#NewMusicMonday • October • 2020

A YEAR of #NewMusicMondays  

January-March • April-May • June • July-August • September • October • November • 
My Favorites of 2020

Tomorrow and the days ahead will be one of the most important times in U.S. history. So, we're all going to need some good music to get us through the week. This week's #NewMusicMonday is packed with new songs and covers, and at least ten old songs that you probably have never heard before. Those ten songs are from Tom Petty's 1994 album, Wildflowers. Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Producer, Rich Rubin spent two years making Wildflowers as it originally was going to be a double album with 25 songs. Well, the record company stepped in and as usual mucked things up and said it would be better as a single album that eventually got whittled down to fifteen songs. Here I present the remaining ten songs scattered throughout the playlist with a trailer video of the new super deluxe box set, Wildflowers and All the Rest, just released October 16th. 

At the end of the playlist, I also include a great interview by Malcolm Gladwell with Rick Rubin.

Here's a couple of links that you may want to circle back to and view.

• Wildflowers and All the Rest (YouTube 25 songs)
• Tom Petty's 70th Birthday Bash 

Happy Birthday to Tom on what would have been his 70th Birthday on Oct. 20 and to John Lennon who would have been 80 on Oct. 9. I have included several John songs in the playlist done by artists in honor of his birthday. Damn, both of these guys should be alive today to still give us new joys with their great talents.

As we approach our historical election tomorrow, I have included several new songs that are hopeful toward a change from our current wannabe regime and back to our democratic principles. I'm just so tired of being tired about Trump and now I'm scared to death he is going to win re-election (sometime this month). If that happens, I'm mentally preparing myself for a depression hangover that I hope I can snap out of sooner than later. After 2016 and the last four years, nothing can surprise us anymore, so it's best to prepare for both scenarios with either: the Trump shit show's victory and gloating with no plan for anything, or Biden's win and a new start with strategic planning to tackle the pandemic, economy and our world standing, just to name the tip of the melting iceberg. During these sad years, the end of the innocence came much too quickly for this generation of young people.  

On the lighter side, music will always be here to help us whether we're up or down. There's a life motto that I have adopted from Paul McCartney's Hey Jude lyric - Take a sad song and make it better. So my take from that powerful line-  I/we have the ability to change something negative into something better, by our actions. Together we can, make it better. My ol' buddy and friend to the blog, Paul Hobbs has a new song that I lead with in the playlist, Charity Begins At Home. So no matter the outcome, tomorrow or next week, we can start working to make things better by starting at home with our family and friends. This last paragraph was corny as hell, but I'm going to get up and go install a light above my workbench right now before I delete it.

Enjoy my friends and stay well.

Save The Country, 50 Years Later and the #WrongSideOfHistory

Graphic by Doug McIntosh

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the 50 year anniversary release of Abbey Road by The Beatles. On September 24th 1969, two days before Abbey Road hit the airwaves, Laura Nyro released New York Tendaberry.

Laura is a singer-songwriter best know as a composer much like her New York Brill Building contemporaries in that other people made monster hits from her songs.

Between 1968 and 1970, a number of artists had hits with her songs: The 5th Dimension with "Blowing Away", "Wedding Bell Blues", "Stoned Soul Picnic", "Sweet Blindness", and "Save the Country"; Blood, Sweat & Tears and Peter, Paul and Mary, with "And When I Die"; Three Dog Night with "Eli's Comin'"; and Barbra Streisand with "Stoney End", "Time and Love", and "Hands off the Man." Wikipedia.

During this past year, I've been exploring Laura Nyro and find her completely fascinating. As I got into New York Tendaberry, I discovered the song, Save The Country inspired by the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and the times of the late sixties. 

After listening to Save The Country 50 years later, I couldn't help but link the lyrics with our current political times under one Donald Trump as history's loop-tape back to the civil rights movement and the policies and behavior of the Nixon administration. These lyrics are as relevant today as when Laura Nyro wrote them in 1968 expressing her fortitude with the continual efforts to preserve our democratic principles and the dreams they are built on.

Come on, people, come on, children

Come on down to the glory river

Gonna wash you up and wash you down

Gonna lay the devil down, gonna lay that devil down

Come on, people, come on, children

There's a king at the glory river

And the precious king, he loved the people to sing

Babes in the blinking sun sang "We Shall Overcome"

I got fury in my soul, fury's gonna take me to the glory goal

In my mind I can't study war no more

Save the people

Save the children

Save the country now

Come on, people, come on, children

Come on down to the glory river

Gonna wash you up and wash you down

Gonna lay the devil down, gonna lay that devil down

Come on, people, sons and mothers

Keep the dream of the two young brothers

Gotta take that dream and ride that dove

We can build the dream with love, I know

We can build the dream with love

We could build the dream with love, I know

We could build the dream with love

I got fury in my soul, fury's gonna take me to the glory goal

In my mind I can't study war no more

Save the people

Save the children

Save the country, save the country, save the country

Save the country

Here's four different versions of this patriotic call to save We the People from the #WrongSideOfHistory. Gotta take that dream and ride that dove, we can build the dream with love...

