This is the music, in no particular order, that I've most enjoyed listening to in 2020:
Bruce Springsteen - Letter To You: '... you just need to turn it up really loud on a long, fast drive through a heartbroken summer night to hear Springsteen for the damaged hero he is. But that ensemble euphoria does work best live, when the bass is rattling through the blood and bones of hundreds of collected humans. The live recording of this record really helps deliver that communal feeling. They feel so present and close that listeners might feel they’re violating the pandemic rules. They rollick through the “Janey Needs a Shooter” and the Dylanesque “Song for Orphans”, both of which Springsteen wrote back in 1973. But it’s the new material that really catches fire. The band blaze through “Ghosts” and “Last Man Standing”, with “House of a Thousand Guitars” soaring above the lot. Driven by the supple rise and fall of a hymnal piano melody, the song is a commentary on songwriting. Springsteen, who’s been wonderfully frank about his lifelong struggle with depression, expresses solidarity with other writers “bitter and bored” who “wake in search of the lost chord”. As the champion of the working Americans who’ve been sold out by the Trump presidency, he delivers a verse on “the criminal clown” who has “stolen the throne”. But he offers the communion of music as a way to rise above and beyond material misery.'
Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways: '“I sing the songs of experience like William Blake,” Bob Dylan growls, introducing his 39th epistle on the follies, frustrations and secret strengths of a species at war with itself, “I’ve got no apologies to make.” He’s the rebel poet, approaching twilight, laying out generations of hard-earned wisdoms with no punches pulled and no regrets. At 79, following a trio of covers albums of American standards largely associated with Sinatra, you might expect Dylan to make a world-worn and contemplative sort of record, but one that had little left to say. Instead, with ‘Rough And Rowdy Ways’, he’s produced arguably his grandest poetic statement yet, a sweeping panorama of culture, history and philosophy peering back through assassinations, world wars, the births of nations, crusades and Biblical myths in order to plot his place in the great eternal scheme. Rough? Perhaps, but it certainly has the warmth and lustre of the intimate and home-made. And rowdy? Dylan’s sure been rowdier ... Instead he requires of his band just a series of soft and simple canvasses, woven largely from gentle spiritual, lustrous country, Southern blues or gothic Americana – often resembling enclosed, traditionally structured atmospheres rather than songs – onto which he can project his sprawling literary visions of death, degradation and the horrors of history.'
Deacon Blue - City Of Love: 'They continue to conjure anthems that celebrate love, work, faith, hope, going out, and coming home ... we find Ricky Ross writing from a more personal – and maybe more vulnerable – viewpoint than before. City of Love seeks out the quiet moments, far from the bombast. From the solace of shared candle-light (the glorious, Fleetwood Mac-invoking 'In Our Room') to the solitude of nature (the gospel-rock of 'A Walk In The Woods'), it is poignant, pensive, yet never maudlin. If 'Intervals' stunning, astral pop reminds us of the ticking clock ('so little time'), then the swoon-inducing soul of 'Come On In' urges us to make the most of our days, and nights.'
Sufjan Stevens - The Ascension: Stevens 'felt inspired to create a whole record that examined the world he was living in, questioning it when it felt wrong and “exterminating all bullshit“. The sprawling results of this personal interrogation, which play out over a glitchy 80 minutes, serve as a powerful dissection of modern humanity. Filled with universal anguish and anxieties, ‘The Ascension’ ... takes a weary look at the outside world and out comes a deep sigh ... anxious instrumentals echo the album’s uneasy outlook and fear of the future, and when they combine forces it often makes for an astonishing listen. The world is pretty shitty at the moment and it’s easy to feel helpless, but as the horror show that is 2020 continues to rumble on, ‘The Ascension’ is yet another ample soundtrack to rage-dance to.'
Gregory Porter - All Rise: 'It’s not all just about that great voice. Gregory Porter also has a mighty generosity of spirit, plus empathy, warmth and optimism. And he has gathered a superb team around him to make a strong album with plenty of scale and depth ... All these contributions weave around Porter himself and strengthen what he does. The singer has written of “Revival Song”, written in memory of Freddie Gray, the 25-year old who died in police custody in Baliimore in 2015: “It’s about finding your source of strength to bring you back to seeing who you truly are so that you can be restored to the giant that you are.” That is what Gregory Porter, with help from some fine musicians has achieved with All Rise in 2020.'
