American Legacies: Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Del McCoury Band
Recorded in 1964:
Sweet Emma and Her Preservation Hall Jazz Band (2CD)
Released in 2009:
New Orleans Preservation, Vol. 1 - Buy It HERE!
PHJB on NPR!
PRESERVATION Preview on All Songs Considered!
PHJB on WNYC!
Welcome to Made In New Orleans!
Hello everyone and welcome to the Preservation Hall Made in New Orleans Blog! We put this up with the intentions of creating a dialogue with you about New Orleans Music & Culture and latest happenings of Preservation Hall & The Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
Each week, we will post on a variety of topics; everything from what’s been happening here at the Hall, features on Preservation Hall musicians of the past/present, responses to your questions/comments, and personal accounts of life in our fair city of New Orleans. We’d like for you to contribute your stories and memoirs as well. Tell us about that time you stumbled off Bourbon Street and into the Hall and saw Billie & Dede Pierce in 1963. Or maybe that time when the Preservation Hall Band played in your hometown. Tell us your New Orleans story. We welcome it.
Have a lovely day. We look forward to hearing from you.
The Pres Hall family is introducing a new giveaway series titled, TUBA TUESDAY GIVEAWAY! We will be giving away Rare and Unique Hall Memorabilia every Tuesday. The giveaways include:
Today's free track is entitled, Milenberg Joys, featuring the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Ronnie McCoury (Mandolin) from The Del McCoury Band. The instrumental recording is from the 2011 release, AMERICAN LEGACIES: The Preservation Hall Jazz Band and The Del McCoury Band
1. The Band’s In Town
2. One Has My Name
3. Shoeshine Blues
4. Banjo Frisco
5. A Good Gal
6. Jambalaya
7. I’ll Fly Away
8. You Don’t Have To Be A Baby To Cry
9. The Sugar Blues
10. Milenberg Joys
11. 50/50 Chance
12. One More Fore I Die
About AMERICAN LEGACIES
Blending jazz from the streets and music halls and clubs of New Orleans
and beyond with bluegrass from rural festivals, school auditoriums and
more restrained settings, American Legacies presents two giants of
traditional American music—the Del McCoury Band and the Preservation
Hall Jazz Band—in one spirited stream of deliciously inviting, boldly
innovative and yet profoundly familiar music.
The Preservation Hall Jazz Band just wrapped up a wonderful performance at ArtsQuest River Jazz Festival in Bethlehem, PA this past weekend. During the band's performance, a life long Preservation Hall fan by the name of Chris Carter, painted several on-the-spot portraits of the PHJB musicians. Ms. Carter's renderings are too spiritual to keep to ourselves, so with her permission (as well as the musicians), I'd like to share them with you today!
Freddie Lonzo, Mark Braud, and Charlie Gabriel of the PHJB
"Last night I attended the performance of the Preservation Hall Jazz
Band. The first time I saw them was when I was eight years old. I am
now 60. It was a fabulous experience. During the performance, I
created several drawings/paintings of the musicians and would like to
share them with those musicians. I also want to thank the musicians for
giving me permission to paint during the performance."-Chris Carter
Rickie Monie of the PHJB
"My goal is to express the rhythms and the great energy of the
musicians. I especially like the ink drawing of Rickie Monie as he
played His eye is on the sparrow."-Chris Carter
Jeffery Hills playing Tuba
Please visit Chris Carter's WEBSITE for more paintings
Also check out Chris Carter's BLOG for more of his work
As the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and friends get ready for their big show at Carnegie Hall tomorrow night, check out this great profile of their home venue in New Orleans in this week's New York Times Magazine...
When Preservation Hall opened in 1961, its purpose was to save traditional jazz. It was probably a decade late. Dixieland was on its second or third revival, while the rest of jazz was evolving frantically. From then until now, the music of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band stood perfectly still. The instruments and the repertory have barely altered in decades: tuba, trombone, banjo, clarinet; “Mood Indigo,” “St. Louis Blues,” “When the Saints Go Marching In.” It was considered backward music for tourists; it was Dixie Beatlemania. And yet. Fifty years later, there is no other place like Preservation Hall. It’s hot and uncomfortable, and no alcohol is served. The musicians change nightly — the original players are long gone — but the sound is the same. The band has been playing its own funeral for the past 50 years, and it shows no signs of dying.
