It's Been So Long

since I've talk to you. I must say I have never been in such a musical slump, which explains the lack of posts. I haven't been playing with anyone. Haven't been listening to any shiny new music that I'm jazzed about or even the old favorites I can never stop listening too. There's nothing like a total hard drive melt down to really make you feel like you've lost everything, and a really lame musician's scene to make you want to give up. Sure, I still have sleeves and sleeves of CDs that I could reload on my iTunes, but damn - I just don't have the energy. And I won't mention all the music I just lost. Gone. I'll be moving my piano to my house soon, so maybe that will help in the music making department, but in the meantime, here's a little ditty from my favorite western swing impresario: Webb Pierce.



Oh hell, why not another one for the road?



Can't resist Webb's jaunty neck tie and his nasal "why" -- okay, maybe I'm getting my musical mojo back --?



Hell Yeah! The three kings of honky tonk!
You're welcome.

After the Fire is Gone Songs are Written

Oh how I love that voice, Loretta. Your crybreaks make me swoon -- that voice cries every time. The pedal steele and reachin'-for-God's-hand-in-heaven bouffant, it's got me achin' for the way things use to been between me and him.

Prince: Musical Genius, Philosopher in Assless Pants

So Prince has been popping up in my life lately, on my radio, in my playlists, over intercoms in stores, just about everywhere I need him to be. A few Jehovah's Witness came by the house last weekend and I almost expected him to pop by with some pamphlets. Prince is The Artist I Most Admire for his musical talent (vocally, song writing, lyric writing, as an instrumentalist, as a showman) but what gives him that extra extra in my mind is his unabashed idiosyncrasy. His courage to make up noises we have never heard and record them and play them for all of us. I know he is not being brave -- he is just doing what he does. Doing what he can't not do.

So in the spirit of Crybreak, here is a video of my favorite Prince song, If I Was Your Girlfriend. The recording off of Sign O' The Times has so many yodeling, grinding, crying sounds that are so literal you wonder if he needs a tourniquet -- but he has a really good I-Want-You-Baby-In-The-Worst-Way cry in this version as well, and hell, I can't resist the furry white coat and black monotard.

Cigarette State

Coming from NY, where I spent quite a few years smoking, then trying not to smoke, then smoking only when I went to bars, then bumming from other people, I have returned to the tobacco state with quite a few years of tobacco free living under my belt. Nothing worse than the self-righteous ramblings of an ex-smoker, I know, but after Bloomberg helped get cigarette smoking banned in restaurants and bars, I come home to find that bars still allow it. Urgh. Okay, fine - cheap beer and a rainy Monday night at dive bar almost require it. Doesn't make it any more tolerable for the born-again breathers. Went to the Blind Tiger last night to check out the open mic night - other wise known as the Good, The Bad, and the Out of Tune - and left with a headache, a persistent sneeze, and clothes that smelled god-awful. In honor of cigarette smokers everywhere -and my beloved North Carolina- I give you, Robbie Fulks:

Hometown Pipes

Lately I've been digging around looking for extraordinary musicians who claim the rolling hills and blue mountains of my dear home state of North Carolina as their first music teacher (it's not a hard search -- there are many). While obsessing over Doc Watson, Frank Blevins & His Tar Heel Ramblers, Charlie Poole and the fantastic Carolina Chocolate Drops, I came upon Anthony Hamilton singing a tune made famous by Sam Cooke. It expresses everything I am hoping for in the new year -- and so beautifully.


Anthony Hamilton - "A Change Is Gonna Come" (Live) from levi maestro on Vimeo.

Okay, I can't resist. The obsession continues:



and some bright, sweet soundin' young 'uns:

Oh, New York

So I'm leaving the big city pretty soon to head back down to the land of grits and pork products, and have been thinking a lot about how much I will miss this cold dirty town. I came upon a few clips from good ol' boys singing about my town and thought I would pass them along.

Lester, Earl and the Boys:



And here's George Jones singing a song about NC-produced corn liquor -- and he opens by saying some nice things about my sweet NYC...



And then there's this. New York still loves Buck, even if he don't love us.

So this is cry break...

So here I am, joining the wonderful and wild blogosphere. Never thought I would be here, but my obession with music becomes something that I can't and don't want to keep to myself anymore, I appreciate that I have this space in which to obsess with you all as my witnesses and communicants. I come to you as a musician, singer, and music student but first as a listener.

But this space is where I want to explore specific and various vocal techniques -- where I will try to define them as I observe them, analyze their purpose, their usage, their beauty.

I want to look at those growls, those glottal stops, those sharps breaths, tone movements and vocal manipulations that make a sound that is heard not just with the ears but with the whole self. Those noises that allow us to convey a mood, a feeling or a moment in time like no other articulation can.

So, a cry break (as I define it) is that moment in the voice you usually hear in old country music - not necessarily a yodel (Long Lonesome Hank style), but that soft break where the sound passes through an taute throat and creates a short wobble that may indicate pain, sorrow, or a choked-up-ed-ness - or all of the above. It's a term I have never heard in music dictionaries, but only heard recently, and on the radio no less, on Radio Lab (yes, dears, the best show in radio, I'm tellin' ya). I am not sure who coined it, but it really seems to fit perfectly with the sound it describes. Imagine what you think a cry break is and you will hear it. It's certainly not a sound that one will find exclusively in American country music, but it's sound is certainly unmistakable within that genre.


So let's start with something easy. Dear Patsy. The term cry break just may have been coined with her in mind.