// Kinda quiet on the weekend (folks must be shopping)...this is a
// two-day digest.
// Enjoy...[BP]

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Subject: NN: Top Ten list
   From: "Melissa Chin (EUS)" (EUSMCHI@am1.ericsson.se>

in order of best first:

1. ELLIS PAUL - Translucent Soul
Ellis' best CD yet, showcasing his gift for poetic and insightful
lyrics, and melodies that will stick in your head for weeks.  Every song on
this one is a winner.  If you don't have this, run, don't walk to the CD
store!

2. BARENAKED LADIES - Stunt
The Ladies show off their wicked but good-natured sense of humor and catchy
pop
hooks.  My favorite track is the borderline obsessive love song "Call and
Answer"

3. LUCINDA WILLIAMS - Car Wheels on A Gravel Road

4. SARA HICKMAN - Two Kinds of Laughter
I'm a huge Sara fan, but I never felt that her recordings did her complete
justice until this one.  Her best yet.

5. JOHN GORKA - After Yesterday

6. REBECCA PIDGEON - Four Marys
Her clear voice shines on this album of traditional Irish songs.  

7. COWBOY JUNKIES - Miles From Our Home

8. LYLE LOVETT - Step Into this House
The first CD has the stronger songs, and the 2nd CD in this set is much
shorter and 
has weaker songs, but I still put this in my top ten.

9. NATALIE MERCHANT - Ophelia

10. EMMYLOU HARRIS - Spyboy
great live album that shows that her old and new songs still have
plenty of life in them, especially when she's backed by a great band
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------
Some 1998 CDs that disappointed:

Nanci - Other Voices, Too
Doesn't hold a candle to OVOR in my book

Cry Cry Cry
I expected a lot more from 3 of my folk favorites.  Too many songs that 
sound like one person is the main performer, while the other two are sing
backup vocals.

Susan Werner - Time Between Trains
I've always thought that Susan is much more talented than you can tell if
you just listen to her CDs and this one is no exception for me.  Another
case of high expectations.



_________________________________________________________________


Subject: NN: Another list..
   From: Bill Page (bpage@scctel.com>

Hey y'all:
Tom Mangano posted this to another list, and I thought it might be of interest
to many of you. Few people have done as much for other singers as has Christine
Lavin. Check it out!

BP

> Christine Lavin has published her list of the "Top 10 New Albums of 1998"
> on her web site.
> 
> Christine describes her list this way:
> I think of these people as stealth musicians -- extraordinarily good
> songwriters operating beneath the radar of the established music business.
> Albums listed here are ones where every cut is excellent, so there's a
> whole lot of bang for the buck. The styles of music vary wildly, from
> singer/songwriter to Celtic to spoken word to kids, to songs about golf.
> Yes, golf. One thing all these disks have in common is that they display
> the commitment, intelligence, and passionate talents of the people who have
> created them.
> 
> Enjoy!
> Tom Mangano
> 
> _____
> "Appreciate each other more and more each day."
>   - Christine Lavin
> _____
> Christine Lavin Web Site
> http://www.christinelavin.com
> 



_________________________________________________________________


Subject: NN: Nice sounds...
   From: Bell/Wrightson (onemansmusic@mindspring.com>

I'm listening to rehearsal at the moment (not normally something anyone
would prefer more than a tooth ache!)...gee, that Woman of the Phoenix
song coming down the hall.  And, to more Nanci-fy it, the bass player is
Peter Gorisch whom you may remember from Nanci's Late Night recording
and tour.  Wonder if they will take requests???

What a nice Saturday night.

Sarah


_________________________________________________________________


Subject: Re: NN: You Never Know
   From: Susan Peete (suepeete@cruzio.com>

At 10:00 AM 12/4/98 EST, Christina Myers wrote:
>It 's a book written by a chap by  the name of Nick Hornby (he's english, of
>course) entittled "High Fidelity" and Nanci is all over this book. He even
>spells her name right. It's a fine book- I would recommend it wholeheartedly,
>not just because of the folk/Nanci mentionings but because it's just extremely
>well written. 