Michael McDermott - What In The World: 'Chicago born McDermott’s poetic reflections on the parlous predicament of American politics and humanity in general always repay closer investigation, and “What in the World..” must rank as his most compelling offering to date. The Dylanesque title track points an accusing finger at the inhumanities perpetrated by the Trump regime via a tumbling flood of memorable lyrical images, contrasting beautifully with the much more low key charms of “Positively Central Park” and “New York,Texas,” a subdued gem strongly reminiscent of “Nebraska” era Springsteen at his brilliant best.'
Scott Stapp - The Space Between the Shadows: 'This album is powerful, it is beautiful and I can guarantee that every person reading this will be able to relate to the lyrical content throughout…we have all fought our demons to one extent or another but Scott has laid his soul bare and I am sure he is a very different man from the one prior to writing and recording The Space Between the Shadows. The album title tells a story of its own and although this is as dark as hell it is also full of light, hope and redemption. Scott Stapp is back and I lay odds he is better, stronger and much wiser than before.'
Bill Fay - Countless Branches- 'Countless Branches is the third of Fay's later-period albums, following Life Is People (2012) and Who Is the Sender? (2015). It might just be the best, too. It's palatable and concise, comprising ten tracks with bonuses pushing the total to 17. An incorrigible grouch might bridle at these guileless, gently philosophical songs, but they're delivered with such obvious sincerity that the rest of us will be charmed. As ever, Fay focuses on the search for meaning and substance in everyday life.'
Buddy & Judy Miller - 'Breakdown on 20th Avenue South': '... out of the ashes of loss, abandonment and melancholy, the songwriter has emerged like a phoenix for the sizzling Breakdown on 20th Ave. South (New West Records), the couple’s first duet record since 2009’s Written in Chalk. As much a testament to faith and forgiveness as it is a pulsating chronicle of a marriage beset by physical and emotional challenges, the album, which takes its name from the Music Row-adjacent street on which the couple resides in Nashville, ranks among the year’s finest.'
The Innocence Misson - 'See You Tomorrow': Don Peris says, “There is a longing there to be transformed and a hopeful expectation that it is possible,” he explains. “I find joy, or a similar type of joy, in all of the songs,” he concludes. “A humble recognition of challenges and hardships, the acknowledgment and comfort in knowing that they are both personal and universal, and the expression of light and hope.” 'Focusing on the world that exists within our own heartbeats, The Innocence Mission has created a disc that finds truth in the connections binding us to each other. See You Tomorrow radiates a sense of love and warmth to help us through moments when those same commodities may be in short supply.'
Mavis Staples shared a new collaboration with Jeff Tweedy, “All in It Together,” with all proceeds from the track going to charity. “The song speaks to what we’re going through now — everyone is in this together, whether you like it or not,” Staples said in a statement. “It doesn’t matter how much money you have, what race or sex you are, where you live…it can still touch you. It’s hit so many people in our country and around the world in such a horrible way and I just hope this song can bring a little light to the darkness. We will get through this but, we’re going to have to do it together. If this song is able to bring any happiness or relief to anyone out there in even the smallest way, I wanted to make sure that I helped to do that.”
Michael McDermott's What In The Worlddelivers a propulsive punch that reflects anger and passion hurtles out of the starting gate as Subterranean Homesick Blues meets We Didn’t Start The Fire. He rattles off lyrics about a new world order with “walls along the border/Kids in cages/Executive orders/Welfare for billionaires/People hungry everywhere”, dropping in references to James Joyce, Paul Revere, the President and Iron Eyes Cody, as he presciently declares “Dark days coming for the U.S.A.”.
H.E.R., "I Can't Breathe." Backed by a spare beat and atmospheric choir, the 23-year-old R&B star sings with a soulfully aching, yearning voice and adds potent spoken-word passages about generations of pain, fear and anxiety.
Sounds of Blackness, "Sick and Tired." After five decades of preaching positivity, the Twin Cities ensemble got fired up post-George Floyd, adapting civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer's classic 1964 refrain into the fiercest, most powerful song in their repertoire. This horn-blasted, gospel-infused call to action is the perfect sound coming from Minneapolis in 2020.
Mickey Guyton, "Black Like Me." Sonically, this piano ballad could fit seamlessly on contemporary country radio. Her heartbreak is about being different in a small town and in Nashville. "If you think we live in the land of the free," the Black country vocalist croons with pain in her voice, "you should try to be Black like me."
Rosanne Cash, "Crawl Into the Promised Land." The oft-outspoken singer-songwriter serves up a haunting, hopeful, swampy acoustic blues anthem. "Deliver me from tweets and lies/ and purify me in the sun," she sings.
Lucinda Williams, "Man Without a Soul." With its warbly, slashing guitar, this slow-burn blues tears into a certain president without mentioning his name. The song has more dignity and soul than its target.
