Carolina Chocolate Drops

This morning we enjoyed listening to the Carolina Chocolate Drops while we ate bagels and lox. The Carolina Chocolate Drops share a wealth of knowledge about traditional music (and African-American string band music in particular) in their liner notes. Their musical influences are broad, and their erudition is impressive. They have even recorded a Tom Waits tune and played with the Chieftains.

Here they are playing "Your Baby Ain't Sweet Like Mine." It'll put a smile on your face. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjyw-nW0D90

To Live is to Fly

Guy Clark is one of Texas' great songwriters. He wrote "Desperadoes Waiting for a Train," "L.A. Freeway," "Instant Coffee Blues," and many other well-crafted songs. He also plays a touching, soulful cover of his good friend Townes Van Zandt's "To Live is to Fly." Incidentally, these are the very words that are found on Townes' grave, which is just a couple of miles down the road from my house.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcjWeBpIbSE

Gillian Welch

Lately I have been listening to Gillian Welch. The song "I Dream a Highway Back to You" is just beautiful and desolate. I can almost see the landscape.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvREUDH2BZ0

Texas Musicians Museum

We recently visited the Texas Musicians Museum in Irving. In my opinion, the crown jewel of the collection is a field recorder that was used by the Lomaxes when they were collecting songs for the Smithsonian. I would love to know where that recorder traveled in the years that it was used. I wonder if it was the machine that first recorded Lead Belly at Angola Prison or if Woody Guthrie ever stood in front of its mike.

http://texasmusiciansmuseum.com/

Many Rivers to Cross

These days I am reading Many Rivers to Cross by Thomas Zigal. After reading about a hundred pages, it was apparent why Mr. Zigal was honored with a Jesse Jones Award for Fiction by the Texas Institute of Letters. Mr. Zigal's characters have believable, nuanced inner lives, and the writing is clear, honest, and well-crafted.

I have no personal connection to Mr. Zigal, other than the fact that I spoke with him briefly at the Wildcatter Exchange in Fort Worth earlier this year, but I do want to let others know about his work. Here is a link to the TCU Press website, where his book is available for purchase. A sample of Many Rivers to Cross can also be downloaded there.

 http://www.prs.tcu.edu/book-pages/zigal_many_rivers_to_cross.asp

Jimmie Dale Gilmore

Jimmie Dale Gilmore's cover of "Ripple" by the Grateful Dead is a thing of absolute beauty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnKxnrDDWuw

Poet: David St. John

I recently read The Auroras by the poet David St. John. He writes about ghosts and razors and dulcimers and rain. He writes about Haight-Ashbury and Pere Lachaise and the Mojave. He uses words that satisfy my mind. He explores sentiments that I too have felt. A poet that can make you feel that his poems are your own is one for the ages.