SOUNDTRACK: KEVIN MORBY & KATIE CRUTCHFIELD-“Downtown’s Lights” NPR’S SOUTH X LULLABY (March 20, 2018).
I don’t know if Bob Boilen ever explained how he starte dto get people doing South X Lullabies, but here he explains why he started doing them:
In the midst of all the chaos that is Austin, Texas during the SXSW Music Festival, we seek moments of calm. And so one night, as the week was nearing its end, we made our way to the courtyard of St. David’s Episcopal Church, just a few blocks from the thousands of festival participants and onlookers. There we found a trickling garden-side waterfall, where Katie Crutchfield and Kevin Morby performed “Downtown’s Lights,” from Kevin Morby’s recent album, City Music.
I don’t know Kevin Morby. I’ve heard of him, but aside from a Tiny Desk Concert, I’ve never explored his music.
“Downtown’s Lights” is a simple folk song. He’s got a bit of a Bob Dylan delivery in what feels like a very deliberate folk song. Katie Crutchfield is Waxahatchee who I’m excited to see in a few weeks. Waxahatchee has been really rocking out the last few albums, so this folk song (and her Southern accent) stand out somewhat.
Their voices work nicely together, and that moment when you hear someone yelling, it almost sounds like a wolf howling.
“Downtown’s Lights” is a song of comfort and prayer for someone who is down and out in the city, and this version, with Katie singing — and the sounds of the city echoing in the background — is wistful and peacefully perfect.
[READ: April 13, 2016] “Two Emmas”
Back in June of 2009, The New Yorker had their annual summer fiction issue. Included in that issue were three short essays under the heading of “Summer Reading.” I knew all three authors, so I decided to include them here.
This essay was about Roger Angell’s summer home in Maine.
He says that on late February nights his mind often returns to his family’s cottage in Maine and the books that are on its shelves.
Those books have been there for as long as he can remember, and have been read and re-read every summer. The list is interesting:
Good Behaviour [Molly Keane], Endurance [Alfred Lansing], Framley Parsonage [Anthony Trollope], Get Shorty [Elmore Leonard], Daisy Miller [Henry James], Dracula [Bram Stoker], Butterfield 8 [John O’Hara], Goodbye to All That [Robert Graves], Why Did I Ever [Mary Robison], Oblomov [Ivan Goncharov], The Heart of the Matter [Graham Greene], Sailing Days on the Penobscot [George Savary Wasson], The Moonstone [Wilkie Collins], Possession [A. S. Byatt], Morte d’Urban [J. F. Powers], Quartet [Jean Rhys], Emma [Jane Austen] and dozens more. [I have to chime in and say that this sounds heavenly].
He says that fat books like Martin Chuzzlewit [Charles Dickens], Orley Farm [Anthony Trollope] and the Forsythe Saga [John Galsworthy] were saved for a tedious week of Down East fog. (more…)