Jim White made a video for The Divided States of America, the final song from his new album, Misfit's Jubilee: "I'm typically not the political type but these times we're riding out here, they're anything but typical. At this moment in our collective history it makes sense that voices normally content to remain silent should be lifted in outrage, howling, exhorting our minds and hearts to focus on a singular goal---higher ground for all, not just the rich folks."
This is the music, in no particular order, that I've most enjoyed listening to in 2018:
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Wrong Creatures: "Darkness and despair resonate across Wrong Creatures, the new album by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, as it evokes death and an attitude confronting loss and its effects in life. Wrong Creatures takes on loss and pain with emotional depth and imaginative arrangements, documenting a dark attitude despite fear and despair growing across its deep tracks and musical explorations." (popMATTERS)
Robert Plant - Carry Fire: "With a title that evokes primal discovery and heroic burden, Carry Fire finds Plant nuancing the mystic stomp of yore for darkening times. “New World…” is a wearily surging “Immigrant Song” for the age of xenophobic travel bans; “Bones of Saints” surges with “Going to California” promise, then becomes an anthem against mass shootings. The overall feel is at once ancient and new, cutting Led Zeppelin III‘s Maypole majesty with the Velvet Underground’s careful guitar violence (see the “All Tomorrow’s Parties”-tinged “Dance With You Tonight”), and the patient power of Plant’s golden-god-in-winter singing can be astonishing." (Rolling Stone)
Joy Williams - Venus: "There is something spine-tinglingly thrilling about “Venus,” the fourth full-length solo album from Joy Williams, but the first since the 2014 demise of her Grammy-winning roots duo Civil Wars. You can actually hear the California native, a former contemporary Christian-pop singer, discover who she is as she moves through this unsparingly intimate, deeply moving 11-song cycle. If fans and critics argued about which genre the Civil Wars should be slotted into — folk? country? Americana? — the debate should be less confusing now that Williams has fully embraced her inner Kate Bush (and Peter Gabriel and Portishead), zooming into the present with an ambient sound that elegantly threads together folk authenticity, pop instincts, and trip-hop grooves. Whether standing inside her aching heart in the dramatic “Until the Levee,” letting it bleed on the haunting piano ballad “One Day I Will,” or offering up a breathtaking “What a Good Woman Does,” Williams is never less than truthful. The album closes with the poignant “Welcome Home,” cementing the sense that Williams has found her own." (Boston Globe)
Beth Rowley - Gota Fria: A Spanish weather term 'Gota Fría' struck Rowley as the perfect album title. It describes “long periods of the clouds breaking off and remaining stationary for weeks and then sudden violent clashes of warm and cold currents. I thought it was a beautiful name, and an awesome album title, because the meaning is so bold and a perfect image of my own journey.” A heady fusion of rock, blues and Americana 'Gota Fría' is a startling rebirth, with a confidence that belies that ten-year absence ... 'Howl at the Moon' and 'Only One Cloud', evoke the swarthy drama of Led Zeppelin while 'Brother' and 'Run to the Light' are ember-glowing ballads. 'Hide from Your Love' and 'Forest Fire' splice country-folk roots with the vibe and energy of the Bristol scene that gave birth to her voice while 'Get it Back' is equal parts rock and soul and 'Brave Face' nods to the '70s west coast sound." (Rough Trade)
Bob Dylan - More Blood, More Tracks: "Dylan is at the peak of his talents here and he captured lightning in a bottle with these songs. That’s the thing that really strikes me about this release: how damn fine these songs are ... In terms of the spare backing, it only serves to illustrate what an incredible artistic leap Dylan made here. There’s a reason why this material was considered a “comeback.” The early 70’s were an erratic muddle in terms of his output ... With this batch of songs, Dylan was inspired, focused and reinvigorated. Melodically and lyrically, this was a whole different level than he was operating on before. It’s the sound of an artist taking hold of the reins of his talents and digging his spurs in." (Soundblab)
Switchfoot - Where The Light Shines Through: "We sing because we’re alive. We sing because we’re broken. We sing because we refuse to believe that hatred is stronger than love. We sing because melodies begin where words fail. We sing because the wound is where the light shines through. We sing because hope deserves an anthem." (Jon Foreman)
Gavin Byars - Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet: "The names of more than 165 homeless people who died in London in the past year, were read at the Annual Service of Commemoration at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square last Thursday. The church was packed with friends, family members, homeless charity workers and volunteers. Gavin Byars [and his group played] 'Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet' as the congregation was invited to come up one by one and take a prayer card with the name of one person who died." Byars' "anthem for the homeless" "began as a 26-second recording of a nameless rough sleeper." "What makes Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet such a lasting treasure is that, through it, a nameless old man continues to live, as vividly and stoically as one of Samuel Beckett’s homeless characters ... He is confirmation of Beckett’s understanding that “the tears of the world are a constant quality. For each one who begins to weep, someone somewhere else stops.”
