It's (almost) beginning to sound a lot like Christmas

It’s almost Halloween, and that means … Christmas season will begin at Wal-Mart any day now. I don’t engage in most of the frenzied lead-up to Christmas. Sometime around Thanksgiving, we’ll put up the tree and string up lights on the eves. If we’re lucky, we’ll send out the family letter before New Year’s. And when I get into the mood, I’ll pull out some Christmas music and give it a spin on the stereo.

In keeping with my listening habits during the other 11 months, I tend to avoid the usual suspects when it comes to Christmas music. Thankfully, there’s a world of great Holiday tunage beyond Bing Crosby, Burl Ives and country megastars. Here are several of my favorites:

The Roches, “We Three Kings” (1990): My all-time favorite Christmas disc is by the Roche sisters from New York City, Maggie Terre and Suzzy. The Roches have made a lot of music over the years, as a trio, individually, or in various combinations with siblings and children. Most of it is folk-tinged songs with close, sisterly vocal harmonies. But, as the liner notes explain, they got their start by singing Christmas carols on the streets of NYC. This disc is just a joy – sacred and secular music from all eras.

John Fahey, “The New Possibility: John Fahey’s Guitar Soli Christmas Album:” This 1993 reissue includes guitarist Fahey’s first disc of Christmas music originally issued in 1968, along with 11 songs from a second volume released in 1975. Fahey is a true original. Fahey applied finger-picking techniques from pre-World War II blues and country music to a broad variety of musical idioms. Beginning in 1959, he made some remarkable guitar music that defied category, yet was utterly distinctive and original. He died in 2001.

Pink Martini, “Joy to the World” (2010): This Portland band, sometimes associated with the neo-swing movement that emerged in the 1990s, actually plays quite an eclectic mix of music that includes a lot of jazz and standards, mixed with original material. On this holiday disc, eclecticism rules, with both American and Japanese versions of “White Christmas;” a Ukranian bell carol; opera; songs from a variety of cultures and winter holiday celebrations; an original composition; and, yes, several Christmas standards.

Kate and Anna McGarrigle, “The McGarrigle Christmas Hour” (2005): Canada’s First Family of Folk, led by (the late) Kate and Anna McGarrigle, gather the clan – children, siblings, in-laws, outlaws – for a festive selection of traditional Christmas songs from several cultures, pop music, standards, and originals. Just surrender and let the vocal harmonies and acoustic arrangements wash over you. Family in every sense of the word.

  

Other favorites from the Ostdiek home:

Wynton Marsalis, “Crescent City Christmas Card” (and its sequel, “Christmas Jazz Jam”)

Carpenters, “Christmas Portrait”

Vince Guaraldi, “A Charlie Brown Christmas”

James Taylor at Christmas

Carols for Christmas Vols. I and II, Royal College of Music Chamber Choir and Brass Emsemble

Turning weird, old music into pop gold

In the last post, I shared my enthusiasm for what I call weird, old American music: fiddle tunes, blues, early country, bluegrass, western swing, and all sorts of music that refuses to be categorized. It’s an adventure to search out this music, give it a listen, and try to understand the people, attitude and culture that produced it.

Over the decades, this musical quest has led me to some talented musicians who have made music that shows a lot of passion, humor, fun, anger, sadness and general humanity. The music may be sound quaint or odd to our ears. The recording quality may be poor (not surprising, if it’s 70, 80 or 90 years old), but a lot of this music still has appeal, even for ears accustomed to radio-friendly current pop, country and hip hop music.

But there’s the thing: Sometimes today’s artists are creating their art by drawing DIRECTLY from weird, old American music. Here are a few examples of pop gold made out of weird old music. Okay, some of it isn’t exactly pop gold. It’s only gold to NPR listeners or Americana fans. But these are thoroughly modern and contemporary recordings made out of source material from weird, old America:

First up, Lily Allen channels Professor Longhair. Here’s Allen’s song, "Knock ‘Em Out:"

Here’s Professor Longhair’s song “Big Chief," from which the piano part was lifted in its entirety:

One could argue that Professor Longhair’s music isn’t as old and weird as, say, Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers. But one thing’s for sure: he’s utterly unique, and his life story is compelling. If you’re not familiar with “Fess,” learn more here: http://www.allmusic.com/artist/professor-longhair-mn0000369270/biography

Next up, for you Boomers, "I’m So Glad" by Skip James:

"I'm So Glad" by '60s power trio Cream, with Eric Clapton on guitar:

"John Henry" by Woody Guthrie:

An electronic version of the song by a band called Snakefarm:

Finally, "Crossroads" by bluesman Robert Johnson:


Like Professor Longhair, Robert Johnson maybe shouldn't be lumped in with some of the more obscure "old, weird" artists. As one of the key forefathers of rock 'n' roll, and a bluesman who died under suspicious circumstances, he's become a legend. But this is a great illustration of how a decades-old song, which was obscure at the time, was made modern and turned to gold. Here's the same song by Cream, with a fresh opening riff by Eric Clapton:

And about 10 year’s later, Steve Miller appropriated Clapton’s guitar lick for his song "Jet Airliner:"

 Does that make Steve Miller the musical step grandson of Robert Johnson?