Thanks to some nimble engineering, Louis Armstrong has a new song coming out, complete with a whole new band. So what if he's been dead for nearly 40 years?
On Preservation, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band backs up a number of singers, including Andrew Bird, Tom Waits, Brandi Carlile and Pete Seeger. Armstrong recorded "Rockin' Chair" a number of times, but he gets the Preservation Hall treatment courtesy of Earl Scioneaux III, the engineer responsible for this trick of time.
The vocals from this new version were taken from a 1962 live recording with trombonist Jack Teagarden. As Scioneaux tells Gwen Thompkins in an interview, you can even hear audience laughter in the background.
It was quite a feat to tease out Armstrong's vocal and sneak in Preservation Hall Jazz Band's musicians. It happened in phases. First, Scioneaux isolated snippets of Armstrong's voice. Then the musicians got a "tempo reference" from the original recordings to make a backing track. The burden of replicating Armstrong's signature trumpet sound went to Mark Braud.
"He was pretty diligent about it," Scioneaux says. "He spent a lot of time listening to the original recording and the solo that Louis played on that — not wanting to copy it verbatim, but really capture the same spirit. I think he did a good job with it."
Scioneaux says he can tell a Louis Armstrong horn just by hearing it.
"It's like someone having an accent when he's speaking — there are just slight little differences that you pick up on," Scioneaux says.
MERLE HAGGARD from answers.com Fiercely independent and loaded with down-home credibility, Merle Haggard has been a country music star since the mid-1960s. His upbringing in Bakersfield, California as a post-Depression, Oklahoma transplant is the stuff of legends: Raised in a boxcar (his dad worked for the railroad), he spent his youth getting into trouble and running away from home. His unruly behavior eventually ended with a stint in San Quentin prison for burglary (1958-60). Haggard worked on his music in jail, and after his release he landed jobs performing in night clubs and playing bass for Wynn Stewart. He then became part of Bakersfield's growing music scene and began his recording career singing duets with Bonnie Owens (the ex-wife of country star Buck Owens). In 1965 he released his first big label album, The Strangers, the title taken from his hit single, "(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers" (The Strangers is also the name of his long-time backing band). In the last half of the 1960s Haggard emerged as one of country music's biggest stars, recording ballads and honky-tonk hits including "The Fugitive," "Mama Tried" and "Workin' Man Blues." His 1969 single "Okie From Muskogee," a good-natured slap at hippie-influenced pop culture, was a crossover hit and Haggard made headlines as a symbol for love-it-or-leave-it America (the attention helped get him an invitation to play for Richard Nixon at the White House).
"Hag" has established himself in the country music world as a talented musician (fiddle and guitar), a gifted vocalist and an influential songwriter -- all capped off by a turbulent personal life that adds to his reputation as an ornery individualist. He's known for paying tribute to traditional country music (1970's A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World: Bob Wills), as well as appealing to crowds beyond country music's typical audience (in 2005 he announced a tour with Bob Dylan). His recordings include: "The Fightin' Side of Me"; Poncho and Lefty, an album of duets with Willie Nelson; "The Way I Am" (from the Clint Eastwood movie Bronco Billy); "I Think I'll Stay Here and Drink"; and "That's the News," a commentary on the media's coverage of war in Iraq.
In 1972 the governor of California, Ronald Reagan, granted Haggard a full pardon.
THE SONG: "Basin Street Blues" Merle Haggard with The Preservation Hall Jazz Band (Spencer Williams) MPL Music Publishing, Inc.
Merle Haggard - vocal Mark Braud - trumpet Clint Maedgen - tenor sax Rickie Monie - piano Ben Jaffe - string bass Joe Lastie - drums
LOUIS ARMSTRONG from biographyshelf.com Known for his brilliant improvisation techniques both onstage and during recordings, Louis Armstrong became one of the Jazz movement’s most important musicians. As his trumpet would cease, his voice would shine. Able to perform and improvise with his voice as much as with his trumpet, he laid the foundation for a long-lasting, ideal and charismatic career.
