Festival(Murray Lerner, USA, 1967, 95 mins.)Well, all you ladies gather around.The good sweet candy man's in town.It's the candy man, candy man.-- Mississippi John Hurt (1963)Because the answer is still blowin' in the wind, Festival is a welcome reminder about the breadth and depth of folk. Since the genre has been around for so long (seemingly forever) and shows no signs of stopping--whether we're talking the polished folk-pop of Jewel or the freak-folk of Devendra Banhart and friends--it's easy to take for granted. It's just as easy to forget that folk isn't a singular look or sound, and that there was a time when it captured the popular imagination

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On Covering Gainsbourg:Part II (or III)After writing about the Cat Power/Karen Elson take on "Je t'aime...moi non plus" a few weeks ago, I finally got the opportunity to listen to the entire Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited release. Consequently, I wanted to share this passage from Verve's press notes:Anyone who thinks these interpretations are sacrilege should know that Gainsbourg was overjoyed when his work was readapted, especially by those brave enough to get inside his head, dismantling his work for material to build something else. As he put it, "songs are a minor art form, not for worshipping, but rather for twisting our way."For the record, I don

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Marisa Monte, Infinito Particular and Universo Ao Meu Redor, Metro Blue/EMI (9/12/06 release date)Next out of the gate is Infinito Particular ("The Particular Infinite"). Of the two simultaneously released recordings, it sounds most like a product of the present. It's also a smoother affair, the opposite of Seu Jorge's Cru. Or to paraphrase the Fine Young Cannibals, Universo is "the raw," i.e. the cru, while Infinito is "the cooked," i.e. the cozinhado (if my translation is to be trusted). That said, it's more mellow and downbeat.Like Universo, Infinito isn't jazz, new age, or adult contemporary, although it could appeal to some of the more adventurou

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Marisa Monte, Universo Ao Meu Redor and Infinito Particular, Metro Blue/EMI (9/12/06 release date)After reading the press release regarding these two recordings, I thought: Too bad I'm not on Metro Blue's mailing list as I'd love to give 'em a listen. Well, lo and behold, UPS delivered both albums just yesterday. I guess dreams really can come true!So, what was it about Metro Blue's announcement that caught my attention? To start, I'm interested in MPB (Musica Popular Brasileira), but the most significant morsel of information was that the platinum-selling Monte, with whom I was previously unfamiliar, has worked with most of the leading lights in the

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Joli Mois de MaiHere are the reviews I'm working on for this month.Amazon: Clean (OlivierAssayas and Maggie Cheung--together again!), Awesome; I...Shot That! (Beastie Boys concert shot by fans), The Golden Girls - The Complete Fifth Season [three-disc set] (my third Golden Girls review), The 4400 - The Complete Second Season [four-discset] (character-driven sci-fi series from Francis Ford Coppola'sproduction company; I also reviewed season one), An Unfinished Life (Lasse Hallström with Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman),The Devil's Miner (intimate doc about a young Bolivian miner), The Closer - The Complete First Season [four-disc set] (TNTde-tective

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On Mick HarveyI neglected to mention in my previous post, On Covering Gainsbourg, that Bad Seed Mick Harvey has issued two albums of English-language Gainsbourg covers. I remember hearing The Intoxicated Man on KCMU upon its release in 1995. (Pink Elephants arrived two years later.) At the time, I wasn't too familiar with the original material. I liked what I heard.I'm not sure what I'd think now that I've absorbed more of Gainsbourg's work. Sylvie Simmons (A Pocketful of Gitanes) claims that Harvey's translations are some of the best, i.e. they come closest to the author's original intent. The idea of translating them at all still bugs me. Once I've

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On Covering GainsbourgCreativity is a good thing. No, strike that, it's a great thing. But there's a lot to be said for rules. Granted, the very word makes many uncomfortable as we all have to live with them and most of us would rather make up our own--or do without altogether--but they're necessary, dammit. Sure, too many can stifle creativity, but too few can lead to blunders like the following... *****So I just heard the new Cat Power/Karen Elson cover of "Je t'aime...moi non plus." It comes from the album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited, which includes Franz Ferdinand, Portishead, Michael Stipe, Tricky, and the Kills. I've gotta weigh in. Because I

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