Music Tuesday: The Hillbilly Thomist

I haven’t had a Music Tuesday in quite a while.  I’ve wanted to highlight this album ever since I got it, which was shortly after it came out two years ago.  The group is called The Hillbilly Thomists, and the album—their only album to date—is named after the band.  It’s a set of traditional “roots” music performed in a Bluegrass style.  What is remarkable about this band is they are Dominican (as in the Order of Preachers) religious men, brothers and priests presumably who play in their spare time. 

Here’s “Poor Wayfaring Stranger,” possibly their only crafted music video.

That is just fantastic.  The band’s name comes from the music they play (hillbilly) coupled with the great saint of the Dominicans, St. Thomas Aquinas.  They explain where they came up with the name in this little clip. 

The Hillbilly Thomists have been featured in a number of Catholic media.  Dominicana, the journal of the Dominican student brothers of the St. Joseph Province of the Order of Preachers tells how the group went from sacred music they went to roots music.    

After four albums of sacred choral music, the Dominican brothers have tuned their banjos and turned their attention to Americana folk and bluegrass. Their hope: to spread the joy of the gospel through the joy of music.

And

Traditional bluegrass music is playful and energetic; along with American folk music, it often contains explicitly theological themes: belief in Christ, the goodness of life, the pain of unrequited love, the finality of death, and hope in eternal life. It is a traditional southern form of testimony to the presence of grace in the human heart.

Brad Minor at The Catholic Thing espouses the countercultural appeal of the brothers.  

So enter these Dominican friars, not one of whom would likely make it through a first audition on American Idol, which is what makes Hillbilly Thomists so satisfying.

There are mostly standards here, including “Poor Wayfaring Stranger,” “Amazing Grace,” “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” and the aforementioned “Angel Band.”

Two priests, eight brothers, and twelve songs in all.

Back to more songs.  Here’s one of my favorites, “To Canaan’s Land.”

And finally, let me give you my absolute favorite on the album, “What Wondrous Love is This.”

If you love American folk music and if you’re Christian, I really think you would love this album.  Victor #2, who comments here every so often I think would love this album.  It would make a great Christmas gift for someone.  You can purchase it from the Hillbilly Thomists’ website.  (Last time I checked the CD there was cheaper than at Amazon.) Proceeds go toward supporting the Dominican friars.

Music Tuesday: Joan of Arc by Jennifer Warnes & Leonard Cohen

As you’ve probably seen, I’ve had a series of posts on my reading of Mark Twain’s Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc.  If you want to read my posts on the literary work, here is a link to the last one, and that contains links to the previous four.  

But Joan of Arc always inspires me to listen to this wonderful song written by Leonard Cohen.  The best performance of his song is when he sings it as a duet with Jennifer Warnes.  The song is roughly a dialogue between Joan and Christ at the point of her being burned at the stake.  Now I don’t think the song is exactly historically accurate and the theology doesn’t strike me as being sound.  Cohen is Jewish, albeit he seems to place a number of Catholic memes and themes in several of his songs.  Still the song is excellent and this video clip with the song’s lyrics and images from various works of art on Joan is superb. 

"Well then fire, make your body cold

I'm gonna give you mine to hold"

Saying this she climbed inside

To be his one, to be his only bride

It was deep into his fiery heart

He took the dust of a Joan of Arc

And high above all these assembled wedding guests

He hung the ashes of her very lovely wedding dress

It was deep deep into his fiery heart

That he took the dust of all precious Joan of Arc

Then she clearly clearly understood

If if he was fire, oh she must be wood

Read more: Leonard Cohen - Joan Of Arc Lyrics | MetroLyrics

I can never get enough of that song.

Music Tuesday: Memorial for Leonard Cohen

The singer-songwriter-poet-novelist Leonard Cohen passed away last week and I really want to commemorate the occasion.  I loved his music.  From the LA Times: 

Leonard Cohen, a singer-songwriter whose literary sensibility and elegant dissections of desire made him one of popular music’s most influential and admired figures for four decades, has died. He was 82.

