MOJO Greenwich CD takes you back to Dylan 1963

The December 2010 MOJO magazine contains a nostalgic CD The Sound Of Greenwich Village.

Dylan's Scene MOJO bonus CD

Dylan’s Scene was compiled to coincide with MOJO Magazine’s 17-page coverage of Bob Dylan’s Bootleg # 9 The Witmark Demos.

What a treat – 15 tracks that bring back the essence of the 1960s New York folk scene.  If you remember those days, it’s worth purchasing the magazine for the 17 pages of Dylan stories and the CD.

It’s a wonderful collection of Dylan contemporaries from John Lee Hooker, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger all to way to the less than fave Allen Ginsberg. OK you have to at least acknowledge Ginsberg’s powerful influence over the boy from Hibbing Minnesota.

Once a year I splurge on magazines and save them for a rainy day. On Christmas eve some last minute gifts took me to the local Indigo where I loaded up on Mojo, Sound on Sound and Future Music.

Those magazines are an investment, to be saved and savored for years.

I found 2007 copies of Future Music and Recording in a box last month. They were purchased in another magazine binge  3 years ago and never read. Wow, they have lots of great articles along with DVDs of music samples. The magazines were read twice in December. The next thing to do is examine those DVDs. 


On Christmas day I discovered MOJO had a free CD which Indigo was supposed to give me at the cash.  It took me until Wednesday to retrieve it from the store.

Contents

John Lee Hooker played on the same Greenwich Village stage with Dylan. Hooker was part of Dylan’s love for black blues artists. Boom Boom is classic Hooker track and the 1961 recording is pristine. Growl “I like it like that.” Music so good the Blues Brothers used it in the Maxwell Street scene in the first movie.

Joan Baez was the angelic voice of folk and protest music when she met Dylan in the Village. Baez singing Phil Ochs’ “There But for Fortune” sends chills up my spine.  Man those songs are still true 45 years later.

What are we doing today to make this world a better place?

Close the Door Lightly When You Go sung by Eric Anderson is one of those “gently on my mind” songs we loved back then. Affairs with no commitment were all in vogue back then. Too many of those and your life becomes a series of empty experiences. We were younger then.

Pete Seeger singing We Shall Overcome – that’s the Village and our folk protest days. We did overcome some prejudices but there are lots to extinguish yet.

Pete Seeger

No one did more to foster folk music and protest than US Senator Joseph McCarthy who blacklisted Seeger in the 1950s. Seeger fed his family by busking on university campuses and playing student union concerts. His left wing ideals became the credo of the folk movement in the 1960s.

Can we take up the banner of freedom again?

Same Old Man features the raw mountain music with Karen Dalton, with a sparse banjo clear as a bell in the left speaker.

Tom Dooley sounds more authentic by the New Lost City Ramblers than the Kingston Trio. A real fiddle saws away while a dreadnought guitar is flat picked. Those city boys could sing hill music.

The Ramblers were Mike Seeger (Pete’s brother), John Cohen and Tom Paley. They did a credible job of introducing us to real Appalachian hill music, which Cohen called that High Lonesome Sound.  More primitive than bluegrass, it’s the music featured in the Coen Brothers’ hit movie Oh Brother Where Art Thou and the documentary Down From the Mountain.

Joan Baez’s sister Mimi and her husband Richard Farina dance up some fancy instrumentals in Celebration for a Grey Day.

Mark Spoelstra was another Dylan buddy who played folk and blues. Sugar Babe, It’s All Over Now is Mark’s blues side. Spoelstra was also known as a fervent anti-war pacifist.

The Mayor of MacDougall Street, Dave Van Ronk, struts his stuff on the jazzy blues Hesitation Blues. Listen to that song – it’s very catchy and demonstrates Van Ronk’s guitar skills and syncopated style.

Bob Dylan, Suze Rotolo and Dave Van Ronk in the Village

Van Ronk gave Dylan his arrangement of House of the Rising Sun that made Dylan’s first album. Von Ronk’s ironic bitterness over letting Dylan have the arrangement that later became a hit for The Animals stayed with him for decades.

The Village was full of sea shanties and English ballads. The Foc’sle Singers sing a hearty version of Rio Grande, almost makes you want to join the crew for the voyage. Heave away, haul away.