You can find this book and others like:
Nanci Griffith's Other Voices: A Personal History of Folk Music.
Solo: Women Singer-Songwriters in Their Own Words.
Musichound Folk: The Essential Album Guide.
It's Only Rock and Roll: An Anthology of Rock and Roll Short Stories.
Inside the Music: Conversations With Contemporary Musicians.
The Virgin Encyclopedia of 60's Music - Popular Music Series.

AT:
http://www.cruzio.com/~billpeet/MusicByCandlelight/Books/index.html

Cheers
Sue
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*MUSIC BY CANDLELIGHT* CDs
http://www.cruzio.com/~billpeet/MusicByCandlelight
"THERE'S A LIGHT BEYOND THESE WOODS MARY MARGARET"


_________________________________________________________________


Subject: NN: Top ten list for 1998
   From: BMiller224@aol.com

I haven't really participated in these "top ten" listings in years past.  But
I thought I would give it a try this year.  So, here goes, in reverse order:

(10) Gillian Welch, "Hell Among the Yearlings."  Welch plays bluegrass.  But
this very talented singer/songwriter has built a career very much in the best
spirit of Pete Seeger, writing interesting and innovative music while both
drawing from and honoring a popular (folk) music tradition.  Seeger no doubt
would find a kindred soul echoing in the hard-times atmosphere of "Whiskey
Girl" or the straightforward working-class perspective of "Miner's Refrain."

(9) Lee Ann Womack, "Some Things I Know."  In my view of country music,
everything on my list should be counted as "country," with the possible
exception of Bach.  Womack is one that the musical Powers That Be still
officially call country.  Regardless of what you call it, I love her music.
This album is country music at its best.  "I'd Rather Have What We Had" gives
a whimsical twist to the cheatin' song.  And "I'll Think of a Reason Later" by
Tony Martin and Tim Michels calls to mind the innovative irreverence of some
of Rodney Crowell's early songs.

(8) Jones & Leva, "Journey Home."  A beautiful bluegrass album.  The songs
range from jeremiads against drinkin' and other sins, like "Drunkard's
Lantern" and "Satan I Won't Be Your Servant No More," to moving, evocative
pieces like "A Sweet Goodbye" and "Loving on Borrowed Time."

(7) Various artists, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone: The Songs of Pete
Seeger." Pete Seeger had only one solo hit record, "Little Boxes."  But he is
one of the most influential figures in American popular music, not least
because of his role in winning a wide audience for Woody Guthrie's songs.
This is a strong compilation of original recordings by a variety of artists.
Standouts include Ann DeFranco on "My Name is Lisa Kavelage" and Peter, Paul
and Mary on "All Mixed Up."

(6) Emmylou Harris, "Spyboy."  Emmy has been #1 on my list of popular singers
for 20 years or so, and her latest album illustrates why.  Always finding ways
to make her music fresh, she gives u new renditions of old favorites like
"Love Hurts" and "Boulder to Birmingham" as well as a haunting version of
Daniel Lanois' "The Maker."

(5) Murray Perahia, Bach's "English Suites Nos. 1,3, & 6."  This is Bach and
the piano, nothing else, played by the brilliant Murray Perahia, who performs
many of the Beethoven pieces on the "Immortal Beloved" soundtrack .  The liner
notes use a Bach quotation to rather grandly describe the music as being for
the "glorification of God and the renewal of the mind."  In any case, it's a
treat for fans of Bach and for those who love solo piano music.

(4) Lucinda Williams, "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road."  Lucinda's new album
deserves the praise it's receiving.  Emmylou Harris calls it a "masterpiece."
In what would have been labeled "country rock" years ago, she invokes images
of Louisiana and Mississippi in ways sometimes nostalgic and sometimes
exciting.  The sweet but mournful "Lake Charles" is my favorite, achieving a
similar effect to her earlier "Sweet Old World."

(3) Valerie Smith "Patchwork Heart."  This bluegrass album has the special
quality of sounding like a collection of old favorites by about the second or
third listening.  The lively Gillian Welch tune "Red Clay Halo" makes you want
to dance, Smith's own "Bittersweet" makes you want to cry into your beer, and
other tracks are equally evocative.  The duet with Charlie Louvin on "My
Baby's Gone" is a special treat.

