Logan Melia: What are you drinking there?  

Jano Rix: I’ve got a black tea, a Fiji tips out-of-the-box from out there. 

Logan: Only the highest quality. 

Jano: Only the highest quality with nothing in it. Half a cup of water because that’s what it was like. 

Logan: You got to stay hydrated. Are you a coffee guy usually? Or are you tea?  

Jano: I have coffee in the morning. In fact, my whole life until I don’t know, two years ago, I never drank caffeine. 

Logan: Really? What changed? 

Jano: I don’t know. I started to like getting an espresso, like something sweet, like that one. And then I was like, I literally said, maybe I’ll see what getting a habit is all about with caffeine. And it’s on. So yeah. 

Logan: I just started like three months ago drinking coffee. 

Jano: Really. 

Logan: Yeah, like in college, I was like, I’m not going to do it because I can do it without it. I got this. And then over the summer, I worked at a golf course, and it was earlier mornings than I’ve ever had here at school. And that’s what made me fold. I’m a little disappointed in myself. 

Jano: Yeah, you know, it worked. Getting the habit worked. I got it. The thing about it, though, is that, I don’t know, it doesn’t really work that great if you didn’t get enough sleep. It makes you feel awesome if you got enough sleep, it’s even better. And if you didn’t get enough sleep, then you still feel like crap but jittery. 

Logan: Are you a full 8 hours guy or?  

Jano: I’m in a stage where, yeah, that’s good. Seven and a half. Seven and a half. 

Logan: You need it?  

Jano: I need it. Yeah.  

Logan: Do you feel like sluggish if you oversleep? Like if you are wiped, you sleep 10 hours, one day you wake up at, you know, 1130 A.M. 

Jano: If I, well on the road, 11:30 is reasonable. But I, it’s like all about timing. If it’s, I do believe in sleep cycles, at least for myself. So nine hours is awesome. 10 hours would suck. 

Logan: On the road, do you like the on the road thing? Does it mess with that schedule? 

Jano: Oh, I mean, yeah. It messes with my schedule. Yeah, last night wasn’t so great. You know, it depends on how the roads are, if the bus is going to stop in the middle of the night to fuel up. it depends on a lot of things.  

Logan: How long have you been touring for?  

Jano: 25 years, maybe? 

Logan: A little home on the road there, you know? You’re getting used to it. After the 25 years, maybe. 

Jano: Yes, I’m definitely used to it. I’ll tell you what, when I went away in COVID, I did miss it after a while. I loved it at first, actually. That particular thing of not touring, it was so awesome. I was home for months. And then after a while, it was just a huge part of my life, my expression, and also just being used to just seeing new places and waking up in a new place. And just, I don’t know, we have a tour family. I really missed it. 

Logan: When COVID first hit, were you like, I’m not going to do anything musical, I’m going to cleanse myself of this, or were the creative juices still kind of running for you? 

Jano: Oh, I mean, that was not a point in my life where I was like, no, I don’t want to do something musical. I had a point in my life, a few years before that, where I decided to quit music as a profession and that didn’t last. All that did was let me know that it was what I needed to do. It was good in that way. I tried to be a carpenter and I started working and doing like construction stuff. Working for a company and I quickly realized this is cool, but no, I need to put everything into music so that I can figure out a way to make a living doing this. I forget what year that was. I mean, 2009, something like that. But what was your question? Oh, COVID. COVID. Yeah. No, but it was just, I was, you know, I could do without the travel. So like stopping travel. I mean, I also spend the other, part of my artistic life is mostly spent in the studio. And that was mostly gone, but then we started doing sessions with masks and stuff, but touring was dead for a while. And I do remember vividly the first tour date, this live show date. 

Logan: What do you remember about it? 

Jano: Oh man, I cried. Like it was really awesome. I think it was outside, indoor/outdoor, like trying to do the COVID thing. At City Winery in Nashville and I think, what was it? Gosh, I’m trying to remember. Was it an Oliver Wood? I think we did an Oliver Wood Trio solo gig. And Seth Walker also played that night, like a bunch of people I’ve worked with and our friends and musicians I love. And I just, we played our set and then I just remember that felt amazing. And then I remember sitting in the audience, standing by the soundboard and watching Seth play. And I was just like, I was just so struck and moved by like how lucky I am to know these people and that we get to do this and I get to hear this, like after not hearing anyone play live music for so long. 

Logan: In those moments like that, is there like a song that kind of sticks with you from that exact time, or like maybe any other moments where you have a specific song that you remember hearing in a place during a time and you’re like, this is sticking with me? 

Jano: Oh, for sure. I don’t know if I remember a specific song from that night, but speaking of, it might’ve been, because I remember this from Seth Walker, hearing him, “Grab Ahold” which we’ve also done with the Oliver Wood solo stuff that I worked on. And I guess I worked on the original Seth Walker recording of that too. And he wrote that with Oliver and Oliver produced that first album and then I produced the subsequent ones. So I don’t know, that song goes way back and I’ve just, what really struck me, what I’m thinking about is hearing him from across festival grounds. Playing a daytime set, which can be tough in a festival early on, and telling a bunch of people there who didn’t know Seth, I was like, you have to go see Seth. And walking over to the stage and he was on the main stage and it was just like, you know giant fields, sun beating down, and he had everyone transfixed. Like you could hear a pin drop. When he gets into it, it’s remarkable. So I don’t know, there’s one. There’s one, yeah.  

Logan: You mentioned kind of coming out of your little, I’ll say, hiatus/retirement and realizing that you needed to do it more and more. When did you first realize that you needed to do it? Do you remember like how old you were or, you know, what’s really solidified that? 

Jano: I guess I wasn’t like a lot of people who were like, maybe, you know, they got a guitar in high school or something and they’re like in love with it. And I’m like, I think I want to do this because it was around me since I was a kid. My dad’s a professional drummer. And so I grew up, you know, from the time I was tiny, watching him play gigs. And like, there was a, I heard a cassette years ago of me playing when I was 4, playing and singing, and I was like that’s pretty good. I don’t really think I’ve gotten that much better from a four year old, I was just improvising a blues. My parents, they were outside and I went in the basement and just pressed record on a tape deck. And I played and made-up a blues about being all alone in the house, where they were and what they were doing. My dad’s in the shed, my mom’s out working in the garden and like. 

Logan: And here you are, all alone. 

Jano: Yeah. So I kind of, I wouldn’t say I knew I was going to do it because I was also, my mom’s a painter and I drew and painted growing up like equal time to music. So it was like, if I wasn’t skateboarding or something like that, because I also like to do athletic things, but I was drawing, painting, or working on music, piano or drums, mostly drums. So I don’t know, it was kind of bred into me. 

Logan: Who were your favorite artists or painters? 

Jano: My favorite artists or painters, here’s an inside one, Frank Frazetta. He did a lot of illustration, like he did a lot of book covers. My mom was really into illustrators and he was very much in a kind of fantastical fantasy sci-fi style, but fantastic craftsman and fantastic painter. Anyway, that’s kind of a random one to pick out because a lot of the greats I love too. I remember becoming obsessed with Picasso for a while. But yeah, I just saw someone wearing a Frank Frazetta t-shirt and I was like, where’d you get that? And she’s like, there’s this museum. I was like, you went? You know, it’s very inside, but in Pennsylvania, there’s just this Frank Frazetta museum. Yeah, so I don’t know. I was very, you know, that was another thing like my parents, my mom passed down that kind of stuff to me. So just, yeah, a bunch of illustrators I was into. That was a great one. 

