Musical tradition is alive and well at the Clearwater Festival, the second without founders Pete or Toshi Seeger. That’s good, but what’s even better is that the tradition isn’t stagnant, it’s growing and evolving, just as it’s already done.

I’m no fan of folk purists, who blanch at the sight of an electric guitar or a plug-in keyboard. For years, the only electric bass at some festivals I attended was employed by the zydeco musicians because, well, zydeco doesn’t work without electricity. Clearwater today has an open-ears booking policy, and that’s why you see younger people among the many tie-died, ponytailed greybeards who show up, even on soggy weekends like this one was.

Dom Flemons, late of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, is known for unearthing the hidden history of the black string bands, but on his latest album he’s branching out stylistically into R&B, country (a Roy Acuff song!) and more, as well as original songs like the celebration of east Nashville cuisine that is “Hot Chicken.” Flemons brought a trio to Clearwater’s Hudson Stage on Saturday, with Brian Farrow on bass and fiddle, and Dante Pope on drums.

Dom’s booming, theatrical voice has brought a lot of old 78s to life–who knew that “Polly Put the Kettle On” was a cool song with English roots? But these days he’s after bigger game.

You could say much the same for Guy Davis, whose big, rich baritone, paired with fluent guitar and a wailing harp, provide him all the tools he needs to recreate bluesmen like Robert Johnson (who he once played onstage). But Davis, who had to fight off rainstorms as Flemons did, is similarly painting with a broader palette these days. The original “Kokomo Kidd” is about white bootleggers using black bagmen during Prohibition, but it moves on to document political payoffs in the present day.

Sam Amidon has no limits as a musician, and boy does he tell funny (and surreal) stories. He’s steeped in the tradition—as the son of traveling folk musicians, he haunted these same grounds as a kid—and became a prodigy fiddle champion, but what he’s doing these days is a unique blend of public domain songs and modern electronica, as in a “Walking Boss” with a steady funk rhythm from the brilliant keyboard man Thomas Bartlett, a childhood friend. Banjo and beats made an unlikely but happy marriage. Check out Amidon’s latest album, recorded with jazz guitarist Bill Frisell in (somehow appropriate for bedrock American songs) Iceland.

Amidon is evolving into a showman. During a keyboard interlude he jumped off the stage and gave us 24 pushups, and a solo showcase for fiddle featured squawkings that the late Ornette Coleman would probably reject as too out there. The set included a song Amidon said he’d “heard on country radio a few days ago,” but he made it his own. Anything could happen, and did.

The same could not be said of a set by CS&N’s David Crosby. Looking healthy and in fine voice as a solo musician, Crosby nonetheless stuck to a set that—at least in the part I heard—never ventured past the early ‘70s. He must perform “Guinnivere,” “Déjà Vu” and “Cowboy Movie” in his sleep. He also revisited old love with a passable version of Joni Mitchell’s “For Free” (never mind that he’s been slagging her off in the press lately).

Crosby lives in the past; Neil Young celebrates today, and that explains their relative popularity.

Joseph Arthur was also solo, but just standing there with a guitar didn’t make him a folkie. Arthur is always adventurous with found sounds on his album, and at Clearwater he looked sleepy and disheveled but nonetheless turned in a fine set with colors from effects pedals and sampling. “The Ballad of Boogie Christ” sure got them listening. And the Talking Heads’ “Naïve Melody” was a good cover choice, especially since I’d also heard it covered by Shawn Colvin in the car on the way up.

And two thumbs up for Mike + Ruthy. They’re Clearwater royalty, having performed in the Mammals with Pete’s grandson, Tao Rodriguez Seeger. And Ruthy is, of course, the daughter of stage mainstay Jay Ungar and folk singer Lyn Hardy. But their set was anything but traditional. The highlight of the new album Bright as You Can is Mike’s song “Rock On Little Jane,” and the performance at Clearwater retained the soulful horn section that appears on the album. And Ruthy really belted that song out, with the video proof right here:

Later, both Mike and Ruthy were in the rocking backing band of ex-B-52 Kate Pierson. Is that the way Tom Paxton would have done it? Actually, Paxton rocked it up now and then, too. Catch more like-minded music at Mike + Ruthy’s Ashokan, New York Summer Hoot in August.