(2) John Adams, "Gnarly Buttons."  Adams is one of the leading contemporary
classical composers.  This album features the Kronos Quartet performing
"John's Book of Alleged Dances" and the London Sinfonietta playing the title
work.  The "Gnarly Buttons" piece is a three-part dance highlighting the
clarinet, drawing melodic ideas from a 19th-century hymn "The Footsteps of
Jesus," and featuring a hoe-down for a Mad Cow complete with banjo.

(1) Kate Campbell, "Visions of Plenty."  Kate's beautiful melodies, insightful
lyrics and openness to many musical styles produces a body of work that is
part folk music, part celebration of the diversity of the American South and
part Biblical-style prophecy.  From the tastefully outrageous "Funeral Food"
to the critical historical narrative of "Crazy in Alabama," this album is a
wonderful piece of work.

There were some individual songs of Nanci's this year that I liked very much,
but I was not terribly enthusiastic over "Other Voices, Too" on the whole.  My
favorite track, "Wings of a Dove," actually had Lucinda Williams singing lead
with Nanci doing harmony.

Bruce Miller
San Bruno, CA


_________________________________________________________________


Subject: NN: Top not-quite-Ten List
   From: MFDennis@aol.com

Thought I should put in my $.02 worth, but I could only come up with seven
titles, plus one reissue -- not sure if this is an indication that not much
caught my attention this year, or just the result of changing jobs and abodes
at the same time and being too distracted to get to the music store very
often.  Therefore, in some kind of alphabetical order:

Chris Isaak, Speak of the Devil:  What I like best about Chris is that he just
kept making music the way he wanted to make it even though it took 20 years
before anyone outside of San Francisco and Europe started to listen.  And I
like the way his songs reflect his myriad musical influences:  early rock n'
roll, folk, rockabilly, tex-mex, jazz and mid-century popular vocal stylists
(think Sinatra and see below).

Dixie Chicks, Wide Open Spaces:  It would be easy for some folk-people to
dismiss these ladies as a country version of Wilson Phillips -- until you see
them perform.  Some pretty impressive work on guitar, dobro, banjo, fiddle and
mandolin, not to mention their vocal chops (on the twangy side, but we Nanci
fans like that don't we?).  Check out their cover of Bonnie Raitt's Give It Up
or Let Me Go.

Los Super Seven:  A tex-mex super session with Flaco Jimenez, Freddy Fender,
Ruben Ramos, Rick Trevino, Joe Ely, and Cesar Rosas and David Hidalgo of Los
Lobos.   The inscription in the liner notes is a quote from, of all people,
Lord Byron:  "I love the language, that soft bastard Latin, which melts like
kisses from a female mouth."  That about describes the whole album for me (if
I change the gender of that mouth).

Lucinda Williams, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road:  A lot has already been said
about this one and despite repeated recommendations, I didn't buy it until I
heard the cut Joy used in an episode or Homicide: Life on the Street.  Wow.
Hasn't been out of my cd changer since I brought it home.

Lyle Lovett, Step Inside This House:  A lot has already been said about this
too.  Around the time it was released, I saw a small (real small) ad in the
local entertainment paper that said "Lyle Lovett with sign copies of and play
songs from his new cd at Border's, Saturday 7pm."  I thought maybe I was
hallucinating.  I went out there anyway, 2 hours early, and stood in line --
ended up about 6 feet away from the stage.  He played about 10 songs and I got
my cd signed afterwards.  What a treat to see him in such an intimate setting.

Nanci Griffith, Other Voices Too:  Not her best stuff, but it stayed in the cd
changer for a long time anyway.

Ricky Skaggs, Bluegrass Rules!  Ricky finally got out of his country music-
only contract and returns to his roots -- and I'm glad.

Re-issued (first released in 1967)
Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim:  Frank softly singing songs
mostly by Jobim, accompanied by the incomparable Brazilian jazz guitarist
himself.  It's exquisite.