Logan: Were you in the comic books at all? 

Jano: I wasn’t. I wasn’t, but I had a friend who really was, so I gained an appreciation of that. Actually, his name is Ben Mara, Benjamin Mara, and I was just seeing, he does amazing comic book stuff now. Really? He’s in it. He followed it all the way through. So I got an appreciation for what that was at the time, but no, I guess just more kind of like fine art stuff and painting. I don’t do too much of that. The most is like, people are like, Who painted that on your ‘shituar’? It’s like, Oh, I just did that. Randomly every few years, I’ll get the bug and I’ll like paint an owl on my ‘shituar’ or something. 

Logan: There you go, an owl on your ‘shituar’. Yeah. You mentioned skateboarding a minute ago. Now, when I think of a kid skateboarding, this music isn’t exactly, The Wood Brother’s isn’t exactly the music that comes to mind. So were you skating, listening to Rancid, or were you skating, like listening to John Prine? 

Jano: We were totally listening to The Misfits. You know, I think musically I had my own thing, but I was on the edge of that skate culture. So I did listen to that stuff. But musically, I was always kind of like, not with necessarily what my friends were listening to, because I had a very focused musical life and stuff I was into. I went through some phases with friends around, but I was really into Pink Floyd at that time. Like really, really into Pink Floyd. 

Logan: I was never a Pink Floyd guy. Me and some buddies put on The Wall for the first time I ever heard it. And it was a life-changing experience. You feel it over your whole body. It just washes over you. 

Jano: That’s cool to hear how someone else felt. I’ve never talked to anyone about what they thought of The Wall the first time. But yeah, I used to, I mean, I was young and I used to watch that movie. I didn’t know what the hell was going on in that movie. But it was like a feeling and they just were able to conjure certain feelings. And when I look back at it, they’re very patient. That music often moves very slow and there’s 16 measures, 32 measures in the middle of a song of just the groove vamp with maybe like 3 guitar licks. It’s like so patient and there’s so much space. And I think I’ve always gravitated to stuff like that. whether it was that or more funky music. Yeah. 

Logan: Do you feel like you incorporate some of that patience into your own music? 

Jano: I do. I don’t think about it consciously much. But if anything, like in the confines of making a record maybe, sometimes I listen back and I’m like, oh, I need to like, hit it a little harder sooner because there’s not enough time to be just patient. But I don’t think about it. It’s something that’s kind of automatic for me, I think. 

Logan: We talked about your mom’s influence a little bit. You were putting together an album with your father. Legacy. Not a whole lot of musicians are able to do that, you know? So I mean, obviously, I’m sure it feels incredibly special. But is there anything in that album that you just haven’t felt before while making music? 

Jano: Oh, good question. Yes. You know, and I don’t know if it’s purely a musical thing as far as like the aesthetics of the music, like the musical choices. But it felt very difficult. different to make that record. I make records all the time. I’m very lucky to have been doing that for a long time. Either as a musician or a producer and we have our studio, you know, me and The Wood Brothers in Nashville. But making a record with my dad was, I think I put more pressure on myself. Not that it had to be, it’s not going to be, I didn’t care if it was a commercial product, but it was just, it just felt more like, I don’t know, I wanted it to be good. I wanted him to like it. I don’t know. It was just, it was harder for me to finish it. I found myself dragging my feet, which is part of, I blame myself partially. We’re equally to blame why it took us 12 years from our first notes put down and recording to the end.

Logan: During those 12 years, were there any songs that you were able to get down in a day or get a good chunk of it down? Or were they all really laborious? 

Jano: Oh, I mean, in the end, I mean, we only had maybe five times we ever got together and recorded. I’d say probably 5 days. Total. 

Logan: To make an album, that’s a pretty good time to make album. 

Jano: There was a lot, okay, but there was a lot of… I spent other days myself, but I erased a lot of it because what we would do is we’d get together, the first time we got together at Southern Ground Studios in Nashville, and we spent an entire day, maybe it was two days, I think it might have just one day, and we tracked basics, just the two of us for, I mean, it’s only the two of us playing everything on the record. Yeah. And we got like half the record done that day. And then another day in the town where my parents live in New York, I went up there and we tracked again. We got basically the other half of the basic the tracks done. And then overdubs, I would work on them like in Nashville and I would add a lot. And in the end, it was just like, a lot of times I just stripped it back to mostly just me playing like a Fender Rhodes, my dad playing drums, our vocals. No, it can’t have been five days. I’m going to give us seven days, but totally working together. But I worked I worked a lot of other days on it myself, just adding little things, taking things away.

(Part 2)

Logan: Do you think you work best with simplicity?

Jano: Yeah.

Logan: In your dream scenario, what are the only things on a record or on a song? What’s the core that can’t be stripped away for you? 

Jano: Well, it could be anything. It could be anything, but I find myself often, like my favorite record by an artist is one with usually with like very little production. Sometimes there’s no crumbs on it, sometimes there’s, you know, not like the instrument I play like I necessarily care about hearing, you know. Like a Dylan record, like a really old one. That is just mostly just him. Yeah. Like, I’m like, oh, it’s not. No offense to my dad who played on Dylan Records. 

Logan: Your father played on Dylan Records? Which ones? 

Jano: The most known recording would probably be “Hurricane” or “Desire”. And he played on “Desire”, he’s playing with congas on that.  

Logan: That’s wild. You ever get to meet Bob? 

Jano: Unless I did when I was really tiny, no, but I heard plenty of stories. 

Logan: Any ones you can share? 

Jano: Oh man, my dad was on the Rolling Thunder Revue. Yeah, if you know that one, it’s like, that’s just a wild tour. Dylan was, I think the cool parts about it, some of the cool parts are he was tired of, he was such a big star at that point. He felt like his fans didn’t necessarily get tickets to the shows because everything was becoming expensive and would sell out right away. So he decided to do a tour, but not book it ahead of time. And he just got some buses, put the band together, because him and Rob Stoner put the band together. And they would just, as I know the story, show up in a town like the night before and just say, hey, we want to play your venue here like your veteran’s hall or something like that. And they would just put posters up, said Bob Dylan playing tomorrow night. And so it was very, to use the term freewheeling, and like, you know by the seat of their pants. And on that tour he kept adding artists and buses, just like pick up people. And then suddenly Joni Mitchell’s on the tour and Alan Ginsberg’s on the tour and like everybody’s on the tour. And it was, you know, so it was like this crazy social hang and wild tour, you know. 

Logan: That’s crazy. Is that something like, is there any off the wall ideas that you would ever want to do as an artist? Anything like a tour where you got, you got no direction in mind? 

