I’m really getting into this house concert thing. What’s not to like? The event I went to this Sunday in New Haven, Connecticut event was convenient to get to, comfortable (I was in the front row), inexpensive, and featured one of my favorite bands in a relaxed setting.

Girl Howdy (only pedal steel player Karen Sarkisian is out of the frame).

Girl Howdy is a female led honky-tonk band from Massachusetts, led by two strong songwriter vocalists, Betsy-Dawn Williams and my old friend Paula Bradley.

Both have multiple affiliations. Williams is in rockabilly band Lil Bee Dee and the Doo-Rites, plus zydeco band Slippery Sneakers; Bradley plays with her husband in old-time duo Moonshine Holler, leads juke-joint band The Twangbusters, and gigs with old-time god Bruce Molsky. When they can, they play as Girl Howdy, a band that goes back more than 10 years.

Betsey-Dawn Williams with minimalist drummer Jeff Potter.

The repertoire is original, plus the best of Webb Pierce, Hank Williams, Kitty Wells, Connie Francis, Porter Wagoner, Loretta Lynn, the Davis Sisters (who contributed a tongue-twisting Christmas song) and many more.

Stomping on the keys: multi-threat vocalist Paula Bradley.

Special mention should be given to the minimalist drumming of Jeff Potter (one drum, two brushes), the bass playing of Lilian Fraker, and the totally in-the-groove pedal steel of Karen Sarkisian. The latter is in my dream country band forever.

Here’s Girl Howdy on video performing “Honky-Tonk Merry-go-Round”:

My friend, the great bass player Harvey Brooks (formerly of Connecticut, now in Israel), sent me this about his historic appearance at the Highway 61 recording session in 1965. He sent it in time for the anniversary, but I’m a bit tardy here. Read on, it’s totally absorbing:

It was July 28, 1965. I was playing a gig at the Sniffin Court Inn on East 36th Street in Manhattan. During a break, I went next door to eat at the Burger Heaven, when I got a phone call from Al Kooper.

I’m playing on this album with Bob Dylan and they need a bass player – are you doing anything?

That phone call would change my life.

The next day — 50 years ago today — I drove from Queens to Manhattan. After parking my car in a lot on 54th Street, I was soon in an elevator on the way to play for Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited album at Columbia Studio A at 777 Seventh Avenue. I opened the door to the control room, took a deep breath and entered.

The first person I saw was Albert Grossman, Dylan’s manager. Grossman had long gray hair tied in a ponytail and wore round, tinted wire-rimmed glasses. I thought he looked like Benjamin Franklin. A thin, frizzy-haired guy dressed in jeans and boots was standing in the front of the mixing console listening to a playback of “Like a Rolling Stone.” I assumed it was Bob Dylan, though I didn’t know him or what he looked like at the time.

When the music stopped, Grossman asked, who’re you? I told him who, what and why. Dylan quietly muttered “Hi” and went back to listening. Al Kooper then came in to make the official introduction. It was all very cryptic and brief.

I walked into the studio, opened up my case, took out my Fender bass and started to tune. My instrument was strung with La Bella flat wounds, which I still use. I plugged in the Ampeg B-15 amplifier which was provided by the studio. It sounded warm and percussive. The B-15 was my gig amp as well. Now I use Hartke amplifiers exclusively.

Though I was only 21-years-old, I had already played many club gigs with a range of different performers. I had worked with varying styles and felt I could adapt to about anything on the fly. For that reason, I was comfortable in the studio and was ready for anything Dylan could throw my way.

Suddenly, the studio door burst open and in stormed Michael Bloomfield, a moving ball of pure energy. He wore penny loafers, jeans, a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves and had a Fender Telecaster hanging over his shoulder. Bloomfield’s hair was as electric as his smile. It was the

first time I had met or even heard of him.

The other players on the session were Bobby Gregg on drums, Paul Griffin and Frank Owens on piano and Al, who on the “Like a Rolling Stone” recording session two weeks earlier, had nailed his position on organ

At the first session, Joe Macho Jr. had played bass. He had been replaced by Russ Savakus who Dylan didn’t like either. Dylan wanted someone new for the rest of the sessions. Kooper recommended me to Dylan. What Dylan needed was to be comfortable with his bass player. Kooper knew I had a good feel and adapted quickly to any situation.

For Dylan, it was not enough to be a skilled studio musician. He wanted musicians who could adapt quickly to his style. In talking to Bob, I admitted that I hadn’t heard any of his music before the session, but was really impressed by “Like a Rolling Stone,” which I first heard when I walked into the studio.

“Well, these are a little different,” Bob responded. I assumed he meant from his past work, but Bob was bit vague. He gave me a kind of crooked smile and then lit up a cigarette.

