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March 2007
 here is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any medium and be lost. The world will not have it." These words were written by Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille. And though the subject at hand is the art of dance, it also applies to the delicate dance of merging words and music to make songs. Because there are a lot of good reasons not to make music - it's a whole lot easier to not pursue that expression that is unique, humanistic, and without cynicism, in this culture of crassness and commerce. Yet now more then ever, as we rocket headlong into this 21st century, we desperately need music to connect us to that which is timeless and reflective of our common human expedition. Musicians are not out digging ditches or laying bricks because they're on this earth to make the music that gives the ditch-diggers and brick-layers a decent reason to get out of bed in the morning. It's a reason to believe, and genuine music makes believers out of all of us. To believe that regardless of the cards the world might deal us, we're not going to fold. And that's why we celebrate musicians, and preserve their wisdom, here in these blue pages.
It's a mysterious endeavor, this delicate dance of creating music. "If I knew where the good songs came from," Leonard Cohen told me, "I'd go there more often. It's much like the life of a nun - you're married to a mystery." To breach that mystery, a musician has to keep the channels open, even in this cyber-era where vast libraries of information can be accessed in mere seconds, and it can seem that all questions have already been answered. But all the answers are not known, and no extensive Google search can satisfy the hungry curiosity of the human condition the way music can. It's something which is elemental, something intrinsic, something as surefire fundamental as a force of nature. It's the everlasting energy of the blues, of jazz, of folk, of rhythm & blues, ragtime and rock & roll. It's crosses over all genres and generations. It's a heartbeat, a human circus, an intersection of the soul and the mind. It's real. Musicians are spectres at the feast of life. They are ghosts on the outskirts, and purveyors of glory smack dab in the middle of the matrix of modern times. They fashion solid bricks of beauty and consequence in an age of encroaching ugliness and increasing inconsequence and irrelevance. And they might not make life perfect. Or even easy. But they sure make it a whole lot better.
Happy to welcome you here to our second installation of Bluerailroad, and I'm glad this train is still on track. We've got an in-depth interview with one of the great songwriters of our time, Aimee Mann, new archival interviews with the brilliant team of Becker & Fagen of Steely Dan, and also country legend Merle Haggard, a Legends of Music celebration of Woody Guthrie and much else - great columns by all our regular columnists including a brand new one by Deepak Chopra. We hope you enjoy the ride.
While we're going to press many great new albums have arrived in our blue suite of offices here at the pinnacle of the Bluerailroad building in Hollywood, and so I'm going to quickly survey some of the new stuff, all of which is truly Music That Matters.
Music That Matters
- 1. Various Artists. A Tribute To Joni Mitchell. Some of the best artists of our time - Prince, Emmy Lou Harris, Bjork, James Taylor - pay tribute to one of the greatest songwriters who ever lived. Without a doubt, Prince's intensely soulful and Prince-like take on "A Case Of You" is the highlight of this record. For this alone, it's worth the price of the CD. But Bjork's rendition of "Bojo Dance," an unlikely choice, is transcendent. Also great is James Taylor's "River," Annie Lennox's "Ladies of the Canyon," and Emmy Lou Harris' "The Magdelena Laundries."
- 2. Emily King, East Side Story. R&B grandeur; her rendition of "Ain't No Sunshine" sparkles with pure soul.
- 3. Lucy Kaplansky, Over The Hills. Beautiful siren songs of earth. Her pastoral excursion into Bryan Ferry's classic "More Than This" is mesmeric, and June Carter's "Ring of Fire" springs to life in a folkways rockabilly celebration. "Swimming Song," by Loudon Wainwright III, charges forward with vigorous fidelity, fueled by spirited fiddle, Cajun accordion and firm backbeat.
- 4. Noah Stone, Little Revolution. It's true that he's my friend, but it's also true I don't recommend all of my friends' albums. This one is great. He's an amazing songwriter-musician and an astounding producer. How he gets tracks this inventive and elegant all on his own is beyond me, but the man has got it.
- 5. Michael Penn, Palms and Runes, Tarot and Tea: A Michael Penn Collection. There are some songwriters who just keep writing great songs year after year - sometimes they connect with the mass public, sometimes they don't - but they keep creating stellar material. Michael Penn is that. And this is proof. He's one of the greatest songwriters around - operating really at a much higher level than most mortals. This is intelligent, crafty, funny, sad, smart and colorful.
- 6. Anjani, Blue Alert. All songs co-written with the great Leonard Cohen and produced by LC, this is a brilliant fusion of Anjani's smoky soulful jazz music and vocals with Leonard's brilliant lyrics. I hope people get to hear this album, because it deserves and audience.
- 7. Rickie Lee Jones, Sermon On Exposition Boulevard. Spontaneous songs about the sacred and the profane. She is one of the most spiritual songwriters around, and this shows she's as in tune and powerful as ever - it's street-wise and savvy and spiritual all at once.
All best all the time,
Paul Zollo
Editor
zollo@bluerailroad.com
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