There is a crucial difference. Audience. I can tell you from my experience that there is nothing like picking banjo on the porch for nobody but the wind. I can tell you about the natural feeling of seeing somebody walk down the street, look up and shout, “hey, you still playing…” – and taking a breather to shout back and ask how they’re doing. I have felt the immense pleasure of having just a few folks up to the porch to sing, “How many biscuits can you eat this morning” – having them shout out new verse after new verse to absolutely nobody listening…

And it’s not the same in the studio. It doesn’t matter if you’re the Beatles, T-Bone Burnett, Daniel Lanois, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Doc Watson – something big dies in there, and it lays in front of you, and you step on it, and you know that you are standing on a dead, wild beast, but you still pretend that the beast is out roaming around, and that you are still hunting for it. The studio is a place for delusional experts and illusion artists. Computer screens and soundless rooms somehow generate a new world that is bigger and better than the one folks used to know.

I read in the NY Times today that the last two little towns in Louisiana that don’t have telephones are getting telephones this month. The state is charging taxpayers 700,000 dollars to get the phone lines to the two little towns. I guess it makes me think of the Lorax – who stood around to see the last of the Truffula trees be chopped down – I often wonder why the Onceler didn’t stop to leave at least one tree standing – but I guess that is the way that our culture works – we like to do things all the way or not at all (hence our bulging waistlines). Why not leave the two little towns to their peace? The old woman who was being interviewed said that for 80 years she has walked a mile and a half to borrow ingredients from the neighbors – and drove if they had to go ‘too far’ (for most folks I know that already seems far!)…

I have listened to the recording of Mrs. Sidney Carter many times now alongside the version put on Brother Where Art Thou, sung by Emmylou Harris, Allison Krauss and Gillian Welch, and there is a drastic difference between the two. There is a huge void of soul in the newer version of this song, and a drastic difference in meaning, partially due to context of the two, and partially due to the new lyrics written by T-Bone Burnett and Gillian Welch. The tone in Mrs. Carter’s voice is a bit contrived – perhaps because some strange northern man is shoving his microphone in her face (when she might never have seen a microphone in her life before, or seldom) – but it leaves me to imagine the sound of her singing to her little baby at night, getting quieter and quieter until it falls asleep.

But the story isn’t just the ‘soul’ comparison between the two. It’s marketability. It’s whether we can put the tune on, turn our laptop off and kick up our heels to it. It’s just different. Mrs. Carter sang this tune to her little kid – off gurgling in the background. Misses Emmylou, Allison and Gillian sang it with their eyes closed, all amazed at the sound of each others’ voices, and trying to get their part right. I have had enough studio experience to know what a ‘good’ recording is – and it isn’t the one with the most ‘soul’ – it’s the one that’s the most on pitch – they add the soul later.

And about that – the ‘soul’ they add to the trio’s version of this tune is ridiculous, awful, not artistically placed, off-pitch, off-color, electric (keyboards, electric guitars, distorted banjo), and unbelievably tasteless. If anything, it mocks the purpose of the tune itself, which is to be ‘seduced’ by the Sirens – perhaps it was meant to add a little ‘other-worldly’ quality – that’s my best guess.