Weird, old American music

For me, one of the joys of being a music lover for more than four decades has been exploring music from weird, old America. Beyond the well-defined genres and Top 40 playlists, there’s another universe of music that sounds strange to ears that are used to modern, polished pop creations. But once you give the music a chance, it proves to be infectious, passionate, happy, profoundly sad, spiritual, profane, full of wisdom, full of nonsense, and above all utterly original.

If experiencing new music could be compared to going for a drive to look at the scenery, discovering this music is like leaving the paved highway, traveling for miles down a gravel road until it turns to dirt or a trail through a pasture, and finding that it leads to the most beautiful canyon, lake, or meadow ever – something that’s just not visible from the main highway, and if it were somebody would build a McDonald’s there.

A big slice of weird, old American music can be heard in the Anthology of American Folk Music, a six-album collection assembled by filmmaker and music collector Harry Smith and issued in 1952. This set of 84 folk, blues and country songs hugely influenced Bob Dylan and many other folk musicians of the 1950s, ‘60s and beyond. Aside from its influence on a number of influential icons of the folk and rock eras, the Anthology of American Folk music offered a glimpse into a musical expression of a weirder, older, wilder country. The compilation was divided into three two-album volumes: "Ballads", "Social Music", and "Songs." 

Anyway, here are a few songs that fall in the “old, weird” category for me. Some of these artists had recordings on the Anthology of American Folk Music, but I believe that none of these recordings were on the set.

Charlie Poole, If the River Was Whiskey:

Cannon’s Jug Stompers, Walk Right In

Gid Tanner and The Skillet Lickers, Soldier’s Joy:

 Elizabeth Cotton, Freight Train:

Rev. Gary Davis, Candyman:

Mississippi Fred McDowell, Shake ‘Em On Down:

Still relevant after all these years

Forty years ago, singer-songwriter Jackson Browne sang about life as a twentysomething in the hit song “Take It Easy.” He was “standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona” and what did he see? “…  a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me.”

Zoom ahead to 2014 and Browne, now 66 years and 1 week old, is singing about “Leaving Winslow.” That’s the title of one tune from his new album “Standing in the Breach.” But he’s not looking for love anymore: “… I’ll be on this train and I won’t be back again,” he sings.

After 42 years and 14 albums, Jackson Browne is still singing. But it’s a different song, unlike some of his contemporaries who are making a living retreading old hits. Browne is still relevant. His easy-rolling mixture of folk-tinged pop, political awareness and personal insight still shines with intelligence and heart. But he brings a middle-age perspective: often weary, wavering between acceptance and resignation, but still hopeful for the future. Rolling Stone reviewers gave “Standing in the Breach” 4 out of 5 stars. Allmusic.com 3.5 stars.

Any desert-island list of music of my life would include a couple Jackson Browne albums. I charted my emotional growth in my 20s according to Browne’s songs. And on several of his recent albums, I find his music still rings true for a fiftysomething guy who’s been around the block but holds on to bits of idealism and hope for the future.

Browne is not coasting into his golden years by rehashing golden oldies, like some of his contemporaries. In fact, he’s far from alone. A number of other singer-songwriters of his generation are still committed to making music of substance. Some iconic names come to mind: Paul Simon, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan. Dylan has recorded several absolutely essential (and fun) albums in the 2000s and in November will issue “The Basement Tapes Complete,”  a fresh version of legendary 1967 home recordings made with The Band and first issued in the 1970s. The new release is mastered from the recently found original tapes and is said to include all the songs that were recorded.

But beyond the megastars, a lot of artists who are highly respected but not household names are still making meaningful music, 30 or 40 years into their careers. And their music reflects the concerns and perspectives of people of a certain age. Of these artists, several who come to mind are John Hiatt, Lucinda Williams, Rosanne Cash, Rodney Crowell, and Richard Thompson.

Which of your favorite artists from earlier years are still making relevant music?

Browne and his band performing “Leaving Winslow” on Late Night with David Letterman in early October: 

The Fan I Am, Part 3: Going digital, from CDs to hard drive and streaming music

This blog is about music, not technology. But please bear with a discussion of gear for one post, while I describe the technology I’m using these days to store music and play it back. It’ll be painless, I promise, and you might find it useful if you still have CDs but want to get rid of them.