Laura Nyro, from New York Tendaberry, 1969
Complete album on Spotify | YouTube

The 5th Dimension, From Portrait, 1970



Rosanne Cash, From Time and Love - The Music of Laura Nyro, 1997
Complete album on Spotify | YouTube



Shawn Colvin, Chris Botti, and Billy Childs, Map to the Treasure:
Reimagining Laura Nyro, 2014
Complete album on Spotify | YouTube

My Favorite Songs of 2018

In 2018, I've made the time to listen to a lot of new albums. For me, listening to new records for the first time is like mining. In any type of mining, you spend most of your time digging and shifting. In the digs for new music, I'm trying to hear the golden songs that first hook my attention, and then work on my head and heart. 

As AM/FM radio is a wasteland in San Diego except for NPR (including NPR Music), and Jazz 88.3, Amazon Music and YouTube are now my go to digging. I'll also mention the podcasts- WTF with Marc Maron and the Americana Music Show as great resources for expanding my search for fresh songs and learning about the musicians behind the music . 

Music is such a personal thing for all of us. My wife and I love each other but our tastes in music would never have been the magical online dating algorithm to make us a match. I just love it when she gently yells up the stairs to me, "Would you please put your headphones on!"

As this blog took about 15 minutes to write, the playlist (now at 100 songs) has been going on for several months now. I publish it with the hopes that you will find at least a few golden nuggets of song that maybe you have never heard before.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Rosanne Cash Duo - Edmonds Center for the Arts, 1/25/18

Rosanne Cash and John Leventhal - Credit Josh Saul

I'm currently up in Edmonds, Washington visiting family and spending a couple of days with my ol' bud Bill DeVoe in Seattle before he takes off for a trip to Mexico with his wife, Marie.

We're getting a good dose of rain which is nothing new up here, but I'm definitely the So Cal "fish out of water" with the rain steadily falling down this past week. Actually it's been fun wearing jeans, a down jacket and my Vibram sole shoes everyday like when it used to rain in winter growing up on the Central Coast in California. I love my shorts and t-shirt lifestyle down in San Diego, but I'm rather enjoying the cold and constant wet along with the nighttime fireplace with the missus. I also love to listen to the rain gutter drip while you lay in bed just before you go to sleep.

Being in the lovely small town of Edmonds is always fun, and this trip we had the pleasure of seeing Rosanne Cash and her husband, John Leventhal at the 700 seat Edmonds Center for the Arts. Both Mary Kit and I throughly enjoyed this venue as the acoustics of the theater was simply fantastic to match Rosanne's beautiful voice and the guitar playing of  John Leventhal.

The boomer-aged audience were so respectful that you could hear a pin drop during every song. It was also nice not to see even one smartphone make an appearance as apparently everyone in Edmonds actually follows directions when the announcement of no photography was given at the beginning of the show. After seeing several stadium and arena shows in 2017, it was refreshing to hear music given the theater treatment and actually listened to by 100% of the audience.  It's safe to say that we're now following the ECA schedule and we'll be back for future performances! (Darn, missed Randy Newman's show at ECA last October!)

Rosanne and John, billed as the Rosanne Cash Duo are currently on tour, that started here in Edmonds and moves on to several more shows in Washington state, back to Carnegie Hall in New York and then up into Canada. (I searched for a current tour setlist, but so far nothing has been posted online as of this date.)

This show is truly an Americana experience as Rosanne's set plays across her musical catalog including her 80's hits now performed with just the Duo's harmony with two acoustic guitars, or mandolin and piano accompaniment from John. At 62, Rosanne's voice is totally intact to present the couple's songwriting together from her most recent albums, 2014's River & the Thread, and 2009's, The List. 

Rosanne is also a wonderful storyteller as she share's her life experiences and sets up each song so well. With The List she tells the story of her famous father giving her at age 18 a handwritten "list" of 100 "American roots music" essential songs. She still has that list as she learned and preformed many of the classics such as 500 Miles throughout her career. I enjoyed hearing about her going on the road right out of high school for two and half years with Johnny, Carl Perkins and the Carter family. On that tour, she learned many of the Carter family's lexicon backstage with Mother Maybelle Carter who played "badass" guitar along with the other Carter family members.

I also enjoyed learning about Rosanne and John's 23 year marriage and their "all getting along" with first husband, Rodney Crowell who is also a fantastic singer-songwriter. Being 62 myself and living a second marriage in a wonderful blended family with my wife Mary Kit and all our combined children and grandchildren, it is nice to hear their story as well. In fact, Rodney has a new song and video that I featured in My Favorite Songs of 2017, from his Close Ties album called, It Ain't Over Yet which features Rosanne Cash and John Paul White that you must listen to and I've included in this week's playlist. Life is that long winding journey filled with hope, regret and redemption that is often best captured in the written lyric with guitar in hand.

Both MK and I were struck by Rosanne's and John's total partnership- married and coupled with their musical careers, it must be quite a dance, and what a fine dance indeed to see in person. I only write about shows that I really like (you know what mom's say about "if you don't have anything nice to say...") well I have a lot of nice things to say here and that comes easy with such great people as Rosanne Cash and John Leventhal live on stage. Enjoy this playlist my friends.

Note- check out Peter Dervin's Photography of the Edmond's concert @ http://peterdervin.com/20180125_rosanne_cash.html