Mavis Staples - If All I Was Is Black: "If All I Was Was Black is an album about American perspectives and the compassion it takes to see the world from someone else’s point of view. Tweedy understands that his songwriting credits might lead some listeners to think the album represents his perspective rather than Staples’. “I don’t think I put anything in Mavis’ mouth that she didn’t want to sing,” he told the L.A. Times. “Tweedy knows me,” was her response. A singer of remarkable power and expression, Staples essentially rewrites these songs simply by singing them, imbuing each line with fine gradients of emotion and authority. She emerges as the active agent in the project, delivering these songs from her perspective as a black woman, as an artist, as a daughter and sister, even as a Christian." (Pitchfork)
Gillian Welch - Boots No. 1: The Official Revival Bootleg: "As if blown down Broadway by a summer Appalachian wind, enveloped in a melancholic hue and wrapped in a dust-stained blanket, you’d be forgiven for thinking Gillian Welch comes from an earlier time – down from the hills to kickstart a roots revival. Yet, despite looking like she’d been lifted straight off a Gatlinburg porch, Welch arrived in Nashville from LA – Dave Rawlings, her partner, hails from Rhode Island – in search of some kind of rural spiritual awakening after time spent in goth and surf-guitar bands. It didn’t take long for the pair to make their mark and, with the release of their debut album Revival in 1996, start a musical partnership that still remains as strong, vital and nigh-on essential some 20 years later. Made up in essence of outtakes, demos, and alternate takes, Boots No.1 is a welcome twin-album celebration of one of Americana’s benchmark recordings. Producer T Bone Burnett’s trademark sound oozes from every pore, and there’s magic afoot from the off." (Country Music)
Michael McDermott - Out From Under: Since his debut album, 620 W. Surf back in 1991 (when he was tarred with the new Dylan curse), McDermott has released a further ten albums (this is his eleventh) as well as two with Heather as The Westies, the quality of his writing and delivery never dipping. For whatever reason, for two decades, they failed to connect with audiences and constant rejection caused him to question himself and led him into a self-destructive spiral. But then, already turning his life around, with 2016’s Willow Springs everything seemed to click, critically and commercially. The confidence may have faltered, but the talent never has and now, finally, they are aligned and, both personally and musically, he’s become the man he was always meant to be. As he sings on Never Goin’ Down Again, “For the first time it feels, I’m odds on to win.” I’ve placed my bet." (folk radio)
‘April is the cruellest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain.’ Those are the opening lines of T.S. Eliot’s iconic poem entitled ‘The Waste Land'. April was the cruellest month for the protagonist of ‘The Waste Land’ because the new life of Spring mocked the lack of the life - the depth of death-like despair - that he felt in relation to his life and his society.
The spirit of the Lord set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones ... and they were very dry. Today’s reading from the Hebrew Scriptures (Ezekiel37:1-14) begins in a similar place to ‘The Waste Land’. The valley of dry bones that Ezekiel enters in his vision equates to Eliot’s poem because it is a place with all the life sucked out of it, a place of dryness, desert and death. In his poem Eliot was articulating ‘the disillusionment of a younger post–World War I generation with the values and conventions—both literary and social—of the Victorian era’, while for Ezekiel the Valley of Dry Bones equated to Israel’s exile from the Promised Land and the sense of helplessness and hopelessness felt by the whole house of Israel and summed up in what was a common saying of their time, "Our bones are dried up."
During Lent we actively choose to go into the dryness of the wilderness and be cut off, together with Jesus, in order to pray but there are also times and seasons in our lives and in our society when we think and feel that we are in a Valley of Dry Bones. Meg Warner draws on her personal experience in our Lent book to explain how this feels when it affects us personally. She writes, ‘It may be that you are stuck in the depths of Lent, perhaps facing an impossible choice, or perhaps feeling that there are no choices open to you at all … You may simply be carrying the weight of an unfulfilled longing for something that appears to be quite impossible … Your longing may be for work, for home, for intimacy, for a child, or for a number of other things which you lack and without which life feels unpalatable or pointless.’
