Picks

It’s a slightly cloudy, slightly cool day – a day when free furniture appears overnight down on Garden Street – futons, couches, swiveling office chairs. One crop of students out, another moving in as if the manifestation of some great wheel or assembly line.

A few picks and bits before I head off to Montana for two weeks.

All the Roadrunning – Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris. This CD is taking awhile to grow on me, but grow it does. There are some fine songs, “I Dug Up a Diamond” being one of my favorites. Knopfler and Harris’ voices are well matched, and Knopfler’s guitar work, though pretty understated here, is always excellent. And I have to thank the CD for bringing back memories of hitchhiking into Idaho one late March over Lolo Pass, 1970, picked up by a fellow in a pickup who had some wonderful smoke, and a bootleg tape of Emmylou and Gram Parsons. The sun was out, the scenery divine, and it was just one of those times where it all came together, and I thought, well, if heaven is like this, I'm gonna become a good man. I doubt this CD, even with accoutrements, will do that for anyone.

Witchi-Tai-Yo – I had this in vinyl and it disappeared in our move to Hawaii, so it’s good to have it back. Bought it back in my ECM craze. Jan Garbarek, Bobo Swenson, Palle Danielsson, & Jon Christensen. Features an incredible version of Don Cherry’s Desireless.

Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu – Bruce Cockburn. My favorite of the three. I’ve been listening to Cockburn for years, and while he can stray into pretentiousness, this is a fine, crisp and in some ways brilliant CD. While keeping a folk core, he interweaves world, jazz, rock, talking blues, etc. and his lyrics can startle, move even the coldest heart (one could only wish). Dubbed the Billy Bragg of Canada, he remains unabashedly political. This will probably soon replace Revelator as default in my car stereo for the upcoming road trip.

Thanks to David for the Cockburn and Knopfler/Harris recs.