On An Overgrown Path

Of all the various manifestations of popular art, song is undoubtedly the one with the greatest ethnic and psychological value; through it may be glimpsed and studied the most profound and unplumbed manifestations of the soul of people. That observation from the Catalan folklorist Joan Amades appears in the booklet of Montserrat Figueras' Songs from the Thousand-Year-Old Land of Catalonia . Seen above is the recently released Trilogy album which packages Joan Baez's first three albums, all icons of popular song, together at an astonishingly low price . Joan Baez, together with Björk, is headlining the 2012 Fez sacred music festival . In 2010 Montserrat Figueras and Jordi Savall took their Jerusalem project to the Fez festival . The Quaker faith of Joan Baez's parents was important in moulding her pacifism. In 1915 peace activist, Catholic monk and author Thomas Merton was born in Prades in French Catalonia to a New Zealand father and American Quaker mother. Joan Bae...

Sounds and Silence, the film of Manfred Eicher working with leading ECM artists including Arvo Pärt, Anja Lechner, Anouar Brahem, Kim Kashkashian and Jan Garbarek, which featured in a 2009 path , is now available on DVD and the accompanying soundtrack CD is seen above. Much appreciated on my recent travels was the new ECM CD capturing Maria Farantouri in concert in Athens with saxophonist Charles Lloyd. Maria Farantouri, who has been called the Joan Baez of the Mediterranean, is accompanied by John Williams in songs and music by Mikis Theodorakis on one of my favourite discs of all time . Also on Facebook and Twitter . Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

We didn't have the money to go to concerts or movies or to buy new records, but we played the ones we had over and over. We listened to my Madame Butterfly as sung by Eleanor Steber . A Love Supreme . Between the Buttons . Joan Baez and Blonde on Blonde . Robert introduced me to his favorites - Vanilla Fudge , Tim Buckley , Tim Hardin - and his History of Motown provided the backdrop for our nights of communal joy. Photo shows Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe and the quote comes from Patti Smith's memoir of life in New York City in the late sixties and seventies Just Kids , which is a pure delight from start to finish. More from 1968 here . Also on Facebook and Twitter . Just Kids was borrowed from Norwich Millenium Library. Photo via Mikijohnson.com Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missi...

Art of the book cover from David Hajdu's Positively 4th Street . Upper image shows Joan Baez and Bob Dylan , the lower Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña . The artwork is by Eric von Schmidt based on his classic poster for the 1964 Baez-Dylan tour. Ironically, the original posters were withdrawn and pulped as Dylan did not like them. Despite this, or perhaps because of, they are now valuable collector's items . As well as beautifully capturing the zeitgeist of the early 1960s Positively 4th Street makes a valuable contribution by reassessing the contributions of Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña, who are usually overshadowed by Mimi's sister Joan and Dylan. The first album by the Fariña's, Celebrations for a Grey Day is well worth exploring, particularly for Richard Fariña's use of the dulcimer. On the day that he died in a motorcycle accident in 1966 Richard Fariña had been attending a launch party at the Thunderbird bookstore in Carmel Valley, California f...

Anonymous Soprano has left a new comment on " Music for four accordions" : This brings up the subject of how anything "folk" is perceived by the supposed musical elite -- both music and instruments. See: John Jacob Niles , for instance. The only exception to this seems to be if it comes from somewhere else -- i.e., the performer is always been if they're from a long ways away. "Folk" instruments are respected if, say, they're a Shakuhachi , but not, say, the nearly identical Native American instrument. I guess it's because the assumption is that "folk" music and instruments aren't "educated" properly, and therefore can't possibly contribute anything to the realm of "proper" music? I don't know. All I know is that the best composers pretty much all appropriated folk tunes and sometimes folk instruments...even Mozart. AS, it is a good point you make. We are all guilty of overlooking folk musicians. ...

"This book comes on like the Hallelujah Chorus done by 200 kazoo players with perfect pitch" - Thomas Pynchon Promotional blurb on cover of Richard Fariña's 1966 novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me . More on Richard Fariña soon. He was married to Joan Baez's sister Mimi. So in the meantime here is a link to Joan Baez's (or, actually, Lloyd Stone's ) take on Sibelius . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

How mighty they are, those hymns and those antiphons of the Easter office! Gregorian chant that should, by rights, be monotonous, because it has absolutely none of the tricks of modern music, is full of a variety infinitely rich because it is subtle and spiritual and deep... Those Easter "alleluias", without leaving the narrow range prescribed by the eight Gregorian modes, have discovered color and warmth and meaning and gladness that no other music possesses - Thomas Merton , The Seven Storey Mountain. But Thomas Merton was no reactionary. In 1966 Joan Baez visited him at his Trappist monastery at Gethsemani, Kentucky and they drunk beer together ( Trappist I hope ) and discussed sixties music . He was also a great fan of Bob Dylan and played Dylan's records in his hermitage (the Trappists are a silent order !), while Merton's poetry was influenced by the folksingers' lyrics. Thomas Merton shared many of the values of the sixties counterculture , particular...

Albert Baez (left) has died age 94. A remarkable scientist and pacifist, he was also father of folk singers Joan Baez and Mimi Fariña . Follow this link to the San Francisco Chronicle for an excellent celebration of a remarkable life. Now read why we aren't marching in the streets anymore. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

It took me more than three decades to see Joan Baez live, but the wait for tonight's concert in Cambridge was well worth it - what an artist! Here are some thoughts prompted by the concert we've just returned from: Three decades later, it’s terribly clear that my generation hasn’t changed the world very much. The question is, how much has the world changed us? As young “radicals,” we considered ourselves the conscience of the nation. To us, the Vietnam War was a moral offense, not a question of politics; and we reacted to it in primarily moral, rather than political, terms. Somehow, by the strength of our youth, the nation would be wrenched from the grip of death, cleansed, made new. A “movement” without politics or program, we were defined largely by our shared lives on the campus – millions of us getting stoned and listening to the Beatles – and by our opposition to the war. Now that war is long over, and we inhabit private worlds. Still when I speak with my old “radical” f...

From James Primosch: Sent 08 January 2007 06:12:19 To overgrownpath@hotmail.co.uk : Subject - Finlandia: Hello, in reference to your recent Finlandia post - the words Joan Baez (right) sings are actually by Lloyd Stone, and date from 1934. For more details follow this link . May I say that I enjoy your blog very much, with good wishes, Dr. James Primosch, Robert Weiss Professor of Music, Department of Music, University of Pennsylvania - composer website James, many thanks for clarifying that. Below are the words by Lloyd Stone that Joan Baez sings to the music of Sibelius. These are words that are terribly relevant today: This is my song, Oh God of all the nations, A song of peace for lands afar and mine. This is my home, the country where my heart is; Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine. But other hearts in other lands are beating, With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine. My country's skies are bluer than the ocean, And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine. Bu...

The history of the rise of Sibelius in the good opinion of the fashionable intelligence makes an interesting story. Thirty years ago he was known in the parks, around the bandstands, as the composer of ‘Finlandia’; at concerts he was occasionally represented on the less austere evenings by the ‘Valse Triste’. Outside Finland a few musicians had studied the scores of the First and the Second of the symphonies; and the one in E minor was confidently supposed to be written in the manner and idiom of Tchaikovsky. Not until after the war of 1914-1918 was Sibelius taken up by the best people of Great Britain and America; on the continent in general his genius remained (and remains) more or less unacknowledged or unrecognised. The remarkable fact is that the more bald and taciturn Sibelius’s music became, the more and more his public grew in the places where it was played at all. The critics and the coteries of London were condescending about the First and Second symphonies, in which he explo...