I’ve always wanted to see Shelby Lynne, but she phoned in sick. A reshuffled Los Lobos was just great, showing an unexpected talent for playing not only their own songs but some well-chosen classic rock—“Rattlesnake Shake” by Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac, “40,000 Headmen” by Traffic and “Bertha” by the Grateful Dead. Did they end with “La Bamba”? You bet, but it worked.

Folk festivals are also great places to make unexpected discoveries, and mine at Clearwater was a young band from south Jersey called Thomas Wesley Stern. They played not any of the festival’s five stages but in some kind of natural foods tent. I loved their version of “Cumberland Gap,” which they correctly pointed out dates to the Civil War. It’s a pretty big band, with twin fiddles and not one but three strong singers who excel at close harmonies.

The self-released Never Leaving is a strong debut album. I was worried when I saw it was all originals—weak material is the bane of a lot of new bands—but I should have had more faith. The album is strong from first note to last.

African singer Angelique Kidjo (she’s from Benin) was also a great Clearwater addition. An internationalist who’s covered a lot of stylistic ground as a solo artist, her tree-trunk-strong voice anchors everything. At Clearwater she gave us a rootsy show, with highlife guitar and plentiful percussion keeping her rocking.

I actually didn’t hear anything bad in a full day of listening, and that’s high praise. Neko Case was in good spirits and that classic country voice of hers pierced the clouds. If I could offer her a brief bit of advice, though, it would be to spice things up a bit. She performed only original songs in the same mid-tempo, and some of them didn’t stick in the mind. It was good to see a favorite singer, Kelly Hogan, backing her up.

Kate Pierson, also singing well, could use some stronger material, too. The Chapin Sisters harmonized exuberantly, and I loved the Everly Brothers songs—but maybe a few deeper tracks than just the big Top 40 hits? I’m sure there was great stuff I missed, and not mentioning it here probably just means I didn’t see it.

But this a strong day of festival music, thanks to an adventurous booking policy. I didn’t camp, but I’m a happy camper, anyway.

It’s all a blur to some people, but there are some pretty significant differences between what’s called “old-time” country music and bluegrass. Listen up students, because as you may well know the countrified Bill Monroe listened to popular music and jazz (one and the same thing in the ‘40s) and melded them into something entirely new. Bent one way, the fusion produced the country swing of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Twisted another, bluegrass was the result.

Old-time, which made the mainstream with groups like the Carter Family, never went away, of course, and thrives today—even in places like New York, where the Jalopy Theater in Red Hook, Brooklyn is a haven.

The Traveling Man Bluegrass Festival, in Tappan, New York June 15, did indeed include some bluegrass—the Jersey Corn Pickers and Buddy Merriam and Back Roads certainly qualified. But it also featured my old friends Cricket Tell the Weather, for whom bluegrass is just one arrow in the quiver—and new favorites Dubl Handi, who are old-time to the core.

Brooklyn-based Dubl Handi is Hilary Hawke on banjo and lead vocals, Jon Ladeau on guitar and Brian Geltner on washboard, suitcase and about half a drum kit. Hawke is out front, and she’s a hugely talented banjo player (steeped in Dock Boggs, Earl Scruggs and Mike Seeger, as well as young turks like Bela Fleck, Tony Trischka and Noam Pikelny).

Here’s Dubl Handi playing “Lost John”:

Hawke is also a great, expressive singer, with her craft honed in acts like the M Shanghai String Band (saw ‘em in Yonkers once), The Me-Oh My-Ohs, and many more. One of my beefs with bluegrass sometimes is that the vocalists seem to be tonelessly ripping through the vocals (even on real weepies!) to get to the hot, many-note solos. Old-time playing serves the song. Geltner, whose background is in all kinds of music, including rock, has figured out how to play drums—rare in this music—without overwhelming the soloists.

Here’s the band again with “Ida Red”:

“Hilary and I started out just friends,” Geltner told me. “She would just accompany herself. Then we started to get together to play at farmer’s markets and places like that. It sounded so good we decided to record it. That was 2011 or 2012, and we came out with our first album, Up Like the Clouds.”

