Wayfaring Strangers Ladies From The Canyon Rar File
Now, how do you use them? Tuners like to monitor all sorts of environmental factors when evaluating which jet to use. Some by temp, some by humidity, some people just say 'the air feels heavy today'. Comer c50 tuning manual transmission. The jets you now have in your PKT holder are all you'll ever need. This is all great but there is only one true measurement that takes everything into account and is a consistent means by which to tune.
Released in 1970, Joni Mitchell's third album Ladies of the Canyon was a crucial document of the gradual segue of the tradition-based folk revival into a new movement of breezy, more introspective singer-songwriters. And while Mitchell obviously doesn't bear sole responsibility for creating the archetype of the long-haired, coffeehouse folk chanteuse, there is no question that her success quickly inspired hundreds of similarly reflective young female songwriters to pick up their acoustic guitars and join in quixotic pursuit of lucrative recording careers. As a result, the following years witnessed a deluge of regionally produced and distributed folk albums- the vast majority of which eventually found their way to family basements and Salvation Army stores, as their winsome authors returned unceremoniously to quiet obscurity. Now, in order to better demonstrate the breadth of this movement and the astonishing reach of Mitchell's influence, the inveterate crate-diggers of the Numero Group present Wayfaring Strangers: Ladies From the Canyon. Diligently researched and compiled with the label's characteristic attention to detail, the collection gathers 14 impossibly rare tracks by female folkies from every corner of the nation, covering an era which spans roughly from 1971-76. Variously funded by parents, church groups or community organizations, these songs originally appeared on private-press albums that were issued in pressings as small as 50 copies, and each retains a certain undeniable handmade charm.
The compilation appears at a time when reissues of unjustly overlooked folk singers like Judee Sill, Vashti Bunyan, Bridget St. John, and Linda Perhacs are still fresh on the shelves. Unlike those performers, however, few artists on Ladies From the Canyon project a musical personality distinctive or eccentric enough to carry an entire album.
(Nor, it should be noted, are there any truly psychedelic notes ever played or sung.) In fact, the most striking aspect of this collection is the utter uniformity of its perfomances, not only in sound but in mood and spirit. Nearly all of these vocalists sing in a rich, Joni-like alto over spare arrangements of guitar and piano. And despite their differences in geography and background, each performer achieves a nearly identical sense of dreamy, melancholic longing, sounding content to leave the wider dynamic range of rage, lust, joy, and defiance (not to mention humor) to a separate generation of female artists. It would take a hardened heart, however, to ignore the simple beauty evident in tracks like Collie Ryan's gorgeous, haiku-like 'Cricket' or Priscilla Quinby's nautical 'With All Hands'. And, as one might expect from such a 'real people' collection, a couple of these tracks possess that indefinable, unschooled strangeness that is peculiar to outsider art. The most engaging such example is Shira Small's eliptical 'Eternal Life', with its casual declaration that 'Eternal life is the intersection of the line of time and the plane of now.' Not to be outdone, the haunting 'Maybe in Another Year,' is sung by Peoria teen Jennie Pearl with a clear-eyed innocence that recalls the best moments of the Langley Schools Music Project.
Also noteworthy is 15-year-old Ellen Warshaw's surprisingly forceful and harrowing take on the Stones' 'Sister Morphine', one of the few cuts that feels out of keeping with the collection's overall earth mother vibration. Most of the performers on Ladies From the Canyon have long since retired from the music business. One notable exception is Barbara Sipple, who has since gone on to a successful career as an opera singer, and whose 'Song of Life' is one of several here that is tinged with the mystic, soft-focused Christianity typical of the era.
As further evidenced by tracks like Carla Sciaky's 'And I a Fairytale Lady', there is constant yearning that courses through nearly all of these songs, a yearning for some external force- be it Jesus, a waylaid Prince Charming, or simply a record contract- to come and deliver each singer from her lonesome solitude. But as Ladies From the Canyon amply illustrates, these scattered, isolated voices were actually far from alone, and maybe their inclusion here within this fascinating time capsule can provide some small echo of the communion they once sought to gain through their long-neglected music.
It is absolutely trivial to note that certain songs crop up over and over again in the folk collector's travels; after all, as our blog subtitle reminds us, when we talk about folk, we're talking about a form that by its very nature treats older songs and tunes as part of the communication which makes us community, available to all who lay claim to culture. But just as true hitmaking is hardly formulaic, it's not often obvious what keeps a song in the stream.
Our series explores the various facets of heavy coverage, as a lens into folk music as culture. Today, a short treatment of the oft-covered folk tune Wayfaring Stranger - a song which claims is 'often classified as a 'white spiritual' - helps us examine the religious origins of folk. Throughout much of recorded history, religion has served communities as both as a community locus and as a carrier of song; as such, it is perhaps unsurprising to find a relationship of sorts between folk music and the church itself.
Wayfaring Strangers Ladies From The Canyon Rar File 2016
As with any folk form, of course, context matters; to note that several songs commonly associated with Cat Stevens can be found in the Universalist Unitarian hymnal says something very different about both artist and religious community than pointing out that a move to the heavily Jewish neighborhoods of New York's Coney Island in the 1940s led to the recent release of a wonderful album of. Thanks to Joyful and anonymous above for alerting me to the 16 Horsepower version of this song, which I have since tracked down - it is indeed a gorgeous take, ragged and heart-full and ancient-sounding, and I'll keep it on tap for the next (Re)Covered post, where we look back at older posts to find what's cropped up since they were first shared. As always, I am indebted to my readership for making this folkblog an ongoing conversation, a fundamentally folkier phenom than just one guy's soapbox thoughts. As for the Cash - surely you've all heard THAT one before, eh? If not, please say so, and I'll plan to bring the man around, too, when it comes time to do so.