Born into the poverty of southern Louisiana, young Louis listened to music whenever he had the chance. The first instrument he learned to play was the brass cornet, which he obtained thanks to a small loan from another family. He even played in a few southern get-togethers and was astonished by the playing of Joe King Oliver, who was Armstrong’s early inspiration.
By his latter teenage years, Louis Armstrong moved to Chicago to play with Oliver – where Jazz was hot and the hottest band was Oliver’s. In these early and influential years, he was even a part of the band’s recordings, where one can easily hear Armstrong’s back-up cornet and snippets where Louis would be given a solo.
As the Chicago experience came and went, Armstrong saw greater opportunity in New York, where he would play the trumpet with the biggest Jazz band of the day, the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. After his success in New York, Armstrong headed back to his beloved Chicago where he began recording his own songs – an eclectic mix of Jazz music. His first hits were Potato Head Blues, West End Blues and later in his career, he released Hello, Dolly, which topped the British charts followed by the charts in the U.S.
In 1929, Armstrong toured Europe and had profound success. When he came back to the United States, he relentlessly toured for the next three decades. He released such hits as What a Wonderful World, Stardust, and the catchy Dream a Little Dream of Me. His gregarious attitude and wide grin aided him during his onstage performances. People of all backgrounds loved his music. And, while no official autobiography was ever released, the development of his vocal recordings only caused his success to mushroom beyond his creative brass talents where everyone would recognize his distinct sound.
THE SONG: "Rockin' Chair" (Hoagy Carmichael) Songs of Peer, LTD
Louis Armstrong - vocals Mark Braud - trumpet Charlie Gabriel - clarinet Rickie Monie - piano Joe Lastie - drums
Louis Armstrong appears courtesy of CMG
About the track:
"...engineer Earl Scioneaux used an old recording of Louis Armstrong singing, a recording where the band was fairly low in the mix. When the Preservation Hall musicians recorded the song Rocking Chair, they did it in the tempo of the original recording that Armstrong did, and then Earl Scioneaux used his years of engineering skills to nudge the Louis Armstrong vocals right into the right places. He had to lose some of the trumpet that overlapped the voice until it sounds just right... and it does."
A gifted singer/songwriter whose rich voice and literate storytelling belie her youth (she was only 23 when she released her major-label debut), Brandi Carlile was born in the small town of Ravensdale, WA, an isolated community 50 miles from Seattle. With few neighbors or friends nearby, Carlile grew up learning to make her own entertainment, camping and hiking in the nearby woods and teaching herself to sing. Carlile grew up listening to the classic country music her parents doted on (Patsy Cline remains Carlile's favorite singer), and she made her stage debut at the age of eight after she was taken to a local country radio show by her mother. At 17, Carlile picked up the guitar, having developed a taste for rock & roll through Elton John's classic albums of the 1970s (she cites Tumbleweed Connection as a particular favorite), and she began hitting the Seattle bar scene, playing anywhere she could get a gig (including a stint singing backup for an Elvis Presley tribute act). While playing clubs, she encountered a band called the Fighting Machinists, featuring twin brothers Tim Hanseroth on guitar and Phil Hanseroth. Impressed by their instrumental skills and spot-on harmonies, Carlile became an instant fan of the Fighting Machinists, and when the group broke up, she persuaded the Hanseroth twins to form a group with her. While they started out as an aggressive rock & roll band, Carlile's emotionally powerful songwriting and acoustic guitar work soon became the dominant component of their sound, and they began touring regularly, headlining small venues and opening shows for Dave Matthews, Shawn Colvin, and India.Arie. In 2000, Carlile recorded the first of several self-released recordings that sold briskly at shows, and in 2005 she was signed to Columbia Records, releasing a self-titled album later that same year. The album earned enthusiastic reviews, and Carlile was named one of 2005's "Artists to Watch" by Rolling Stone. In 2006, Carlile and her band began work on her second Columbia album, with T Bone Burnett producing. Titled The Story, it was released in spring 2007. Give Up the Ghost followed two years later in 2009.
