{"id":720,"date":"2012-12-24T13:44:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-24T21:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2012\/12\/new-west-coast-folk.html"},"modified":"2012-12-24T13:44:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-24T21:44:00","slug":"new-west-coast-folk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2012\/12\/new-west-coast-folk.html","title":{"rendered":"New West Coast Folk"},"content":{"rendered":"

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SOMETHING about the cool weather, the melange of religious songs and the reflective tone of the end of the end of the year leads me to play a lot of acoustic folk music around the holidays. (And lest you jeer at the frigid winters we have in Southern California, I\u2019ll tell you that it was in the 50s most of today and I could actually see my breath this morning. Okay, so we\u2019re not in Yorkshire.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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In any case, two newish records have pushed their way into my end-of-year folk canon. Both have connections to the West Coast, which may be the best folk (and folk-rock) terrain outside the British Isles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The first is Deer Creek Canyon<\/i>,\u00a0by the youngish Seattle-based folk singer Sera Cahoone. This is her third record, but she\u2019s new to me and I don\u2019t know her story in much detail. (Turns out she played drums in Band of Horses for a while \u2013 huh?)<\/div>\n
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I\u2019ll just say: I don\u2019t often hear an artist who\u2019s able to blend tradition with a solid personality this well. None of these songs make me rethink the history of music, but all are intelligent, tastefully played and effortlessly tuneful. A few \u2013 Rumpshaker, Shakin\u2019 Hands \u2013 are better than that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The other album comes from a whole other generation. Bert Jasch was a Scotsman and one of the fathers of Britfolk. His show at Largo a few years back \u2013 his last American tour, I think \u2013 was one of the most riveting performances I\u2019ve ever seen, with his peerless fingerpicking, his adaptation of traditional English and Celtic songs, and his rough-hewn voice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Janch made a number of classic records in the \u201860s, some with John Renbourn; my favorite live record of his is the reasonably obscure Live in Australia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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But Omnivore has just released a two-CD disc that captures the late fingerpicking hero near his high point. The title disc, Heartbreak<\/i>, was recorded in 1982. But even better is the second disc here, Live at McCabe\u2019s Guitar Shop<\/i>, which captures a 1981 solo date at the Santa Monica shrine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Jansch opens with the old Irish song \u201cCurragh of Kildare\u201d and works his way through \u201cBlackwater Side,\u201d \u201cCome Back Baby,\u201d \u201cThe First Time Ever I Saw Your Face\u201d (a Celt folk tune by Ewan MacColl before Elvis made it famous) and a song he had special sympathy with \u2013 the darkly romantic \u201cBlues Run the Game.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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All of this music will be ringing and chiming around my house this week. Happy West Coast folk holidays to all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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SOMETHING about the cool weather, the melange of religious songs and the reflective tone of the end of the end of the year leads me to play a lot of acoustic folk music around the holidays. (And lest you jeer at the frigid winters we have in Southern California, I\u2019ll tell you that it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[105,88,92,64,40,106,29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-bert-jansch","7":"category-brit-culture","8":"category-britfolk","9":"category-folk-music","10":"category-indie","11":"category-mccabes","12":"category-west-coast","13":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}