SOUNDTRACK: MARGARET GLASPY-Live at the Newport Folk Festival (July 30, 2017).
Every year, NPR goes to the Newport Folk Festival so we don’t have to. A little while afterwards, they post some streams of the shows (you used to be able to download them, but now it’s just a stream). Here’s a link to the Margaret Glaspy set; stream it while it’s still active.
Margaret Glaspy has been making music professionally since 2010, but she released her solo debut last year and it’s really good. She plays a rocking guitar, although she seems to play a lot on the higher strings. Her sound isn’t tinny, but it’s a much more treble than bass. But she’s got a two piece backing band to pick up and complement the low end.
She also has a unique vocal delivery style. She enunciates words with a strange inflection–I never would have guessed that she is from California. And it’s that unique sound that I think makes her lyrics that much more interesting. She’s also not afraid to throw in a curse or a graphic description in her lyrics.
Glaspy played 13 songs in total. 10 of the 12 songs from her record, two new ones and a Lucinda Williams cover.
She doesn’t speak much, she just gets right to the music, playing the first five songs faithfully to the record with just enough grace notes to make it stand out. But she seems to let it all hang out by the time she gets to “Situation” which has a much louder, rougher guitar sound–she really lets loose and it sounds great.
She introduces the band Daniel Ryan on the bass and Tim Kuhl on the drums and then she starts the slower “Black is Blue.” I hadn’t noticed before but at times her delivery is kind of like Laura Marling’s in this song. “You Don’t Want Me” has a spoken word section and her delivery once again reminds me of Marling’s. They certainly don’t sound alike, but there is something similar in the style–that would be an awesome double bill.
She might explain her lack of talking when she says, “This is my first time at Newport and I don’t take it lightly. So thank you so much for having me.”
The NPR blurb also sees a lot of strength at the end of her set, so I’ll let them sum up
She says she’s “Got some new songs for you:”
a slow-burner called “Mother/Father” and another that doesn’t yet have a title [the chorus: life was better before we were together]. A late-set highlight was “Memory Street,” which boiled over into a seething solo before a final verse that had Glaspy repeating a disjointed phrase over and over, to the point of uneasiness [it is quite long, she sings the words “Times I” with an appropriate skipping sounding drum click for over 20 seconds]— a compelling imitation of the skipping record her lyrics invoked.
She plays a cover of Lucinda Williamss’ “The Fruits of my Labor.” and then ends with “You And I” and that catchy circular guitar riff that is so wonderful and original.
Glaspy has been on my list of people to see live and I hope she comes back this way after she tours around for a while.
[READ: June 20, 2017] “The Work You Do, The Person You Are”
This issue has a section of essays called “On the Job,” with essays about working written by several different authors.
Toni Morrison (it’s hard to think of her as doing something “before” being an author) speaks of working for Her, in the 1940s in a house that had all kinds of things that she had never seen before: a hoover vacuum cleaner or an iron not heated by a fire.
She gave half of her earnings to her mother–which meant she was helping pay the rent, which made her feel good. But she also got some money to squander of junk.
She makes this distinction: In the 40s children were not loved or liked they were needed–to earn money, care for siblings, work the farm, run errands and much more.
She got better at the cleaning job and was asked to do more and more things–but for the same amount of money. She started to hate the job–even more so when her mother told her to stop paying Her for Her gorgeous castoff clothes. Her mother said it was a terrible idea.
Finally she went to her dad he had no sympathy, just practicality: go to work, get your money, come on home.
And she took away this:
- Whatever the work is, do it well—not for the boss but for yourself.
- You make the job; it doesn’t make you.
- Your real life is with us, your family.
- You are not the work you do; you are the person you are.
- Never place the security of a job above the value of home
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