As The Blind Boys of Alabama celebrate their many years of continuous harmonizing, it’s a fitting time to ponder their amazing resilience. What has kept them going for so long, and still sounding so great? Rock-solid religious faith certainly helps account for their vibrant longevity. So does their unshakeable conviction that they were put here for the express purpose of singing. But an equally important factor, not always shared by their peers, is the Blind Boys’ open-mindedness. Old-time Gospel music circles are often marked by rigid conservatism and the dismissal of popular music as a worldly temptation of the Devil. The Blind Boys, by contrast, shun worldliness yet eagerly embrace the world, bringing spiritual music to secular audiences in order to spread their message.
It’s also rare for such an elderly, historic group to have come so far and still straddle modern music’s cutting edge. When the group first started singing in Alabama in 1939, few people would have ever envisioned the Blind Boys performing beyond a small circuit of Southern, black-community churches. By the 1980s, however, the group’s breakthrough appearance in an Obie award-winning musical – “The Gospel At Colonus” starring Morgan Freeman -- led to diverse popularity far beyond the Blind Boys’ original core following.
Since then the Blind Boys have released or reissued nearly 30 albums, five of which – “Down In New Orleans,” “Go Tell It On The Mountain,” “Higher Ground,” “Spirit of the Century,” and “There Will Be A Light” (a collaboration with Ben Harper) – have garnered Grammy awards. (What’s more, the Recording Academy also honored the Blind Boys with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009.) “Duets” is not comprised of tracks from Blind Boys albums, though, but rather from equally acclaimed projects by other artists. One of the first such duets was the 1994 pairing of the Blind Boys and Bonnie Raitt on “When The Spell is Broken,” from the Richard Thompson tribute album Beat The Retreat. The positive response to this great dual performance convinced other artists of substance that there was great cachet in having the Blind Boys make guest appearances. Fellow blues-based artists such as Susan Tedeschi, Charlie Musselwhite and the legendary Solomon Burke– a Blind Boys cohort since the 1950s – followed suit. Given the structural similarities between blues and gospel, such pairings were logical indeed. So, with just a slight change in rhythmic emphasis, was the multi-cultural meeting with the iconic reggae artist Toots Hibbert, of Toots and the Maytals, on “Perfect Peace.”
But the appeal of the Blind Boys among artists and producers was hardly limited to music that’s closely linked to the group’s own distinctive style. Randy Travis invited the band to sing on a countrified version of the gospel classic “Up Above My Head,” while western-swing greats Asleep At The Wheel called them in for the bouncy admonition “The Devil Ain’t The Lazy.” The Blind Boys have long had a penchant for country music, and the country-tinged singing of artists such as The Eagles’ Timothy B. Schmit, and Jars of Clay. What’s more, many traditional gospel songs flourish in black and white churches alike.
It may seem like a leap, however, for the Blind Boys to perform with Lou “Take A Walk On The Wild Side” Reed. This recording came about after Reed and the Blind Boys sang together at the General Assembly of the United Nations, in New York. Their rendition of The Velvet Underground’s “Jesus” worked so well in concert that a session was immediately scheduled – and the partnership worked wonderfully. Ditto, turning one-hundred and eighty degrees, for The Blind Boys’ pairing with the roots-oriented children’s’ artist, Dan Zanes. Yet another surprising facet of the Blind Boys’ versatility is the collaboration with Ben Harper on “Take My Hand.” This song was recorded with the premise that Harper would simply produce a few Blind Boys’ tracks. But inspiration filled the studio, and instead Harper partnered with the band on the co-billed (and aptly entitled) album “There Will Be A Light.”SESSION PHOTOS BY ERIKA GOLDRING
THE SONG: "There Is A Light" The Blind Boys of Alabama featuring Clint Maedgen with The Preservation Hall Jazz Band (Clint Maedgen) Clint Maedgen Music, BMI
The Blind Boys of Alabama: Jimmy Carter - vocal Bishop Billy Bowers - vocal Ben Moore - vocal Joey Williams - vocal
Clint Maedgen - lead vocal Rickie Monie - B3 Organ Mark Braud - trumpet Charlie Gabriel - clarinet Ben Jaffe - tuba Joe Lastie - drums Shannon Powell - tambourine
Ani DiFranco has written hundreds of songs, played thousands of shows, captured the imaginations of legions of followers, and jammed with folkies, orchestras, rappers, rock and roll hall-of-famers, jazz musicians, poets, pop superstars, storytellers and a martial arts legend. She’s “fixed up a few old buildings” and minimized her carbon footprint before it was trendy – from installing a geothermal heating and cooling system in the renovated church that her label calls home to using organic inks on all the t-shirts she sells. But nothing she’s done in her 18-year career has garnered more attention than a business decision.
