Live Wailin' Jennys song: "Pants" - This just screams "musician parent dealing with a recalcitrant toddler who won't get dressed." Hehehe.
Speaking of the Jennys, they put out one of those iTunes session thingies a few months ago. Mostly it's new versions of their old songs, but they also have a fabulous cover of "By Way of Sorrow" on it.
While I'm reccing, have "It'll End Too Soon," by Crooked Still. Crooked Still is a bluegrass band--or actually, the more accurate term is progressive/contemporary bluegrass or "newgrass," because these folks have way more in common with the Jennys or even Hem than they do with "Dueling Banjos" (although a banjo, cello, and fiddle do feature heavily in their sound, and to be fair, they're a bit bluegrassier than similar act Nickel Creek). Actually, Aoife O'Donovan's voice is very reminiscent of Sally Ellyson's (Hem). I don't quite understand the lyrics--are they from the POV of a kid on summer vacation? a plant that will die at the first frost? a ghost?--and the line "through the saddest sads and the funnest funs" quite frankly makes me cringe, but it's super catchy and really fun.
Although O'Donovan's voice is clear and beautiful, there's something dark about the instrumentation in most of their work that instantly puts me in the mind of a murder ballad. (Maybe it's just that my first exposure to them was "Little Sadie," followed by quickly by "Darlin' Corey" and "The Wind and Rain," all of which involve someone getting offed. "The Wind and Rain" is a version of the "Twa Sisters" ballad, which shows up everywhere in folk music. Loreena McKennitt based "The Bonny Swans" on it, for instance.) Anyway, I like this quality a lot; it gives their music some heft that I don't think would be there otherwise.
The one I linked above is my favorite, but some others I like:
"Orphan Girl" - Gillian Welch cover, though I think these guys do it better. Very religious, but it's famous for a reason, and that reason is it's gorgeous.
"Angeline the Baker" - Originally a minstrel song from 1850, but they changed it quite a bit. Also catchy.
"Distress" - Another trad. song, with lyrics originally from the poem "On the Death of a Child." Bluegrass is just a dark and sad genre of music, y'all. Pretty, though.
"Half of What We Know" - An original. I'm particularly fond of the fiddle line.
Speaking of the Jennys, they put out one of those iTunes session thingies a few months ago. Mostly it's new versions of their old songs, but they also have a fabulous cover of "By Way of Sorrow" on it.
While I'm reccing, have "It'll End Too Soon," by Crooked Still. Crooked Still is a bluegrass band--or actually, the more accurate term is progressive/contemporary bluegrass or "newgrass," because these folks have way more in common with the Jennys or even Hem than they do with "Dueling Banjos" (although a banjo, cello, and fiddle do feature heavily in their sound, and to be fair, they're a bit bluegrassier than similar act Nickel Creek). Actually, Aoife O'Donovan's voice is very reminiscent of Sally Ellyson's (Hem). I don't quite understand the lyrics--are they from the POV of a kid on summer vacation? a plant that will die at the first frost? a ghost?--and the line "through the saddest sads and the funnest funs" quite frankly makes me cringe, but it's super catchy and really fun.
Although O'Donovan's voice is clear and beautiful, there's something dark about the instrumentation in most of their work that instantly puts me in the mind of a murder ballad. (Maybe it's just that my first exposure to them was "Little Sadie," followed by quickly by "Darlin' Corey" and "The Wind and Rain," all of which involve someone getting offed. "The Wind and Rain" is a version of the "Twa Sisters" ballad, which shows up everywhere in folk music. Loreena McKennitt based "The Bonny Swans" on it, for instance.) Anyway, I like this quality a lot; it gives their music some heft that I don't think would be there otherwise.
The one I linked above is my favorite, but some others I like:
"Orphan Girl" - Gillian Welch cover, though I think these guys do it better. Very religious, but it's famous for a reason, and that reason is it's gorgeous.
"Angeline the Baker" - Originally a minstrel song from 1850, but they changed it quite a bit. Also catchy.
"Distress" - Another trad. song, with lyrics originally from the poem "On the Death of a Child." Bluegrass is just a dark and sad genre of music, y'all. Pretty, though.
"Half of What We Know" - An original. I'm particularly fond of the fiddle line.
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