a (small) difference in the ongoing slump in CD sales. But how do those Internet sales pan out from the artist POV? Here's a sobering attempt to run down the numbers, following a Q&A on the Web site of Weird Al Yankovic...

Web radio for independent music

Check out Whole Wheat Radio, a Web cast originating in the music industry hub of Talkeetna, Alaska. Here's how the site describes its musical orientation:

"The most popular music genres played on WWR are folk, singer-songwriter, jazz, blues, country, bluegrass, new age, classical, and world music. Some pop and rock are also played, as well as some spoken word and poetry recordings. Music styles that are rarely if ever played on WWR are hip-hop, rap, hard rock, Christian, and teen-oriented pop."

Jewel on the "myth of perfection," 2001

I don’t think it’s my job to perpetuate a myth of perfection as an artist. I really liked reading Charles Bukowski and Anaïs Nin and authors who would let me see their process, let me see how they developed. Because as a young kid, I thought, “OK, this is something I can do. You don’t just start out writing The Grapes of Wrath.” And so I’ve never wanted to look more perfect than I am in the public eye, because why would you want to alienate people from thinking they can do what you do? I think a lot of artists enjoy that gap--they like perpetuating the myth that they are sort of a special chosen race of artistically perfect, fit people. But it’s not true--there are a lot of songs I’ve written that aren’t very good, and all you can do is put out what’s honest and keep going and developing with time and just focus on development more than anything.

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

Spins: Bruce Springsteen, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions

The July issue of Acoustic Guitar includes my take on Springsteen's latest.

In acoustic music circles I've overheard a bit of grumbling about this CD--some folkies seem to resent any celebrity incursion on their territory. To me, that's a disrespectful attitude toward these incredibly sturdy old songs. My hat goes off to the Boss--and, of course, to Pete himself--for not treating trad music as a museum piece that must be handled with care.