Kind of Brave is an completely charming recording. Self described as indie-pop, the title track is easily one I could imagine hearing over any pop radio station or in the background of some popular TV show, and actually feels like something I have heard there. Produced by Adam Rhodes, this small collection of songs marks the second release from Quinn. At four tracks, my chief complaint is that I wanted more. The songs are engaging, thoughtful, fun, and a little bit quirky in the best way.

I look forward to hearing what is coming next from Quinn, who I hope will make more, and longer, releases. She has just released a brand new song, Little Rose, which you can hear and read about at American Songwriter.

Oh, and an extra little detail which made this EP’s arrival even more fun… The press release that came with the CD had instructions and folding lines on the back for turning the page into a paper airplane. Watch the video below of the EP’s title track, and you’ll understand why.

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Kennedy plays almost every measure on this recording himself, utilizing electric and acoustic guitars, ukulele, electric sitar, mandolin, 5 string banjo, bass, B3, and drums. He has some accompaniment on one track, “Seven Come Eleven,” playing along with Danny Gatton (duet guitar) and John Previti (bass). When I look at the list of instruments being played by Kennedy, I can’t help but wonder if there is a stringed instrument out there that he has not yet mastered. If there is, I’d believe that he could have it wrangled very quickly.

Pete Kennedy at the 2013 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. Photo by Amy J. Putnam / photomonk.com

The other aspect that I appreciate about this release is that it brings new exposure to some perhaps lesser known gems from music history. According to the album’s web page, the intentional focus of this collection is the electric guitar. Hitting the musical landscape in the 1930s, the electric guitar was a less than celebrated instrument in the mainstream until the 1960s when the Beatles came along and changed the way rock music was played and received. So, according to Kennedy, what marked those decades in between? Who were some of the lead players and innovators? Kennedy starts to answer those questions with his selection of songs here.  The composers Kennedy has chosen to highlight in this album include Speedy West, Merle Travis, Jerry Reed Hubbard, George Gershwin, Morgan Lewis, Chet Atkins, Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grapelli, Charlie Christian and Bennie Goodman, Earle Hagen, and Richard Rodgers. Adding perhaps an unexpected coda to the demonstration of the versatility of electric guitar, Kennedy closes out the album with Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”

Kennedy’s style is so well developed that he also has two original compositions included on this collection, “Baby Catt’s Blues” and “Django’s Train,” which fit in seamlessly with the other tracks. The overall result is a beautiful collection of music which will appeal to anyone who appreciates a well played guitar. The listener gets that in delightful abundance in this release. Check it out!

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Luckily for all of us, Curtis is still here and continues not only to add to her catalog of music, but to do it in a way that is both re-inventive and consistent with her style over the years. This certainly holds true for her latest release, Flying Dream. Produced by, and largely co-written with, Kristen Hall (who also had a track on the same Putumayo release), this album continues to build on Curtis’s talent for creating and releasing solid, enjoyable songs. Hall herself has also had a long career as a songwriter, including as a solo performer and as a founding member of Sugarland. She has written many gems in her own catalog, and the pairing of these two women works well here on all levels.

The production on this album feels lush even though there are not a lot of backing musicians. Accompanied by Jim Gwin (drums), Richard Gates (bass), Jamie Edwards (keyboards), and Duke Levine (guitars, banjo, mandolin), Curtis adds acoustic and 12 string guitar and Hall provides backing vocals on all but two tracks. The end result is warm and beautifully balanced. Adding this to a discography which includes the bluegrass-influenced Hello, Stranger and more rock sounding Stretch Limousine on Fire, as well as the more ‘direct’ folk/acoustic albums, Curtis deftly demonstrates how versatility can complement a consistent direction and sound.

In this latest release, Flying Dream, Curtis explores journeys and love from multiple angles. There is love being found and lost. There is hope, and bittersweet awakening. The title track starts the listener off with the simple advice of taking what feels scary and not giving into the fear. “Don’t look down in a flying dream/trust enough to see where it leads/fill your heart with the great unknown.” The hopefulness of “Maybe Tomorrow” wraps itself around potential promise for good things to come. My favorite track might just be “Live, Laugh, Love,” written by Hall with Joanna Beacom before this project began. For anyone who has ever been stuck (*raising my own hand here*), this song makes a great personal anthem for renewing an approach to life where all things are possible: “Life’s short, I’m not wasting it/live laugh love like never before.” There’s also a gentle, sweet confidence within “When You Find Love,” which can’t help but be hopeful: “I’m alright knowing you’re beside me/Take my hand and we’ll grow old/when you find love… you know.”

