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.