Since Ani bucked the major label system in the early-‘90s, opting to release her music on her own terms, the self-described Little Folksinger has been the subject of all kinds of hyperbole. She’s been called “fiercely independent” (Rolling Stone), “inspirational” (All Music Guide), “the ultimate do-it-yourself songwriter” (The New York Times), etc. As the cracks in the music industry get larger and more big-name artists follow Ani’s lead – Radiohead, Madonna and Nine Inch Nails among them – maybe people will just start calling her “smart.”
As important as Righteous Babe Records is to the singer/songwriter/guitarist, she’s more than happy to trust like-minded people with the business and revel in the complete artistic freedom it provides. On her new album, Red Letter Year, she takes more advantage of this freedom than ever before. Conceived, sculpted and refined over the course of two years – a lifetime compared to a typical Ani recording session – the album is an impeccably crafted, multi-layered sonic achievement.
And while the extra time is a big reason for Red Letter Year’s captivating musical depths, the people in Ani’s life play an even bigger part – her partner and co-producer Mike Napolitano (Joseph Arthur, The Twilight Singers, Squirrel Nut Zippers) and her one-year-old daughter Petah Lucia (gurgling, infectious laughter, wide-eyed innocence). Love, family and home are three of the album’s most prominent muses, resulting in a dozen songs that exude warmth and renewed vigor.
For several years to come, musicians will be making headlines as they jump the major label ship and take charge of their own destinies. Having been there and done that, Ani DiFranco will be more than happy to just sit back and make art.SESSION PHOTOS BY ERIKA GOLDRING
THE SONG:
"Freight Train"
Ani DiFranco & The Preservation Hall Jazz Band (Turner Layton/Henry Creamer) Morley Music Co. (public domain)
Ani DiFranco - vocals, guitar
Mark Braud - trumpet
Charlie Gabriel - clarinet
Clint Maedgen - tenor sax
Lucien Barbarin - trombone
Carl LeBlanc - string bass
Joe Lastie - drums
Ben Jaffe - tuba
TOM WAITS Tom Waits has built a career as varied as there are creative outlets—delving into cinema (both composing and acting), musical theater, opera, live performance, and literature—yet seamlessly interweaving a truly distinctive and fully-realized persona. The tools of his trade have included such things as the marimba, trombone, brake drum, metal aunglongs, banjo, bell plate, bullhorn, conga, accordion, optigon, mellotron, maracas, pump organ, basstarda, chamberlain, harmonium, viola, sticks, chairs, a musical saw, as well as the regular old guitar, bass, piano and drums and, of course, that trademark voice.
In a career that has spanned four decades, his music has taken adventurous turns, from confessional country-blues and jazz-flavored lounge, to primal rock and avant-garde musical theater. By turns tender and poignant, to strange and twisted, his songs tend to explore the dark, underbelly of society as he gives his uniquely human voice to adventurers both romantic and mercenary, drifters, con artists and those forgotten characters on the fringe and in the fray. Waits has expanded and drawn from a deep well of American song idioms: folk, blues, country, jazz ballads, polkas, waltzes, cabaret, swing, popular ballads, and a category that can only be described as Waitsian.
Named as one of VH-1’s “Most Influential Artists of All Time” it is no surprise that Waits’ body of work has long been covered (and coveted) by other musicians. Notable cover versions include: Bruce Springsteen (“Jersey Girl”), Rod Stewart and Everything But The Girl (“Downtown Train”), Marianne Faithfull (“Strange Weather”), The Ramones (“I Don’t Wanna Grow Up”), 10,000 Maniacs (“I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You”), Bob Seger (“Blind Love”), Shawn Colvin (“The Heart Of Saturday Night”), plus Elvis Costello, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Johnny Cash, and many others. A diverse list of artists have cited Tom Waits as an inspiration, including Bob Dylan who has named him one of his “secret heroes.” And the adoration strikes a chord with a rabid fan following—there is even an annual celebration called “Waitstock” near Poughkeepsie, New York.