Greenwich Village was a home for beat poets and jazz musicians before the folk revival. The CD has Kenneth Patchen reciting his poem State of the Nation with a jazz background. The poets lost the scene to music and people like Dylan who could turn poetic imagery into something more powerful – a song.

Another song from Dylan’s first album was Bukka White’s Fixin To Die.  Listening to the real thing, it’s easy to see why Dylan was considered a light-weight in the blues world when he hacked through the song at break neck speed. Over the years, Dylan learned the blues: back then he was just a fresh faced kid.

Lightnin’ Hopkins was another great blues artist who hung out in the Village. Coffee House Blues is a country blues showcasing his awesome acoustic guitar skills, singing, wit and blues groove. I have a friend who has moved back from Dylan covers to Lightnin’ Hopkins this year. Interesting.

The Irish folk scene is covered with The Clancy Brothers muscular rendition of The Wild Colonial Boy. Dylan hung out in the same bar in the Village with the sweater clad purveyors of all things Irish. In the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Celebration Liam Clancy remembers chiding Dylan for writing “too many words” in his songs.

No CD about Dylan would be complete without something by poet Allen Ginsberg. The CD includes Auto Poesy to Nebraska. Ginsberg was both friend, confidant and poetic inspiration to Dylan. Ginsberg turned Dylan to poets as a source for his lyrics which resulted in those long tomes Dylan turned out like Chimes of Freedom and Desolation Row.

There it is – $13 rock magazine with a bonus CD that is worth many repeated listening.

I’m reading the magazine slowly. Perhaps I’ll report about it next year.

NJN Network donates Blue Christmas proceeds to Schizophrenia Society

Stephen Pate editor and owner of NJN Network has recorded the Elvis classic Blue Christmas and is donating all proceeds to the Schizophrenia Society. Even internet downloads or sharing will generate a donation.

PRLog (Press Release)Dec 20, 2010 – Stephen Pate, editor and owner of NJN Network, has  recorded the Elvis classic Blue Christmas and is donating  the proceeds plus more to charity.

“Christmas is supposed to be a happy time,” said Pate “but  for the many people suffering from mental disabilities it  can be a time of deeper anguish.”

“The song is about a boy who misses his girlfriend at  Christmas. We thought it would be nice to donate the  proceeds to the Schizophrenia Society who help people with  mental illness and resulting disabilities.”

“Since file sharing is popular these days, we are donating $.10 cents for every person who listens to the song or downloads it for free. When the song is purchased for $0.99 we will donate $1.09.”

NJN Network has also donated all production costs and the copyright royalty to this project. The musicians donated their time. Avolve Technology donated their graphic design for the cover art.  Continue reading

Ron Hynes movie plays Empire Theatres tonight

Ron Hynes will be having a special one night only presentation in Empire Theatres across Atlantic Canada on Thursday, December 2nd

Ron Hynes Man of a Thousand Songs (photo supplied)

The Man of a Thousand Songs, starring Ron Hynes, Joel Thomas Hynes and featuring Amelia Curran is a the highly rated movie about music and story telling for the many thousands of Ron Hynes fans across Canada.

We saw Ron two weeks ago at Harvest House and he packed the place with his fans. They loved him. We’ll post his exclusive interview about the new movie  this morning.

The film is full of Ron performing some of his most famous songs, including Sonny’s Dream, The Saint John Waltz, Boy from Old Perlican, and Dry.

Fans can also expect gut wrenching honesty and his famously disarming sense of humour because Ron tells his own incredible story in his own blunt manner.

Ron’s manager and publicist sent us clippings from media reviews and they are glowing. Continue reading

Review Harlan Pepper – Young and Old

Fresh upbeat sound from young group creates new Appalachian Mountain music with an alt-country beat

Harlan Pepper, Great Lakes video

Tom Wilson, of Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, shared the Great Lakes video on Facebook a few months ago.

Harlan Pepper of Hamilton, Ontario perform an odd, lighthearted and appealing blend of roots, country, rock and folk music.

I was immediately intrigued. Where did these young guys get the updated old sound?

Only when Tom sent me the CD Young and Old did I discover that the bass player Thompson Wilson was Tom’s son. Nice to have your dad promote your music eh?

For a first CD, this is amazing music.

