Newport Folk Festival | Positive Vibration

It's Monday morning following Newport Folk and we're all feeling the musical love that was filling the air all weekend long at Fort Adams State Park, and on Friday night at The Tennis Hall Of Fame. You couldn't ask for better weather and all festival goers know that the warm and sunny totally trumps sweltering and steamy or rainy and muddy.

There were so many amazing musical performances that it's a challenge to pick the highlights. There were some sets that totally knocked me out. Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings was the absolute top for me, and I bet for many others. The place went wild during her set! I couldn't stop dancing as I watched from the back of the field in front of the main stage. At one point I found myself jumping up and down. It's been awhile since that happened.

Andrew Bird, John Prine, Brandi Carlile, Horse Feathers, Dawes, Swell Season and Levon Helm were my other favorites, but EVERYBODY was great and once again the folks at Newport Folk outdid themselves on all fronts. The quality of the artist line-up, the sound, and the overall experience of being at the festival was absolutely top notch and that's what Newport delivers year after year. Listen to music from the festival here.

The Swell Season | Giving Thanks

I heard Marketa Irglova, an Irish lilt permeating her Czech accent, speaking in a radio interview, saying that she is as equally thankful to those who have caused her pain as to those who have given her joy. The songs by Irglova and her partner Glen Hansard on The Swell Season's new album "Strict Joy"are testament to this sentiment. There's a new kind of vulnerability on this, their second record together; it's muscular, strongly infused with the experience of loving and losing and carrying on. The James Stephens poem that gives the record it's title reveals a purpose,

For, as he mediated misery
And cared it into song - Strict Care, Strict Joy!
Caring for grief he cared his grief away:
And those sad songs, tho' woe be all the theme,
Don't make us grieve who read them now -
Because the poet makes grief beautiful

By becoming familiar with grief, one transforms it.

See the white space behind these words? For me, listening to this record is like being held in such a place, open yet defined, secured by Hansard and Irglova's absolute commitment to life and music. Some of Hansard's band mates from The Frames play on the CD, which was recorded in producer Peter Katis' home studio in Bridgeport, CT. Every song has a purpose, and like all great albums, the effect grows with each listen.