Jano: I have, yeah, I have fairly ambiguous ideas that I haven’t really locked down of because I dance a lot. I don’t know if a lot of people know that, but like I teach dance. My wife and I teach Casino and Salsa. Casino is often called Cuban Salsa. But just through that world and interacting with music that way, I would love to incorporate that heavily for the audience into a set, as well as participating in rhythms in the music more than just clapping along every once in a while. Which goes to your question of, which I think this started out with a while ago, of what are the elements that you can’t get away from in music? And there’s a style of music that I really like, Cuban Rumba. And I love Huapango. And in Huapango, it’s just percussion and vocals. And man, music does not need any more than that. When anything’s grooving that hard, you do not need anything else, and all the space is wonderful. That said, I love guitars and keyboards and bass, but I love the simplicity of it too. I think that’s, and the rhythmic grooving nature of it. So I would just, and there’s something, our culture doesn’t have a lot of participation either. in dance socially, at least not white people. So social dances, that’s like, hardly anyone knows how to do those anymore, like partner dancing. But even just dance as a celebration and a ritual. And dance classes are for kids, you know, and then adults, unless they like to go to concerts and dance, they don’t really dance. So I would love to incorporate that, as well as, I think, everyone can play and sing and do music. It’s just like we’re not raised with that as part of our culture. And man, it’s very healing for people to do that. So I’d like to incorporate that. 

Logan: I remember hearing one time, one of my, I took choir in high school and a teacher said, singing and dancing is like running. Everybody can do it. doesn’t matter how good you are at it. And do you find that there’s a level that people need to cross them to be more comfortable dancing and doing that stuff? Do you find that there’s a switch that needs to be flipped because like, I think the average person isn’t maybe comfortable or think they’re capable of dancing. So is there some threshold that they need to cross, do you think? 

Jano: It depends on the person. Because in a way, no, because a little kid can do it. And a little kid can play and sing music and it’s perfect. It’s just what it should be. But I was that person who, I grew up on the bandstand on stage, I did not step foot, I did not dance until I was an adult. I was deathly afraid of dancing, which is probably why I got so into it once I conquered that fear of it, why it made such a difference to me. But yeah, so I was one of those people. It was not in my culture. And I was really afraid of dancing. And then my wife, we went to the Dominican Republic and we took some little dance lessons on the beach. We did some bachata lessons. And then we got back home and she’s like, I really want to take salsa lessons. And I was like, okay, I’ll go with you. And so we went week after week, I was kicking and screaming every week. I did not want to go and be bad at, because I was used to being good at art from the time I was little. I was like, I was like the one who was really good at the art, you know? And here I was terrible. I was terrible at dancing. And salsa requires, you know, a vocabulary, it’s a language. But once I finally got over myself and went to a social, which everyone told me to do, and just dance with people, which I was afraid. I was like, no, I’m going to get good first. They’re like, no, you’re not. You have to go and that’s going to make you get good. You just have to go and suck and dance with a lot of people. When I finally did that, I was so hooked. 

Logan: Really? 

Jano: Yeah, because you are basically dancing duets with different people all night. You’re improvising. It’s like a full body improvisation with music and another person. It’s just like a beautiful connection. It breaks the boundaries of physical connection. We don’t really touch much in our culture, except like with your lover. That’s it. Like otherwise you don’t really touch, you know, you pat your bro on the back. That’s that, yeah, that’s that. So yeah, it was like really opened my world and it was whole, opened my world to new cultures, new language, and the language of dance. So I don’t know, yeah. 

Logan: You mentioned it being like a full body, like experiencing that thing. Do you feel the same way when you’re on stage doing music? And is that, if it is, is it the same use of your full body or is it a different feeling? 

Jano: It’s a different feeling, but it can be very much the same and it should be. And dancing has informed me with my music because my music, has been a professional thing for so long. And in a lot of ways, I put pressure on myself since I was pretty young to perform at that. But dancing started as an adult, and I got to watch myself as it was like a third space. It was not, for a long time, it wasn’t professional and I became professional. And I also saw what that did to my experience of it, you know. And, but it made me aware that I was missing out on some of the joy I originally had in music. Because dancing, and I was like, I couldn’t believe I’d become this person who would just be like, no one on the dance floor, that’s me. You want to dance? Let’s go. I had no problem asking, going to an unfamiliar city somewhere in Europe and meeting everyone, asking them to dance. And it was just with so much joy, like that connection, just the joy of connecting in the moment to just that life between the two of you, between the music moving in the air. And so, yeah, you should have that with music too. And it is a full body experience. Even if you’re playing an instrument that mostly just your fingers touch some keys or something, your whole body’s involved, your breathing’s involved, you can dance with it. 

Logan: Do you feel like that kind of the love, that you’re describing, do you feel it growing every time you do it? Or do you find it to be maybe a little repetitive at times? 

Jano: Well, yeah, it goes through phases and it’s night to night and it’s moment to moment. And I think once you’ve done it long enough, at least for some of us, the only thing to really think about is to notice where you’re at. The music’s happening, like you’re playing the music, thinking about what you’re going to play next is a complete waste of time. Your conscious brain is really way too slow to do all the cool things that you can actually do. But you just kind of realize where you’re at, like, oh everything’s feeling hard. I’m feeling like I can’t hear, I’m annoyed with my in-ear mix, okay where am I at? Like, how am I feeling? Where is this in my body? Can I breathe? Can I just get curious about the sounds and where I’m at? And kind of sometimes I look at the lights in the room and that’ll like bring me back. I think you go through stages too, where it’s like all joy and you’re just excited about it. And then I noticed myself with dance and then I got a level of expertise with it, and I started teaching as people start looking up to you. And then you feel like you’ve got to be somebody. Like when you dance, people are watching you. And you’ve got to represent and you’ve got to, then the joy is gone. And you still might do some hot dance moves, but you’re not really connecting with your partner, you’re not really letting loose in the moment, and you’re not even modeling what you should be modeling. You’ll look back and you’ll, if people videoed you, see you’re not smiling.

Logan: How do you kind of disperse those expectations? When you feel them setting it, is there anything you do to make them go away? 

Jano: You schedule therapy.  

Logan: Not bad advice.  

Jano: Yeah, you know, and I don’t think there’s one solution, but over time, you get different home mantras to tell yourself. If you can remember to remember, then you, like this week I’ll tell you what it is this week on stage, it’s someone talked about curiosity. And so I just like try to get really curious. I mentioned that a few minutes ago, just get really curious about the moment. That’s what I’ve been doing this week, that word comes to mind. In fact, I wanted to paint it on one of my instruments, so I just see it. But I remember last week, I put a little, preparing for the tour, I put a little sign, put it on my rig, and it said, I think, smile, like smile with your body. And when I think of that, my posture gets better. My posture tends to smile and my chest comes up and I tend to breathe in. I smile with my face. And I realize, like, what are you practicing? Are you practicing being stressed out and worried about screwing something up and not being able to, not having your chops up for this tour? Because that’s how you’re going to feel on the tour. No matter, if you practice that for 1000 hours before the tour, you will still not feel ready for the tour, no matter how good your chops are because that’s what you practiced. So try to practice letting it flow and being curious and interested in the sounds as they happen, rather than trying to turn yourself into a machine, being constantly looking for your own faults. Because I can do that. I’m good at that. I spent years doing that. I can play like a machine, I know how to. 

Logan: But it’s better if you let it flow. 

Jano: Yeah. And you can. There’s machines, I mean, you can just have it tell AI to do it now. I think it can make you machine music. 

Logan: It’s not good music. 

Jano: It’s not good music, but it sounds, honestly, it sounds like lackluster music and a lot of people make lackluster music because they’re trying to treat themselves like machines. We’re lucky that’s not what our fans want. At least not with the Wood Brothers. Like they want to hear, like have a human, you know, they always say, God you guys sound so honest. I think it’s, we just let ourselves be what we are, you know, warts and all. 

