Foreground Music
My music collection is eclectic - rock, folk, classical, jazz,
country, new age (which does not rhyme with `sewage').
But I can't honestly claim to broadly love any one of these genres.
There are artists I like, and genres I like, but it was difficult for
me to articulate just what all those folks on our music shelf had
in common.
Then while reading a long-ago writeup by
Pete Nelsons
I hit this paragraph:
I don't call what I do ‘folk music.’
The best term I've come up with is ‘foreground music,’
meaning it's not meant to be background music,
but has to be more closely listened to, as opposed to the
hook-oriented pop music that shoots straight into your brain.
&lqquo;Foreground music’ might, for example, tell a story where,
if you miss the beginning, you don't get the end.
Nelson has put his finger on it.
From end to end, my collection is music that makes demands on the listener.
If it can be put on the turntable and ignored, I don't
care for it.
There are lots of things that make a album Foreground Music.
For artists like Nelson or Stan Rogers, it's lyrics that
tell a story or illustrate a point.
For groups like The Bobs or Take 6, it's
vocal pyrotechnics that could no more be ignored than a bomb
going off next door.
For groups like the late Free Hot Lunch, it's a sly sense
of humor that brings a smile even when you're in the foulest mood.
And of course, there are folks like
Cliff Eberhardt, who fall into
any or all of those categories.
Whatever it is, it makes for Foreground Music.
Here are some of my favorite practitioners.
Pete Nelson
Christine Lavin put out a compilation album
Big Times In A Small Town.
On it where were at least a half-dozen artists whose material I started
picking
up just from hearing one song they'd done on Big Times.
But the best one on it was
Pete Nelson's Summer of Love.
I must have heard to that song a dozen times before I could listen without crying.
Nearly five years later, Nelson finally produced his first album,
The Restless Boys Club.
It's a damned fine piece of work, but rather like a fine scotch -
you want to take it in slow, appreciative sips.
A few years after he produced his second,
Days Like Horses.
Both belong on your CD player.
Sadly neither sold well enough for him to make a career of it,
but both are still in print and both are find pieces of work.
The Bobs
All music fans should be listing to
The Bobs, merely the
most entertaining a capella singing group in the world.
Try their wonderful recent albums,
Plugged
or
i brow Club.
A quick overview of the
group
is available courtesy of
Primarily A Capella,
a fine source for all a capella music.
Three Men and a Tenor
Hey, how could you resist a group called
Three Men and a Tenor?
These guys average about six feet tall, but three of them are 6'4''.
Simple math will tell you how tall the tenor is.
They do a nice mix of American historical folk,
barbershop, pop, and their own humorous material.
They've got an excellent blend,
and if you can catch them in concert it's well worth it.
Chuck Pyle, The Zen Cowboy
Chuck Pyle
bills himself as ‘The Zen Cowboy.’
It's as good a description as any for one
of the finest singer-songwriters to grace the Simmons family CD players.
Imagine what country jazz would sound like,
then add an engaging voice and a fine hand with a lyric.
His live album Camel Rock is tremendous.
His albums are hard to find, but you can get them from his
web page.
The Kinkster!
What would life be without off-color humor?
Colorless, of course.
That's why I'm a fan of
Kinky Friedman.
The Kinkster is a singer, a song writer, a novelist, and an all-around low-life.
Like the late Lenny Bruce,
what sometimes seems to be mere low humor is underlaid with a sly and
subtle meaning.
But other times he's just being low.
As his home page says,
“Whenever possible, he still sings the songs that made him
infamous and reads from the books that made him respectable.”
That sums it up pretty well.
Back to Steve's home page.
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