Once more, with “Walking in My Sleep”:

The new one, Morning in a New Machine, came out June 10. It’s hard to pick a favorite. Both are exuberant celebrations of everything that’s great about old-time music—where the feel matters more than how many notes you play.

You were wondering about that name? “It comes from the Columbus Washboard Company’s Dubl Handi washboard from the 1800s,” Hawke told me. “It might be nice to mention also that we were named the number one bluegrass band of the year by the Village Voice last November.”

Of course, they’re not a bluegrass band, but as I said these distinctions are all a big blur to people anyway. I wish I could recommend some Dubl Handi gigs but Hawke has her summer booked playing banjo in a production of “Oklahoma” at Bard College’s Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. Click here for details.

This was the fourth annual Traveling Man Bluegrass Festival, and the very reasonably priced event was a benefit for such worthy causes as the Shriners Hospital Transportation Fund, the Association for Metro Area Autistic Children and the CJ Foundation for SIDS Counseling. The German Masonic Park is a really great venue, an old-fashioned music “grove” with permanent beer halls for the Oktoberfests and grills to make the kielbasa for the polka parties. The audience sits in the shade at picnic tables.

It was also a treat to reconnect with Cricket Tell the Weather as a quartet in their new incarnation, with fiddler/vocalist Andrea Asprelli clearly in charge and up front. Doug Goldstein is on banjo, Jeff Picker on guitar and Sam Weber on bass. Asprelli’s writing a ton of new songs, including this one, “If I Had My Way,” which is a smart adaptation of the old standard done by Blind Willie Johnson, the Reverend Gary Davis and others. The folk process at work!

I had a singular encounter with the band of brothers known as Horse-Eyed Men at the Brooklyn Folk Festival, and since then I’ve had them on my WPKN-FM radio show.

They have the energy of the Avett Brothers, but with songs that are far more slyly subversive. A case in point is this one, “Come on Cowboy,” which isn’t about the usual macho man bar encounter.

The Horse-Eyed Men – Come on Cowboy from Horatio Baltz on Vimeo.

The Horse-Eyed Men are Dylan and Noah Harley, originally from Providence, Rhode Island. Dylan wrote “Come on Cowboy,” and here describes how he conjured it into being:

I wrote Cowboy on my birthday, July 5 in the summer of ’13. It might have been that fresh mountain air, the burly road crews of Vermont or the pop country radio pumping the airwaves full of hetero-normative schlock, but somewhere between Rutland and Brattleboro, the atmosphere thickened into a song.

Most of the words were written in my shorts by the pool, picturing my Caballero: one part mystery, two parts musk, a deep voice and thick eyebrows. Who doesn’t want to be swept off their feet by a supreme gentleman crooner? What’s more macho than two men in love? What percentage of Brad Paisley’s fan base isn’t “just a guy”? Come on Nashville. Come on America. Come on Cowboy.

Michael Hurley made a big impression on me—a “folkie” who somehow transcended the genre, who’d listened to everything and somehow absorbed into a unique style (the way Bob Dylan did). He might have been one of “Woody’s children,” but—unlike someone like Ramblin’ Jack Elliot—he danced to his own muse.

Armchair Boogie (1971) was the second album Hurley made and the first I heard, probably within a couple years of its release. I was just starting out as a novice radio guy at WPKN-FM and a DJ, Ed Michaelson, played “Sweedeedee.” It was about a relationship, and it was about New York in a very real way, and it alternated spoken word passages with beautifully descriptive verses and chorus that got stuck in your head. Mississippi John Hurt was in there somewhere, happily co-existing with Cajun music, old-time jazz and country, and lots more, but it was all blissfully absorbed into Hurley’s unique kaleidoscopic world.

Apparently, Hurley used to go up to the roof of his Village apartment, from where you could sometimes see people flying kites in Washington Square, and he could tell by the way his little woman (who gave him a lot of trouble sometimes) washed the clothes that her cooking “must be fine.”

Hurley painted his own cartoony album covers (to this day), often starring his alter egos Boon and Jocko, and he created a whole world populated by werewolves, jungle pigs and working-class guys who fought with their girlfriends who liked to unwind down at the local tap room. A sometime associate of Peter Stampfel and the Holy Modal Rounders, he created a stone classic with them (not to mention Jeffrey Frederick and the Clamtones) called “Have Moicy” that came out on Rounder in 1976.