In ‘The Waste Land’ and Ezekiel’s Vision, the sense of hopelessness is political as well as personal. Similarly, there is much that we may wish to lament as we look at life on Planet Earth today. We are witnessing the death of environments and species around our world. ‘More than 700 mammals and birds currently threatened with extinction already appear to have been adversely affected by climate change, according to a major review of scientific studies’; a situation not helped by Donald Trump’s most recent Executive Order. Climate change, poverty and conflict are forcing mass movements of people across our world and we are, perhaps, witnessing the death of compassion in response to those who are migrants; as hostile environments are being created for immigrants and travel bans or walls used to keep people out.
Austerity measures are increasingly causing crises in education, healthcare, prisons, and social care. In their powerful book, The Body Economic, David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu show that austerity is having a "devastating effect" on public health in Europe and North America. Thousands of additional suicides and millions of extra cases of depression have been recorded across the two continents since governments started introducing austerity programmes. ”Recessions can hurt,” Stuckler and Basu write, “But austerity kills."
To give just one example of the impact that austerity cuts are having in he UK, Lady Jane Campbell wrote recently in The Guardian that while the UK has been a world leader on disability rights, now ‘current and future generations of disabled people face the slow, inexorable slide back towards social death once again.’ This is because ‘Disabled people are confronting the spectre of re-institutionalisation as councils and clinical commissioning groups limit the amount they spend on individual packages of support.’ The Care Act, she argues, ‘fails to ensure disabled people’s right to independent living, and swingeing cuts in health, social care and benefits are eroding the availability of support and people’s right to exercise choice and control.’
Eliot’s poem provides only a hint of hope for those who find themselves in their own Waste Land but Ezekiel’s response in his vision is significantly different from that of The Waste Land’s protagonist. Ezekiel spoke prophetically about the situation of sterility and death in which he found himself. We might expect the prophetic voice in that situation to be the voice of Eliot’s protagonist, a lament for all that has been lost and a keening cry for all that has died. Instead, Ezekiel’s prophecy was a word of life. Ezekiel’s prophecy was that the Lord God would cause breath to enter the dry bones so they would live.
As a result, Ezekiel’s prophecy shows us God working with what is there. There is no replacement of the dry bones and no moving of Ezekiel to a better valley. Ezekiel’s vision promises that it is precisely in the place where hope seems to have died that resurrection will occur. This means that God starts with what is already there, the dry bones; so this prophecy is about recognising, valuing and using what we already have. It is about beginning with our assets, not our deficits, and recognising that addressing, instead of avoiding, the problem is actually the way to life and change and resolution.
In their book The Abundant Community John McKnight and Peter Block argue that, by contrast, our consumer society constantly tells us that we are insufficient and that we must purchase what we need from specialists and systems outside of our immediate resources and community. They suggest that when we outsource health care, child care, recreation, safety and satisfaction, we are actually being trained to become consumers and clients, not citizens and neighbours. It is, therefore, arguable that our social fabric – our sense of real community - has been unravelled by consumerism and its belief that however much we have, it is not enough. To recognise that in ourselves and in our communities we already have the capacity to address our human needs, in ways that systems never can, is to challenge the mantra of consumerism.
In the Membership Pack for HeartEdge, the new network of churches St Martin’s is initiating, we argue that this is equally true for churches, their congregations and communities. That we can do unbelievable things by starting with our assets, not our deficits; that we all have gifts to offer, even the most seemingly marginal among us. Using our particular assets (our skills, experience, insights and ideas) we have the God-given power to create a hope-filled life and can become architects of a future where we want to live.
Following Ezekiel’s prophecy further we can then see that the individual dry bones are joined together to form skeletons on which sinews and skin grow to fashion living bodies. St Paul also used this same illustration of a body with each part in its right place playing its rightful role, in his case to create a picture of the Church as the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12). Again, this suggests that we can do unbelievable things, but this time the focus is on our doing them together; starting with each another’s assets, not our deficits. Sharing our particular assets with others and receiving those of others fosters a wider understanding and models the practice of hospitality. McKnight and Block suggest we can nurture voluntary, self-organizing structures in our communities that will reveal our gifts and allow them to be shared to the greatest mutual benefit. By doing this we will find our way to becoming abundant communities that open space for generosity and cooperation.
Similarly, in HeartEdge, we are saying to the Church that rather than beginning with our hurts and our stereotypes, as happens in a community of fear, and finding a hundred reasons why we can’t do things or certain kinds of people don’t belong, if we take off labels like disabled or wealthy or migrant or evangelical or single and instead see qualities like passion or commitment or generosity or enthusiasm or humility, then there’s no limit to what a community of hope can do.
