Sometimes the simple things take courage: it can take courage to cry or to smile, especially if others are pretending to have no feelings at all. It also takes a certain strength to identify an ideal and remain committed to it, especially if it is an old ideal in a time of changing values, when decadent indulgences reign. I thought of that after listening to Brass Bed, and finding myself remembering the Beatles and the Beach Boys and the dreamy popular music that followed those two groups in different forms through the decades.
Month: December 2010
Modern Folk Wisdom in Music: Horace Trahan, Keep Walking
Horace Trahan, like the singers Marc Broussard and Dege Legg, sounds like a soul forcing its fire through a body and out of a mouth. Trahan, who name-checks the Beastie Boys and Duran Duran and Judas Priest, wanted his traditional music to bear some relation to the contemporary world (“I love all kinds of music.”).