After two albums on Raccoon (a boutique label brought to you via The Youngbloods) and his Rounder period, Hurley’s albums began appearing on small labels, and became increasingly hard to find but the quality didn’t waver. He never made a bad album, or wrote a bad song.

All this is prologue to my finally interviewing Michael Hurley on WPKN and then seeing him perform in the flesh the next week at the wonderful Brooklyn Folk Festival at St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn Heights. How did I miss this great old-time music celebration, now in its seventh year? The Friday night lineup included one Jackson Lynch, who looked like Justin Timberlake but sounded like Dock Boggs, a brother duo called The Horse-Eyed Men who outdid The Avett Brothers in simpatico sibling rivalry (and had great complementary voices and songs), and Jerron “Blindboy” Paxton, who was truly great, and could fit right into the Carolina Chocolate Drops to replace Dom Flemons.

And then there was Michael Hurley. His electric guitar cord was shorting out, but at 74 he was otherwise intact and in fine voice. He did “Sweedeedee” and “Portland Water,” told a few stories, charmed the audience, and then was gone too soon.

A few days earlier I’d interviewed him on WPKN. I was uncharacteristically nervous. I never get nervous. Put Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran in front of me and I’d be totally cool. Hurley thinks about stuff before he answers, so you get a bit of dead air. But he’s got the driest sense of humor. I told him I’d see him in Brooklyn and he asked me what color shirt I’d be wearing, so we’d recognize each other. “Mine will be blue,” he said.

He said he was never a member of the Holy Modal Rounders. He confirmed that he lives near Astoria, Oregon, and if you can figure out the lyrics to Jolie Holland’s “Route 30” you might know exactly where. He got animated when I mentioned Cat Power’s cover of “Sweedeedee,” but contrary to rumors she is not his daughter. Hurley is getting covered quite a bit these days, and his cult is growing. In Brooklyn, he merch was swarmed by 25-year-olds.

I got my best response when I asked Hurley about his influences. He reeled off a long list, and they were exactly the people you’d expect them to be, if you’re a long-term fan like me. Here’s a few he mentioned: Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum, Red Garland, Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Moon Mullican, Lee Dorsey, Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint. Also polkas and Cajun music.

Listen to “Sweedeedee” here:

It isn’t every group that can say they got together “for the upliftment of the human spirit and to bring some dignity to our collective experience,” but it fits for The Levins (pronounced Le-VIN), a husband-and-wife team from Congers, New York by way of Berkeley.

Folk duos don’t usually base their first CD (called 36), on “the legend of the 36 Lamed Vavniks: the silent saints who keep the world in balance with their selfless benevolence,” or record another one with lyrics by the 14^th century Sufi master Hafiz. But The Levins have done both.

This is probably making The Levins look “difficult” or “inaccessible,” but nothing could be further from the truth. Listening to “My Friend Hafiz,” I was instantly drawn into a warm and sunny embrace that balanced profound lyrical truths with hooky choruses and melt-together harmony singing.

On the occasion of their sixth record, Trust, The Levins came by my radio show and offered up some of their music. Most groups perform skeletal versions of their records live, but The Levins sounded full-bodied and rehearsed. Ira and Julia Levin exude happiness and gratitude for being alive, which may have something to do with their profound Jewish faith.

Ira comes out of theater and folk music; he also made an album of 30s Harlem stuff, Fats Waller and the Cotton Club, with a band called Comfy Chair. Julia is a jazz cat and a child piano prodigy; her idol is British jazz pianist Marian McPartland. After they met in Berkeley, their influences came together as pop music of unusual sophistication. Their songs have more in common with the Great American Songbook than they do with Crosby, Stills and Nash, an influence they cite.

Listening to Trust, the antecedent that came through strongly was the two albums made by British duo John and Beverly Martyn, especially the Woodstock-recorded Stormbringer! I wasn’t surprised to learn that Ira is a John Martyn fan. Listen to “Primrose Hill” from Stormbringer! here.