Starting with our assets and those of others around us provides the structure or skeleton that God can then animate with his Spirit – his qualities of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – to truly bring renewed life, change and growth. That is the journey of Lent, because it is the journey of Christ’s Passion; through the experience of crucifixion and death to resurrection and renewal, and beyond.
We may well, in some senses, inhabit a Valley of Dry Bones or a Waste Land personally or socially. All is not lost, however, as in Ezekiel’s vision by starting where we are with our assets and by coming together to release and share our gifts we find the power to create a hope-filled life and become the architects of a future where we want to live. It may even be that we need to experience the scarcity of the Waste Land in order to then see, appreciate and value the new life of God’s kingdom. As one song says ‘… sometimes, you need the darkness / In order to ever see the light.’ (Michael McDermott, I Know A Place)
One of the great pleasures of 2012 for me was discovering the music of Bill Fay through Life
is People.
Fay's songs are simply astonishing - simple and melodic yet with unusual
imagery and insights (both whimsical and surreal bearing comparison with Syd Barrett and Nick Drake) delivered with gravity and grace. 'Cosmic Concerto (Life Is
People)' is a highlight from a collection of stand-out tracks; a celebration of
the miracle of ordinary life, the infinite variation in each human face, which
stirs his soul. I'm currently absorbing his classic Time Of The Last Persecution; empathy in the face of apocalypse. Humility seems to run throughout his music; both in his low-key, almost hesitant and weathered delivery and in lyrics such as "The never ending happening / Of what's to be and
what has been / Just to be a part of it / Is astonishing to me" ('The Never
Ending Happening') and "I don't ask much, for myself / But for the one's I
love" ('Thank You Lord').
Following on from that discovery, here are some other stunning songwriters who, like Fay, have not achieved the attention that their work actually merits:
Michael Been, The Call's singer/songwriter, was born in Oklahoma City but migrated to California before forming The Call with Scott Musik. Sin and salvation are staples of the diet that The Call served up. Been thought that every fault in the world was within him and said that he had had "hundreds of born-again experiences" needing them because he was dead a lot of the time: "I believe in truth. Whatever is necessary for a person to experience to find the rock bottom, to know the darkness of his life, that's right. A lot of our music is confrontational, it deals with the dark side of life because that teaches us something." Red Moon and Reconciled represent the peak of The Call's work combining literate lyrics with powerful anthems and genuinely encompassing despair, ecstasy and the stages in between.
T. Bone Burnett creates ridiculous satirical morality tales - the marijuana smoking computer operator paying through the nose for free love (The Sixties), the millionaire buying culture in massive fashionable chunks (A Ridiculous Man) and the émigrés selling soft sentiment and soft porn to children (Hefner and Disney). Burnett knows though that judgements are precarious - that what we think we know and what we actually know are often in opposition - so he balances his tales on the jerky, anxious, angular rhythms of his rock 'n' country hybrid, almost like stiltwalking.
Peter Case neatly summed up the dual strands of American music when he wrote in the sleeve notes toPeter Case that he didn't know any songs about America but that these songs were about "sin and salvation". Like Bruce Springsteen, Case has an ability to speak in the voice of those people struggling for a nickel, shuffling for a dime who find themselves caught in relationships that have ensnared them. Theirs is the voice of hope deferred - to someone else (Turning Blue), and the voice of harsh experience - "You don't know it but it's plain to see/You can't tell when you're workin' for your enemy" (Workin' For The Enemy). His eye for colourful detail authenticates his character's tales and adds extra layers of meaning - "So we made love in that place out in back/The last time that we took off our clothes/We took other things and took more than that/I took off with my clothes in a sack and I froze"
Rated "rock’s last great obscurity" by Melody Maker Bruce Cockburn has quietly made a living as a singer/songwriter since 1970 and his self-titled debut while never going all out for fame and fortune. As literate a guitarist as he is a lyricist he fuses sparklingly complex jazz/rock rhythms with metaphor loaded lyricism, as often spoken as sung – "sometimes things don’t easily reduce to rhyming couplets". Forty years plus of consistent, intelligent exploration of the personal, political and spiritual, often within the same song, is no mean achievement. When combined with both an honesty about his own relationship and faith frailties and a willingness to campaign with the likes of Oxfam raging against US and IMF oppression in the two-thirds world, you have to give the man respect. In 1992 in a song, Closer to the Light, written following the death of Mark Heard, Cockburn wrote the line - "There you go/Swimming deeper into mystery" – which seemed to sum the direction in which Cockburn’s work has headed over the course of his long career.