Tom Wilson, who had produced Like a Rolling Stone a couple of weeks earlier, also was replaced for unknown reasons. The new producer was Bob Johnston, a Columbia staff producer from Nashville who was already producing Patti Page when he got the Dylan assignment. Johnston had a “documentary” approach to producing that allowed him to capture fleeting moments in the studio. He was frustrated by the technical bureaucracy at the Columbia studio and ordered several tape machines brought into the control room so he could keep one running at all times in order to capture anything Dylan might want to keep. That tactic worked quite well for an artist like Dylan. Though the first session for Highway 61 Revisited had been only about two weeks earlier, a lot had happened in the interim. Like a Rolling Stone, recorded at the first session, had been released and caught on like fire.

Only four days earlier, Dylan had been booed by the crowd when he had gone electric at the Newport Folk Festival. It was a pivotal time in his career. He was beginning the transition from being a “pure” folk artist to a rock and roll performer.

Now we were at the second session, my first, uncertain of what was on Dylan’s mind. In a few minutes, he came out of the control room and started to sing the first of three songs we would work on that day. Johnston had setup three-sided baffles, leaving the side that faced the band open so we could see him.

Dylan sang the first song, Tombstone Blues, a few times. There were no chord charts for anyone. It was all done by ear. As a habit, I made a few quick chord charts for myself as I listened to him perform the song. Everyone focused on Dylan, watching for every nuance. Then, the band went for it.

As we began recording, Dylan was still working on the lyrics. He was constantly editing as we were recording. I thought that was a really amazing way that he worked. His guitar or piano part was the guiding element through each song. Every musician in that room was glued to him. We would play until Dylan felt something was right. His poker face never revealed what he was thinking.

It might have taken a couple of takes for everyone to lock in. There were mistakes, of course, but they didn’t matter to Dylan. If the feel was there and the performance was successful, that’s all that mattered. In real life, that’s the way it is. If the overall performance happens, there is always something there. Bob would go into the control room and listen. Bob Johnston may have been the producer keeping the tape rolling, but it was all Dylan deciding what felt right and what didn’t.

Michael Bloomfield’s fiery guitar parts accented Dylan’s phrasing. He was a very explosive guitar player and didn’t settle back into things. He was aggressive and a little bit in front of it. My goal is finding a part that makes the groove happen. Dylan set the feel and direction with his rhythm and my bass parts reflected what I got from him.

Most of my early playing experience had been in R&B bands that performed Wilson Pickett and Jackie Wilson, or tunes by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Playing with Dylan created a totally new category. I call it “jump in and go for it.”

Next, we recorded It Takes a Lot to Laugh and Positively 4th Street the same way. Masters for the three songs were successfully recorded on July 29. Tombstone Blues and It Takes a Lot to Laugh were included on the final Highway 61 Revisited album, but Positively 4th Street was issued as a single-only release.

At the close of the session that first night, Dylan attempted to record Desolation Row, accompanied only by Al on electric guitar and me on bass. There was no drummer, as Bobby Gregg had already gone home. This electric version was eventually released in 2005, on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7 album.

Our producer had a love of and even a bias toward Nashville musicians. It became an underlying topic during the entire session about how good they were. He kept talking about how cool

Nashville is. With his comments, I felt it was disparaging to us. I felt Johnston thought of us as New York bumpkins in a way.

This Nashville bias played into Desolation Row. I thought the version without drums that I did with Al that night was slower and definitely more soulful. We really liked it. Clearly, Johnston thought otherwise. On August 2, five more takes were done on Desolation Row. However, the version of the song ultimately used on the album was recorded at an overdub session on August 4.

This time, Johnston’s personal friend, Nashville guitarist Charlie McCoy, who was visiting New York City at the time, was invited to contribute an improvised acoustic guitar part. Russ Savakus played upright bass. We were gone by the time the final take was recorded.

When I left the studio after the final session, I didn’t have a sense of whether or not we had created a hit record. I did know, however, that all the songs felt good. They felt solid. I now understand that’s why Highway 61 Revisited was a successful record. Bob got it. In all the takes he chose, he made sure he got what he wanted from each song. It’s an amazing talent that really knows what they want.

By some strange quirk of fate, I’d never before been to the jazz haven that is Pizzeria Lauretano in Bethel, Connecticut, though it isn’t that far from where I live.

But the bill on July 26 proved irresistible. Swing du Jour is Southern New England’s premiere gypsy swing band. Guitarist Larry Urbon, a neighbor of mine, is a keen student of “jazz manouche,” the style favored by the late Django Reinhardt. With ace standards singer Noreen Mola, he is half of Cafe Musette (see them regularly at Luc’s in Ridgefield, Connecticut). Fiddle player Howie Bujese is conversant in many different forms but is especially fluent in the swing of the late Stephane Grappelli. Guitarist Norman Plankey, in the rhythm chair, is also a bluegrass adept and has played in an old-time duo (with Bujese) on my WPKN radio show.

They get together all too infrequently. I almost didn’t make it to Bethel, and arrived after the first set, but it was well worth the drive on rural roads, skirting pastures and mini-mansions. For players who don’t gig often, their chemistry was amazing. The fast call-and-response between Bujese and Urbon was telepathic, reminiscent of what I’ve heard classical Indian players do.