I’m hesitant to over-analyze The Levins. They just make music you need to hear. Here they are on video at WPKN:

Ralph Stanley is often seen as a “bluegrass” artist, and indeed he deserves to be considered as one of the last pioneers, along with the late Flatt and Scruggs and Bill Monroe. But to me he’s more of an old-timey guy. Stanley’s band, featuring his grandson, Nathan, can certainly play, but the emphasis—especially when 87-year-old Ralph Senior takes the occasional lead vocal—is straight from the pre-war hills.

Everyone thought that Stanley was going to retire, but idleness doesn’t become him. I’ve seen Dr. Ralph several times, but it was a pleasure to renew the acquaintance in Hamden, Connecticut, where he appeared courtesy of GuitartownCT Productions. A Ralph Stanley concert is a “show,” complete with a long-established set list and twice-told between-song stories. Nathan Stanley is a fine bluegrass vocalist and front man, but time stands still when the pater familias gets in front of the microphone. No one else today sings with that piercing Appalachian wail; it’s a voice with hellhounds on its trail, with fear of the devil and an angry god in every syllable. Jeff Todd Titon of UCLA explains where it comes from:

The magnificent tone quality of Ralph Stanley’s voice was born, not made; but he learned his curves, glides, and falsetto catches as a child from hearing the music of his family’s Primitive Baptist Universalist denomination in church and at home….This obscure religious group from central Appalachia sings very much like the Old Regular Baptists; and of course the singing style and tune stock is the same mixture of English and Scots-Irish that came into the southern Appalachian Mountains with ballads and fiddle tunes, though it’s likely that some of the style’s characteristic melismata, free rhythm, and slow tempo were fashioned in a black/white musical interchange.

I’ll buy that. Throughout the concert, Stanley maintained a stern, unsmiling visage, animated only when it was his turn to sing. Without saying much at all, he was absolutely mesmerizing to watch. Catch this ambassador from a less-forgiving age while there’s still time. And here he is on video, essaying “Blue Moon of Kentucky” (the slow-fast Elvis version), from that show:

A few weeks after seeing Dr. Ralph, I had reason to affirm that the old-time tradition is alive and well. I’ve wanted to see Moonshine Holler, featuring Paula Bradley and her husband, Bill Dillof, for quite some time, and these Massachusetts residents finally appeared somewhere relatively close—Middletown, Connecticut’s Buttonwood Tree.

I love the boy-girl old-time format, and some of my favorite bands—10 String Symphony, The Littlest Birds, Shovels and Rope—adhere to it. Moonshine is a double threat, since both Paula and Bill have serious chops. Paula, who also loves rockabilly and is a member of Girl Howdy, is an excellent singer and plays guitar and clawhammer banjo. Bill is a consummate musicologist—he “plays the scratches” of the old 78s—and a virtuoso fiddler, harmonica, banjo player and National Steel guitarist. On a rainy night before a small but devoted crowd, Moonshine Holler ventured up and down the tradition. I loved it that they played a lot of old songs I didn’t know—if I hear “Man of Constant Sorrow” one more time, I’ll scream. Moonshine Holler hasn’t made a record, but you can check out Paula’s work with Girl Howdy. And Bill appears on the truly excellent On the Job Too Long, billed as the Cuyahogians. By the way, Paula did a splendid tap dance to their version of “Are You Gettin’ There Rabbit?” which is on that Cuyahogians album. And here it is on video:

There are some nights when it all comes together, and the music just takes off, throwing off light like a sparkler. The last show of the season at Tressler’s Barn in Easton, Connecticut was like that. It was a cold night with the barn doors open and the failing afternoon illuminating the dusty artifacts—hanging guitars, dobros and antique concert posters—that attest to the space’s history as the home of hootenannies since the 1960s.

The evening’s stars were Rachel Baiman and Christian Sedelmyer, a/k/a 10 String Symphony and one of an increasing number of boy/girl old-time duos that are keeping this music alive (see The Littlest Birds). On the strength of one album, 10 String Symphony—based in Nashville—is touring the country, playing showcases at the Rockwood Music Hall in New York and the International Bluegrass Music Association.

