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September 7, 2007
* ND #71 Revisited
Looking back, as per bimonthly habit, at the new issue of No Depression which has hopefully arrived in your mailbox or on your local newsstand by now....
* It's not often that we include "sidebars" to our articles that are contributed by the article's photographer, but David Wilds' brief aside that he picked up when shooting pedal steel great Lloyd Green seemed too rich not to include. Hank Jr. may think otherwise, but, well...
* Brad Buchholz's piece on Sam Baker in the Town & Country section somehow stood out as a particularly bright light in this issue for me. Maybe it's the glimpses of Texas troubadour greatness that seem to be peeking through Baker's songs, or just the way Buchholz told the story with a fine balance of straightforward narrative and poignant observation. Certainly I could feel a little of Vince Bell in Baker's story, and his music as well. Which is a good thing, indeed.
* I read with some small regret contributing editor Kurt B. Reighley's piece on Carolyn Mark, in which he detailed some of his adventures in attending Mark's record-release show at the end of June in her hometown of Victoria, British Columbia. My wife and I had visited Victoria about a week before that show, as it happens; made me sorta wish our itinerary had been shifted just a few days later. Regardless, it wasn't hard to tell why Mark feels at home in Victoria, which is as delightfully pleasant and quirky as you'd imagine a small Canadian provincial capital on the tip of an island to be. It's a B.C. thing, indeed.
* Holly Gleason's feature on Lori McKenna addressed the challenge of trying to bridge the gap between the acoustic singer-songwriter realm and Nashville's Music Row. Not that McKenna is the first one who has done this -- Mary Chapin Carpenter comes to mid -- but McKenna's attempt seems especially intriguing, and probaby still unresolved. For example, I can't quite figure out how the album's title track can celebrate the down-home pleasures of an "Unglamorous" life while simultaneously being bathed in the bright floodlights of commercial-country sonic production. And yet, I can't deny that the tune sounds great. It's a terrific pop number....it's just not really, well, unglamorous.
* Is our cover boy Josh Ritter ready for prime time? Certainly he's been working hard enough over the past few years to warrant it. Not that hard work makes one a great artist; but if you've got the goods, it sure can help in terms of furthering your career. I've seen Ritter play two or three times over the last couple years, and on each occasion I've been amazed to see how much this guy is willing to reach out to his fans, routinely sticking around and chatting with them for more than an hour after his performance. That alone won't get you recognized; but if you've got the talent -- and Ritter certainly does -- all the hard work will usually pay off.
* Finally, you may or may not have noticed the upgrade in paper we've made, beginning with this issue. It's a small touch but hopefully enough to make at least a little bit of aesthetic difference to discerning devotee of the printed page in an increasingly internetted world....
adios,
peter
Posted by Peter at 6:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)