There comes a time in life for many people when they’re ready to own less stuff. My wife and I reached that point a year or two ago. The closets, kitchen cabinets, garage, basement – all seemed to be full of things we hadn’t used in years, didn’t fit, or were out of date. Our kids are grown and out on their own. We have garage sales every couple years. But still our four-bedroom house is mostly full.

So it’s time to get serious about divesting ourselves of several decades’ worth of accumulated stuff. But among the useless things are some precious possessions, like my collection of 2,000 or so compact discs. I’ve spent a lifetime collecting music. I can’t part with the music, but I’m also unwilling to pack and move boxes and boxes of CDs the next time we move. The solution, of course, is ripping the CDs to a computer hard drive, so they can be played on my home stereo system (remember those?) or some other type of player. Then I can sell or give the CDs away. This process has entailed months of research and decision-making.

The initial chore is to rip the CDs to a storable audio format and save them onto a hard drive. This decision was actually the easiest. I already had decided that the CDs would be converted to FLAC, a lossless audio format with sound quality equal to compact discs. Lossless means that the audio file doesn’t lose any sound quality when converted. A much more popular audio format is MP3, which also allows a smaller file size. iPods and smart phones play MP3 files, and Amazon and iTunes sell them for download. But MP3 audio files use lossy data compression – they lose quality when converted. FLAC files take more hard-drive space, but sound better.

What made the choice of ripping and storing technology easy was the availability of an out-of-the-box, plug-and-play solution known as the Vortexbox Appliance. Sold by Small Green Computer, (http://shop.smallgreencomputer.com) , the Vortexbox appliance comes in several different configurations with several sizes of hard drive, from 1 to 4 terabytes. Each terabyte of memory will hold about 3,000 CDs. These devices run Vortexbox, an open-source software that rips songs from CDs, tags them with the appropriate information, adds them to a database, and stores them as FLAC audio files. The Vortexbox appliance is connected by Ethernet cable to our home wireless router.

Choosing the playback system took a lot more time and research. I ultimately chose Sonos (http://www.sonos.com), another plug-and-play solution that is as simple to set up and use as the Vortexbox appliance. And the two are compatible. Sonos is a wireless speaker system that also is a self-contained player. In other words, a single Sonos unit will replace your CD player, AM-FM receiver, and speakers, all with no wires to connect – just a power cord to plug in.

Sonos makes a number of models of different sizes, from one-speaker units up to five. Mine is a $400 Sonos Play 5, with five speakers: a 3.5-inch woofer, two 3-inch midrange speakers, and two tweeters. Each speaker is individually powered by a dedicated amplifier. The Play 5 fits well on a bookshelf, at 8.5 inches tall, 14.5 inches wide, and a little less than 5 inches deep. If you want stereo separation, you can pair two of them. Sonos also makes several smaller models, the Play 3 and Play 1, as well as a subwoofer, home theater speaker bar, and several other devices. You can put a Sonos in any room in the house (or every room). Each speaker can be set to play independently of the others or in sync with them.
  

The Sonos speakers are controlled by an app installed on a desktop, smartphone, or both. Anybody who uses iTunes or other music software can handle this app. The Sonos system plays back music files from any computer or storage device connected to your home wireless network (like my Vortexbox appliance). It also plays streaming music services, including iTunes Library, Amazon, Google Play, Songza, Spotify, Pandora, Hype Machine, Beats Music, and Sirius XM internet radio. It will also play streaming signals from radio stations, both local and anywhere else in the world.

To my ears, the Sonos sounds very nearly as good as my home stereo system, an NAD 50-watt receiver driving a Cambridge Soundworks speaker system with subwoofer. The bass probably isn’t as strong, but a Sonos subwoofer would cure that.

Before choosing Sonos I also considered several other playback systems. One was the Logitech Squeezebox, which will play music from network-connected computers or storage devices over an existing home stereo. The other was Bluesound, a wireless system similar to Sonos in some ways, but with a better audiophile pedigree. Bluesound is a pretty new product, but the Logitech Squeezebox has been around for awhile and has many adherents on various internet discussion forums.

I also briefly considered several different models of small, all-in-one player and storage units. These look like a CD player and connect to speakers in place of a CD player and amplifier. But compared to Sonos or Bluesound, they tend to have smaller hard drives, clunkier user interfaces, and don’t play streaming music services.

In the end, Sonos got the nod because it is extremely easy to set up and use, plays a wide variety of music and radio sources, and sounds very good in my home. I probably would have been happy with the Logitech or Bluesound systems, too. 

The next challenge is getting all the CDs ripped onto the Vortexbox appliance. In five or six months, I’ve managed to rip about two-thirds of my collection. I slip discs into the device while I’m eating breakfast or lunch, or while I’m hanging out around home during the evening. With any luck, I’ll be finished by the end of the year.

Question: Has anybody else made the conversion from CDs? How did you do it?