But this isn’t bluegrass, it’s proudly old-time. Rachel and Christian both sing and play fiddles, which makes for an intriguing blend. Rachel also picks a banjo. They did stuff like John Hartford’s “In Tall Buildings,” a vivid number from Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers, a poignant Townes Van Zandt cover, and very strong originals. Rachel’s “Weight of the World” is destined to be a standard.

10 String also covers the trad “Prettiest Girl (In the County),” and plays it on two fiddles. I noted with amusement that they change “I’m gonna love her in the morning/I’m gonna love her in the evening” to “I can’t get her in the morning.” I pointed out to Rachel how Dirk Powell’s version goes, and she said, “I know, and that version makes more sense, but that’s how we learned and recorded it, so we can’t change it now.” Ah, the folk process! Here’s their version of the song:

Yes, it was freezing, because Tressler’s barn isn’t heated, but it was also delightful. And as an added bonus Dan Tressler himself did a mini-set in the middle. If you haven’t heard him, Dan Tressler is headed for greatness, able to play just about any instrument, and simply one of the best vocalists I’ve ever heard—combining a thorough knowledge of folk history with a soul balladeer’s emotional control. And as attested by his work with String Fingers and (briefly) Cricket Tell the Weather, he’s a great writer, too.

Here’s Dan Tressler and 10 String Symphony together on a Tressler song called “I’m Missing You”:

 

Jake and the Family Jewels made two highly regarded but slow-selling albums for Polydor in the 1970s, but then—in a familiar tale—vanished from the face of the earth. Most such bands are never heard again, and certainly not 40 years later, but Jake and his Jewels have just had a miraculous rebirth, with not only live concerts but a crackling new album.

It sounds like Al “Jake” Jacobs and crew have never been away. The reformed group, with many former members waiting to sit in, held a reunion show at Lyric Hall in New Haven, Connecticut recently, and the good vibes were intact.

Jacobs’ highly melodic music has many roots: Motown, doo-wop (Dion was an idol), the folk-rock of Bob Dylan and the Band. A New Yorker through and through, Jacobs was briefly in the underground sensations known as The Fugs, and led a memorable duo named Bunky and Jake (the late Andrea “Bunky” Skinner sings on six of the new album’s songs). It’s party music of a very particular kind, and should have found a wide audience. Check out the urban tale “I Remember Cissy’s Baby” on video here:

In concert, Jacobs unveiled a batch of new songs in a solo set, then unleashed the full band. I especially liked the tune celebrating unrequited love for Ann Sternberg, the bassist in an obscure all-female 60s rock band called the UFOs. Jake was a warm and friendly host, plus the old-new band wrapped around the old chestnuts like a shell. Steve Asetta, the driving force behind the Lyric Hall gig, was a particular asset on muscular tenor sax. And keyboard player Jan Jungden was very effective, doubling on vocals and flute.

Jacobs lived in New Haven for a while back in the day, and the evening brought out not only many old fans but a plethora of musicians who’d been Jewels at one time or another. Even Terry Adams, keyboardist in NRBQ (another band with Connecticut roots) turned up and did an ace duet with Jake.

Jacobs was over the moon with the success of the New Haven show, so it’s unlikely to be the end of the story. The band will also play New York’s Bitter End (an old haunt) at some time in the near future. Meanwhile, A Lick and a Promise is out for all to enjoy. The Polydor albums haven’t been reissued, but you can find some of the songs, including the original version of “I Remember Cissy’s Baby,” on Youtube. Here’s “It Came Without Warning”:

For years, I used a Jake and the Family Jewels instrumental, “Mother of Pearl,” as a theme song on my radio show. It never got old. The group may have white hair now, but they didn’t get old, either.

Peter Salovey may head Yale as its President, but in the Professors of Bluegrass he’s in the back row as the bass player. Actually, far longer than he’s been at Yale he’s been into bluegrass, first delving into it while an undergraduate at Stanford in the 1970s.

I got interested in bluegrass while I was in college in California. Disco was the music on popular radio, and I was looking for something else to listen to. KFAT in Santa Cruz had a show called “Cousin Al’s Bluegrass Hour,” which featured bluegrass, old time and classic country. I fell in love with the banjo, so I rented one and started learning clawhammer and the Scruggs style. When I got to Yale, Kelly Brownell—a faculty member who I jammed with—had a neighbor who was a better banjo player, and he suggested I play the bass.

