What can be said about this?

All right, folks. Here's episode 5. This podcast is a work in progress, a chance to experiment, a chance to play and be heard. This is our first episode in the ubiquitous mp3 format, which we hope will allow more of you to more easily tune into our podcasts and listen.



Episode 5 is good fun, as usual. Kim and Jordan join me for a 25 minute set of music, beginning with "Labor of Love" and then moving from Peter Stampfel's "If You Want to Be a Bird" and Lieber and Stoller's "Framed and Riot in Cell Block #9" to Daniel Lanois's "Under the Stormy Sky," our "Rolling Blackout Blues," and concluding with Kim doing an a capella version of Tracy Nelson's "Down So Low" followed by a duet of Junoon's "Ghoom Tana."

This show will take you somewhere.

Part of the experiment, by the way, is setting up a nice format for this podcast, and making it easier for you to subscribe. We'll keep you posted on how to do that in the new format here.

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Until we learn to sing the song ourselves, here's John Prine and Iris Dement singing it:

Odetta died yesterday. Here's an obituary from the New York Times.

And here's a very nice interview with and profile of Odetta from 2007 posted on the New York Times web site.

Kim and I were fortunate enough to see and hear Odetta perform a year or two ago in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. She was the definition of class, and she knew how to reel in an audience and take them where she wanted them to go. Her vocal control was amazing, her timing and song selection perfect, and her effect was a total affirmation of life.

I remember her relaying a quote, "People are not afraid of failure. They're afraid of success." She implored her listeners to succeed.

She was never the most famous of singers, yet everyone knew who she was, and she made a difference.

The fourth in our series of band performance podcasts is now available. We're going to keep them coming twice a month, so get tuned in and stay tuned!

This episode hear Kim and me joined by our solid-in-the-groove percussionist Jordan Russ and our good friend Vince Snyder tearing it up on mandolin and harmonica.

This show begins with the so-sad-it's-funny "Baby, Won't You Please Come Home?" and gets better with every song. Kim sings about her longing for a life on the range in "Down Home Cowboy," and then I sing an up song about feeling down, my "Real Down Blues." The "Bird of Paradise" flies in from Rhodesia after that, followed by a raucous "Rag Mop" and finally "I Want a Roof Over My Head and Bread on the Table" which Kim copped from Helen Humes.

I promise you'll love the show.

P.S. This will be the last of our AAC file shows for a while, as we'll move to the more accessible MP3 format starting with episode 5. So if you don't have iTunes and are having trouble playing this show and the previous three, do tune in again on December 15th and beyond and have another shot at listening.

Labels: podcast