Son Volt (Website)
“There are only two kinds of songs,” Townes Van Zandt said, well before he died. “There’s the blues, and there’s zip-a-dee-doo-dah.” The new Son Volt album is titled "Notes of Blue."
Simple as that, maybe.
Just now pushing fifty, Jay Farrar, the creative force behind Son Volt, is still not as old as his voice. Not nearly. His singing voice, an ageless gift which sounds something like old timber looks, like the unpainted walls framing Walker Evans’ best portraits from Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: simple, durable, weathered and grooved and unplanned.
Unplanned.
Notes of Blue will be the twentieth album — including a couple live releases and two movie soundtracks — to which Farrar has lent his voice and songwriting.
He is not quite a famous man, which is probably a comfort except when bills need paying. Plenty praised, though, from the moment his first band, the influential Uncle Tupelo, recorded a punked-up version of the topical Carter Family song “No Depression,” and named their debut album after it. Photographed for magazine covers, including the inaugural edition of No Depression magazine, which argued for the arrival of something called alt-country back in 1995, when Son Volt’s first album, Trace, came out.
To be clear, Notes of Blue is not the blues of appropriation, nor of beer commercials, nor especially of the W.C. Handy awards. It is the broader blues of the folk process, where they have always lived, irrespective of culture and caste. The blues as one of many languages available to shape and recast as the song needs. The blues as a jumping off point.
Tim Easton (Website)
American songwriter Tim Easton was born on the Canadian border in upstate New York and spent his formative years living in Tokyo, Japan and Akron, Ohio. Traveling early and often, he learned the ways of the road and rails and spent 7 years as a bonafide troubadour, making his way around Europe, playing the streets and clubs, living in Paris, London, Madrid, Prague, Dublin, and wherever he laid his hat. It was this period of time when he developed his songwriting style - folk based storytelling and personal traveling tales, often peppered with bold confessions or "tell it as it is" reality. Rolling Stone Magazine praised him as "having a novelist's sense of humanity."
Returning to his roots in North America, moving to New York City and then Los Angeles, he signed with New West Records and released five critically acclaimed solo albums starting with 2001's "The Truth About Us," which featured three fourths of WILCO as the backing band. Invitations to be a support act from mentors Lucinda Williams and John Hiatt arrived. Easton settled in the burgeoning art and music scene of Joshua Tree, California between worldwide tours. After becoming a Father and re-locating to Nashville, Easton recorded an album for THIRTY TIGERS ("NOT COOL" 2013), which accented the stripped down Memphis & Sun Studios sound of the Tennessee Three. His next album 2016's "AMERICAN FORK," was a grand departure from his previous efforts, featuring a fully flushed out backing band with elaborate songs arrangements. His most recent album, "Paco & The Melodic Polaroids," is a fully stripped down, solo-acoustic album celebrating 30 years of companionship with "Paco," his trusty Gibson J-45 acoustic guitar. The new project was recorded DIRECT TO LACQUER at The Earnest Tube Studio in Bristol, Virginia. Recently, Easton reached the milestone of having 100 Published original songs which he celebrated by releasing 100 solo performance videos on 100 consecutive days, all posted on his personal YouTube channel.
He currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee.
“There are only two kinds of songs,” Townes Van Zandt said, well before he died. “There’s the blues, and there’s zip-a-dee-doo-dah.” The new Son Volt album is titled "Notes of Blue."
Simple as that, maybe.
Just now pushing fifty, Jay Farrar, the creative force behind Son Volt, is still not as old as his voice. Not nearly. His singing voice, an ageless gift which sounds something like old timber looks, like the unpainted walls framing Walker Evans’ best portraits from Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: simple, durable, weathered and grooved and unplanned.
Unplanned.
Notes of Blue will be the twentieth album — including a couple live releases and two movie soundtracks — to which Farrar has lent his voice and songwriting.
He is not quite a famous man, which is probably a comfort except when bills need paying. Plenty praised, though, from the moment his first band, the influential Uncle Tupelo, recorded a punked-up version of the topical Carter Family song “No Depression,” and named their debut album after it. Photographed for magazine covers, including the inaugural edition of No Depression magazine, which argued for the arrival of something called alt-country back in 1995, when Son Volt’s first album, Trace, came out.
To be clear, Notes of Blue is not the blues of appropriation, nor of beer commercials, nor especially of the W.C. Handy awards. It is the broader blues of the folk process, where they have always lived, irrespective of culture and caste. The blues as one of many languages available to shape and recast as the song needs. The blues as a jumping off point.
Tim Easton (Website)
American songwriter Tim Easton was born on the Canadian border in upstate New York and spent his formative years living in Tokyo, Japan and Akron, Ohio. Traveling early and often, he learned the ways of the road and rails and spent 7 years as a bonafide troubadour, making his way around Europe, playing the streets and clubs, living in Paris, London, Madrid, Prague, Dublin, and wherever he laid his hat. It was this period of time when he developed his songwriting style - folk based storytelling and personal traveling tales, often peppered with bold confessions or "tell it as it is" reality. Rolling Stone Magazine praised him as "having a novelist's sense of humanity."
Returning to his roots in North America, moving to New York City and then Los Angeles, he signed with New West Records and released five critically acclaimed solo albums starting with 2001's "The Truth About Us," which featured three fourths of WILCO as the backing band. Invitations to be a support act from mentors Lucinda Williams and John Hiatt arrived. Easton settled in the burgeoning art and music scene of Joshua Tree, California between worldwide tours. After becoming a Father and re-locating to Nashville, Easton recorded an album for THIRTY TIGERS ("NOT COOL" 2013), which accented the stripped down Memphis & Sun Studios sound of the Tennessee Three. His next album 2016's "AMERICAN FORK," was a grand departure from his previous efforts, featuring a fully flushed out backing band with elaborate songs arrangements. His most recent album, "Paco & The Melodic Polaroids," is a fully stripped down, solo-acoustic album celebrating 30 years of companionship with "Paco," his trusty Gibson J-45 acoustic guitar. The new project was recorded DIRECT TO LACQUER at The Earnest Tube Studio in Bristol, Virginia. Recently, Easton reached the milestone of having 100 Published original songs which he celebrated by releasing 100 solo performance videos on 100 consecutive days, all posted on his personal YouTube channel.
He currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee.
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