The 4 boys – Thompson (bass, vocals), Dan Edmonds (banjo, keys, vocals) Marlon Nicolle (drums, vocals) and Jimmy Hayes (guitar, pedal steel, harmonica) were just out of high school when they won $3,000 recording studio prize in a local jam contest.   Continue reading

Learn Cajun French free

Allons! is a free internet site that can teach you enough Cajun French to attend a music festival, order a meal or spend some time in Cajun country

Allons! an introduction to Cajun French (photo: Allons!)

If you like Cajun music but are intimidated by the Cajun French language, try this free site that teaches introductory French conversation in a music festival context.

Allons! teaches the basics of introducing yourself to someone in Cajun country Louisiana, USA.

The free online course will help you to say hello to the musicians, order a meal or ask someone to danse. Oops, my spelling has shifted into Cajun after only a few lessons.

“Allons danser avec moi”

The site is easy to use and is focused on getting you into a conversation with those friendly folks in near a Cajun bayou.   Continue reading

Wolfgang’s Vault releases Bob Dylan and The Band Tour

Historic 1974 reunion tour is released online along with thousands of rare rock, folk and jazz concerts

Bob Dylan and The Band in historic reunion tour 1974 (photo Jim Summaria creative commons)

Wolfgang’s Vault has released four concerts from the 1974 tour of Bob Dylan and The Band that are free to listen to on the web or on an iPhone with their WVIP membership.

In 1974 Bob Dylan, the voice of the sixties generation, had been laying low in Woodstock New York since 1967. His albums after the motorcycle accident had been different, not the “wild mercury” sound of Highway 61 and Bringing It All Back Home.
Continue reading

Lennie Gallant to perform at Rendezvous Rustico

PEI’s pre-eminent singer songwriter will repeat his annual concert during 3 day Acadian festival in Rustico July 23-25, 2010

Lennie Gallant at Rendezous Rustico 2004

Lennie Gallant will perform again at Rendezvous Rustico this summer on PEI. It’s one of the annual appearances of PEI’s top singer songwriter.

The festival opens Friday evening with a BBQ and children’s activities followed by an Acadian concert at 8 pm featuring talented performers from across PEI.

Saturday, July 24, at 8 pm local artists will be performing in the Song Writers Circle at Harmony House Theatre in Hunter River. This event, hosted by John Connolly, will feature Mario Robichaud, Jeannita Bernard, and Nick and Chris Gauthier. Following the concert there will be a homecoming dance at the Cymbria Lion’s club with music by Stagefrite.

The Sunday evening concert will be at 8 pm in St. Augustin’s Church. Tourists and Islanders have been marking it on their summer calendars for years. The concert is just one of many events over the weekend that highlight Acadian culture in the Rustico area. Rustico is Lennie Gallant’s home so his friends and family love to hear him perform on the home turf.

Tickets sold out last year. You can purchase them by calling 902-963-3252 at $20 adult / $15 students (under 16). Visa/Master card accepted.

Video follows the story break of Lennie Gallant singing Before We Sell This Car from last years Rendezvous Rustico

Continue reading

Jolie Blon with Dewey Balfa

Cajun music and its connection with the Maritimes is explored in 1983 documentary

Dewey Balfa and Nathan Abshire

Dewey Balfa explains the origins of Cajun music to school children in this clip. The Acadians, exiled from the Maritimes, settled in Louisiana taking their culture with them. Jolie Blon is the most popular Cajun song. It is often referred to as the Cajun National Anthem.

Video follows the story break.  Continue reading

Ron Hynes Man of a Thousand Songs

New movie is about to be released about one of Atlantic Canada’s best singer songwriters

This is the trailer for a new film being made about him. The film will be released in the fall of 2010.

Ron Hynes has been writing and singing songs since I can’t remember when. He’s a great guy. He is generous with other musicians and willingly helps out whenever he can.

Sonny’s Dream video follows the break. Continue reading

Free downloads from True North Records

Downchild, Bruce Cockburn, Catherine MacLellan, Colin Linden, Martin Sexton, Lynn Miles and other featured in free mp3s


The 40 year career of the Downchild Blues Band, now just Downchild, is featured in their new CD I Need A Hat.  True North Records are giving away one mp3 from the CD along with 11 other artists (video after the break)

Continue reading