With support from Irish duo DUG, The Englert was lively for The Wood Brothers. For over two hours, fans were showered with songs old and new with an encore of their hit “Luckiest Man”. It was a busy year for Rix as The Wood Brothers dropped their new album “Puff of Smoke” in August and “Legacy, Vol 1” from Jano and his father released in November. The Wood Brothers will continue their tour this winter, you can find dates here.

The post Interview: Jano Rix of The Wood Brothers appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Buffy Sainte-Marie is a Canadian singer-songwriter and visual artist born in 1941. She released her first album “It’s My Way!” in 1964 when she was 23 years old. While the album never charted, it was still deeply influential in the folk genre and to Native American peoples.

Buffy Sainte-Marie, along with being a talented songwriter and singer, is also one of the most recognized advocated for the rights of indigenous peoples throughout the Americas. She focuses on protecting the intellectual property of Native peoples and fights against the exploitation for Native American artists.

In 1997, Sainte-Marie created the Cradleboard Teaching Project, which makes multimedia core curriculum about Native American cultures. Cradleboard is the branch of the Nihewan Foundation for Native American Education, founded in 1969 by Sainte-Marie. The foundation supports Native American college-bound students and helps students with lower grades gain access to a college education. Sainte-Marie has also been awarded with the American Indian College Fund’s lifetime achievement award for all of her hard work.

Her passion against the mistreatment of indigenous peoples is evident from the first song on her album titled “Now That the Buffalo’s Gone”. Sainte-Marie uses the near-extinction of the American buffalo as a metaphor for genocide against native peoples by the Europeans. The song is so powerful that it is now considered a classic folk protest song.

The final verse says the most to me: “Oh it’s all in the past you can say / But it’s still going on here today / The governments now want the Navajo land / That of the Inuit and the Cheyenne / It’s here and it’s now you can help us dear man / Now that the buffalo’s gone.”

“The Old Man’s Lament” is a very depressing song sung from the point of view of a man is raising a son that he knows isn’t his. “She goes out every night to a ball or a party / And leaves me here rockin’ he cradle alone / The innocent laddie he calls me his daddy / But little he knows that he’s none of my own.”

“Ananias” is a song that surprised me to hear. Ananias was a member of the early Christian church in Jerusalem, and suddenly died after lying to the Holy Spirit about money. After his death, people started to fear the Lord. The lyric “Ananias, Ananias / Tell me what kind of man this Jesus is, my Lord” is repeated for the majority of the song.

I think Sainte-Marie’s point is that she doesn’t understand the grace of a God that could allow one of his followers to drop dead or could allow any of his followers to fear him. This would be an interesting message for her to give out, especially since there is such little variety in the song’s lyrics.

“Mayoo Sto Hoon” is a beautiful song, and I’m really sad that I could find lyrics or translations anywhere. The song is sung in (I’m assuming) a Native American language that I do not know, and I wish I couldn’t found any information about it. Until I can find out more, all I know is that Sainte-Marie’s vocals sound absolutely lovely on this slow-paced, calm track.

“Cod’ine” is about addiction to the pain medication, codeine. “You’ll forget your woman, you’ll forget about man / Try it just once and you’ll try it again /  It’s sometimes you wonder and it’s sometimes you think / That I’m a-living my life with abandon to drink / And it’s real, and it’s real, one more time.” Since there is, unfortunately, such little information about Sainte-Marie that I can find, I am not sure if this song comes from personal experiences or if there is another inspiration for this song.  

The song begins to kind of drag on near the middle, since each verse ends with the same repetitive line, but I imagine this is a representation of addiction. The song was later covered by Janis Joplin and appeared on her album “This is Janis Joplin 1965”, though she changed some of Sainte-Marie’s lyrics.

“Cripple Creek” is an Old Time Appalachian folk song that has been popular since at least the early 1900’s. It definitely sounds out of place at first on “It’s My Way!” but it’s also really neat to hear Sainte-Marie recreate one of the very first folk songs since she would go on to influence the genre herself. It is a fun, uplifting song to listen to, and is a welcome break here.   

“Universal Soldier” became one of Buffy Sainte-Marie’s most famous songs, especially so after it was covered by the popular artist Donovan. The song tells the story of a soldier that believes he is fighting for peace, but doesn’t recognize that he is part of the unrest. This song became a definitive anti-war anthem for the 20th century.

“Babe in Arms” is the story opposite of “The Old Man’s Lament”. In this track, a pregnant woman already mothering one child is stuck at home alone while her husband is away drinking and living a freer life. To end the story, we get the lyric “And were it not for this wee baby / Well, you know what I’d do / Ooh, to my fine man / Ah, don’t you know, I’d shoot him and put an end to his life of sin.”

“He Lived Alone in Town” is perhaps the most melancholy song on the album. It tells the story of a man who is left by a woman he loves. While they both love each other, she leads him on a chase to find her, though she knows will never end and she will not be with him. The song ends with the lyric “So, wander with me now / Or wander off alone / But know I love you, tearful one / Much more than I can show.”

“You’re Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond” is another traditional folk song Sainte-Marie covers on this album. Her rendition is very quick and upbeat, but has a daunting message. “You’re gonna need somebody on your bond / Way after midnight when Death comes a-creepin’ in your room.” Blind Willie Johnson, a blues musician this song is accredited to, says the song deals with the idea that one needs a legally binding contract in order to get into heaven. Donovan also covered this song after it was on Sainte-Marie’s album.

“The Incest Song” is an incredibly morbid story. The lyrics describe the death of a woman carrying the child of her brother. The woman’s brother is in love with her, but chooses to stab her to death since he’s been given a bride by their father. He then goes to his wedding directly afterward, where his father asks why he’s crying so much. This would have to be my least favorite song from the album, both because it isn’t as musically interesting and because the subject matter is a little too out of place for me.

The lyrics of “Eyes of Amber” are lovely in their imagery.  It is a song about the lessons of love, or about the person who teaches someone how to love, even if it is a self-taught love. “Heart of fire light / Heart of the flowers of the / Jungle / Heart of snow / You come again and you are / Midnight wind.” The fleeting feeling this song gives is very light and precious.

And finally, at the end of the album we get the title track, “It’s My Way”. I really, really wish that I could say I liked this song, and I do like the message an independence that Sainte-Marie is claiming within it. However, the song is very repetitive, with almost each line beginning with the words “I’ve got my own” and very little variation in the guitar accompaniment. I wish there had been more poetic lyricism, but I still appreciate the meaning.

As I was researching Buffy Sainte-Marie, I became more and more shocked that I hadn’t heard anything about her ever before. She was covered by Janis Joplin and Donovan, both extremely popular artists in the 60’s, but of course there is endless information about both of them.

She penned the most popular anti-war anthem in the era where the United States was arguably the most anti-war it’s ever been. She influenced folk music as a whole, a genre that was extremely popular at the time. She is still doing this hard work today at 77 years old and yet, as hard as I look, I can find barely any information about her.

The album as a whole is very classically folky and very quick to listen to. These thirteen songs together are only forty minutes long, and I wish there was more. This time of year, when it’s still cold but also kind of like  spring, make me crave folk music like no other. Of course, this won’t end until the end of the summer, so this album will make a great addition to the playlist I’ll be listening to for the next six-ish months.

