American Songwriter | Archive for 2009 April

SHURE > KSM44

For the Cherryholmes session, we used a standard three-microphone setup for recording live bluegrass. You’ll see this used at venues like the Opry and at festivals.

JASON LYTLE > Yours Truly, The Commuter

Having toughed out a farewell tour as the default frontman for neo-psychaholics Grandaddy by his lonesome after the band called it quits before 2006’s Just Like the Fambly Cat, Jason Lytle was inducted into stag status well before his recent solo debut.

The 30 Greatest Bob Dylan Songs: #8, “Masters of War”

MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA > Mean Everything to Nothing

Let the pity party continue as frontman/singer/songwriter Andy Hull, now 22, delivers his sophomore effort of reflective, Jane’s Addiction-styled literate hard rock.

WILLIE NILE > House of a Thousand Guitars

At his best, Willie Nile cuts lines as sharp and everlasting as Raymond Carver. Consider this album’s title track: the 50-year-old songwriter whittles static rock and roll history into a bright, bustling current events narrative.

THE FLATLANDERS > Hills and Valleys

Joe Ely, Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore-known collectively as the Flatlanders-are three of Americana music’s most venerable elders, each an iconic singer/songwriter in his own right.

RYAN BINGHAM > Roadhouse Sun

Built around a voice as raw and unpolished as the dusty New Mexico landscape where he was raised, Ryan Bingham’s sound is a grimy take on country rock, fueled by nicotine and a troubadour’s restlessness.

LILY ALLEN> It’s Not Me, It’s You

For a twenty-something whose private life has been made very public in the three years following her successful debut Alright, Still, Lily Allen refuses to play it safe on her twelve-track follow up It’s Not Me, It’s You.

MEETING JIMMIE RODGERS: HOW AMERICA’S ORIGINAL ROOTS MUSIC HERO CHANGED THE POP SOUNDS OF A CENTURY > By Barry Mazor

Not a biography in the conventional sense, Barry Mazor’s Meeting Jimmie Rodgers takes a shrewd, hard-headed look at the great Mississippi singer’s influence on country, rock and roll and folk music.

SONIC BOOM: THE HISTORY OF NORTHWEST ROCK FROM “LOUIE LOUIE” TO “SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT” > By Peter Blecha / GRUNGE IS DEAD: THE ORAL HISTORY OF SEATTLE ROCK MUSIC > By Greg Prato

While the outside world didn’t know much about the Pacific Northwest music scene until the grunge explosion of the early ‘90s, these two books illustrate how the Northwest—and not just Seattle—had been rockin’ along years before Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, et al. arrived.