I recently was introduced to AJ Croce, an incredible singer/songwriter, boogie-woogie and barrelhouse blues piano player, and guitarist, whose new album Twelve Tales was released in February on Compass Records. Anyone whose been reading my blog should know that I’m a huge blues fan and I also have a love for boogie-woogie and barrelhouse blues. AJ has been performing and recording for over 20 years, since the age of 19, and his skills on the black and whites are beyond compare. Here he is with an original song that truly exemplifies his command of the 88s, “Come and Go”:
With all the insane anti-immigrant sentiment going on around the country and most notoriously in Arizona, it got me thinking of Woody Guthrie’s timeless folk song, “This Land Is Your Land.” Over the years, so many diverse musicians have done their own take. I’ve always loved Mexican-American singer Lila Downs’ version, speaking for the voiceless migrant laborers in “Pastures of Plenty”:
Recently I was watching the movie, Up In The Air. The opening song was the coolest, most soulful version I’ve ever heard by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings:
Johnny Cash’s Version:
Los Lobos with the Grateful Dead:
Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen’s version during Obama’s pre-inauguration concert:
Chicago folkloric group Sones De Mexico “Esta Tierra Es Tuya”:
And the original:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
As I went walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me.
I roamed and I rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
While all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me.
When the sun came shining, and I was strolling
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
A voice was chanting, As the fog was lifting,
This land was made for you and me.
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
I was so sad to find out that singer/artist Lhasa de Sela passed away on January 1, 2010 at the young age of 37 after a two-year battle with breast cancer. I first fell in love with her when I heard her song, “De Cara A La Pared”. I listened to that song on repeat for months on end and to this day it remains one of my all time favorite songs. She had an unusual upbringing and life right out of a surreal novel. Raised on a traveling bus with her parents, singing in cafes at 13 years old; she was very much a troubadour in the purest sense of the word. She left unrealized a plan to record an album featuring the songs of Victor Jara and Violetta Para, singers of the Nueva Cancion movement. See her website for more about Lhasa’s life and projects.
I had the privilege of seeing her live ~ she had a way of telling stories before each song that created a sense of magical mysticism about life. One particular haunting explanation of a song, especially poignant after learning of her passing, was about when you’re a baby, you’re in this small space and you see a tiny light…as you grow and grow the space gets smaller but the light gets bigger and soon this space will be too small…as you are born, the world is so big, but as you grow and grow, soon this space will be small….
Here is my favorite Lhasa De Sela song, “De Cara A La Pared”:
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