Something else to check out: Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “Medicine Songs”. These songs were created to not overwhelm or oppress any group of people during the tense political climate we’re living in right now. Sainte-Marie says these songs are meant to enlighten and uplift those who hear them, and are meant to motivate the listener to fight for their rights and beliefs.

Listen to both “It’s My Way!” and “Medicine Songs” below!

The post Stella: “It’s My Way!” by Buffy Sainte-Marie appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The Bangles combine classic, female-driven harmonies found in girl groups from the 1930’s to the 1960’s and rock music to create a new genre of music that women hadn’t yet touched. They allowed women to be slightly less tame, even if the media didn’t market them that way. They were the epitome of girl power in pop rock.

A lot of the music I’ve heard from The Bangles has come from Gilmore Girls. (How could anyone Gilmore-obsessed forget when Lorelai gave up her and Sookie’s amazing seats to The Bangles concert so that Rory could make friends with Paris, Madeline, and Louise? Heartwarming, truly.) The band was actually a big part of the show with Lorelai speaking about her love for the group many times throughout the series.

The song we hear The Bangles perform in their Gilmore Girls performance is the first song from All Over the Place. “Hero Takes a Fall” was the first single released for the album and reached to top 100 on the Billboard charts.

The lyrics of this tune describe the downfall of a man who thinks he has it all in terms of women. “Sitting on your throne/drinking and thinking/she’ll return your call/every story’s got an ending/look out, here it comes”. The song does a great job pointing out that society gives womanizers, men whose gigantic egos can only be maintained by playing with women’s emotions, the title of a “hero”. It also points out the fragility that such a livelihood is able to hide.

As “Live” begins, I can’t help but cringe at the stark difference between the previous song’s drum-driven rhythmic ending and this twangy country-ish beginning. Almost for this reason alone, “Live” is my least favorite song on the album.

It stands out from the rest of the album because its style is so different in a way I don’t prefer. The message of living your life instead of letting it pass without a thought is something I could stand behind, however.

“James” is a song much more up to par with the theme of the album from the first few seconds. The tale is focused on James fading out of a relationship and the singer preparing to flee. The lyrics “Letting me down again, James” are often repeated, making this the short and sweet breakup song that belongs on any pop album.

Four songs in when I reach “All About You” I am beginning to appreciate the bursts of cheesy lyrics that have been popping up on All Over the Place. “You were so amused/when I made myself available” as an opening lyric made me giggle a little bit, but any lack of these borderline-funny lyrics would take the album’s charm away. It has embodied itself as a cheery teenage girl that has been wrong and is seeking revenge, someone relatable to many women.

A brief thought of forgiveness occurs in “Dover Beach”, when the singer dreams of picking up and leaving with her lover to live on the beach. I think of this as a lovely break because the same lyrical content song after song can get exhausting to listen to.

But we are back on the warpath with “Tell Me”. “Threw away the things you loved/Now you want me to forgive you/Surprise, surprise, I’m moving on” are my personal favorite lyrics along with “I can walk away so easily”. This song is such an honest confrontation to the love that betrayed her (the return of James?) that I can tell it’ll be one of my absolute favorites on the album.

“Restless” holds the same type of vengeful tone, and this is around the point whilst listening to the album the first time I was getting tired of listening. I’m hoping that there’s some point in the future of the album where the singer can move on from whoever is hurting her (James?) and can become happy within herself. I would love to hear a song from The Bangles about that kind of confidence.

“Going Down to Liverpool”, the second single released for the album, became a hit in the UK. It  doesn’t seem to be about a failing love story at all, but is instead about going down to Liverpool and literally doing nothing. I especially enjoy the music and the vocals in this one, but it could also be considered the easiest listening on the album.

And James(?) returns in “He’s Got a Secret”, “Silent Treatment”, and “More Than Meets the Eye”. He commits more misdeeds throughout these three songs including potentially cheating, not listening to his partner enough to constitute a silent treatment, and being the kind of “hero” The Bangles sing about in their first track.

At this point, I’m tired of hearing about Maybe James and want to know more about how the singer is going to get over him. Either he needs to shape up and make a 180 or The Bangles need to collectively realize that they deserve a lover they can trust and effectively get over James. (I do give kudos to “More Than Meets the Eye” because it involves a string orchestra, the one true way to my heart.)

Lastly, The Bangles included their cover of The Grass Roots’ “Where Were You When I Needed You”. I love that it’s included because it’s about getting over a past love (James)!

They have moved on in the end while still holding James accountable! While I would have appreciated a quicker turnaround, I understand that some people heal slower than others.

All Over the Place brought The Bangles attention from Prince, who gave them their hit “Manic Monday”, and Cyndi Lauper, for whom the band opened on Lauper’s Fun Tour. However, it also brought tension to the group’s free dynamic. The music industry was only releasing singles that featured Hoffs as lead singer, marketing her as the star of the group though all members of the group had equal vocal contribution.

Though this spat along with other tensions within the group, The Bangles went on to release another two albums before breaking up in 1988. The girl group reformed in 1998 to record a single for the Austin Powers soundtrack. They then released two more albums in 2003 and 2011, despite Steele leaving due to artistic differences in 2005.

The Bangles, throughout their hurdles, pushed the standard for girl groups higher. It also gave a higher credibility to girl groups. Though they were marketed as pretty faces, they empowered young women by being a successful pop rock band comprised entirely of women. Before The Bangles, girl groups were completely vocally driven. They opened a door for women in pop to create a harder sound while still remaining light.

This Stella’s Woman Who Didn’t Get a List is Nai Palm, lead singer of the band Hiatus Kaiyote. Hiatus Kaiyote is one of my favorite bands and their album “Choose Your Weapon” is absolutely incredible. While the music is a huge part of my admiration, the vocals trump the jazzy synth by a million.

Nai Palm makes the group what it is. She can sing along to the quick rhythm and time signature changes that the music gives her. Her vocal range is very versatile, and with her the band is able to create a future-soul sound that I haven’t been able to find with another band yet.

Listen to The Bangles’ All Over the Place and Hiatus Kaiyote’s Choose Your Weapon below!

Stella is a column surrounding analysis and appreciation of the 150 albums chosen by NPR as the best created by women thus far. Each week I choose an album from this list I’ve been wanting to listen to, that peaks my interest, or that seems like essential listening to write about. The column’s goal is to provide female identifying readers with the empowerment that can only be obtained through a badass woman and her amazing music.

We want to thank The Indexer for helping us find the right professional to take care of all the website work around here.

The post Stella: All Over the Place by The Bangles appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Classical music as a genre has become quite underrated, if not misunderstood. Whenever I ask people about their opinions on classical music, they will indelibly reply that as bedtime music or background for studying, because it’s chill and proffers minimal distraction. Unless, of course, they say that they don’t listen to it at all.

It’s actually far from chill, both in terms of the actual music, and in terms of the composers’ lives. I often think that classical music has become distant from the composers, like dead leaves squished into piles on the edges of buildings in the middle of December, at which point we no longer associate them with trees (not that I’m associating classical music with dead leaves).

For instance, you might start playing a Handel playlist, blissfully unaware that the guy once fought in a duel with Johann Mattheson in the middle of an opera over who would play the harpsichord.