One song which covers a different topic is “The Queen,” a tale of the night Curtis was playing at President Obama’s second inauguration. She was scheduled to appear on the same slate as Queen Latifah, who never arrived, so Curtis wound up having to stretch her set far longer than planned. It’s an entertaining song about enjoying moments thrust upon us. There is also one cover, “This Girl’s In Love with You,” a modified twist on Hal David and Burt Bacharach’s song, “This Guy’s In Love With You.” I’m not familiar with the original, but Curtis’s presentation here is quite tender.

The songs on this album take the listener on quite a journey, from the title track’s dream metaphor, all the way through to the closing with “The Voyager” (one of the two songs penned only by Curtis on this album), a song which has a very Disney feel to it, meant in the best way. There’s an encouragement to be bold and step out to find new ways of doing and seeing things. Curtis has walked the range from uncertainty to unexpected hurdles to inspiration in believing in what is to come.

It is insidiously good, and the songs have been solidly stuck on repeat in my mental jukebox for a while now. Something I have long enjoyed about Curtis’s songs is that they become familiar quickly, like they have always been there. They are easy to learn and become lost in, all in the best ways. Pick this one up, you won’t regret it.

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Today, it’s all about really new songs. Cary Cooper started a series in 2012 called RealWomenRealSongs. She enlisted a bunch of female songwriters to write a song a week for a year, aided by a new prompt each week. The series is now in its second year, and the artists taking part are: Cary, Honor Finnegan, Ellis, Tracy Grammer, Tylan Greenstein, BettySoo, Terri Hendrix, Alice Peacock, Anna Vogelzang, Hope Dunbar, Megan Burtt, Emily Dunbar, Lucy Wainright Roche, Natalie York, Connie Mims, Annika, Dorit, Ingrid Elizabeth, Lisa Markley, Sara Hickman, Kate Hearne, and Stephanie Macias. Also participating are visual artists Ginger Fowler and Jeff Donahue.

I’m posting two of the videos here today, but I urge the reader to go the RealWomenRealSongs YouTube channel and be prepared for some long listening. There’s a lot of great music on there, and more is added daily. The lyrics to each song are included with the song’s description, something I greatly appreciate.

Week 8’s prompt was ‘hopeful’. Cary posted her ballad for it, and it just slayed me. Right song, right time, etc etc. It’s a melancholy call out to a love that has gone out of reach. And yet despite that, there is hope for love’s remembrance and maybe even return.

Ellis’s offering for this week on the same prompt is both concerned and determined. Inspired by seeing Al Gore speak about climate change at the 2014 Folk Alliance International conference. This is a sung/spoken entreaty for us to come together and realize our commonality, that we are all in this together and unity is needed to move forward to a better future. Hopeful, indeed. After all, there is no Planet B – this is our only home. I also really appreciate not only how clearly Ellis says all of this in the song, but how visibly it is also written in her expressions as she performs this.

Well done, women. Well done. I am looking forward to hearing and highlighting more!

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photo by Glenn Koetzner

Well, I needn’t have worried. Right from the first measures, Ferguson’s second album, The List of Whales, just reaches right in and commands the listener to move and be moved. The upbeat fiddle-infused opening track, “Sunlight,” masks its story of a bittersweet journey of self discovery and seeking under a foot-tapping beat: “I’ve chosen things I thought were great that tore my soul apart/Sometimes it takes a few mistakes to know your own heart”.

All of the songs on The List of Whales are written by Ferguson. There are several common themes running throughout – of love and loss, of self exploration and re-discovery, of remembering our deepest roots so we can forge forward again towards wherever we set our sights. The title track is not only about the world’s loneliest (and as yet unknown) whale but also finding our own voice inside us, remembering the depths from which that voice can come, and remembering how we all are connected in/by/with nature: “The oceans keep their secrets/but memories flow through our blood.” The album ends on a sweetly hopeful thought in the atmospheric “To The Moon”: “Why tell yourself it will be hard/Why not tell yourself it will be easy.”

The List of Whales by Carrie Ferguson

Ferguson’s voice is solid; she knows her range and uses it well. Most tracks are presented with a full band, with Ferguson most often on piano but also sometimes on guitar. She has an impressive slate of band members and backing musicians including Jim Henry (Tracy Grammer, Mary Chapin Carpenter), Ryan Hommel (Seth Glier), and Zoe Darrow (Zoe Darrow and the the Fiddleheads). The production is very tight, with clear mixes. I appreciate that I can hear her vocals well even in the most raucous tracks. A few tracks are more simply presented, including the elegant “Grandmother’s Tree”, and the a cappella, tongue-in-cheek “Food Song”.

The songs are sticking in my head which is always a good sign. Now I am eager to get her first release, Riding On The Back of the Wind, too. Listen to Carrie Ferguson, folks. you’ll have a great time!

