NYS Music 202​1

Category: Folk/Americana

  • 2020 Flashback: America Starts Their 50th Anniversary Tour

    1 year ago today on February 21st 2020, America played a sold out show at The Tilles Center on the LIU Post campus in Brookville, Long Island. This was the first show of the bands 50th Anniversary tour celebrating the release of their 1971 self titled album. 

    “A Horse With No Name,” originally titled “Desert Song” was released in the US a few weeks before the album came out and sold over a million copies being awarded a gold disc by the RIAA. The album went platinum shortly after. The band was opening for acts like The Who, Elton John, Pink Floyd and worked with Beatles producer George Martin from 1974-1979.

    The show was filled with hit after hit spanning through their 50 year and counting career. Gerry and Dewey sounded just as good today as they did when they started harmonizing 50 years ago. Songs from the setlist included “Tin Man,” “Ventura Highway,” “Sister Golden Hair” as well as a covers of The Beatles “Eleanor Rigby” and  The Mamas & Papas “California Dreamin’.” The 18 song set concluded with  “A Horse With No Name.” 

    The band’s current lineup includes original founding members Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell, as well as Ryland Steen on drums, Steve Fekete on guitar and Richard Campbell on bass. The tour continues across United States and Canada until July when they head to Europe for shows in France, the U.K. and Germany. You can see all the tour dates here.

    There is also a biography about the band written by Jude Warne, titled America The Band: An Authorized Biography that is available now.

    Setlist: Tin Man, You Can Do Magic, Don’t Cross The River, Daisy Jane, Riverside, I Need You, Here, Ventura Highway, Eleanor Rigby, Cornwall Blank, Hollywood, The Border, Woman Tonight, Only In Your Heart, California Dreamin, Lonely People, Sandman, Sister Golden Hair, A Horse With No Name

  • Nitty Gritty Dirt Band And All-Star Cast Cover “The Times They Are A-Changin” To Raise Money for Feeding America

    In the fifty-seven years since Bob Dylan released his career-altering folksong, “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” the times he sang of did seem to change.

    But now, in another period of national unrest, a President refusing to concede defeat or peacefully transfer power, and a renewed fire for justice in the long-fought battle for civil rights, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has a new version of Dylan’s classic sounds more poignant and insistent than ever before.

    Amidst the compounding, pleading verses of Scottish ballad by way of Greenwich Village, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, with distinguished musical guests—Jason Isbell, Rosanne Cash, The War And Treaty, and Steve Earle—each step to the microphone to contribute a verse, with Isbell also adding slide guitar.

    They carry the same tone and energy in their voices as the song’s writer did almost six decades ago; an unfortunate but earnest reaction to the all too evident parallels between now and then.

    “It moved me deeply then and that hasn’t changed,” Nitty Gritty Dirt Band founding member and lead singer Jeff Hanna notes. “The lyrics are as relevant today as they were when Dylan wrote it. Maybe even more so.” 

    The track features NGDB members Jeff Hanna (lead vocals and acoustic guitar), Jimmie Fadden (drums), Bob Carpenter (accordion), Jim Photoglo (electric bass), Jaime Hanna (electric guitar), and Ross Holmes (fiddle and mandolin)—as well as Fred Eltringham (Sheryl Crow, The Wallflowers) on additional drums, and Nashville songwriting legend Matraca Berg on harmonica and harmony vocals.

    “The Time’s They Are A-Changin’” was produced by Ray Kennedy and collectively recorded up and down the east coast.

    John Leventhal recorded his wife, Rosanne Cash’s vocals in their New York City home studio and Steve Earle contributed his verse via the world famous Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village. In Nashville, NGDB and guests joined Kennedy in his Room & Board Studio.

    “The Times They Are A-Changin’” is available for “name your price” purchase on NGDB’s Bandcamp page with proceeds going to Feeding America.

    For more information, please visit Nittygritty.com and Feedingamerica.org.

    The Times They Are A-Changin’ by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Rosanne Cash, Steve Earle, Jason Isbell, The War and Treaty

  • Janani Shankar Releases Deeply Personal And Emotional New Single “I Wanna Know”

    Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Janani Shankar is set to release her new single, “I Wanna Know.”

    In this track, Shankar speaks about deeply emotional issues such as abandonment, and pays tribute to her late grandmother Viji Shankar who she never met, and her late great grandmother Lakshmi Shankar.

    Janani’s “I Wanna Know” touches on personal issues she has faced in her life. Shankar attributes these issues, such as loss and estrangement from close family members, to greed, jealousy, and death.

    “I Wanna Know” is written from the perspective of a little girl longing for her family, asking why they left. By the end, the track speaks to a less empathic, more emotional feeling, driven by the accelerated drumbeat.

    A singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, Shankar started learning classical Indian vocals and violin at the age of three. Later on she picked up guitar, bass, and keys.

    She began gigging in New York at the age of sixteen and went on to play in London, Los Angeles, and other cities around the world. Her style combines the nineties with folk, jazz, and indie influences.