Handel lost. If it wasn’t for a large button on his coat that stopped the point of Mattheson’s blade, your Handel playlist would be much shorter.

Or you might stumble across the Symphony Fantastique by Hector Berlioz. It’s not your typical romantic symphony. Berlioz composed this probably while high on opium, narrating the story of another dude that overdoses on opium and has a nightmare in which he murders his girlfriend and is then executed himself.

The Symphony Fantastique pretends to be a chill, nonchalant piece, but it often lapses into maniacal outbursts. At one point, the music itself mimics the movements of the execution blade and a severed head as it rolls away. It’s quite trippy.

Johannes Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2, known for its intense emotion and drama, is also

famous for the inspiration behind it. Brahms had a very close friendship with the composer couple Robert and Clara Schumann. Robert, who was already mentally unstable, eventually had to be taken to an institute.

Meanwhile, Brahms, like a good friend, made sure to take care of Clara. He was a very devoted friend, particularly to Clara. And then he composed the tempestuous Piano Concerto No. 2 and proceeded to become a very snarky and grumpy man.

You also might subject your ears to Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, and learn that his personality was as bad as his music. He recklessly borrowed money from his friends, left innumerable affairs and disgruntled families in his wake, and had some very loud and inhumane political views (which resonated well with the Nazis).

Though classical music is commonly viewed as sophisticated and esoteric, behind this facade lies a long and stormy history of cranky old men, teachers, sassy youths, and revolutionaries who dismantled the musical and societal conventions of their time in order to express themselves.

It narrates the centuries-old dilemma of playing it safe for financial security or staying true to yourself at the expense of your livelihood and reputation. It is the legacy of patriots who celebrated their trampled countries and cultures through their music. It is the closest these composers could get to immortality, and one of the closest ways we can get to time travel—a journey made through sound.

And so, in this monthly column, I invite you to do some musical time travel with me and explore the colorful stories and music of these dudes in wigs (and beyond).

The post Bach is Back appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The lecture focused mainly on information about what exactly is harming bees as well as how exactly we should be working to save them.

If you don’t understand why bees are so important or why people are making such a big fuss about bees, Mena starts the lecture off with a statistic that will shine some light.

85% of flowering plants (berries, pumpkins, tomatoes, flowers, etc.) and 75% of crops (corn, wheat, soybean, etc.) depend on bees. Since we live in Iowa, a largely agricultural state, bees are vital for our economic stability.

We also focus mainly on honeybees or bumblebees when we think of “saving the bees” without considering how many species are actually being affected. Mena tells us there are about 20,000 species of bee worldwide, about 4,000 in the United States, and around 400 in Iowa.

Most of these species are being threatened for many reasons, but here are the largest.

Bee habitats are being destroyed and fragmented, says Mena, because their natural homes are being turned into highways, commercial buildings, and housing developments.

Pesticides are also a huge part of the endangerment of bee species. Mena tells us that wheat crops in Iowa are 0.1% similar to what they originally were, genetically speaking.

Pesticides have altered these crops so much over so many years of using pesticides on them, that they have become virtually unrecognizable to species that require them to survive.

New kinds of pesticides are also used directly on seeds for these crops, so they will be all over every yield that seed ever produces, according to Mena. These pesticides will also be all over anything surrounding it, such as wildflowers next to the crops.

Lastly, the largest reason bees are being threatened is due to exotic species being introduced and the diseased they bring with them. Mena describes the Africanization of bees.

African bee species were brought to Brazil to be studied in the early 21st century. They then bred with native species. The offspring of these bees became extremely aggressive and killed their queen bees as well as human beings.

Since they are so harmful, no one will be their beekeeper, so they have spread through South America and now reside in the Southern United States, but have been found as far north as Utah.

Diseases brought along with exotic species are also harmful. Native bee species have been equipped over time to handle native diseases, as Mena describes, but are incapable of beating diseases brought over from new species. This is also wiping them out.

There are a few ways that we are able to help bee populations grow again! We can plant flowers and herbs that provide food to bees such as lavender, sage, and mint. You can also work with iowa pest control experts to get rid of problem insects and pests.

The graphic Mena provided us with is on the right, and has a large assortment of bee-saving plants!

Quitting the use of pesticides on our front lawns can also help, and so can saving dandelions instead of destroying them. They aren’t the best food bees can get like the plants listed above, but every little bit counts.

Another way we can help bees is providing them with places to nest. You can do this by making a bee house, as shown in the photo on the left. A lot of the time these can be made with a small piece of wood and a drill, or you can purchase them online.

To learn more about Mena and her studies on bees, read this Little Village article about her! Save those bees!

The post Witching Hour: Honey and Mass Extinction @ Iowa City Public Library 10/21/17 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

While the title of the panel may have been “Invisible and Ignored,” the phenomenal women who partook in the panel itself were not. Rather than having their voices silenced and subjugated to conform to a society that disregards outliers as deviances and threats, these women stood tall and proud as they challenged the homogeneous conceptualization that steadily poisons our society.

Panelist Lisa Covington, Sofia Mehaffey, and Deborah Whaley, came together to discuss the impacts of living and working in predominantly white spaces and environments while having the experience of finding their own voices in isolation as women of color.

Beginning with the initial quote by Audre Lorde to the vibrant paintings crafted by Whaley, each panelist established and maintained an environment that shamelessly brought attention to the trials and tribulations that not only women of color, but other minorities as well, face while living in white America.

Being a woman of color myself, I will admit that I never had the privilege of possessing the reassurance regarding the perception that I am an equal in the eyes of my counterparts, specifically my white counterparts, as I have today.

When I initially decided to attend this panel, I was under the impression that I will receive the same iteration of what it means to “truly” be a woman of color and having to uphold that “strong black woman” concept we praise within America.  

Mehaffey, however, spoke to me in a way that I have never been spoken to before. Coming from a background that didn’t initially set her up for a successful career, Mehaffey explained that if she could go back in time and speak to herself, she would preach to her younger self that she will overcome all trials and tribulations that would come her way; however, she would make sure to tell herself that “[she] can have it all but they will still follow [her] around the store.”

Mehaffey’s recounts hit home because no matter what we do as women of color within our society, there will always be a subtle double standard regarding how we will never be enough.

Covington explained it better in a simple but poetic line: “Black women weren’t meant to survive in America, but I did.”

Through her passion to work in academia stemming from the notion that women of color cannot be as successful, Covington disregards this notion by working with young women of color in order to provide them with the reassurance and inspiration that they too can do more than just conform to the stereotypes that bind the homogenous conceptualization that our society deems important.

Alongside her vibrant paintings and harmonizing poetry, Whaley also adds to the notion that women of color are more than what our history simply chooses to tell us and what our educators deem important to speak on.

A woman of color is more than just a label and identifier, it is who we are from the soil we come from to the names our ancestors held. 

While I am also a woman of color and have been invisible and ignored by my white counterparts, after attending this panel, this will no longer be the case.

I too have found my voice and I will be heard just as Lisa Covington, Sofia Mehaffey, and Deborah Whaley have been.

Want to know more about these phenomenal women of color? Check out the links below!