For more than 30 years now, Tom Waits has been creating music. He continues to inspire new generations of songwriters who have their own story to tell…and their own dark muse to follow.
SESSION PHOTOS BY CLINT MAEDGEN AND J. LLOYD MILLER
THE SONG: "Tootie Ma Is A Big Fine Thing" Tom Waits with The Preservation Hall Jazz Band (traditional)
Tom Waits - vocals Mark Braud - trumpet Charlie Gabriel - clarinet Clint Maedgen - tenor sax Lucien Barbarin - trombone Rickie Monie - piano Carl LeBlanc - banjo Walter Payton - string bass Ben Jaffe - tuba Ernie Elly - drums
ANOTHER RECENT INTERPRETATION, BY MEDESKI, SCOFIELD, MARTIN & WOOD:
DR. JOHN Dr. John, or Mac Rebennack as known to friends and family, is universally celebrated as the living embodiment of the rich musical heritage exclusive to New Orleans. His very colorful musical career began in the 1950s when he wrote and played guitar on some of the greatest records to come out of the Crescent City, including recordings by Professor Longhair, Art Neville, Joe Tex and Frankie Ford. A notorious gun incident forced the artist to give up the guitar and concentrate on organ and piano. Further trouble at home sent Dr. John west in the 1960s, where he continued to be in demand as a session musician, playing on records by Sonny and Cher, Van Morrison and Aretha Franklin to name a few. He also launched his solo career, developing the charismatic persona of Dr. John The Night Tripper. Adorned with voodoo charms and regalia, a legend was born with his breakthrough 1968 album Gris-gris, which established his unique blend of voodoo mysticism, funk, rhythm & blues, psychedelic rock and Creole roots.
Several of his many career highlights include the masterful album Sun, Moon and Herbs in 1971 which included cameos from Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger and 1973’s In The Right Place, which contained the chart hits “Right Place Wrong Time” and “Such A Night.” Dr. John garnered Grammy award wins in 1989, 1992, 1996 and 2000. In 2004, his musical love letter to the city of New Orleans, “N’awlinz Dis Dat or D’udda,” was awarded the prestigious Académie Charles Cros 57ème Palmarès award in France. It was the first time since the 1970s that an artist from North America received the award. He has also received six other nominations over the years.
In 2007 he was nominated for a Grammy for “Sippiana Hericane,” his Hurricane Katrina benefit disc. Other awards include the American Society of Young Musicians 2007 Trailblazer Award. After Hurricane Katrina and government bunglers bashed New Orleans in 2005, Dr. John immediately stepped up to the plate with both generous relief fund-raising concerts and recordings and angry public words of protest. One of the Crescent City's most favored sons, Dr. John does his considerable bit to keep the world's attention focused on what needs to be done to help New Orleans come back. In 2008, he released the album “City That Care Forgot,” which deals with various aspects of post-Katrina New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. In 2009, “City That Care Forgot” won the Grammy for “Best Contemporary Blues Album.” It is considered to be his finest recording in twenty years.
THE SONG: "Winin' Boy" (Ferdinand Morton) public domain
Dr. John - vocals, piano Mark Braud - trumpet Charlie Gabriel - trumpet Clint Maedgen - tenor sax Freddie Lonzo - trombone Walter Payton - string bass Ben Jaffe - tuba / tambourine Joe Lastie - drums
February 16, 2010 - PRESERVATION: an album benefiting Preservation Hall & The Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program hits the streets! (Best Mardi Gras Ever?) While we wait with baited breath, we share with you these previews of the 19 amazing tracks and special guests that make this latest offering from the Preservation Hall Jazz Band so very special. In this installment...
