Old Bob talks about the Young Bob

Grammy night and Bob Dylan reveals more in 30 minutes than in 30 interviews.

“I  sang  a  lot  of  “come  all  you”  songs.  There’s  plenty  of  them.  There’s  way  too  many  to  be  counted.  “Come  along  boys  and  listen  to  my  tale  /  Tell  you  of  my  troubles on  the  old  Chisholm  Trail.”  Or,  “Come  all  ye  good  people,  listen  while  I  tell  /  the  fate  of  Floyd  Collins,  a  lad  we  all  know  well.”

“Come  all  ye  fair  and  tender  ladies  /  Take  warning  how  you  court  your  men  /  They’re  like  a  star  on  a  summer  morning  /  They  first  appear  and  then  they’re  gone  again.”  And  then  there’s  this  one,  “Gather ’round,  people  /  A  story  I  will  tell  /  ‘Bout  Pretty  Boy  Floyd,  the outlaw  /  Oklahoma  knew  him well”

If  you  sung  all these  “come  all  ye”  songs  all  the  time like  I  did,  you’d  be  writing,  “Come gather  ’round  people  where  ever  you  roam,  admit  that  the  waters  around  you  have  grown  /  Accept  that  soon  you’ll  be  drenched  to  the  bone  /  If  your  time  to  you  is  worth  saving  /  And  you  better  start  swimming  or  you’ll  sink  like  a  stone  /  The times  they  are  a changing.”

You’d  have  written that too.  There’s  nothing  secret  about  it.  You  just  do  it  subliminally  and  unconsciously,  because  that’s  all  enough,  and  that’s  all you  know.  That  was  all  that  was  dear  to  me.  They  were  the  only  kinds  of  songs  that made sense.

The entire speech linked above.  An article about it here.

Pete Seeger: Gone, but What a Path he Blazed

The legendary folk singer and activist Pete Seeger died Monday at the age of 94. For nearly seven decades, Seeger was a musical and political icon who helped create the modern American folk music movement. We air highlights of two appearances by Seeger on Democracy Now!, including one of his last television interviews recorded just four months ago. Interspersed in the interviews, Seeger sings some of his classic songs, “We Shall Overcome,” “If I Had a Hammer” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.” He also talks about what has been described as his “defiant optimism.”

Democracy Now

Toshi Seeger Gone

What a great woman and companion Toshi Seeger was!  A good life lived.

Toshi Seeger, whose husband the folk singer Pete Seeger has credited for at least half his success — from helping to organize the first Newport Folk Festival to campaigning to clean the Hudson River — died on Tuesday at their home in Beacon, N.Y. She was 91.

…In 1961, he was cited for contempt of Congress and sentenced to a year in jail. “I accepted every booking that came in, figuring that most of them would be canceled,” Mrs. Seeger said, “but the appeals court acquitted him and nothing was canceled. It was a horrendously busy year.”

“Never again,” she said. “Next time let him go to jail.”

Her gentle chiding curbed any chance that Mr. Seeger’s ego would balloon. “I hate it when people romanticize him,” she said. “He’s like anybody good at his craft, like a good bulldozer operator.”

NY Times and Rolling Stone


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Bob Dylan Sings Must Be Santa

Jenni Rivera, Gone

Count me as among the tens of thousands who didn’t know about Jenni Rivera until she died. My heart-throbs of Mexican music were a generation or so, ago [Flor Silvestre, Lola Beltran.]  But reading about her in a NY Times editorial, after her death in an airplane accident, made me notice.  I’ll be dialing up her tunes on my grooveshark account.

…she was a superstar in the border-straddling world of Mexican regional music, an immigrant’s daughter from a musical dynasty who sold millions of albums, became a TV celebrity and led a personal life straight out of a telenovela. ..

…on May 29, 2010, when tens of thousands of protesters converged on Phoenix to denounce Arizona’s radical new immigration law. Other big musicians stayed away, or just signed the petition. Ms. Rivera showed up. She walked five miles in scorching heat, and ended up dehydrated, with a migraine. When a worried organizer texted her — “are u still marching?” — she replied: “Of course. … I’m a gangster chick.” She went on to play a full concert and gave a speech, spread widely on YouTube, for immigrant rights and justice for the community she sprang from and never left.

You Don’t Own Me: Leslie Gore to Mitt Romney

Ry Cooder’s Election Special: We have to hurry up and be smart

Friend brought by Ry Cooder’s Election Special album.  Sometimes the beat is so infectious is obscures the story the lyrics are telling but heck, the mighty Ry and today’s events.  Good for everybody’s tune-box. And good to have friends you bring and sing the music.

 

The lead song is a cry on behalf of Romney’s mutt. Or for a Woody Guthrie-esq teaching song here is The 90s and the 9

 

His previous album, Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down, had the marvelous No Banker Left Behind.

Reviewed here  and here.

What’s your goal with this record?

Use your mind and think a little. Put the small screen down. We have to hurry up and be smart.

[Cross posted at All In One Boat]