Under infidel skies

Richard Shindell is a folk singer that I have liked since high school, when he formed the folk super group Cry Cry Cry with Dar Williams and Lucy Kaplansky. Some interesting facts about Richard Shindell include that he now lives in Argentina and that he once lived in a Zen Buddhist monastery.

Richard Shindell’s newest CD is a covers collection that’s pretty good, not his best but pretty good. He does a song by the Band, and one by Bruce Springsteen, and an obscure Bob Dylan…you get the point. There is this one song that I kept hitting repeat on, and every time, I’d think, I need to look up who wrote this song, because I love it. But the CD case was in my moving boxes and I probably won’t see it again for a long time.

Then last night, Dad and I went to see Jeffrey Foucault, another folk singer that I like. Some interesting facts about Jeffrey Foucault include that he is married to a folk singer named Kris Delmhorst who’s also pretty good, and he, like Richard, was also in a folk super group (Redbird, with Kris and a guy named Peter Mulvey, also good).

Well, perhaps you can see where this is going, but the Richard Shindell cover that I loved was written by Jeffrey Foucault, which I discovered when Jeffrey played it last night. The song is called “Northbound 35,” and it’s on a Jeffrey Foucault CD that I do not have.

It’s just a very evocative song with some haunting lines. Here are both versions.





Perhaps it’s boring to post the same song twice, but I’m obsessed with this song and not really thinking about anything else.

The rest of the Jeffrey Foucault concert was good as well. He played “Ghost Repeater” which is a great song that you can hear by going here: http://www.jeffreyfoucault.com/music.html. I would say he sounded better in person than he does on the CD; I think on the CD he can come across as a bit gravelly, but I guess the CD was recorded in Iowa during their coldest week and perhaps that affected things.

Caroline Herring opened; according to her website she lives in Atlanta these days. She had a really pretty voice but I didn’t love all her songs. One song I did like was called “Paper Gown,” a murder ballad that you can hear by going here: http://www.songsillinois.net/?p=3059. Hopefully it’s okay to link to that web site. I don’t know how to put mp3’s on the ol’ blog here.

They closed with some cover songs that I love, “The Ballad of Spider John” (written by Willis Alan Ramsey, also covered by Jimmy Buffett; sung by Jeffrey); “Across the Great Divide” (written by Kate Wolf, also covered by Nanci Griffith; sung by Caroline); and “The Long Black Veil”(covered by like every musician ever; sung by both of them; this song led Dad to suggest that perhaps Jeffrey and Caroline have something going on, but I certainly hope not, because I like that Kris Delmhorst).

Anyway, if you get a mix CD from me anytime in the future it will probably have “Northbound 35” on it.