Notes:  Still need to buy Eric Taylor's Resurrect.  I did buy Cry Cry Cry but
am not moved.  Not sorry I bought it though since Richard Shindell's cover of
James Keelaghan's Cold Missouri Waters is worth the price of the cd.

-Mary, who wants a pair of pumpkin-colored boots just like Lyle has


_________________________________________________________________


Subject: NN: Nanci in the Barbican
   From: "Hans Janssen" (hjanssen@mail.dotcom.fr>

Hello all,

After a week I have my page about the concerts from Nanci in the Barbican
and the meeting from a group of NN'er from Europe and America ready.

Tou can see it at http://members.xoom.com/ov2/  and in the near future at
http://fly.to/nanci

A question to the members of the group NN'ers from last Sunday: Can you help
with the names I forgot.


met vriendelijke groeten,

Hans Janssen.

_________________________________________________________________


Subject: NN: The Chicks and Nanci
   From: RonHennesy@aol.com

Yesterday someone submitted a Top Ten list with good comments, but I
precipitously deleted it before I realized I wanted to reply.  (So I don't
remember who submitted the message.  Sorry!)

The list includes the Dixie Chicks' album "Wide Open Spaces," which is on my
own Top Ten list (although my list has never quite made it to ten).  The
comment said the Chicks are twangy, but that shouldn't bother fans of Nanci.

The Dixie Chicks and Nanci are all from Texas: the Chicks from Dallas and
Nanci from Austin; and it occurred to me that the accents of the singers are
similar.  I'm thinking specifically of Nanci's "Ford Econoline" (which she
says her mother hates because it is too country); and the Chicks' "There's
Your Trouble."  Compare Nanci's singing "cruisin' along in that Ford
Econoline" and the Chicks' lead singer Natalie Maines's singing "seeing double
with the wrong one."  The accents are twangy, the singing styles are hard-
edged, and the r's of "Ford" and "wrong" are extraordinarily harsh!

I think the harsh singing styles add to the thrill and humor of these two
wonderful songs.

Ron Hennessy


_________________________________________________________________


Subject: NN: Top 11, Nanci Turn-On, & Lucinda
   From: "Steve Goldberger" (steve@aldgategroup.com>

Fellow NN-ters,

First of all, hello again to all those fine new cyber-friends I now have
thanks to the NN.   All of you great people who wrote me during the last
month or so as I recover from my heart surgery.  Your contact has had a most
positive and uplifting effect on my overall state of mind and recovery
process.   Thanks again, and by the way I'm doing great!

Which gets me to this:  As some of you know I've kept a web-journal of my
experience and  I've had responses from people all over the globe.  I got a
very long e-mail from a long lost cousin of mine in Edmonton Alberta, whom I
haven't seen or spoken to in at least 25 years.   Anyway, she's been reading
my journal on the net and in it I talk about our Nanci and the NanciNet.
This is what she wrote me:

"PS    Nanci Griffith, eh?  I've never heard her music but I'm going to
go out and pick up one of her CDs soon.  I checked her out on the 'net
(I don't need Andrew to do it for me all the time) and there was a long
list of her albums.  Do you have any suggestions as to which album would
be the best one for a Nancy-neophyte to start with? And what were the
other 9 CDs you schlepped to the hospital?"

There ya' go.  I will send her a list of my favourite Nanci's and hopefully
we'll have another new convert!

FYI-
I was out shopping for xmas gift CD's and found a new one that I'd like to
add to my top ten list for '98.  Let's just call it my" top -11 list."

It's called "Lucinda Williams" and it s a reissue of her 1988 long out of
print album, "Rough Trade" with six bonus tracks.  "One of the most
influential recordings of the past ten years, this release has been newly
remastered from the original two-track masters.   Deluxe packaging includes
new photos, a song by song description by Lucinda...."
http://www.kochint.com

N.P. - Lucinda mix of the above and Car Wheeles, plus Etta James brand new
"12 songs of Christmas"  (unbelievable jazz/blues x-mas- too late to add to
my top -11?)

