This is one of those stream of consciousness sort of things, starting with my ride home from work. My iPod is attached to my car stereo, and lately I’ve been playing things at random by spinning the selector wheel on the stereo and seeing what it lands on. It’s safer that way; less need to take your eyes off the road. Anyway, I stumbled upon Maria Muldaur, and it occurred to me that I’d never used her on one of these videos, or, if I did, I can’t remember doing so, and if I can’t remember, it’s not likely anyone else will.
The pickings on youtube from her early days are somewhat sparse. This one seemed best:
Which led me to this, with Maria (who, begging her pardon, always struck me as a not quite Linda Ronstadt) and Linda herself, along with the McGarrigle sisters:
Which led me here, the McGarrigle’s and a host of friends ((Rufus Wainwright – son of Kate -, Emmylou Harris, Mary Black, Karen Matheson, Rod Paterson) singing one of my favorite songs, and one, unfortunately, still quite topical today.
Funny that Stephen Foster songs we learned as kids are, to some extent, now politically incorrect, but this song, which I never heard until I heard Thomas Hampson, of all people, sing it, seems to have been reborn. The Hampson CD, by the way (American Dreamer) should make anyone appreciate Foster’s music.
And, speak of the devil, I found it, so why not stick it up. The violinist (or should I say fiddler) is a guy named Jay Ungar, who may be playing in the McGarrigle version above, which was performed at the Transatlantic Sessions, which he must have had a hand in organizing. I know this because as a result of all this meandering I went to iTunes and bought the CD.
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