Threads and Tangents Music Hour

This week's musical thread is Labor Day in May.  Each year as we approach May 1st, and most of the planet celebrates Labor Day, I always wonder why the US and Canada wait until September to, sort of, do the same thing.  The idea for an annual day celebrating workers in May goes back to the late 1800’s, and it originated in the US.  The reasons for the different dates are complicated, and it’s a tangent that we need to steer clear of if we’re going to hear any music tonight.We'll hear songs about work, workers and unions, and also about weekends and the everyday lives of working folk.  I pulled together a solid mix of musicians and musical styles, and I promise that there’ll be some surprises for you.  

This week, the musical thread is the season of Spring.  The azaleas are blooming, and for me, that's a sure sign that spring has arrived for good.  As I dug into this musical thread, I found lots of great songs related to Spring.  

As I looked over the songs, I realized these were not just great, or at least fun, songs; but a collection of memories. I’m originally from Chicago's southside, so I’m a Sox fan. That means my memories aren’t so much about championships–though 2005 was pretty sweet–instead those memories, and these songs, reflect a fan’s experience: the sights, the sounds, even the food of baseball. They also reflect the social context-what was going on outside of baseball.

Tonight the thread is Finders of Songs, featuring singers that may not write many songs, but sure know how to pick them and turn the songs into something of their own. 

Tonight the musical thread is The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere. It’s a phrase that I heard from Utah Phillips and he got it from William Faulkner. They were speaking about social issues, but I’d like to apply the idea to music. So let’s check out the idea that our musical past didn’t go anywhere by listening to songs that were released in 1972. These songs still influence other musicians and they’ll be heard by music fans for a long time to come.

This week, the musical thread is bands with siblings. I’m not sure how this idea got in my head, but I took a deep dive into the world of bands that include brothers and sisters. We’ll hear some great tunes. Some from the usual suspects and some from bands where the family connections aren’t so well known, heck some of the bands themselves aren’t even well-known, but they’re all really good.

The thread for this episode is: Session Musicians. When I listened to the latest Robert Plant & Allison Krauss CD, there was an amazing group of supporting musicians, and I thought that digging into the work of those players would make for interesting listening.  So that’s what we’ll do, we’ll hear from those musicians as a way to focus on the work of session musicians.