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Laura Hamblin

Today I helped Laura create a new blog. It's located at: http://womeninthedesert.blogspot.com. She's been awarded the Center for the Study of Ethics Research award.

Play That Song For Me

I'm listening to some of that americana music, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band doing "I Find Jesus" . It's interesting to me how this music has been appropriated in light of the traditional schism that is supposed to exist between my generation and that we were born to. I'm talking about the anger that rose when Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Gram Parsons appropriated "christian" music (it also happened to Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn when he appropriated Quawalli music). Two observations seem relevant-- the music that sounds the most "authentic" is played by people who grew up in a context where that music was familiar. For some that turned into a nostalgia or an ironic gesture of beauty. Some of them live very Americana lifestyles - I saw a YouTube interview with Chris Hillman and David Crosby, two of the founding Byrd members. The he's-your-neighbor quality of Hillman, who talks about the value of a judeo-christian lifestyle and sports a cross on his latest album contrasts the been-around-the-block one of Crosby's. But even more it reminds me of the contrast with one of my favorite singers: Richey Furay. If you listened to Furay, from that first "Kind Woman" with the Springfield to the final ecstasy of Poco, you knew how he could channel that purity into an intensely feel-good song.

I'm listening to Furay again, I listen in to a station on Pandora/ I call Byrds, Buffallo Springfield and CSNY. Richey's released a new album called Heartbeat of Love. This album represents the most cross-over attempt than he's done since Legacy.

Furay's earnestness can dive into trying-to-save you at any moment, but here I get some of what he's poured into Jesus without standing on the pulpit. I especially enjoyed the somewhat syrupy "Dean's Bar-B-Que", it's that same down home-sy locus I sense in Hillman, who's relaxed joy reminds me of how the mandoline player turned bassist overnight (can you say Paul McCartney? One wonders if there was a conversation pre-byrds with McGuin saying, "it doesn't matter if you can't play bass, that's what gives the Beatles their unique sound" and he was right -- slid that bass note confidently in Tambourine Man.