‘Two voices, perfectly paired’

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(Credit: Austin City Limits)
(Credit: Austin City Limits)

 

It has been a pretty grim couple of weeks, in a pretty grim season of what’s been a pretty grim year or two. And this blog has been a grim read of late.

All the more reason to roll into the weekend with something to lighten the load the little. The Milk Carton Kids, Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan, as NPR music critic Bob Boilen puts it,

… sing with harmonies steeped in the great duos of days gone by, like The Everly Brothers and Simon & Garfunkel.

Fellow NPR music writer Stephen Thompson elaborates:

The history of folk and pop music is littered with gorgeous intertwined voices: Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, The Jayhawks‘ Mark Olsonand Gary Louris, and many others have found their own delicate blend of chemistry and charisma. The Milk Carton Kids‘ Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale operate in those pairs’ rich tradition, singing sweet but intricate songs of melancholy when they’re not dishing playful banter between songs.

Ryan and Pattengale get a lot done with subtle gestures — their ballads, like “Michigan” and “Stealing Romance” here, have a way of smoothing over many of their moving parts — but there’s real sophistication.

If you’ve not heard the Milk Carton Kids before, click on the video below to hear them perform one of my favorite songs, “Michigan,” recorded live at Austin City Limits.

If you like what you heard, you can click here for a live recording of their set at the 2013 Newport Folk Festival. The duo are currently touring in support of a new album, this time backed by a full band to support their evolving sound and creative growth:

It helps that, while their influences haven’t gotten lost, Ryan and Pattengale have long since acquired a willingness to stretch out creatively. Take the Joe Henry-produced All the Things That I Did and All the Things That I Didn’t Do, whose centerpiece (“One More for the Road”) spans more than 10 minutes as the pair reflect on a desire to prolong a doomed relationship just a little bit longer. Even for a song about lingering, it takes its time — with the help of a full band, a welcome addition — and gathers emotional heft along the way. …

Together, they’ve written a batch of wearily delicate (and, in the case of the rambling and rootsy “Big Time,” zingy) songs about major transitions — both personally and, in “Mourning in America,” politically. But the darkness that seeps in is leavened, as always, by the sun-dappled beauty of two voices, perfectly paired.

Check them out if they come through your neck of the woods.

 

And to thy glory …

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That's me on the right leading with my friend Sam Somers in Henegar, AL last summer.
That’s me on the right leading with my friend Sam Somers in Henegar, AL last summer.

 

I’ve mentioned to people off and on that one of the things I do for fun is sing a kind of music called Sacred Harp, or shape-note singing. This usually elicits a polite smile and a “that’s nice” sort of response. Basically, unless they are a bigger music geek than the norm, most people have no idea what it is I’m talking about.¹

In the proto-version of this blog, back in the days when Facebook notes were a thing, the very first note that I posted was about Sacred Harp singing. I had come across a short article online that  laid out some of the basics of the music, its roots, traditions, and modern practice.

The link is now dead, so I can’t direct you to the piece, but here’s a short excerpt:

The Sacred Harp repertoire draws upon late 18th- and 19th-century hymns from the Christian tradition. These fuguing tunes are set to four-part, archaic harmonies that hint of medieval “organum,” with strong fifths and frequent note doubling. Performing them is an exercise in musical democracy. Each participant gets a turn at leading a song and making important musical decisions.

Shape-note singers sit or stand in a hollow square, which to Jessica Beers, chairperson of Portland’s All Day Singing, “is a living manifestation of the ‘different but equal’ axiom. The notation makes it possible for anybody to learn how to read the music, and the community makes it welcoming for anybody who is interested in participating in the tradition as we know it.”

It’s important to point out that this is not a performance tradition, but rather a social and spiritual one. When we get together, whether in a small local monthly session or in larger all-day singings, we sing for ourselves, for each other, for all those who came before us in this tradition, and for all those who will come after.

While the music is Christian in its theology, singers today come from all religious backgrounds and none. All are welcome. It is an inclusive tradition.

In the Sacred Harp community we are admonished to “bring nothing to the square that divides us.” Whatever our differences in religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, economic class, social status, or political beliefs, when we come together we sing as one.

To give you an idea of what this music is like, check out the videos below.

This first is the trailer from the documentary film, “Awake My Soul.” In the 11 years that I’ve been singing this music I’ve had the honor to get to meet, sing with, and become friends with some of the folk featured in the film and who appear in the trailer.

This next one is from the 2017 Ireland Sacred Harp Convention held in Cork. While this is an American musical form, in recent years the music has spread abroad with regular singings in Canada, Ireland and the UK, Germany, Poland, Sweden, France, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and even Israel.

This next one is from the 2016 Michiana Convention held each July outside of Goshen, IN. This clip picks up with a song being led by my daughter, Sarah, who started coming to singings with me soon after I started in 2006. Now that she’s in college in Tennessee, not far from the epicenter of the living Sacred Harp tradition in northeastern Alabama, she sings nearly every week.

This last is once again from our singing friends in Ireland, from their 2012 convention. I picked this because the song, Consecration, is one of my favorites, and this recording captures beautifully the power of the music.

For those who want to learn more, the place to start is fasola.org. From there you can learn all about this form of early-American sacred music and find locations for singings. In my part of Michigan, the largest monthly is at the Ark in Ann Arbor, every second Sunday of the month (except for July and August). We sing in my town of Lake Orion on the fourth Sunday, and there are also regular monthly singings in Detroit, Kalamazoo, and Lansing.

Singings are always open to the public, and no experience is necessary. You can learn more about Detroit-area and Michigan singings at the Detroit Sacred Harp website.

If you’re in the Detroit area tomorrow (Saturday, April 22) and want to experience this for yourself, the first Detroit All-Day Singing will be held at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul on Woodward Avenue starting at 9:30 a.m. All are welcome.

¹I also play the banjo, but that’s a tragic tale for another time.

Music to start the weekend

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Anais Mitchell and Jonathan Hamer.
Anais Mitchell and Jonathan Hamer.

 

My blog has been way too dark lately. So here’s a little something different. Old songs, sung and played beautifully.

While some of you may rock out on a Friday evening, this is how I usher in the weekend. Hope you enjoy it.

An artist on her creative process

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Annie Lennox, artist.
Annie Lennox, artist.

 

True confessions time: Back in the ’80s I had a crush on Annie Lennox, and it’s never gone away. Me and millions of others.

It wasn’t just her striking good looks and the magnetism of her performances that drew me in. It was also the complexity, nuance, and fierce intelligence in the music she made with Dave Stewart as the Eurythmics. Her solo career has been just as compelling.

I was thinking about this today after stumbling across a pair of videos in which Lennox talks about learning how to become an artist and sheds light on her own creative process.

The first was part of a series of short videos by The Atlantic exploring the idea of creative breakthroughs. To be an artist, she says here,

You don’t have to be the best, best, best. If you love doing what you’re doing and you have a passion for it, it’s good enough.

The second video was produced by the Victoria and Albert Museum to accompany an exhibition of celebrating her image and creative vision. That video opens with a discussion of the nature of inspiration:

The inspiration for song writing … hmmm … I think it starts with this capacity to respond to sound, to rhythm, to melodic line, to chordal progressions. And also at the core of it is something about needing to express something. I think that human beings are like sponges for all the externals that are affecting them.

To bring a lift to your Friday afternoon, here’s a performance of one of my favorite Eurythmics songs, recorded live in Sydney, Australia in 1987.