Deborah Whaley teaches here at the University of Iowa! Early registration starts soon!
Lisa Covington is very active on Twitter! Subscribe to her tweets to stay informed!
Check out Presumed Incompetent, a book with pathbreaking accounts of the intersecting roles race, gender, and class have in the lives of women faculty of color in academia. I guarantee it’s a good read!

Want to see more panels?
Check out the line-up for Witching Hour here!

The post Witching Hour: Invisible and Ignored @ IC Public Library 10/21/2017 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The audience awaiting the band’s arrival was very eclectic. Most of the people that were there for Karen Meat had stayed for the whole evening with the intention of seeing Beach Fossils as well, even if their sounds are very different.

There were also a lot of people showing up that were older than the audience for the previous two bands but not by too much. They could have been in their late 20’s or early 30’s.

As soon as the band begins playing, I can see why. This is the kind of music I love, that provides a special kind of comfort, kind of like a nostalgia but for a time you can’t pinpoint. The echoey, drawn out notes on an electric guitar that seem like they might fly.

The vocals slick over the subtle beat of a drum. The sound is timeless, something lasting. I could see anybody listening to Beach Fossils, since their music is clearly about the feeling a person gets while listening to it.

I wish that the band had interacted with each other more or had been less formal, for lack of a better term. Their music was amazing, and it’s important to focus on making music sound great in live performances.

It still would have been nice to create a dialogue with the audience or with each other to make the experience a little bit more accessible.

They did say that they were inspired by a trip to Jimmy John’s to write a song about their trip to Iowa.

As a born and raised Midwesterner, this was a much appreciated sentiment. He also told us a little story about a guy outside the restaurant eating shrooms. As a born and raised Midwesterner and University of Iowa student, this sounds about right.

I don’t know what it was, but something about the experience was off.

Of course, it could have been the table of 15 loud, drunk people sitting behind me, or it could have been the wrong venue for the band, but something didn’t click right for me.

I loved the music, I loved the band, but something kept me disconnected from the amazing feeling of being at a concert and seeing the music you love laid out in front of you.

I did, however and thankfully, find a new band I would love to listen to constantly. I’m glad to hear that on their recorded albums there are string influences! You can hear cellos in there!

A band that can appreciate classical music even in it’s tiniest forms automatically owns my heart. They create ideal road trip music, or at least music that makes you feel like you’re going somewhere.

Listen to Beach Fossils’ latest album, “Somersault”, below!

The post Witching Hour: Beach Fossils @ Gabe’s 10/20/17 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

What happened from there blew me away.

Chuck Peters, Chair of the Board at Folience, began the presentation by relaying his own roundabout relationship to education. After the 2008 flood left damage all around Iowa City, Peters arrived in town with a team of other Corridor business leaders to craft a rebuilding plan.

At the top of their list was the restoration of local school facilities. In order to become more acquainted with the ins-and-outs of these institutions, he started actually visiting them. Along the way, he spoke with educators from around the state.

During these talks, a consistent topic surfaced: school faculty members often feel stifled at work. Peters repeatedly heard that instructors felt like they couldn’t be “their authentic selves” while working with students. This resulted in an ability to fully express their passion for educating.

Above all, the disconnect between teachers and administrators hinders any kind of shared vision from taking shape. Stuck beneath the subsequent cloud of uncertainty, students tend to under perform and misbehave in these unstructured environments.

Recognizing this, Peters set off for England to see how their programs compared to ours stateside. While there, he heard stories about St. George’s Primary School located within a low-income area of London.

Known for being home to underperforming schools, St. George’s emerged as something of an anomaly in the Battersea neighborhood. Despite serving children from the lowest earning families in the country, the school consistently churns out students whose performances match their wealthiest peers.

Behind this incredible success over the last fourteen years has been Janet Hilary.

Recognized as a National Leader of Education in the UK, Hilary champions leadership structures and curricula that foster integration. That feat is accomplished by enabling each aspect of the learning experience to be collaborative and robustly taught.

This experience depends upon the establishment of a clear system of management: every instructor knows their duties, and they are helped along in the fulfillment of those duties by a proven program. At the core of that program is the mastery of language.

Just as we might have grown up with Hooked on Phonics, Hilary has instilled a sound-based approach into her school’s early lessons on English fundamentals. She reasons that articulation is the foundation upon which all other knowledge is built.

Ultimately, in order to properly think, we need to be able to create narratives extensive enough to consider complex problems wherever they arise.

The power of this educational system became apparent once we were able to see how eloquent many St. George’s students actually are. This ability to speak gives them a confidence that carries over into their outlook on other subjects as well.

These forces combine to produce actively engaged students and educators who can bear witness to the success of their teaching methods. Both parties are fully invested in the process that they are taking part in.

At the same time, the students and instructors are also able to personalize that process. Learners can identify areas that they need more work, and teachers can optimize their lessons in order to ensure the best outcome for their pupils. If parents, teachers, or children express a desire for more engaging and organized play opportunities on the playground, playground markings from playgroundmarkings.org.uk may be needed.

This autonomy only increases the level of investment on both sides. When everyone is involved in something that fosters shared belief, individuals feel empowered to give their voice to that belief.

In the case of Janet Hilary & St. George’s School, that belief is in the education of our future generations. It isn’t surprising that this call to give voice is based upon an educational system founded upon the fundamentals of language.

Check out other Witching Hour events here!

http://www.witchinghourfestival.com/2017-schedule/

The post Witching Hour: Empowering the Next Generation to Flourish @ IC Public Library 10/20/2017 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Emmylou Harris is a country singer and has released 26 studio albums alongside 11 compilation albums and three live albums from the 60’s up until 2011. “Wrecking Ball” is her 18th studio album and widely considered a point of new direction for her music.

When country radio stations began giving airplay from traditional country music artists to “new country” geared toward youth in the 90’s, Harris began working with Daniel Lanois. Lanois is a producer that has worked with artists like U2 and Peter Gabriel. While this pushed her further away from those country radio stations, it gave her a huge push into the alternative-country, Americana, and alternative country sphere.

It’s easy to hear this shift in style between her previous albums and the music she makes post “Wrecking Ball.” The way she sings has much less twang and isn’t nearly as the acoustic guitar-banjo combo. While some of these traditional country elements still make their way into her atmospheric, airy alt-country music, it’s easier to dig deeper into.

All but two of the songs on the album are renditions of other artists’ songs; similar to Joan Baez’ “Diamonds and Rust,” which I wrote about in the last edition of Stella. These songs include Neil Young’s “Wrecking Ball,” Steve Earle’s “Goodbye,” Julie Miller’s “All My Tears,” Jimi Hendrix’s “May This Be Love,” Anna McGarrigle‘s “Goin’ Back to Harlan,” and Gillian Welch’s “Orphan Girl.”

Some of these songs were previously covered in the banjos and twangy voices that used to cover Emmylou Harris’ music, specifically “Goodbye,” “Goin’ Back to Harlan,” and “Orphan Girl”. However, these songs have an entirely different emotion when given to “Wrecking Ball.”

Harris sounds like she’s singing across miles. It’s like she’s singing back a few years. Like her voice is sailing through wind or through envelopes. The beautiful production also doesn’t hurt this feeling. Windows were opened throughout Country and Americana genres because of this new feeling. There was finally another way for this kind of music to sound and it was doing exceptionally well.

