Playlist: Episode 173

Folk Roots Radio on November 1 2014 (Episode 173) featured interviews with Ted Ferris from Cambridge Live Music (Cambridge Ontario) discussing their live local music awareness program and Taylor Ashton from Fish & Bird discussing their latest release “Something In The Ether”. As always, we wrapped it all up with a new mystery theme, guilty pleasure and, of course, lots of great music.

This weekend’s mystery theme which was “The Soul”. Not soul as in music but the soul as in ‘the spiritual essence of being’. What some people have called ‘the electricity that powers the light bulb’. The soul and its various aspects, are an excellent topic for a song which was why it was a bit of a challenge to narrow down my six choices today. We started off with… the Oysterband w/ “The Soul Electric” from their 2003 album “Rise Above”, and followed that with a new song by Mary Gauthier, “Oh Soul” from her 2014 album “Trouble & Love” (Proper Records). We continued the theme with The Blind Boys Of Alabama and a couple of my all-time favourite artists… Graham Parker back with The Rumour and “Old Soul” from their excellent 2012 reunion album “Three Chords Good” and Bruce Cockburn with “Soul Of A Man” from 1991’s “Nothing But A Burning Bright”. We wrapped it all up with Nova Scotia-based native Saskatchewanian Kim Wempe with “Restless Soul” from her 2013 album “Coalition”. We also included an instrumental from Captain Dirt & The Skirt – the musical collaboration between singer-songwriter-guitarist Kristin Sweetland and bassist-violinist Lyndell Montgomery from their excellent 2013 release “The Adventures of Captain Dirt and the Skirt”. We’ll be playing more from that album on future shows.

I was very pleased to interview Ted Ferris from Cambridge Live Music earlier this week. Cambridge Live Music are a group of passionate music lovers who’ve come together to promote live and local music within the City of Cambridge in Ontario. For all the challenges we’ve seen in the music industry in this digital age… with the loss of so many records stores, and much less focus on the release of physical singles and albums, we are also seeing groups of people banding together to support live and local music … and it’s certainly not just an Ontario thing – it’s happening across the world. I’ll admit that before I got into radio, I hadn’t a clue how much great local music was out there – it just wasn’t getting the exposure because it was being drowned out by promotion through major record labels. It was like… if you weren’t on a major label you didn’t exist. Nice to know there are more and more people out there promoting great music close to home.

This weekend’s guilty pleasure went out to Boris who asked for one of his favourite songs… “The Bare Necessities” from the 1967 Disney film The Jungle Book. The Bare Necessities was written by Terry Gilkyson, and sung in the movie by Phil Harris as “Baloo” and Bruce Reitherman as “Mowgli”. The Bare Necessities was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1967 but lost out to “Talk To The Animals” from Doctor Doolittle. Apart from the original, the other notable version of The Bare Necessities was that sung by Louis Armstrong. On this week’s show we played the version by Terry Gilkyson’s daughter Eliza Gilkyson, from her 2007 live album on Red House Records, “Your Town Tonight”. We followed The Bare Necessities with another song from Eliza, this time a new one, with “Fast Freight” from “The Nocturne Diaries”, also on Red House Records.

If you have a guilty pleasure you’d like to share – that song you still love though you think other people would find it unfashionable (believe me, they won’t), get in touch. We’d love to play it for you! And, if you have a good story about why you love that song, so much the better.

We continued the railways theme with Tia McGraff with “Conductor For A Day” from 2013’s “Break These Chains” followed by E.B Anderson & The Resolutes with “Train Roll On” from their album “Broken Down Horse” that also came out in 2013 on Halifax’s Let’s Riot Music. And we wrapped it up that set with new music from the Be Good Tanyas‘ Frazey Ford. From her new solo album “Indian Ocean” we listened to “Weather Pattern” and that’s just come out on Nettwerk.

Fish & Bird haves just released their fourth album “Something In The Ether”. Taylor Ashton joined us by phone to chat about the new album and their Folk Roots Radio promoted show at Silence with Guelph’s own Tannis Slimmon on Wednesday November 12. You can get all the details about how to buy tickets here. We hope you’ll join us, it should be a great show, and hopefully the first of many for us.

We wrapped up the show with John Mann with “These Are The Instructions” from his 2014 “The Waiting Room”, another track from Peggy Seeger with the beautiful “When Fairy Stories End” from her fabulous 2014 album “Everything Changes” and to end it all, Sharlene Olson with “Come What May” from her new album out on Green Suitcase Productions, “Misfits & Moonbeams”.
 
Well, that’s just about all the time we have for today. You can find the full playlist for the show below. Thanks to all the artists who share their music with us, and thank you for listening. We’ll see you next week!

You can listen to the show again on Mixcloud.

Folk Roots Radio: Episode 173 by Folk Roots Radio on Mixcloud

Mystery Theme: “The Soul”

Theme:
Ronnie Lane
Ooh La La
Ooh La La: An Island Harvest (2014, Island)

Oysterband
The Soul’s Above
Rise Above (2003, True North Records)

Mary Gauthier
Oh Soul
Trouble & Love (2014, Proper Records)

The Blind Boys Of Alabama
New Born Soul
Atom Bomb (2005, Real World/CEMA)

Graham Parker & The Rumour
Old Soul
Three Chords Good (2012, Primary Wave/EMI)

Bruce Cockburn
Soul Of A Man
Nothing But A Burning Bright (1991, True North)

Kim Wempe
Restless Soul
Coalition (2013, Self)

Captain Dirt & The Skirt
Soul Captain
The Adventures Of Captain Dirt & The Skirt (2013, Arbora Vita Music)

Jesse Parent
Good To You
Good To You (2009, Self)

Interview: Ted Ferris from Cambridge Live Music (Cambridge Ontario) discussing their local live music awareness program.

Dan Walsh
Staying Low
Outta The Jam (2013, Self)

Eliza Gilkyson
The Bare Necessities
Your Town Tonight (2007, Red House Records)

Eliza Gilkyson
Fast Freight
The Nocturne Diaries (2014, Red House Records)

Tia McGraff
Conductor For A Day
Break These Chains (2013, Bandana Records)

E.B Anderson & The Resolutes
Train Roll On
Broken Down Horse (2013, Let’s Riot Records)

Frazey Ford
Weather Pattern
Indian Ocean (2014, Nettwerk)

Fish & Bird
Something In The Ether
Something In The Ether (2014, Self)

Interview: Taylor Ashton discussing Fish & Bird’s latest release “Something In The Ether” and upcoming Guelph show on Wednesday, November 12.

Fish & Bird
Lost
Something In The Ether (2014, Self)

Fish & Bird
Go-To-Bed Light
Something In The Ether (2014, Self )

John Mann
These Are The Instructions
The Waiting Room (2014, Self)

Peggy Seeger
When Fairy Stories End
Everything Changes (2014, Self)

Sharlene Olson
Come What May
Misfits & Moonbeams (2014, Red Suitcase Productions)