My mother, when I was small enough to love music, and to understand the melodies, sung me the heavenly song ‘Both Sides Now’ by Joni Mitchell. And for some reason, that song haunted me throughout my childhood. I never heard it, if I remember right, in the many sing-a-longs we had together (we sang mostly John Denver and Peter Paul and Mary), but for some reason, it came out during the most important and emotional times of my childhood. When I was hurting, and when I felt that special feeling that you get when you are just overflowing with happiness…

I ran into the song again in college, among the coffeehouse neo-folk neo-beatnik friends I had… and I fell in love with it again.

Run into the song yourself via amazon.com’s free sample here: Joni Mitchell :: Dreamland

Of course my mother learned it from Judy Collins — she didn’t listen to Joni Mitchell until later — and I learned it from my mother — so I wasn’t that excited when i heard Joni Mitchell’s original version. Beautiful, but didn’t floor me.

What did floor me was hearing ‘Both Sides Now’ in the surprisingly fantastic (in my opinion) movie ‘Love Actually.’ The song, in context was so moving I felt my chest cave in, and had to struggle to breathe. I’m a movie-cryer, and I couldn’t even do that. It was very moving. (more…)

First of all, you MUST check out Pandora.com – it’s the radio of the future! You type in a person you like listening to (ie Tom Waits — that was my first entry), and then they throw recordings that they have determined are similar in texture and content your direction, via your personal Pandora radio. They save your preferences (it’s totally free), and you can access it from anywhere!

Highly recommended! Visit Pandora.com Here!

One of the great discoveries I have made via Pandora Radio is a fellow named Brett Dennen. Check out his site and some free samples, etc. at BrettDennen.com

This guy has a voice! I’m not usually one to enjoy sparse, folk-rock with angst vocals, but this kid can sing with the soul of Billie Holiday within that texture. If Brett Dennen reminds me of anyone, he reminds me of Little Jimmy Scott, Billie Holiday’s friend and inspiration. If you haven’t ever listened to Jimmy Scott’s music, you must do that as well — he sings with more soul than I have ever seen! And he’s still doing it, though he’s a frail, little man now!

Brett Dennen will be a name to watch in the near future. The guy’s got something in his voice that you just want to hear more of — it’s a mix of honey and MSG — it’ll make you a little sick, but you just have to keep listening to it.

Check out his website at BrettDennen.com, and his CD is for sale at CD Baby.com

And don’t forget to get an account at Pandora.com!

Here’s yet another podcast from my archive of useless facts about great music!

This one’s about ‘Run Chillen Run’, and talks about a whole bunch of musicians from Ruth Crawford Seeger and her son Pete to the Skillet Lickers, Doc Watson, Clint Howard and more! Some great tunes on there, too…

Listen to it at kentgustavson.com/podcast, or click below!

American Roots Music Podcast #2 :: Run Chillen Run

This is the first of (hopefully) many entries about my favorite music. I have thousands of recordings, and am an obsessive listener, and I figured, what would give me more pleasure than telling the world about the music I love the best.

‘What are we Doing in Heaven Today” is possibly the most beautiful tune I’ve heard in my entire life. There is something so other-worldly and powerful in his singing — I am moved to tears almost every time I listen to these recordings.
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I recently visited Rance White in the hills of Appalachia…

Rance gave me a short tour of the workshop where he builds his Lazy River Guitars, and showed me the small, packed, varnish-scented area where he keeps all of his finished guitars, weissenborns, and other creations…

I was intrigued, and drawn to the gorgeous look of his instruments, and his use of American woods — walnut, cedar and others…

He is very well known for building weissenborns, and builds the most beautiful instruments of that kind I have ever seen, and custom builds instruments for the most reasonable rate out there…

Check out Rance’s website at:
http://www.lazyriverguitars.com

There are a few soundclips available of his weissenborns — worth listening to at:
http://lazyriverguitars.com/Pages/mp3s.html

Here’s a page of Rance’s current projects:
http://lazyriverguitars.com/Pages/current

And there are some pictures of my guitar as it was being built here:
http://lazyriverguitars.com/Pages/currentprojects/kentgustavson.html

Here is a list of Lazy River Guitars’ amazingly reasonable price list (only 1300 for a base rate on a new guitar!)
http://lazyriverguitars.com/Pages/prices

Contact Rance through his webpage here:
http://www.lazyriverguitars.com/Pages/contact

Rance built me two guitars (more…)

Finally I had time to make my first true podcast! What fun it is to broadcast to cyberspace!

I talked about, and played many versions of The Cuckoo, the famous folk/traditional Appalachian tune…

Check it out at my podcast: kentgustavson.com/podcast, or just click here:

The Cuckoo Podcast

If you would like to syndicate my podcast, and hear me expound every once in a while, just go to kentgustavson.com/podcast, and you’ll see easy options to do that!