Threads and Tangents Music Hour

This week, the musical thread is Mother's Day and all the songs we’ll hear will have something to do with mothers. To moms everywhere, Happy Mother's Day!
We'll hear music from: The Austin Lounge Lizards, The Beatles, Ruth Brown, Gary Clark, Jr (feat. Andra Day), Hamell on Trial, Billie Holiday, I Draw Slow, Iron And Wine, BB King, Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, Mothers of Invention, Old 97’s, Pink Floyd, St Louis Jimmy Oden, and Lucinda Williams.

This week, the musical thread is, May Day. The idea for an annual day celebrating workers in May goes back to the late 1800’s and originated in the US.  So why do we celebrate Labor Day in September? Well, it’s complicated … Let's just hear some songs about labor, and the lives of working folk.
We'll hear music from: The Clash, Elvis Costello, Della Mae, Ani DiFranco, Dry Branch Fire Squad w/Hazel Dickens, S.G. Goodman, Sarah Lee Guthrie, Woody Guthrie, John McCutcheon, Austin Moffa, Utah Phillips, Gil Scott-Heron, The Strawbs, and Jeff Tweedy.

This week, the musical thread is, Beer.  Why Beer?  Well, aside from the fact that beer makes us happy, we’re in the middle of Bellingham Beer Week. So grab a local brew and enjoy the show.
We'll hear music from: Alfi, the Asylum Street Spankers, Chicago Farmer, the Clancy Brothers, Julian Cope, Della Mae, The Jayhawks, Flaco Jiménez, Jorma Kaukonen, Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger, The Pine Valley Cosmonauts, Popa Chubby, Todd Snider, Koko Taylor, and Traffic.

This week's thread is Bugs. Yep, bugs. There’s a connection between the sounds of bugs and music we listen to. Insect sounds have been the inspiration for a variety of musical forms, and it’s not just the sound of bugs, songwriters use the critters themselves as a metaphor or analogue to explain lots from the world around us.
We'll hear music from: James Brown, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Elvis Costello, Matt Flinner Trio, Robbie Fulks, Garcia & Grisman, JJ Grey & Mofro, John Hiatt, Long John Hunter, The Mills Brothers & Count Basie, Slim Harpo, Snakefinger, Eugene Chadbourne, They Might Be Giants, Laura Veirs, and Harry Waller. 

This week's thread is Sibling Bands. I didn’t choose this thread because April 10th was National Sibling Day, that was just a happy coincidence.  I picked it because there’s something really special when siblings make music together. We hear that special connection between brothers and sisters in lots of ways – composition, instrumentation, and probably most in the vocals  
We'll hear music from: The Bangles, The Barr Brothers, Devo, I Draw Slow, NRBQ, The Replacements, The Roches, Sly & Family Stone, The Stanley Brothers, Iggy & the Stooges, The Travelin’ McCourys, the T Sisters, and We Banjo 3. 

This week’s thread is Songs from a Friend - giving credit to those friends, or siblings, who introduced us to great music. That person who was always showing up with an LP, tape, disk, or digital file that they insisted we needed to hear.  For me, my buddy Bruce was one of those people.  He did it for almost 50 years. I’m gonna share with you some of the great musicians that I learned about, thanks to Bruce.
We'll hear music from: Paul deLay, Jerry Douglas, Russ Barenberg, Edgar Meyer, Tom Dundee, Tony Furtado, Goat Rodeo Sessions, Steve Goodman, Nanci Griffith, Jorma Kaukonen, Bonnie Koloc, Leo Kottke, Little Feat, John Prine, Claudia Schmidt, Jake Shimabukuro, and Michael Smith.

This week's musical thread is a celebration of the start of the 2023 baseball season. The first baseball records were pressed in 1907 and everyone from Chuck Berry to Warren Zevon, from Doc Watson to Sam Bush, has made them since.
We'll hear music from: Dan Bern, Chuck Brodsky, Greg Brown, Peter Cooper, Dizzy Gillespie Sextet, Steve Goodman & Jethro Burns, Claire Hamill, Christine Lavin, John McCutcheon, Sam & Dave, Watermelon Slim, and Jimmy Yancey. Plus, a poem from Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

In celebration of the spring equinox and the return of the sun to the northwest corner, the musical thread is Spring.  I'll be playing songs about the season, the sun, change, and the return of warm weather. 
We'll hear music from: The Beatles, Greg Brown, Karen Dalton, John Fahey, the Grateful Dead, k.d. Lang, Tom Lehrer, the Memphis Jug Band, Thelonious Monk, Bill Monroe & his Bluegrass Boys, the Persuasions, Molly Tuttle, and Laura Veirs.

The Coen Brothers are masters of using tunes and songs that we know and love to heighten, or mystify, what’s happening onscreen - like The Same Old Song in Blood Simple and Somebody to Love in A Serious Man.  This is even more apparent in their actual musicals, like O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Inside Llewyn Davis, that are curated down to the last note, integrating decades-old deep cuts into their story lines.We'll hear music from: The Four Tops (Blood Simple), Carter Burwell (Raising Arizona and Burn After Reading), Jeff Tweedy (Fargo TV), Gipsy Kings (The Big Lebowski), Nina Simone (The Big Lebowski), Soggy Bottom Boys featuring Dan Tyminski (O’ Brother Where Art Thou), Alison Krauss (O’ Brother Where Art Thou), Édith Piaf (Intolerable Cruelty), Rose Stone and the Venice Four (The Ladykillers), Nappy Roots (The Ladykillers), Jefferson Airplane (A Serious Man), Marcus Mumford & Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis), Justin Timberlake, Carey Mulligan, & Stark Sands (Inside Llewyn Davis), and Willie Watson & Tim Blake Nelson (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs).

This week's musical thread is the Your Roots Are Showing music conference, Ireland's annual folk, roots, and traditional music conference.  Mary – who regular listeners know as the Threads and Tangents in-house bluegrass maven – was invited to speak at the conference and I got to tag along.  There were over 50 showcase artists performing during the conference and I'm going to get to as many as I can. If you want information about the Your Roots Are Showing conference, their link is https://www.showingroots.com/  
We'll hear music from: Alfi, Fragment, Shane Hennessy, I Draw Slow, The Jeremiahs, Maija Kauhanen, Kila, The Lasses, Les Tireux d'Roches, Chloe Matharu, Finbar Magee & Breige Quinn, Sarah McQuaid, Damien O’Kaine & Ron Block, Olas Trio, and Brad Reid. 
You can find links for most of these artists on the Threads and Tangents FB (https://www.facebook.com/groups/639812998144723) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/threads_and_tangents/) pages.