CORY CHISEL Like many artists before him, Cory Chisel first connected with the power of song – and the spellbinding possibilities of live performance – through the music he heard in church. The gospel’s rich vernacular of loss and redemption also informed his innate poetic sense and lyrical range. “For most of my life,” he says, “my dad was a Baptist minister, so I learned a lot about being a showman, and I learned a lot about music. Many of the hymns from church still are the most beautiful songs I know. I'm thankful for growing up where stories and the pursuit of happiness were on everybody's mind. I think I’m still trying to achieve the same euphoria I felt at a very young age, when I would be completely t aken over by these rhythms and these sounds and these stories.”
An equally potent influence on Chisel’s worldview and wellspring ofmusical storytelling is the American heartland from which he hails. Based in Appleton, WI, where he’s lived for almost twenty years. His family’s roots, on both sides, reach about 500 miles north and west to Babbitt, Minnesota and neighboring Ely, beside the pristine Boundary Waters, the largest wilderness preserve east of the Rockies. The vast, open spaces and clear, deep lakes of the wild north are ingrained in Chisel’s songs, which sound as if they come to him as naturally as breathing. In an upbringing where he was largely sheltered from pop music, Chisel’s fluency with music comes in great measure from always having played it with his family, for as long as he can remember. One of his grandfathers had nine brothers and, he notes, “they’re all great guitar players, and half of them play harmonica too.” He also cites his Uncle Roger, a blues musician – whose epic record collection exposed him to Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Robert Johnson, Johnny Cash, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan and countless others – as a chief source of inspiration. “He was a musical force,” says Cory. “I always felt like I possessed something similar, that I understood the exorcism I saw him receiving through music.”
PHOTOS OF CORY CHISEL @ PRESERVATION HALL BY ERIKA GOLDRING
THE SONG:
"Some Cold Rainy Day" (Traditional)
Cory Chisel - lead vocals
Adriel Harris - backing vocals
Mark Braud - trumpet
Rickie Monie - piano
Ben Jaffe - tuba
Clint Maedgen - slapstick / tambourine
February 16, 2010 - PRESERVATION: an album benefiting Preservation Hall & The Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program hits the streets! (Best Mardi Gras Ever?) While we wait with baited breath, we share with you these previews of the 19 amazing tracks and special guests that make this latest offering from the Preservation Hall Jazz Band so very special. In this installment...
In much the same way that José González hails from Sweden and not Spain, Paolo Nutini is not a smooth Italian pop star, but rather a soul-influenced adult alternative songwriter from Paisley, Scotland. Raised in a music-loving family, he grew up listening to a range of folk, opera, jazz, and his father's R&B favorites. Shortly after discovering homegrown folkies like John Martyn, the teenaged Nutini left school to focus on his own musical development, eventually moving from Paisley to London at age 16 and garnering attention via local gigs. He inked a deal with the British arm of Atlantic Records two years later, just several weeks after his 18th birthday.
Working with Coldplay and Badly Drawn Boy producer Ken Nelson, Nutini generated an impressive amount of buzz before his first single, "Last Request," was released in the early summer of 2006. He appeared at special Atlantic Records showcases at Carnegie Hall and the Montreux Jazz Festival, as well as showcase sets opening for the Rolling Stones and Paul Weller. Nutini's debut album, These Streets, was ultimately released in July 2006 alongside his second single, "Jenny Don't Be Hasty." The album fared quite well in the U.K., where it climbed to double-platinum status and sent four singles into the Top 40. Accordingly, an American release followed in January 2007.
For Paolo Nutini's second album, the songwriter took a more active role in the production, partnering with Ethan Johns but helming much of the material himself. The resulting record, Sunny Side Up, appeared in June 2009, featuring increased contributions from Nutini's backing band and a bright, sprightly disposition.
PHOTOS OF PAOLO NUTINI @ PRESERVATION HALL BY MARY ASHLEY JOHNSON
THE SONG: "Between The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea" Paolo Nutini with The Preservation Hall Jazz Band (Harold Arlen / Ted Koehler) S.A. Music, Bughouse Music
Paolo Nutini - vocals Mark Braud - trumpet Charlie Gabriel - clarinet Lucien Barbarin - trombone Carl LeBlanc - banjo Rickie Monie - piano Ben Jaffe - tuba Walter Payton - string bass Lil' Joe Lastie - drums Paolo Nutini appears courtesy of Atlantic Records