Steve  (Pig in the City)
Toronto & Niagara On The Lake, Ontario  (68 degress on Dec. 6th!)
http://www.aldgategroup.com/BumTickerPages/BumtickerHomePage1.htm


_________________________________________________________________


Subject: NN: Working in Corners...and screens
   From: Poetmuse@aol.com

Hello my fellow Nanci-nuts. I hope everyone is having a good pre-holiday
crazyness weekend. Actually, I can't wait for the whole thing to be over and
done with. I love Christmas, don't get me wrong, but each year I find it
increasingly harder to deal with everyone else's "love" for it. I see one more
advertisment for a "furby" I may take matters into my own hands and blow up
EToys. Not to mention what I will do to all those fools who spend 5000 dollars
for a blessed beanie baby that "retired" around 20 years ago or something
before bean bags were invented.....(grrr> but already I am rambling, so
perhaps I should get with it. 
It's snowing today in Phoenix. A rather unexpected, wacky thing to see. And in
that frame of mind I sit here and feel a bit like Nanci- a heart stuck out in
her summer's clothes. What a strange and wonderful world we live in... may all
of you one day get to see the beauty of a cactus in snow...the smooth reds and
yellows of the earth drapped in a white (albeit wet, and rainy) covering. It
messes with your equilibruim, me thinks. You know it's not quite right, and
yet you can't look away....it's so beautiful.
Does anyone else think Nanci should record Paul Simon's Homeward Bound?
The lyrics are perfect for her... echo many of her own sentiments. 

"I'm sitting in a railway station, got a ticket for my destination,
on a tour of one night stands my suitcase and guitar in hand
and every stop is neatly planned for a poet and a one-man band..."

And in the third verse, surely Nanci has sung these same words herself many
times over...

"Tonight I'll sing my songs again,
I'll play the game and pretend
But all my words come back to me
in shades of mediocrity
like emptiness and harmony...I need somone to comfort me.."

Like These Days in An Open Book- the writer needs "someone to touch me, to put
no one above me, someone who loves me like the air he breathes..." She's
driven her weary vessel- alone out on the road, and now needs the comfort of a
lover's touch. She's nobody's angel- her own words coming back to haunt her
when she realizes how she has kept herself apart from those who could or would
have loved her- "I'm grounded and rusty...my dance card is dusty now, because
I wanted to be, what the angels see when they look down."

A lot of Nanci's music talks about a feeling of displacemnet. Whether it be
about missing one's hometown, or missing someone she has loved. Or even about
being displaced from the one she is with. Her music has always had that sense
of leaving to it- from Late Night Grande Hotel- "I'm working on a morning
flight to anywhere but here, I'm watching this evening fire burn away my
tears, all my life I've left my troubles by the door, leaving is all I've ever
known before..."  To You Can't Go Home Again- "let the Colorado River roll out
to sea, I will be crossing it in changes, this 'ole town never did really care
that much for me, I don't know why I always come here in my dreams, it's the
hardest to hold but it's the easiest to find."  Even her "cover" songs
frequently have travel and leaving as a theme- Guy Clarks' She Ain't Goin'
Nowhere is a prime example- your image of Nanci in this song is a hard one to
shake- "She was standin on the gone side of leavin', she found her thumb and
stuck it in the breeze, she'll take anything that's goin close to somewhere
else, she can lay it down and live it as she please.." 
And I guess- a traveling musician is the perfect lifestyle for Nanci- since
she has never felt connected to one place or one person really for all that
long. And according to articles and comments heard here and there, when she
was diagnosed with her cancer she finally asked herself- who was she running
away from? Maybe that explains her announcement of no more tours and albums
for awhile. Maybe she finally wants to be homeward bound- back to bountiful,
back to her home..back to herself. 
Who can blame her?
I think one of the hardest things to do as an artist is to look at your own
life- hard face in the mirror, bright light on the face- seeing every wrinkle
and every scar life has tossed you. It's not something most people can do.
It's not something they want to do- but it's honest. Being honest with
yourself is probably one of toughest things to do- whether it's about changing
the things about you you've learned to rely on as a crutch or whether it's
about facing those ghost's you've let linger around you too long; you shake
the devil loose and you get back on the horse for another ride- Nanci has this
surviving spirit, I think....and she empowers me to do the same. 


