Found Sounds and Such...

Photo: Brantley Gutierrez

The release of the economically titled Phish box set “Hampton/Winston-Salem ‘97” provided a chance to review the release by way of my memory banks of the original shows. Part review, part essay, full-on musing. It’s nice to have an excuse to write about Phish, which doesn’t happen very often nowadays.

“‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,’ Wordsworth wrote of the French Revolution. ‘But to be young was very heaven!’

Allow me to hyperbolically apply the same equation to the act of seeing Phish play at the Hampton Coliseum in 1997.”

Caught the Two Man Gentleman Band last Friday at Gypsy Joynt, which just relocated from mini-strip-mall-land to downtown in Great Barrington. This review ran in today’s Berkshire Eagle. BTW, the band responded to the review by tweet and noted that Andy Beane has indeed purchased a house in Great Barrington.

“It’s easy to assume the two are working their way through forgotten chestnuts of a earlier era, what with endorsements of “reefer” and songs about William Howard Taft and feasting on rabbit—a harder-edged history of Roaring 20’s swing in which plans to pop amphetamines and drink chocolate milk all night are eagerly detailed. But then you notice a reference to Ritalin, and begin to realize these are all original tunes.

In today’s Berkshire Eagle, I reviewed Crosby, Stills and Nash’s show this week at Tanglewood—here’s the piece.

“Stephen Stills seemed the most at home, particularly when wandering away from the band for one of his many solos on electric guitar. Graham Nash seemed vaguely cranky, and David Crosby, his hair blowing from an onstage fan, maintained his placid, beatific expression whether watching his bandmates sing the verses of “Southern Cross” or digging into the lead vocals for his own “Almost Cut My Hair,” a minor classic from the band’s great Deja Vu album.”

Above photo of CSN at Tanglewood by Hillary Scott

Here’s my review of Arlo Guthrie and the Boston Pops together at Tanglewood on Sunday afternoon, published in today’s Berkshire Eagle.

“There’s nothing wrong with, say, Procol Harum suiting up with the London Philharmonic and hammering out the orchestral version of arena rock. That’s the road most taken in the (sometimes unfashionable) tradition of this sort of collaboration. But much of the joy in Sunday’s 54-minute set came not in the broad strokes but in the details.

Muted trumpets and clarinet rendered the traditional ‘St. James Infirmary Blues’ in shades of New Orleans, complete with a slightly droopy tempo that conjured the Crescent City origins of the tune. Guthrie’s solo on acoustic guitar blended wonderfully with the Pops, not a note lost in the clean sound mix, and the slightly extended tag at the close came off just right.”

Above photo by Hilary Scott

My review of Rosanne Cash’s concert at Pittsfield’s Colonial Theatre is published in today’s Berkshire Eagle. The Berkshires’ summer season is off to a galloping start.

“This was not a night for musicological inquiry…Cash curiously declared that ‘There is no country music, there is no American roots music, without this song’ in regard to ‘Long Black Veil,’ a song that’s become a beloved standard but was written in 1959, skillfully constructed for country music radio to sound like an old folk tune. But her warm vocal effort, sweetened with about 15% country-twang, was particularly rich and satisfying; this was a performance that required no footnotes.”

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