Like Gordan Gano of the Violent Femmes, David Eugene Edwards has a preacher in the family - in Edwards case, his Nazarene preacher Grandfather. Edward's songs not only oscillate around the twin poles of sin and salvation but use the language of the King James version as they do so. If any current music fully inhabits the Southern mindset then surely it is this. 16 Horsepower released their debut album Sackcloth 'N' Ashes in 1995 and, after the eventual demise of 16 Horsepower, DEE continued in similar vein with Woven Hand. As he has said: 'The myths of our country are in the songs. The untold stories and
gaps in history books are in the songs – our recollection is preserved in this
music. Those songs as well as the stories that my parents told me, the bible and
the books I read, all this is the foundation of my imagination of America.'
Formed in 1982 and discovered by Chrissie Hynde busking outside a Pretender's gig, the Violent Femmes were among the first to combine punk's frenzy with country's resignation and gospel's jubilation. That full on clash of contradiction is the raison d'etre of the band (and something they were into long before the idea featured in U2's third coming). "That's the thing about this band," said Gordon Gano their singer/songwriter, "in the songs, in the whole performance of them, there's all different levels of total contradiction going on at the same moment where we are serious and as far from being serious as possible, it's important and also far away from being important". It's also part of the "American tradition" - "Country music has a long tradition of singing horrible songs about drinking and sinning and then doing some sincere gospel numbers". This is where 'Country Death Song' gets its dark inspiration from - "I even think 'Country Death Song' is happy because all the awfulness of the song, it came out of my love for country music and I feel happy when I sing it. I must have a different perspective".
Mark Heard wrote, in 'I Just Wanna Get Warm', "The mouths of the best poets speak but a few words/Then lay down, stone cold, in forgotten fields" - in retrospect that seems prophetic. Just a glimpse into the soul of a man known by so few and yet so deeply missed by so many. The liner notes from the tribute album say it best: "Mark Heard left behind a legacy of music that will undoubtedly impact the lives of many, just as he has impacted the lives of the artists who participated in Strong Hand of Love. The testimony of his brilliance as a poet and artist is undeniably evident throughout this inspiring tribute."
Los Angeles group Love were, in the words of David Fricke, 'the bi-racial folk-rock pirates who made Love and Da Capo in 1966, then the silken psychedelia of Forever Changes in 1967.' 'Although Arthur Lee was the main writer, [Bryan] MacLean contributed some fine songs, including Orange Skies, Old Man and the haunting Alone Again Or, with its flamenco-style guitar and dramatic trumpet flourishes.' ifyoubelieveinis a collection of MacLean's music written when he was in the band and written with Love in mind. 'After an aborted attempt at a solo career ... [MacLean]joined a Christian Fellowship Church called the Vineyard ... During Friday night Bible stints [MacLean] took the concert part of the session and was so amazed at the reaction he gradually assembled a catalogue of his Christian songs.' Taken from the Latin and literally meaning 'within the walls', Intra Muros is the album of "spooky" Christian music MacLean was completing at the time of his death. Due to 'the great strength of songs like the amazing Love Grows In Me and My Eyes Are Open', Intra Muros 'stands as fine testament to the ability of a great songwriter.'
Michael McDermott's trademark embrace is "of faith and hope in the face of adversity." His lyrics are "uniquely evocative" as he "sings in poetry", his tunes being "literate story-songs." Stephen King wrote of him: “Michael McDermott is one of the best songwriters in the world and possibly the greatest undiscovered rock ‘n’ roll talent of the last 20 years.” In “Mess of Things,” McDermott sings, “the trouble with trouble is that it sometimes sticks/plays tricks with your mind while it gets its kicks/And slowly there’s a momentum shift/And the weight becomes too great to lift.” McDermott sings about a world where “everybody is bleeding, or everybody is filled with doubt,” and yet he sings, “say the word/And I shall be healed.”
'After the Flood' from Lone Justice's debut album neatly fits Maria McKee's description of country music - "originally Country music was very raw and very spiritual and very gut-level". With a half brother (Bryan MacLean) from seminal 60s LA band Love and Victoria Williams as a next-door neighbour growing up ("she taught me my first guitar chords", McKee has said and they sang briefly together before their separate careers took off), the emphasis was always likely to be on the raw, spiritual and gut-level rather than the country aspect of the definition. By the time McKee recorded her second solo album You Gotta Sin To Get Saved, with a band that included Jayhawks, Gary Louris and Mark Olson (then Williams' husband), she felt she was standing still, merely reprising her work with Lone Justice. She responded by recording the critically acclaimed album Life Is Sweet. Here she felt her songwriting becoming "crystal and dramatic ... this larger-than-life grandiose thing, sort of riding the fine line of bad taste". Grunge based and coruscating on tracks like 'Scarlover', Life is Sweet sounds a far cry from the cow-punk of Lone Justice but it remains "very raw and very spiritual and very gut-level". At the end of the day that's what matters.