“Unmatched in his creativity, insight, and crippling candor, Leonard Cohen was a true visionary whose voice will be sorely missed,” said his manager Robert Kory, confirming Cohen’s death in statement. “He leaves behind a legacy of work that will bring insight, inspiration, and healing for generations to come.”

The cause of death was not released.

It was not released, but it was cancer. 

It has amazed me how many people have never heard of Leonard Cohen, or if they have they no so little of his music.  He is sort of described as the Canadian Bob Dylan because his early compositions were also folk and because his lyrics were highly poetic.  In my review of Dylan’s Nobel Prize in Literature I stated how and explained why most song lyrics are not poetry and that is still the case with Cohen, but frankly I think Cohen’s lines are much closer to poetic than Dylan’s.  The LA times article continues:

In songs such as “Suzanne,” “Bird on the Wire” and “Hallelujah,” and in his poems and two novels, the Montreal-born artist provided a rarefied alternative to more accessible troubadours, employing meticulous language to plumb the vagaries of the human condition.

His dry, monotone voice, which over the years deepened to a cigarette-charred whisper, contributed to Cohen’s popular image as a depressed — and depressing — artist. He teasingly alluded to that stereotype in one of his songs, referring to “the patron saint of envy and the grocer of despair.”

Cohen’s last LP, October’s  “You Want It Darker,” reflected a deep awareness of his mortality.

It had been reported that Cohen had been ill for some time, and he knew his October album, “You want It Darker” would be his last.  In that title song, he repeats the line, “I’m ready my Lord,” know he has reached an emotional end to his life as well as whatever physical ailments were curtailing him. 

There were so many Catholic allusions and imagery in Cohen’s songs, I had thought he might have been a convert.  He grew up as an Orthodox Jew and lived out his life as a sort of unorthodox Jew, though observant of the Sabbath laws.  He was also heavily involved with Buddhism, and actually was ordained a Buddhist monk.  It’s hard to say how devout he was though since he never married and had two children out of wedlock.  Still religion factors into many of his songs, and he held a high regard for Jesus.  From the Wikipedia entry:

Cohen showed an interest in Jesus as a universal figure, saying, "I'm very fond of Jesus Christ. He may be the most beautiful guy who walked the face of this earth. Any guy who says 'Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the meek' has got to be a figure of unparalleled generosity and insight and madness...A man who declared himself to stand among the thieves, the prostitutes and the homeless. His position cannot be comprehended. It is an inhuman generosity. A generosity that would overthrow the world if it was embraced because nothing would weather that compassion. I'm not trying to alter the Jewish view of Jesus Christ. But to me, in spite of what I know about the history of legal Christianity, the figure of the man has touched me.”

I’ve never read any of Cohen’s poetry, and certainly not his novels.  But given how highly artful his music is, I would imagine so would be his literary endeavors. 

The first verses that inspired him were Bible passages and the liturgy at the synagogue he attended with his parents and his sister, Esther. He wrote poems as a youngster, and in his teens he pursued his fondness for country music by forming a group called the Buckskin Boys.

The written word prevailed, and Cohen attended Montreal’s McGill University as an English major. After graduating in 1955, he joined the city’s thriving literary scene and published his first volume of poetry, “Let Us Compare Mythologies,” in 1956.

A second collection, “The Spice Box of Earth,” earned acclaim when it appeared in 1961, and was followed by the autobiographical novel “The Favourite Game” in 1963.

In 1960, Cohen bought a house on the Greek island of Hydra, where he wrote his second novel, “Beautiful Losers,” a sexual and spiritual phantasmagoria that brought him to wider critical and public attention, with comparisons to James Joyce and Henry Miller.

Despite the growing prestige, Cohen found it hard to make a living, so he started writing songs. He intended to move to Nashville, but when he stopped in New York he was seduced by the city’s folk music scene.

So let’s sample some of Cohen’s music.  I particularly like this early song about the Sisters of Mercy nuns.

In the 1970s and 80s, Cohen broke out of his folk song period to a more sophisticated arranged songs.  His most well-known song remains “Hallelujah.”  Here you see the combination of sophisticated lyrics around a complex melody.

His mid-career music became more cabaret style, and his voice became gravelly and deeper.  I just love “Everybody Knows.”

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded

Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed

Everybody knows the war is over

Everybody knows the good guys lost

Everybody knows the fight was fixed

The poor stay poor, the rich get rich

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Is there a song more undercutting with cynicism?

One of my all-time favorites is “Anthem.”

I think the entire lyrics should be posted on this one.  It’s so moving.

The birds they sang

At the break of day

Start again

I heard them say

Don't dwell on what

Has passed away

Or what is yet to be

Yeah the wars they will

Be fought again

The holy dove

She will be caught again

Bought and sold

And bought again

The dove is never free

Ring the bells (ring the bells) that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)

That's how the light gets in

We asked for signs

The signs were sent

The birth betrayed

The marriage spent

Yeah the widowhood

Of every government

Signs for all to see

I can't run no more

With that lawless crowd

While the killers in high places

Say their prayers out loud

But they've summoned, they've summoned up

A thundercloud

And they're going to hear from me

(Ring, ring, ring, ring)

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)

That's how the light gets in

You can add up the parts

You won't have the sum

You can strike up the march

There is no drum

Every heart, every heart to love will come

But like a refugee

(Ring, ring, ring, ring)

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)

That's how the light gets in

Ring the bells that still can ring (ring the bells that still can ring)

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)

That's how the light gets in

That's how the light gets in

That's how the light gets in

“There is a crack in everything./That’s how the light gets in.”  What is the light symbolic for?  God?  Truth?  It gets into everything.

Finally another of my favorites is “Dance Me To The End Of  Love.”  Though on the surface this is a love song, but strangely it is about the Holocaust.  

One last clip (I can’t resist) should come from his last album.  I really love his “Traveling Light.”

Finally, if you are still so interested, here is the last interview Cohen gave before his death.  It also includes a lot of biographical background.  It’s lengthy but fascinating. 

Eternal rest onto him.  He was such a good soul.  

Music Tuesday: Bob Dylan Appreciation

Several weeks ago Bob Dylan was honored as person of the year by a charitable music organization called MusiCares.  But it was his acceptance speech that had everyone riveted and mesmerized.  From the Billboard article, “Bob Dylan Dazzles MusiCares Gala With Bold Speech”: 

Dylan, who often shies away from speaking during his concerts, took the stage at the Los Angeles Convention Center late Friday night after President Carter introduced him with praise that his words "are more precise... and permanent than anything said by a president of the United States."

Onstage, Dylan was in the mood to pay homage. "Right from the start, my songs were divisive," he said, going on to name those who supported him early on: the songwriter Doc Pomus, label owner Sam Philips, Buck Owens and Kris Kristofferson. He also mentioned those who'd been in the opposite corner: Ahmet Ertegun, Leiber and Stoller, Merle Haggard and "the critics" who fault his singing style but, according to Dylan, give a pass to Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed and Dr. John.

It was a speech that Dylan traced his musical heritage and honored his predecessors that influenced him. 

Dylan traced the roots of some of his better-known songs to numerous traditional folk songs, noting that his work blossomed from his spending so much time playing the traditional works. "John Henry" begat "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall." Big Bill Broonzy's "Key to the Highway" led to "Highway 61 Revisited." "Roll the Cotton Down" birthed "Maggie's Farm." "The Times They Are A Changin'" is an extension of what Dylan referred as the "come all ye" songs such as "Floyd Collins." From "Deep Elm Blues," a traditional song recorded by blues artists in the 1930s, sprang "Tangled Up in Blue."

"There's nothing secret about it," Dylan said.

Mostly, Dylan wanted to make a singular point about music and great songwriting, whether he was referencing the work of gospel legends the Blackwood Brothers, folk legend Roscoe Holcomb or bluesman Charley Patton. "Voices are not to measured by how pretty they are,"  Dylan said, quoting Sam Cooke. "They're to be measured by whether they're telling the truth."

Dylan’s speech was supposed to have lasted 35 minutes and while I can find a few clips of it on youtube, apparently the whole speech wasn’t posted.  At least not yet.  However, the transcript f the speech is posted and it really was a breath taking speech.  I urge anyone interested to read here.  Here’s a section I found fascinating.

I'm glad for my songs to be honored like this. But you know, they didn't get here by themselves. It's been a long road and it's taken a lot of doing. These songs of mine, I think of as mystery plays, the kind that Shakespeare saw when he was growing up. I think you could trace what I do back that far. They were on the fringes then, and I think they're on the fringes now. And they sound like they've been traveling on hard ground.

And further down he elaborates:

I learned lyrics and how to write them from listening to folk songs. And I played them, and I met other people that played them, back when nobody was doing it. Sang nothing but these folk songs, and they gave me the code for everything that's fair game, that everything belongs to everyone. For three or four years all I listened to were folk standards. I went to sleep singing folk songs. I sang them everywhere, clubs, parties, bars, coffeehouses, fields, festivals. And I met other singers along the way who did the same thing and we just learned songs from each other. I could learn one song and sing it next in an hour if I'd heard it just once.

If you sang "John Henry" as many times as me -- "John Henry was a steel-driving man / Died with a hammer in his hand / John Henry said a man ain't nothin' but a man / Before I let that steam drill drive me down / I'll die with that hammer in my hand."If you had sung that song as many times as I did, you'd have written "How many roads must a man walk down?" too.

And he goes on like that tracing early folk and country and western music and connecting them to his songs.  It’s absolutely fascinating.  I’m not going to give any further examples, so if you have any interest in Dylan’s music or the history of American music, it’s amust read.

While for the most part Dylan showered gratitude in his speech, but every so often he took shots at his critics who claim he can’t sing and can’t play music.  Now let me add here that while fior the most part I like Bob Dylan’s music, I too have been critical of his virtuosity. His guitar playing is simple and basic, his vocals are crude, and his harmonica playing is the pits.  There are those that claim his songs are poetry, and I bristle at that.  His lyrics, if you remove them from the music, do not rise to poetry.  Sorry he is not a poet.  But he is a great song writer.  No one can take that away, and I want to highlight a few of my favorite Dylan songs as an appreciation of the man and his music.

For me “Mr. Tambourine Man” is the prototypical Bob Dylan song.

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

 Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
 Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

“Lay Lady Lay” is such a romantic song, and not exactly what you think of when you think of a Bob Dylan song.

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bedLay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bedWhatever colors you have in your mindI'll show them to you and you'll see them shine.

 Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile Until the break of day, let me see you make him smile His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean And you're the best thing that he's ever seen.

And let’s not forget that Bob Dylan had a religious conversion and had a number of religious songs.  “Gotta Serve Sombody” is  probably his best religious song.

You may be an ambassador to England or FranceYou may like to gamble, you might like to danceYou may be the heavyweight champion of the worldYou may be a socialite with a long string of pearls.

 But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed You're gonna have to serve somebody, It may be the devil or it may be the Lord  But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

And I’ll end with a song with a nice touching song, “Girl from the North Country.”  I'll post the entire lyrics of this one.

If you're traveling the north country fairWhere the winds hit heavy on the borderlineRemember me to one who lives thereFor she once was a true love of mine.

 If you go when the snowflakes storm When the rivers freeze and summer ends Please see if she has a coat so warm To keep her from the howlin' winds.

 Please see if her hair hangs long If it rolls and flows all down her breast Please see for me if her hair's hanging long For that's the way I remember her best.

 I'm a-wonderin' if she remembers me at all Many times I've often prayed In the darkness of my night In the brightness of my day.

 So if you're travelin' the north country fair Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline Remember me to one who lives there She once was the true love of mine.

Music Tuesday: "Will the Circle Be Unbroken (By and By)" by June Carter Cash

I've been listening to a number of songs by June Carter Cash, the wife and often musical accompaniment to the famous Johnny Cash, and I have to say she too was quite a talent, not only as a singer but as a songwriter.  She did not write this song, but I just love how she sings it, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken."  It just sounds so raw and down to earth.





Now this is not the original "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" but a reworking of the original hymn.