While she only contributed her writing to two songs on the album, “Deeper Well” and “Waltz Across Texas Tonight,” the touch she puts on each of the songs is worthwhile and opened up a few genres to more amazing, expansive possibilities.

My personal favorites from Emmylou Harris’ “Wrecking Ball” are “Where Will I Be,”  “Goodbye,” “Wrecking Ball,” “Goin’ Back to Harlan,” “Every Grain of Sand,” “Sweet Old World.” “May This Be Love,” “Blackhawk,” and “Waltz Across Texas Tonight.” In other words, basically the entire album.

“Where Will I Be” and “Goodbye” display the differences between her previous work and her sound after “Wrecking Ball” really well and better than any other songs on the album.

The lyrics from “Waltz Across Texas Tonight” are lovely: “We folded out cards when the hand wasn’t strong’ and ‘You’ve crossed over bridges and bridges they burn/So many rivers and so much to learn.” Since she wrote some of the lyrics to this song, it makes me wish that we’d been able to see more of that here, in the album she used to transform her sound.

I’m not the largest fan of “Deeper Well,” “May This Be Love” (other than the guitar, I just believe that the drums take away from the rest of the song) and “Orphan Girl” (the original by Gillian Welsh is preferable).

This weeks Woman Who Didn’t Get a List is Quay Dash: a rapper and trans woman of color from the Bronx. She was discovered by the same people who discovered Azealia Banks and was signed to an independent label. After releasing several singles she released her first EP titled “Transphobic” last September on her 24th birthday.

My favorite songs of hers are “Bossed Up,” closely followed by “Decline Him.” Both, which are on her EP. She calls her song “Wilin'” a big “f*ck you to transphobia,” and also shows how rhythmically involved she is. Her music is very body confident and sex-positive alongside the amazing production put into her EP. The world needs more of Quay Dash and her music since she’s speaking out for the rights of trans women of color and also just makes really cool songs.

Listen to Emmylou Harris’ “Wrecking Ball” and Quay Dash’s “Transphobic” below!

Stella is a column surrounding analysis and appreciation of the 150 albums chosen by The National Public Radio (NPR) as the best created by women thus far. Every other week I choose an album from this list I’ve been wanting to listen to that either peaks my interest or seems like an essential piece to listen to and write about. The column’s goal is to provide female identifying readers with the empowerment that can only be obtained through a badass woman and her amazing music.

The post Stella: “Wrecking Ball” by Emmylou Harris appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Her album “Diamonds and Rust” was released in 1975 near the end of her singing career. Majority of her recognition before said album was solely focused toward either her covers or interpretations of other musicians’ songs. Which, were predominantly men. While this album also contains many renditions of different artists’ songs, Baez begins to focus on her own songwriting and what her voice can say that others cannot.

Baez worked closely with Bob Dylan throughout their romantic relationship that spanned throughout the first half of the 1960’s. The only album I have of hers is a compilation of the different songs she covered of Dylan’s. Baez didn’t start to delve into her own sound and singing her own words until she released “Diamonds and Rust,” which became the main reason it was placed on National Public Radio’s (NPR) list of 150 best women-led albums.

I haven’t listened to any music that Baez wrote on her own and I don’t know much about her personality; however, I do know that she changed the 60’s with her voice and her activism. I also know that Jenny from Forrest Gump wanted to be just like her and that she performed at Woodstock along with many other amazing and influential artists.

Joan Baez spent a good portion of her life trying to make the world a better place through her music. She performed the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” at the March on Washington in 1963. She also sang the same song at the Free Speech Movement protests at the University of California, Berkeley, which took place the following year.

She participated in the Selma to Montgomery marches which advocated for the right of African-American’s to vote in 1965; the year after she founded the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence. She participated in numerous anti-Vietnam war protests, such as a free concert at the Washington Monument, which drew 30,000 people. While traveling to Vietnam as part of a peace delegation, she was caught in the “Christmas Bombing,” an eleven-day bombing of Hanoi in Northern Vietnam.

Baez has remained an activist up into the 21st century, speaking out for LGBT+ rights, against the death penalty and false incarceration, and against the United States’ invasion of Iraq. She wasn’t afraid to use her voice to change lives for people across the world or in the United States. She is respectable and strong and I admire the brave things she has dedicated her life to doing.

From the first track of “Diamonds and Rust,” her voice steals the song away. Even though the song is a little overpowered by the instrumentals, her voice permeates other sounds that layered on top of it. Since Baez initially built her career covering other artists’ music, it is only natural that her voice has stood out in a successful manner. There’s something about the lyric, “the Madonna was yours for free,” that gives me chills.

The meaning of “Diamonds and Rust” centers around Joan Baez’s relationship with Bob Dylan. The song narrates her feelings and memories as Dylan calls her about ten years after the events later sung about occurred. The song has a much more bittersweet undertone once I listen to it again with that knowledge. It is beautiful.

The next song Baez wrote for her own album doesn’t appear until about halfway through the album itself. “Children and All The Jazz” is really overwhelming to me. It doesn’t fit my tastes as much as the rest of her own songs, mainly because it doesn’t feature her amazing vocals.

“Winds of the Old Days” comes a few song later and it suits my own pace much more. It gives off the feeling of floating away and letting the past be over. Something very nostalgic comes from this song. There are some lyrics of her’s that really stand out from this track, such as, “Unguarded fantasies flying too far, memories tumbling like sweets from a jar.” Which, comes before “the winds of the old days will blow through my hair.”

The second to last song, “Didi,” is a duet between Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell concerning how the world got so lucky. I love this song despite the lack of actual lyrics and deep emotional reaction since it’s sole purpose is to showcase their beautiful voices.

The other songs on this album are covers by artists such as Bob Dylan (of course), Janis Ian, Stevie Wonder, John Prine and many others. They also sound absolutely amazing and I can definitely understand why the claim to her fame before her own songwriting was interpreting songs that weren’t her own. Her voice is enough to make anything about ten million times more meaningful and emotional.

My favorite tunes of these are her medley of “I Dream of Jeannie/Danny Boy” and “Never Dreamed You’d Leave in Summer.”

Something I want to start doing at the end of each “Stella” article is hyping up another powerful woman (in music or otherwise) that didn’t get a top-150-of list. This will be an amazing way to discuss even more women of different professions and walks of life that otherwise might not get as much recognition.

This week, that woman is Jen Kirkman, a comedian and writer that I’ve admired since I saw her stand up at last year’s Witching Hour Festival in Iowa (read my review of the event here). I anxiously await the newest episode of her podcast called “I Seem Fun” each week because her commentary on the world, politics, and the teeny tiny struggles of daily life makes me feel real again. Her Netflix specials are also hilarious, particularly “I’m Gonna Die Alone (And I Feel Fine).” I highly recommend watching or listening to her to treat your life.

Go ahead and listen to “Diamonds and Rust” on YouTube or Spotify below!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL40NQEtnq_AIwuM1AHn7ToUq769LQUB7t

Stella is a column surrounding analysis and appreciation of the 150 albums chosen by NPR as the best created by women thus far. Each week I choose an album from this list I’ve been wanting to listen to that either peaks my interest or seems like an essential thing to listen to and write about. The column’s goal is to provide female identifying readers with the empowerment that can only be obtained through a badass woman and her amazing music.

The post Stella: “Diamonds and Rust” by Joan Baez appeared first on KRUI Radio.