Christina "the sun is out now" Myers



_________________________________________________________________


Subject: NN: Re: Americana stations which play NG, lost NN'er, 
                 Nanci's Austin following, and all-time faves
   From: Quincy Benn Welch (lomax1@iamerica.net>

Dear Nanci-Netters--I'm Cat Welch and generally lurk quite a bit (my
last post was re: Nanci's Austin) from which I got great response from
NN's on private email.  One was a woman we lost in the Last Great
Mail Cache disaster, whose user name was kaleepi. Kaleepi, are you
out there, friend in the madness?
 
As a former DJ running AC (the old MOR) formats who has received some
fine updated training on a "hot young country" local station (who
does not play Nanci at all) I've been investigating the possibility
of approaching Texas' Americana stations (also called renegade or
alternative country).  There are several in Dallas, including KNON,
KFAN (which I listened to in the Sixties when I was a teenager and
who played a folk format when I was running around the old Dallas
Rubiyat) and the venerable PBS station, KERA.  Houston has a station
called KPFT, New Braunfels has one, KNBT, San Antonio has KSYN, and
Houston has an Americana station, KPFT.  Most of this info, I found
through Metacrawler, with URL of www.americana/music.com. The sites
also include webpages, programming, and top playlist favorites through-
out the US, many of which are among the Top Ten lists featured in the
NN digest. Of course there's AAA/format-schmormat KGSR in Austin and
a wonderful PBS station, KUT, which features a Folkways program 
throughout Saturday mornings and a Live Set program, followed by Texas 
Music on Sunday evenings.  If anyone knows anything more about these 
stations, or can confirm that they do indeed play lots of Nanci and her 
singer/songwriter cohorts, please respond privately by email or
via the digest (if possible). Metacrawler also has several other sites which 
I found by entering radio+americana+format.  How I wish I had one of 
those deals whereby you click on the underlined URL and it just turns up 
on the screen but my computer is far from sophisticated.
 
If there are any Americana nuts out there, I would love to hear from
you, as well as from composers willing to write lovely arrangements to
my story-song lyrics, which have been compared (sigh) to Nanci's more
than once.  I'm also interested in learning more about house concerts
and whether Nanci has considered these as the small venues discussed
in the digest.

Nanci does indeed have a loyal following in Austin and has for years,
back to the BF Deal/Mike Williams LP's.  I attended the signing for
OVOR when it was released and fans were online in great numbers, with
tapes, posters, and pix to be signed. Along with Lyle, Robert Earl,
Lucinda, Deniece Franke, Eric Taylor and others who began their careers
in Austin, she was a fixture at well-attended gigs at not only The
Hole in the Wall on the "Drag" but at the venerable and now defunct
Alamo Hotel and emmajoe's on Guadalupe, named, I think, for Emma
Goldman and Joe Hill, if I'm not mistaken.  In the beginning of the
Nashville days, she began to play the Paramount on Congress Avenue and
was asked to play at the Driskill Hotel Inaugural Ball on Sixth Street
for Ann Richards' many to-do's following her 1990 election.  Unfor-
tunately, the gig was cancelled, which also included Marcia Ball and
Jerry Jeff among others, including Angela Strehli, and, I think, Lou
Ann Barton.
 
I realize this is long and may require some editing, but I have lurked
for so long I thought I'd come out of hiding.

Cat "Exiled in East Texas" (formerly a long-time denizen of Austin)
 
PS.  Not a Top Ten, but a list of all-time faves, which includes in
order, Nanci, Emmylou, Gillian Welch, John Gorka, Deneice Franke, Marc
Cohn, Leonard Cohen, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lucinda, Townes, Mickey
White (who played for him) and Pat Mears (who was once married to
Mick before she gained such a strong following in Europe), David 
Halley, David Rodriguez and Betty Elders (whose husband, Gene, plays in 
George Strait's Ace in the Hole band).
 
Stop, swift fingers!

Musical luv to all from this "friend out in the madness. . ."
Cat Welch, lomax1@iAmerica.net

_________________________________________________________________

Questions about NanciNet?  Send e-mail to bpage@scctel.com