Will Johnson, Jay Farrar, Jim James, Anders Parker

Jim James, Jay Farrar, Will Johnson (who previously collabroated with Jim James in Monsters of Folk), and Anders Parker (who previously collaborated with Jay Farrar in Gob Iron), have teamed up to record an album titled New Multitudes, which comes out February 28 via Rounder Records. The album features twelve tracks, all of which were written lyrically by Woody Guthrie but never recorded, and Jim, Jay, Will, and Anders have written original music to accompany the lyrics.

"Under the invitation of Nora Guthrie, Woody's daughter, to tour the Guthrie archives, each of the four songwriters were offered the chance to plumb and mine the plethora of notebooks, scratch pads, napkins, etc. for anything that might inspire them to lend their voices and give the words new life. "These guys worked on an amazing group of lyrics, much of it culled from Woody's times in LA. Lyric wise, it's a part of the story that is still mostly unknown. From Woody's experiences on LA's skid row to his later years in Topanga Canyon, they are uniquely intimate, and relate two distinctly emotional periods in his life.""

A limited edition will be available with twelve additional tracks written by Jay Farrar and Anders Parker and it also includes Woody Guthrie's original lyric sheets. Check out album track, "Old LA," which is streaming below, along with the album artwork and tracklist.

The four folkies will head out on a short US tour together in support of the album this March. That tour hits NYC on March 14 at Webster Hall. Tickets go on sale Friday, 1/20 at noon, with an AmEx presale starting two days earlier. All dates are listed below.

Jim James was just in town to help pay tribute (and perform with) Preservation Hall Jazz Band...

"At Carnegie Hall the Blind Boys of Alabama, the Del McCoury Band, My Morning Jacket, Steve Earle, Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards, and Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) were on hand. So were the New Orleans-born musicians Trombone Shorty and Allen Toussaint, who sang a tribute to the band for putting "pride in your stride."

While it's a paradox that welcoming outsiders and trying out hybrids is a survival tactic for a deeply local tradition, that's a fact of life for present-day New Orleans." [NY Times]

My Morning Jacket also apparently played a secret show of some kind while they were in town.

All Guthrie tribute tour dates, stream, album art and tracklist below...

Continue reading "Jim James, Will Johnson, Jay Farrar & Anders Parker team for Guthrie project album & tour (dates & song stream)"

DOWNLOAD: Woody Guthrie - Bad Repetation (MP3)

Rounder Records, in conjunction with The Woody Guthrie Archives, will inaugurate the new Woody Guthrie Legacy Series with a 4-CD boxed set, My Dusty Road on August 25. The original metal masters for these songs, recorded in the mid 1940s by Herbert Harris and Moses Asch, had languished for years in the Brooklyn basement of an elderly woman, stacked in cardboard barrels. Reissue co-producer Michael Creamer, who had learned of the cache from his cousin, took a few of the discs to the renowned mastering engineer Doug Pomeroy. The clarity and presence of the sound was revelatory.

The tracks included in the box set are just a fraction of the recordings found with the Guthrie recordings...

Roughly 2,000 metal discs were found in Irene Harris's storage bin. About 150 of those are Woody Guthrie recordings, and the rest are by a host of folk, blues, and jazz artists who recorded for the Stinson label, among them Lead Belly, Art Tatum, Mary Lou Williams, and Burl Ives.

....[Included in the find was] a disc marked "Bad Repetation," dated May 19, 1944, which had never appeared on an album or a field recording. It's likely that no one had heard the song for 60 years.

While most of the unearthed Guthrie recordings are already in print, half a dozen of the 54 tracks on My Dusty Road are alternate versions that have never been issued. "Bad Repetation" - a humorous song whose lyrics were included in two of Guthrie's late-1930s songbooks, suggesting the tune was a crowd-pleaser - is the one true find. [Boston Globe]

That track, "Bad Repetation", is posted above!!

Later this year and into 2010, the Guthrie Family - Abe Guthrie, Annie Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie, Cathy Guthrie, Johnny Irion and Sarah Lee Guthrie - will go on an extensive two-part tour of North America. The first leg includes a Thanksgiving weekend show (a yearly Arlo & Co. tradition) at Carnegie Hall on Saturday, November 28th. Tickets go on sale Thursday, October 1st.

All dates for the "Guthrie Family Rides Again" tour, and photos and tracklist of the Woody box set, which comes in a suitcase with all kinds of extra treats, are posted below...

Continue reading "Guthrie family touring (dates), Woody masters found in Brooklyn basement remastered for Rounder box set (MP3!)"

01. Parenthetical Girls - If it's a time for Christmas (2:46)
02. Ween - Silent Night (1:40)
03. Andrew Dost (Anathallo) - Yeah, I Know, It's Christmastime (2:04)
04. The National Splits - Let's Wrap Each Other (2:15)
05. Louis Armstrong - Santa Claus Blues (2:51)
06. Scott Allen (Thunderbirds are Now) - Winters Wonderland (3:50)
07. The Knife - Christmas Reindeer (7:11)
08. Melt Banana - White Christmas (1:42)
09. Thick Pigeon - Jingle Bell Rock (1:30)
10. Steven Garvey - Dreidle, Dreidle, Dreidle (1:11)
11. nullsleep - silent night (2:25)
12. Wild Billy Childish & The Musicians of the British Empire - Santa Claus (3:26)
13. Holly Golightly - Christmas Tree's On Fire (2:54)
14. Deerhoof - xmas tree (2:30)
15. Palace Songs (Will Oldham) - Christmastime in the Mountains (1:30)
16. Woody Guthrie - Hanukkah Dance [Alternate Take] (1:24)

---

I know it's too early for this, but inspiration hit, so I went with it. Download, support the artists, enjoy, and happy holidays (Thanksgiving or whatever).

Billy Bragg, Steve Earle, Tim Robbins, Brad (with Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam), and more. $75 tickets are now on sale. Details below...

Continue reading "a Woody Guthrie benefit @ Webster Hall"