Brownell, by the way, is now dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke, and the Robert L. Flowers Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience. He’s an expert on obesity. Maybe he still plays that banjo.

That was back in 1990, the first flowering. A second incarnation existed from 1996 to 1999, and now this third version since 2005. The mandolin player, Craig Harwood, is the former dean of Yale’s Davenport College (now at Hunter). The fiddle player/vocalist is Katie Scharf, formerly of counsel at the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality and now Deputy Commissioner for Energy at the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP).

So it’s kind of a heavyweight group that played very high level bluegrass and old-timey music at the Connecticut Folk festival and green expo in New Haven recently. For a group of busy individuals who rarely gets together to practice, they were very tight (despite messing up the intro in this video of the Professors essaying a Bill Monroe song, “Little Georgia Rose”):

As the Professors were playing, I was startled to see a line of protesters silently observing the proceedings behind me. They were from Fossil Free Yale, a group that wants the school to divest itself of polluting stocks. A spokeswoman explained to me that this was their best time to catch Salovey in an unguarded moment. The signs targeted mountaintop removal mining because, well, the Professors’ repertoire is Appalachian music.

I’m sure President Salovey would go to the mat to defend his students’ right to protest, but on August 27, the dissidents say, “Yale rejected our proposal for divestment.”

That’s probably not the final word on the subject. According to the New York Times, Yale’s investment office recently wrote its money managers “suggesting” (not insisting) they stay away from companies that refuse to take reasonable “steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” That’s progress, but I’m sure the protests will continue until the students get more tangible results. Fossil Free Yale says that 83 percent of undergraduates voted to divest in a non-binding referendum.

Divorced from politics and their heavyweight membership, the Professors of Bluegrass are just a really good band, one of the best I heard all day. It didn’t hurt that they were joined by the great Stacy Phillips on dobro–he’s one of Connecticut’s best musicians in any style. It’s too bad they play out so rarely. President Salovey was leaving right after the concert to “catch a plane at JFK.”

Joni Mitchell: “Freedom to me is a luxury of being able to follow the path of the heart, to keep the magic in your life. Freedom is necessary for me in order to create, and if I cannot create I don’t feel alive.”

That’s from Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words (ECW Press), consisting of three interviews (between 1973 and 2012) by author and Canadian broadcaster/singer Marta Marom. It’s a fascinating read, though maybe entirely not in the way the author (a devoted fan) intended.

As Publisher’s Weekly notes, “The creative process is a central theme in this new book.” Mitchell is a restless soul, and intent to grow with her music, even if she loses old fans in the process. That led her to jazz and making the Mingus album, among others.

There’s nothing at all wrong with creative evolution, and Mitchell is brave for undertaking it instead of singing her greatest hits at oldies shows. I’m in awe that her path to jazz took her first to the smooth LA jazz of Tom Scott and then to the real thing with Wayne Shorter and Jaco Pastorius (with whom she made the sublime Hejira). Pause to savor that song:

But why don’t Mitchell’s choices make her happy? Why can’t she accept that her path led to a smaller (but probably equally devoted) audience?

She can’t have it both ways. Mitchell’s first five or six albums were brilliant, but also solidly in the commercial mainstream. You didn’t have to know who Charlie Mingus was to like “Big Yellow Taxi.” When she gave up that formula—as her creative mind dictated she must—the big crowds that gave her hits weren’t following behind; they bought Carole King and James Taylor instead.

Mitchell’s high standards mean she gets no pleasure from the awards heaped on her, because she says they’re just celebrating the “60s artist” she was, rather than the creative force she is now. Don’t ask her to hand out Grammys, because she dislikes most contemporary music.

Perhaps because of this, Mitchell in these interviews comes off as somewhat mean-spirited, claiming Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen are plagiarists (hasn’t she ever heard of the folk process?), and disparaging other old friends like David Crosby (who produced her first album).

She also claims she cares not what critics say, then quotes them word for word. I don’t really get this. Why can’t she just relax and enjoy the laurels from her long and illustrious career? On the other hand, maybe she wouldn’t have had that long and illustrious career if she weren’t a restless, hard-to-satisfy genius.