Playlist: Episode 177

This week’s Folk Roots Radio featured an interview about keeping music live and local with Al Robitaille from Georgetown Musictown and Mike Willis from Uncorked on Main, a new tapas & wine bar and music venue in Georgetown Ontario. Later in the show, Toronto-based singer-songwriter Shawn William Clarke joined us to chat about his latest album “William”. As usual we included lots of new music, as well as our mystery theme and guilty pleasure.

This week’s mystery theme was all about ‘driving’, with a focus on people either driving to spend the holidays with family or, dare I say it, to get away from the worst of the Canadian winter. We started off with The Wailin’ Jennys and Heather Masse‘s gorgeous song “Driving” from (2009’s “Live At The Mauch Chunk Opera House”. We followed that with songs about driving from Rita Chiarelli, Harry Nilsson, Everything But The Girl, Jane Lewis and Cheryl Wheeler.

I’m singling out two songs for special mention this time around. The first, Everything But The Girl because “Driving” (1990) is one of Ben Watt’s best compositions and Tracey Thorn, as always, sings it beautifully. I especially love the acoustic mix which fortunately (from my point of view) does away with some of the dance-mix style production that afflicts the other versions of this song. Jane Lewis released one of my favourite albums of the year, “Stay With Me”, and I really love the song “Driving Home”. You really feel as if you’re in the car with her, heading home from a gig – or maybe heading home for the holidays. Either way, it’s a great song with a wonderfully real driving beat and definitely a worthy part of this week’s mystery theme. And that album is highly recommended, especially so if you’re still looking for helpful suggestions for holiday gifts.

This week’s guilty pleasure was Seals & Crofts “Get Closer”, a song written by Jim Seals & Darrell “Dash” Crofts that reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1976. Get Closer was suggested by Chrissy who hoped her husband would take the hint (!???). With the holidays coming up fast, maybe it’s a good time for us all to get closer?

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.

This week we played great new music by Sharlene Olson, Amelia Curran, Jonathan Byrd, James Hill, Trevor Gordon Hall and Shawn William Clarke. The Shawn William Clarke interview is definitely worth checking out. You can find it elsewhere on this site. People like Shawn William Clarke are the reason I enjoy doing this show. Discovering his music has been a very pleasant surprise.

Trevor Gordon Hall is another artist whose music inspires me. I first heard about Trevor’s instrumental guitar music and his invention, the ‘kalimba guitar’ or kalimbator, in the run up to this past summer’s Mariposa Folk Festival. You can find our interview here. Trevor has just released the album he discusses, “Mind Heart Fingers”. Today we played the very beautiful “The Blue Hour”. I’m not sure when the blue hour is, but for me its around 2 a.m. when I can’t sleep and I’m catching up on things like radio playlists. Anyway, it’s a great album, and definitely worth checking out, if like me, you enjoy great guitar instrumentals.

Well, that’s just about all the time we have for today. Check out the full playlist with artist links below. Thanks to all the artists who share their music with us, and thank you for listening. We’ll see you next week!

Folk Roots Radio – Episode 177 by Folk Roots Radio on Mixcloud

Mystery Theme: “Driving”

Nicolas & The Iceni (Theme)
Lucy She Rises
Roll Right (due 2015)

The Wailin’ Jennys
Driving
Live At The Mauch Chunk Opera House (2009, Red House Records) CDN

Rita Chiarelli
Driving Wheel
No-One To Blame (2004, Mad Iris Music) CDN

Harry Nilsson
Driving Along (1971)
Nilsson Schmilsson (2013, Legacy Recordings)

Everything But The Girl
Driving (Acoustic Mix)
Adapt Or Die: 10 Years Of Remixes (2005, Atlantic / Beggars Banquet)

Jane Lewis
Driving Home
Stay With Me (2014, Self) CDN

Cheryl Wheeler
Driving Home
Driving Home (1993, Philo Records)

Trevor Gordon Hall
The Blue Hour
Mind Heart Fingers (2014, Self)

Ablett & Cooper
Angie
Changing Landscapes (2008, Self) CDN

Interview: Al Robitaille from Georgetown Musictown and Mike Willis from Uncorked on Main discussing live music in Georgetown Ontario.

Second Wind
Second Wind
Second Wind (2010, Self) CDN

Seals & Crofts
Get Closer
Get Closer (1976, Warner Bros)

E.B. Anderson & The Resolutes
Move Your Feet
Broken Down Horse (2013, Let’s Riot) CDN

Sharlene Olson
Misfits & Moonbeams
Misfits & Moonbeams (2014, Green Suitcase Productions) CDN

Amelia Curran
Coming For You
They Promised You Mercy (2014, Six Shooter Records) CDN

Interview: Toronto-based singer-songwriter Shawn William Clarke discussing his second solo album “William”.

Shawn William Clarke
Ten Years Ago
William” (2014, Self) CDN

Shawn William Clarke
In Conversation
William” (2014, Self) CDN

Shawn William Clarke
I Blame The Loyalist Ghost
William” (2014, Self) CDN

Jonathan Byrd
Slip Away
You Can’t Outrun The Radio (2014, Waterbug)

Scott Cook
Broke So Far From Home
One More Time Around (2013, Self) CDN

James Hill
If Wishes Were Horses
The Old Silo (2014, Borealis) CDN