They played Django’s most famous composition, “Nuages,” plus “Moto Swing,” “Caravan” (lacking only the drum solo that Frank Zappa mentions in “America Drinks and Goes Home”) and even “More.” And don’t forget “Daphne,” another Django tune I was fortunate enough to get on videotape:

There wasn’t always jazz at Pizza Lauretano. “It started very organically,’” said publicist Judith Joiner. “At first, it was 3 to 5 p.m. on Sunday. It was an occasional concert, and it was free. Then we started having music every Sunday. We gradually added a cover charge. Now, you have to call ahead for reservations every week.”

You especially need reservations for Swing du Jour’s occasional visit, but there’s plenty more where that comes from. Upcoming shows in September include Ray Blue/Warren Byrd Quartet (Sept. 13), Marvin Stamm Quartet (Sept. 20) and swinging chanteuse Nicole Pasternak and her quintet (Sept. 27).

The Green River Festival in Massachusetts, run by Signature Sounds and the low-key Jim Olsen, remains a cornucopia of amazing music from all over the world, with no boundaries. It’s not a “folk festival”—it’s a celebration of planetary music.

I attended Saturday and Sunday of the 2015 event, and it was unmercifully hot—as usual for summer festivals. But Green River is a very well-run show, so there was shade available (including for anything you wanted to see at the Parlor Room Stage), plentiful opportunities to refill your water bottle or to buy cold drinks at non-gouging prices.

Signature Sounds artists appear, of course, but don’t dominate the proceedings. The very best thing I saw this year was Tune-Yards, led by the miraculous Merrill Garbus. I’d heard Tune-Yards on record, of course, and played them a lot on WPKN-FM, but the live act was something else entirely. In person, the African influence isn’t subtle, it’s right up front, in the pair of swaying backup singers and in the drumming that undergirds everything. Garbus has said, “I spent time in Africa . . . I grew an obsession with African music, before I was in Africa and afterward.” And she’s also said that if it’s African, and it sounds like she stole it, well, she did steal it. Here’s Tune-Yards on video:

OK, fine, she stole some stuff from Fela Ransome-Kuti, but so what? Fela’s music was hardly purely African—it was spiced with an amalgam of American soul and jazz (following a trip here). And Dylan stole everything, and turned people on to some fine roots music in the process. Tune-Yards isn’t about cloning, it’s about making something new and highly inventive from vibrant roots. I liked it. I also liked how she wasn’t the star of the show; those backup singers should be called up-front singers.

Imagine this bill: Arc Iris (in video above) opening for Tune-Yards. That would shine. In fact, they both played on July 11, just on different stages. Arc Iris is a new band headed by Jocie Adams, formerly of the entirely different Low Anthem. A support player in that group—she didn’t sing lead, just backup—in Arc Iris Adams is fully up front, in costumes, yet.

Greenfield, Massachusetts is a bucolic jeans-and-flannels kind of place, so Adams in a cape, sparkly tights and (the next day) a plastic-looking body suit was a shock to the system. But the music—otherworldly, like the house band in the Star Wars cantina—fit the clothes. The pieces stopped and started, made great stylistic leaps and took hairpin turns. Americana, it wasn’t. Jazz influences are apparent on the record, but Bjork and Kate Bush also look in. Don’t bother characterizing it—Bill Monroe said there’s good music and bad music, and I’d say this is good.

Red Baraat were another revelation, like Tune-Yards far more powerful in person than on their fine records. Take a jazz horn section and impose it over Indian percussion and vocal pyrotechnics, then add some hip-hop energy. Spicy!

I’ve extolled the manifold virtues of Valerie June before, having seen her at Mass MOCA’s Fresh Grass, but she was even better at Green River.

Here’s Valerie June on video:

Not all her music is strictly blues, but it’s all bluesy, maybe what Robert Johnson would be doing now if he hadn’t been so rudely murdered.

Steve Earle, with the latest incarnation of the Dukes (featuring an on-fire couple, shades of Julie and Buddy Miller, called The Remingtons) was reliably strong. Yes, he’s voting for Bernie Sanders. Like Valerie June he’s been fixated on the blues lately, but the music he played from the new album merely used that genre as an influence. No matter what he does, though, country comes through loud and clear.

Other acts I really liked included the really young bluegrass band Twisted Pine (they met at Berklee), given points for performing a 500-year-old (they said) Childe ballad; J Mascis, heard here unplugged (but very loud, still) as on his latest album; The Stray Birds (what’s not to like about instrumental virtuousity, incredible harmony singing, and Maya de Vitry’s incredible songs?); Sean Rowe, an original solo act; and The Revelers—a Cajun supergroup. I missed Milk Carton Kids and Preservation Hall, alas. Here’s the Stray Birds on video with a duet song called “Never for Nothing”:

Groups that didn’t send me soaring included Punch Brothers, Langhorne Slim and Suitcase Junket. It’s all about the songs, no matter how much of a celebrity you are (Chris Thile could end up hosting Prairie Home Companion) and these folks didn’t have ‘em.

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: