Suggested Podcast Part 2 of 2 – Steve Earle at the Newport Folk Festival 2008: a Live (and kickin’…)
(To jump immediately to the NPR (amazing) podcast of the live concert of Steve Earle at the Newport Folk Festival, hit the link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93226876 – Below you can find just a few thoughts on the subject.)
From the news to the National Public Radio, everyone speaks of a man that channelled Woodie Guthrie’s spirit. At the same time, Bruce Springsteen, more political, is doing the same in another part of the world. And in another one, when traveling to our association’s, it’s Nora Guthrie with Giovanna Marini (that was amazing, out of control). It’s 2008. Earle, Guthrie as other musicians are still a chorus of voices that remember us (being in Italy, US, or anywhere else) to keep our eyes wandering. And somewhere else in houses everywhere, the same, as you can see in the following video (thanks J. Reamer!).
This song is his song, his songs are your songs.
When NPR Podcasts reports that “Right from the beginning, Steve Earle called out the spirit of Woody Guthrie, realizing that we need him now more than ever”, that’ because the first song is Christmas in Washington.
What does Earle think about it? We already know. From the article “Woodie Guthrie”, written by Steve Earle, in 2003 ( Thanks Steveearle.net ! ):
“ Does all this mean that the world would be a different place if Woody had dodged the genetic bullet and lived? You bet your progressive ass! Just imagine what we missed! Woody publishing his second and third books! Woody on the picket lines with Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers singin’ Deportee! I could go on forever. I have imagined hundreds of similar scenarios, but then at some point it always dawns on me how selfish I am.
Let him go. He did his bit. Besides, as much as we need him right now, I wouldn’t wish this post-9/11 world on Woody. He hated Irving Berlin’s God Bless America more than any other song in the world. He believed that it was jingoistic and exclusive, so he wrote a song of his own. It goes:
This land is your land
This land is my land
From California
To the New York island
From the redwood forest
To the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me.”
Christmas in Washington at first seems to sound like a call, a call for Guthrie, but suddenly you discover how the tone has been since the beginning the one of a mourning, that finally admits to “let him go” cause “he did his bit”. The feeling in my guts is clear – it’s both.
Right now, America is approaching the vote, and Bush is about to pass his role as a president after 2 mandates in a row.Who will win? Obama? McCain? In these final rush, populism is at its peak, and the line between gossip and news is blurring even more.
What’s impressive from this side of the ocean was to see how well Bush was able to organize a nice entourage for himself outside his country. Prime ministers in England, Canada, Italy, Australia, just to name a few, ready to answer every call. We kicked pro-war Berlusconi once, just to discover how sad and uneffective was the outcome of the coming center-left\left wing coalition ruled by Prodi. They even went against their own election program point after point, day after day, with no shame. The war continues no matter which government goes on top, even as just a strategic-economic matter for most of countries, of course at the expenses of the people involved.
War apart, the problem spreads with the total failure of the parties, that offers no believable candidates and no choiche, while the majority of the young voters, witnessing this situation, put even more distance between them and the politics. The point remains – the problem are not the politics, but the politicians.
Keeping a distance with both mind and body is useless, cause things will change with the politics: Earle’s right when says that you’r never going to stop a war just by listening someone else playing – you got to sing. Thoughts goes to my friend Damien, that tells me while chillin on a february night how Jimi Hendrix used to recreate the sound of the bombs exploding in Vietnam while playing Star Spangled Banner at Woodstocks, and that he grows up listening and playing to Hendrix, then plays music and “sings” with his own projects and act for social changes. Thoughts goes to all the people i know that knows how to “sing”. A whole chorus of single voices.
I agree with his suggestions. The whole concert is a suggestion in itself: beginning with Christmas in Washington and ending it with Tom Waits’ Way Down In The Hole, sung for The Wire opening credits (5th season)? To me, it means “Let’s listen to what people before us had to say on such matters, and then let’s keep the devil way down in the hole”.
My overall feeling while listening at the podcast was high on multiple levels.It’s really nice to see how well it worked on so many different levels, musically speaking. His effort of building duettos with his wife and singer songwriter Allison Moorer, that sings solo too. Then in the final parts his collaboration with an uncredited turntablist towards new musical projects, in a creative, stylistic progression.
I know just a few things about Earle – but hey, i like the man, guys. Bravo. Take a leap to the NPR service and actually discover all the other podcasts offered, high quality live concerts from great groups from the States, Canada, England, etc…not bad at all.
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NPR NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO PODCAST http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93226876
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ps. Why was the Gillian Welch live with David Rawlings removed? Aaaaah, damn industry rules.
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