    Janani’s songs “Wanderer,” “Forgettable,” and “Get Up” have been played on BBC Radio: The Asian Network. Her most recent single, “The World is on Fire,” has been featured on radio stations and music blogs worldwide.

    The track features Gingger Shankar on the double violin, Patrick Adams on trumpet, Mike Frazier (Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, Escarioka) on drums, Nataliya Zaytseva on keys, Trevor Brown on bass, and Michael “Bull” LoBue on electric guitar.

    Janani Shankar released “I Wanna Know” on February 9th, the day her grandmother Viji passed away, in her honor. Visit her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

  • Judy Collins to Recreate 1964 Town Hall show

    Judy Collins will perform at The Town Hall in New York City, on Friday, February 12. She is recreating her debut 1964 show from the very same stage, featuring music by Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, and Billy Ed Wheeler, among others.

    judy collins

    Collins, an award-winning singer-songwriter is known for her versions of traditional and contemporary folk standards, as well as her own poetically poignant original compositions. Her rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” from her 1967 album, Wildflowers, has been entered into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Judy’s intimate version of “Send in the Clowns” won “Song of the Year” at the 1975 Grammy Awards, and she has garnered multiple top-ten hits and platinum-selling albums.

    Judy began her music career at 13 as a piano prodigy, but hard luck tales of folk revival music by artists such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger drew her away from a life as a concert pianist. This path led her towards a lifelong love affair with the guitar and pursuit of emotional truth in lyrics.

    Recently, Collins released the 2020 album Winter Stories, featuring critically-acclaimed Norwegian folk artist Jonas Fjeld, and masterful Americana band Chatham County Line. Collins was fêted by contemporary and classic artists, among them Rufus Wainwright, Shawn Colvin, Dolly Parton, Joan Baez, and Leonard Cohen, on the album Born to the Breed: A Tribute to Judy Collins.

    Speaking about her concert performance on February 12 at The Town Hall, Collins said:

    It was such a tumultuous time in the world. The Vietnam War was just rolling along, breaking into thunder and lightning and anxiety and pain. People were burning their draft boards cards, trying to get to Canada and facing up to going to Vietnam where many of them would die. Making this album and concert at The Town Hall – my very first solo appearance at one of the great concert stages in New York – was a relief and joyous event. It feels right to go back to the material and time period now with the knowledge and life lessons learned in 2020.

    Judy Collins, recalling her debut performance at The Town Hall

    Tickets are $40 and on sale now via Judy’s website.

  • Singer-Songwriter Mackenzie Shivers Shares “Martha’s Vineyard” from Upcoming Album

    Indie-folk singer Mackenzie Shivers releases her first single “Martha’s Vineyard” for her upcoming 2021 full-length release, Rejection Letters

    Singer, songwriter and pianist, Mackenzie Shivers, premiered her new dreamy video for her song “Martha’s Vineyard.” Her song radiates the intimate, eerie qualities of indie-folk, akin to Phoebe Bridgers. At the end of the song, a spoken-word verse adds mystery and edge to Shivers’ unique sound. The music video features a vignette of Shivers alone on a beach save her acoustic guitar, immersed the world of her music. 

    Mackenzie Shivers

    I’m not sure I ever learned healthy ways to express anger. But I’m learning now. I’m much more comfortable with sadness than I am with anger. I think that’s because female anger is so often met with shame and dismissal. That’s certainly been my experience, and it really started to hit home as I wrote this song.

    Mackenzie Shivers – “Martha’s Vineyard.”

    Shivers’ third full length album was borne out of the strange circumstances which we have all endured in 2020. She sought refuge in Cape Cod from her home in New York City. With an old family guitar gifted by her father, Shivers experimented with alternate tunings, thanks to Instagram live tutorials from folk artist Laura Marling. Since touring was an adventure left in another world, Shivers inadvertently wrote a collection of songs that became Rejection Letter. 

    Her newfound time for introspection led to topics she seldom discussed on past records. Female anger – questioning the contemporary world, trying to have a child and struggling to conceive color. This record is in a poignantly personal way. She hopes that her lyrics help those with grand uncertainties can listen to someone that feels the same. Shivers revels in her rebellion, embracing her fiery nature. 

    “I’m proud that I found a way to make this record during a very scary, chaotic, uncertain time. I wanted to make something that would give my listeners permission to get angry, to commiserate. My goal is always and ultimately to remind people they’re not alone,” says Shivers.

    I feel like this is me at my best and most complex to date. You get to see new sides of me through this music – a darker, moodier, sometimes angrier side. But it’s still whimsical. It still balances that dark with the light. 

    Mackenzie Shivers

    Prior to her upcoming third release, Mackenzie Shivers has released two full-length albums: 2014’s Neverland and 2019’s The Unkindness and three EPs titled Living in My Head (2016), Ravens (2017), and Midwinter (2019). She currently lives in New York City with her husband. 

    For more info visit Mackenzie Shivers’ website.