Early on in Son Volt’s performance at The Pageant, a few things stood out that this was not going to be your run-of-the-mill Jay Farrar and Co. experience. For starters, the usually silent Farrar was talkative early on, explaining that this was a “homecoming” for him and thanking the packed house for making the trip.
Griffin’s performance at The Pageant during her current tour supporting her new album, Children Running Through, helped further reveal to me what she is all about. She rocked in high heels. She sang alone with her acoustic guitar. She was passionate and humble for every moment—sitting at the piano, sliding in her heels, smiling at and with her band, feeling overwhelmed by an appreciative crowd.
The Search, Son Volt's new effort, is just as fantastic as Okemah. Hell, it’s better. It doesn’t rock as much, doesn’t sound as pissed off or as urgent, but Farrar sounds as alive as he’s ever been recorded.
For Patty Griffin, praise hasn’t been the problem. The man who discovered her, John Curtis, after hearing her sing for the first time, remembered having “no doubt, no doubt at all.” Dave Matthews, who proudly supports Griffin on ATO Records, the label he founded, “can't think of a more beautiful singer and a better songwriter alive today.” Steve Earle suspects that Patty’s songs “make most people a little uncomfortable–like they've just walked in on a private moment in someone else's life and they know they should turn around and tiptoe away, but they can't. They make me jealous."
By now you probably know Patty Griffin as a talented singer/songwriter through her connections with Emmylou Harris and The Dixie Chicks or her timeless albums like Impossible Dream, 1000 Kisses, or Living With Ghosts. And although Harris does appear on the flaming red head’s new album, Children Running Through, on the soft “Trapeze,” it’s only Patty Griffin who you’ll remember after the disc is finished playing.
"Here’s comes the razor of doubt, here comes the falling out,” Matthew Ryan sang on the opening track of his first album, May Day, released seven years ago. That particular song, “Guilty,” has summed up the majority of his feelings he has touched on since: living with the doubts that life deals you. Matthew Ryan isn’t a happy songwriter. He’s a human being.
It's been five years since Pete Yorn released his charming debut Musicforthemorningafter, which vaulted him to the top of the singer/songwriter charts. Since that time, Yorn has been accused of sounding too bland on his second effort, Day I Forgot, leaving fans wondering if they would ever hear another classic album from him.
Matthew Ryan’s latest, From a Late Night High-Rise, could certainly be called his life-support project, only because there is a certain strain, a certain struggle that clings to the thinnest ice on every note, where the sadness becomes beautiful.
Recorded on August 9, 2003, Neko Case’s appearance on Austin City Limits is obviously a bit late to hit the stores. It only features one song (“Maybe Sparrow) off her latest album, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, instead concentrating on covers and material from Case’s older albums, all of which are performed with the usual cast of characters that she has taken on the road the past few years.
During his 20-song set at Foellinger Auditorium on the campus of the University of Illinois, Jeff Tweedy appeared happy and willing to go along with the hooting and hollering of obscure requests of college kids enjoying their Halloween weekend. In other words, he’s come a long way from the panicked and uptight figure that had to seek medical help in the past.