Want to see and hear her? Check out this video of “Sunlight” from 2012…

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I met Pete once, in 2008. I was working hospitality for a show in New Hampshire in which he played with Guy Davis and Tao Rodriguez-Seeger. My interaction with Pete was limited, but entirely memorable. He was in constant storyteller/historian mode. I met him in the wings of the stage, just after sound check. He walked over, we shook hands and I introduced myself, trying to keep cool. I mean, PETE SEEGER. I needn’t have worried as he was engaging and friendly without hesitation. I think he might have actually even introduced himself to me in case, you know, I didn’t know who he was. He then noticed the wall behind me, which was covered in writing, little anecdotes and notes and thoughts left behind by previous performers. Pete went right into a story about the oral history nature of these sorts of walls and places. Later on in the green room, I listened in for a few moments as he recounted more stories, more history to Guy Davis. In his late 80s then, Pete was very much sharp as a tack, and the treasure trove of information collected in his mind was clearly unparalleled. (some photos from this show are over on my photomonk.com site)

Pete will always be about as much of a musical treasure as anyone could be. His songs are so ubiquitous, so woven into the aural landscape, that they are almost anonymously indelible. Dar Williams recounts in concert about talking to Pete about “If I Had a Hammer”, and he would readily and easily credit Peter, Paul, and Mary for taking the song to the next level, almost as if he had no hand in it at all. Pete was the channel, and he celebrated the many varied lives that his songs and arrangements would take on as they moved through the world. There may be no one else who could claim a span of generations and a musical journey that saw so much, played for the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama (among SO many others), and inspired so many people around the world.

My own favorite Pete Seeger song is probably “The Song of the World’s Last Whale,” being that I am a big fan of whales. Written in 1970, it was only recorded by Pete relatively recently, on At 89. It’s a more obscure song in his catalog, as a result of its newness.

He had at least a hand in so many of the great songs we still sing, and will sing for generations to come. He may have considered himself merely an outlet for them, releasing them into the world to grow, change, be shared, to be sung and re-sung over and over again, but without him, the world would have had a little less justice, and a little less voice. Much will be written about Pete, and you can get a good sense of his history from this article in the New York Times: Pete Seeger, Songwriter and Champion of Folk Music, Dies at 94. Another good read is Pete Seeger: This Man Surrounded Hate and Forced It to Surrender from The Nation. I think it is worth picking up any of his CDs, but I also recommend some of those where others sing his songs: Where Have All the Flowers Gone, The Songs of Pete Seeger, Vol 1; If I Had A Song: The Songs of Pete Seeger, Vol 2; Seeds: The Songs of Pete Seeger, Vol 3; and of course, Bruce Springsteen’s We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.

This long and lanky guy who most often played a long and lanky 5 string banjo is irreplaceable, but the inspiration he leaves to generations of listeners and musicians alike to change the world one note, one word, one song, one action at a time will ensure the immortality of this gentle giant. “I think the world is going to be saved by millions of small things.” – PS.

RIP, Pete, 1919-2014. I hope you and your beloved wife, Toshi, have reunited somewhere out there to keep the love going strong. Thanks for all of the stories and the songs. May we all now find our own voices and machines to lift up, to surround hate, and to force it to surrender. The best way we can honor Pete is to keep working to change the world into the place of peace and justice that he always knew it could be.

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The chatter is right – this is a very good album. A little shorter than most full length releases at just 8 tracks, it is still a deeply satisfying listen. Goldman’s voice is sweetly clear, her guitar playing is beautifully nuanced, and the songs tell well thought out stories.

My two favorite tracks are the title cut, “Silent Lessons” (I’m a sucker for a good ballad), and “Pocket Full of Sun”. “Silent Lessons” is a contemplative song about truth and learning in between spaces, finding answers in the less obvious places where we don’t always think to look: “What do you see in the stillness when you feel blind/And you need all six senses to know what to find”. Give it a listen and let yourself think through what you hear.

“Pocket Full of Sun” is a lively contrast to “Silent Lessons”, as it seems to be about noticing bright details. Here the sun is as much metaphorical as real, both something that can be tucked away to offset a not-sunny day and illustrative of any number of details through a day which might not be noticed but for being caught in sunlight. “The sun dances in a little girl’s hair/Her mother’s eyes squint in the glare/Then it moves along casting shadows on the concrete”. Remembering to take pause and notice those details, and then to be able to tuck them away for the future, brings brightness to any day.

There is really no weak track in this collection. Each one has its story, completely told, and with its own mood. All of the songs are written by Goldman, except for “Her Secret” which was co-written with Amy Soucy.

The only quibble I have with the album is that on the tracks with a band behind them, Goldman’s vocals get a little bit lost amidst all of the instrumentation. As someone with a moderate hearing loss, it makes a difference for me when the vocals are not as well separated or above the instrumentation.

All in all, a very worthwhile listen. Check it out!

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