Let’s talk about a different kind of perfect storm, shall we? From funk to folk.
Last week, my wife picked up the “Anthology of American Folk Music”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000001DJU/celticknotwor-20 the Smithsonian’s historic collection of old tunes sung by old voices through a near constant scratch and hiss of low-tech recording. Difficult listening if you’re just bopping around town, but facinating if you can sit down and listen.
She also picked up “a Pete Seeger compilation”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000IWNA/celticknotwor-20 for me. Pete Seeger recorded a lot of this material using modern methods, which is great — it helped expose the tunes to folks who couldn’t take the low-fi versions. But listening to Pete Seeger is challenging in its own way. He sounds a little patronizing.
Someone who does *not* sound patronizing is Bruce Springsteen. “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000EU1PNC/celticknotwor-20 ( special for you, fRedline[1]: the “Yahoo Music Engine link”:http://yme.music.yahoo.com/ymeNav/ymu/album/31904285 ) is the kind of album that demonstrates for me the value of the efforts of “Smithsonian Folkways”:http://www.folkways.si.edu/index.html and those who document the music in its original form. Although Springsteen sounds like he’s doing a Steve Earle impersonation — or maybe Steve Earle is doing a Springsteen impersonation? — you get used to it fast. Springsteen’s backing band almost overshadows him, though, approaching country, bluegrass, celtic, gospel, and blues styles with a relaxed, dixieland-like jam rock. This album is a new favorite for me, and that doesn’t happen often.
fn1. Unless you’re subbed to YME, you’ll probably only get 30 second samples, and what you have to do to *hear* those is probably not worth the labor. Just buy the freaking album.
