Warning: lots of YouTube videos coming your way. Save yourself some time and discover some great music by opening this playlist and jammin’ along. It’s a blog post with a soundtrack!
This summer Richard and I joined a few friends at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park, where 1 FREAKING MILLION people attended over the three days of free concerts. For reference, the population of San Francisco is 825,000. It was mind-bogglingly crowded, and we sat far enough away from one stage that we could just hear a little from that one and some from the one behind us, BUT while waiting in the Port-a-Potty line, which was up a hill, I heard something that sounded like really great music in between two acts that I knew (Steve Martin and Dr. Ralph Stanley).
I made a mental note to look them up later, and what I found was pretty nearly life-changing. Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott were the musicians creating the wisps of melody that met my ears on that fateful hill of poop and wonder.
Let’s call them bluegrass musicians, folk singers, singer-songwriters, and objectively amazing. They both have their own careers: you may have heard some of Tim’s work on the Cold Mountain soundtrack and companion CD, and Darrell is an incredible songwriter who’s work has been recorded by the Dixie Chicks, Brad Paisley, Patty Loveless and many more. But together they’re twice as nice.
Memories and Moments
Richard’s personal fave.
Long Time Gone
Catchy, fun.
With a Memory Like Mine
Richard and I went to a concert of theirs recently, and while every other song induced lots of whooping and singing along, this one was so incredibly powerful that the house was riveted in mutual silence.
Not to sound too pretentious (although who am I kidding, I love it), but IMO Tim has the most authentic bluegrass sound of anyone who never toured with Bill Monroe. There’s something about bluegrass that grabs me deep in some imagined genealogical history–as if my people came from Appalachia or Ireland. Which they don’t, to my knowledge.
Brother Wind
Classic rambling man song
I’ve Endured
Such guitar.
Working on a Building
Justification of earlier pretentiousness.
And Darrell is one of the best songwriters I’ve ever heard.
River Take Me
This is the first song I heard of his when I looked them up, and it is so poignant, so wonderful that I have now taken it as a personal mission to spread their music. So here we are.
It All Comes Down to Love
One of the best lines ever written comes from this song right here (hence why I spent wayyyy to long making this graphic). There are a lot of superlatives happening in this post. I know. All true.
Love’s Not Through with Me Yet
More lyrics to break your heart. I mean, “You may think love takes two, but love’s a gift from you to you,” “I have tried without ceasing to give love without regret,” “Can you hold a place within your breast for someone you never met?” Late teenage angsty undergrad me just pasted the entire lyrics into her AIM status.
Crooked Road
He’s really nailed that melancholic but somehow hopeful song genre.
In summary, check out Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott if you like country, bluegrass, folk, blues, gospel, trad Irish, activist songs, banjos, fiddles, mandolins, lap steels, or if you have at least one ear and one feeling.
Want more? Buy some shit.
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