Tag: Blues

Before you leave

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Josh Farrow is an Illinois-born kid who played punk rock music as a teenager, eventually headed to Nashville in his early 20s to chase after his future wife — pulling triple-duty as lead singer, songwriter and ringleader.  He is inspired by the New Orleans funk of Allen Touissant and the Chicago blues of his hometown — chasing down success on his own terms, bringing with him a sound that’s smoky, soulful, and signature.

“Before You Leave,” was a finalist in the John Lennon Songwriting Competition.  

This old house feels empty
There’s nothing I can hear
But the sad and silent echo
Of better years

I feel something breathe
In this dead and hollow room
It’s just this heavy old heart
That’s hanging on you

So before you leave
Darling, won’t you le me down easy?
Before you go
Won’t you help me ease my achin’ bones?
So before you leave
Darling, please, won’t you take what’s left of me

Living like it’s dark out
And the breeze is running cold
It’s moving through me like a haunting ghost
A photograph by the beside, it’s all that’s left I own
It’s a picture of a woman and all I’ve known.
So before you leave
Darling, won’t you let me down easy?
Before you go
Won’t you help me ease my achin’ bones?
So before you leave
Darling, please, I’m begging
won’t you take what’s left of me

~ Josh Farrow, from “Before you Leave (Atwood Magazine, Oct 26, 2016)

It’s been a long day! (Hit it Moji! Hit it!)

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No one’s going to cry for me if you don’t…
If you’ve got a minute,
if you’ve got a space in your heart
Keep my memory
Don’t let me fall behind, no, no, don’t let me fall behind…

Notes:

 

St. Paul & The Broken Bones

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St. Paul & The Broken Bones is a six-piece soul band based out of Birmingham, Alabama, which formed in 2012.

“Paul, according to all the reviews and stuff that are written of the band, he looks like your high school history teacher, or he looks like Drew Carey,” Phillips explains. “Bottom line is that we’re a bunch of kind of nerdy-looking white guys, and when this sort of earth-shaking soul roar comes out of his mouth for the first time, you can always hear the air being sucked out of the room.” Janeway wasn’t raised to be a soul singer. He grew up in rural Alabama in a strict religious household. “I could only listen to, like, gospel Christian music,” Janeway says.” And he got most of his musical chops from church. He even trained to be a preacher. “I learned more from preaching than I did singing in church,” Janeway explains, “because you learn a little bit more about how to interact with the crowd — feeling momentum, just feeling that intensity — and it’s not a whole lot different than what we do now.”

(NPR Music: From Preacher To Grass Cutter To Earth-Shaking Soul Singer)

Liked this? Don’t miss I’ve Been Loving You and All I Ever Wonder.

Find the group’s 2016 album Sea of Noise on iTunes

Walking Cross-Town. With Spirits.

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feather-light-weightless

The subway rumbles underground, the earth trembles under my feet. Out of the corner of my eye, a flourish and a rustle. I turn.

Blue waste paper twirls in a whirlwind. It spins upward in the current before landing gently on the concrete in front of the hulking sky scraper.

Odd.

It’s 6 am. A still, windless morning in Midtown. A single piece of wastepaper lifts the Blues, lightness fills the cavity.

I turn my head back to see it stir.

Zeke?

Is that you?

 

Notes:

 

Rag’n’Bone Man

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Rag’n’Bone Man (born Rory Graham) sings “Human“. He’s a British singer-songwriter from Uckfield, near Brighton.  At 15, he started he career by testing his rap skills at open-mic hip hop nights.  At 19, encouraged by his father, he sang at a blues jam in a local pub and doors started opening for acoustic gigs. His career has since taken off.  You can find his pages on Facebook, his web site and on iTunes.