Old helping Young

Subject: Old helping Young
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 19 Nov 08 - 02:00 AM

EXCERPTS from:

Wall Street Journal

, Tuesday November 18, 2008
Personal Journal D-9, Leisure and Arts, In the Fray
"Older Singers Should Give the Young a Hand"
by Jim Fusilli (WSJ rock and pop music critic)

Article synopsis -
"Seasoned singers should give more attention to covering the songs of newer song writers. Performed at a different tempo or transposed to another key a song takes on a different life."

Recently on television, "Elvis Costello asked James Taylor to name his favorite new songwriters. Mr. Taylor seemed momentarily stunned by the question, as if he'd never considered it. Finally, he cited his talented son Ben and conceded he didn't listen to much new music. Which means when Mr. Taylor sets out to record an album of other people's songs, he's off to the familiar recycling bin, and the result is something like his recent release, "Covers," an album so lacking in imagination...."

"It isn't only Mr. Taylor who's looking to an ever-more-distant past for songs.

"On his new album "Soul" (Warner Bros.), Seal's interpretations of some R&B classics are so faithful that he seems to mimic the singers of the original renditions.

"Dion DiMucci pays tribute to Eddie Cochran, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly and other stars of early rock 'n' roll on his "Heroes" (Saguaro).

" And on "The New Bossa Nova" (Verve), Luciana Souza revisits songs by Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, Sting, Brian Wilson and Mr. Taylor, among others.

"Nothing by emerging writers appears on the Seal, DiMucci and Souza discs." (emphasis spacing added)

"If talented singers like these don't have to pay attention to new songwriters, what happens to the great American songbook?"

"For all the chaos in today's music industry, a reliable constant is the integrity of a superior song. Sometimes it's a featured cut on an album by a fine singer-songwriter, and sometimes it's the ninth track on an obscure album...."

"Mr. Taylor, Seal, Mr. DiMucci and Ms. Souza have earned the right to do as they wish."

"But from an industry perspective, failing to encourage veteran singers to cover new songwriters is bad business. It doesn't take much vision to see that if these trusted artists were to introduce their fans to new songs, the fans might turn around and buy albums by the promising young singer-songwriters who wrote them."

"A snippet of a song dropped under the third act of TV's "House" is one way of exposing new artists to a wider audience."

"As for 21st-century writers whose songs are worth exploring let's begin with:
Peter Bradley Adams
Eef Barzelay
A.A. Bondy
Rivers Cuomo of Weezer
John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats
Kathleen Edwards
Geoff Farina
Trevor Garrod of Tea Leaf Green
Matt Hales
John Legend
Leona Naess and Samuel Dixon
Tara Nevins and Jeb Puryear of Donna the Buffalo
Ne-Yo
Conor Oberst
Daniel Rossen of Grizzly Bear and Department of Eagles
Vienna Teng

" Each has a way with melody and lyrics -- and, more to the point, they are all on tour or recently released a new album. They're ready to be seen and heard. You can easily sample their songs at their:
MySpace pages
on iTunes
or several other online vendors
or in the archives at Pitchfork.tv
or at All Songs Considered at www.npr.org "

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

The world is evolving. Music is evolving. Max has shown that we must change or be left behind.

Subject: RE: Old helping Young
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 19 Nov 08 - 07:33 AM

Here's a link to the original article:
Older Singers Should Give the Young a Hand

Subject: RE: Old helping Young
From: GUEST,hg
Date: 19 Nov 08 - 08:43 AM

yup, the world only turns forward...of that I'm sure!