Julie Miller writes nakedly emotional songs which in their aching beauty combine perseverance and faith with sorrow and heartache. Her songs have featured in her solo work, her husband Buddy Miller's solo albums and on several jointly recorded albums. An early song reflecting on the crucifixion asked, 'How can you say No to this man?' The same question can be asked of Miller's confessional work - how can you say no to the grace and openness found therein?
Neal Morse is a US prog rocker who first
made his mark in the band Spock’s Beard and then formed the prog-rock supergroup
Transatlantic. Following his conversion to Christianity in 2000, he left both
bands and has since produced a substantial and well-regarded body of solo work
exploring different aspects of his faith. His fourth solo album
Sola Scriptura, across four tracks and 76 minutes (this is prog
rock we’re talking here!), tells the story of Martin Luther and the Reformation.
Morse says, “The point of it is to point us … toward the light of God's truth
which is laid out wonderfully before us in the scriptures. Of course, this is a
lofty goal for a mere CD, but, with God anything is possible!”
Over The Rhine'sLinford Detweiler and Karen Bergquist say: "... we try to write music that in little ways helps to heal the wounds that life has dealt us or the wounds we’ve dealt ourselves. We try to write songs that can hum joyfully at the stars when something good goes down. We try to write tunes capable of whispering to a sleeping child that in spite of everything, somehow, all is well. We try to write words that help us learn to tell the truth to ourselves and others." “We’re really only reflecting what we’ve already heard,” Detweiler explains, “a mix of all the music we grew up with and were drawn to: old gospel hymns, the country and western music on WWVA, the rock and roll records the kids at school passed around, the symphonic music that my father brought home, the jazz musicians we discovered in college, the Great American Songbook performers that Karin’s mother loved, and of course the various singer-songwriters that eventually knocked the roof off our world. But when this music is reflected back to the listener through the filter of our own particular lives, hopefully it becomes a much different experience (maybe even somewhat unique) for those with ears to hear.”
The Innocence Mission hail from Lancaster, Pennsylvania and own up to a "religious upbringing where our parents lived out their faith rather than evangelised". They formed in 1982 and initially attracted the support of Joni Mitchell and her then husband, Larry Klien. Mitchell called Karen Peris "one of the most interesting singer/songwriters around at the moment", while Klien produced their first two albums (The Innocence Mission and Umbrella). Peris summed up the band's approach when she said "I saw something in a book Float Planes. In the beginning there's a quote from a hymn that said, "When I die hallelujah! Bye bye I'll fly away ..." and that's exactly what I think we want to say." In 'Wonder of Birds', from the first album, they talk of building homes with windows to fly through and this is an apt description of their songs. 'Bright As Yellow' for example, from their third album Glow, is a joyful celebration of that open-handed, open-hearted approach to life, as exemplified by Peris's mother. Peris writes conversational songs that draw significance from the everyday while the band on the earliest albums set these to a swirling, chiming, transcendent version of the 'big' music.
Leslie Phillips sang in Sunday School with Maria McKee and recorded several albums for the CCM label Word before a name change to Sam, a marriage to T-Bone Burnett and a series of critically acclaimed albums often produced by Burnett. Phillips combines a cool pop sensibility with razor-sharp lyrics. A mix that finds her ethereal voice, tinged with melancholy, soaring over like a seagull skimming waves.
Jim White inhabits a world where the natural and supernatural are intertwined and where the ordinary slips seamlessly into the extraordinary. White says in 'Still Waters', "Well, don't you know there are projects for the dead and projects for the living?/Though I must confess sometimes I get confused by that distinction". White's characters have ghosts in their homes, curse ships which promptly sink and serenade the dying ('Still Waters').
Victoria Williams has a naive, folky style which uses images and characters that would not be out of place in a painting by Marc Chagall. This style, however, conceals a great subtlety of approach and a willingness to experiment with musical form in a similar to fashion to that of Van Morrison. Williams builds songs that are not simply a melody running through verses and chorus but which, in tandem with the lyrics, veer off in directions that are consistent with the emotional ebb and flow of the song as a whole. She sees the divine through the local, the ordinary, the common-place, and the natural finding the wind of the Holy Spirit blowing through the building of a raft and duets with a fellow-traveller on the New York underground ('Holy Spirit').
I write more about some of the above in my co-authored book 'The Secret Chord'.
