Monday 20 August 2012

Gillian Welch


This evening, in a complete change from Diana Damrau, Leonidas Kavakos or Sandrine Piau, I plugged into ... Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, two hill-billy singers from East Tennessee / Kentucky. Fortunately I had a copy of the song texts; I have as many problems with their local accents as the inhabitants did with mine, when I was there. Good folk music (when it is found) is a great treat, and is one reason I love the folk / gypysy music from Central Europe. Ms Welch here sings straight from the heart, and the two CDs I have are mercifully free from commercial pop. Many of the songs are truly memorable and paint vivid pictures of the everyday life of the under-privileged in that region of the world. CDs I get off the shelf at regular intervals.

1 comment:

MattF said...

For what it's worth, Gillian Welch is no hillbilly. She was born in New York City, grew up in LA, went to music school in Boston. See Wikipedia for more details. I should add, in my opinion, that this has no bearing on her music or her musicality