I have always been a fan of animation. The idea of bringing something to life one frame at a time where anything is possible is so cool. Then a friend shared this video, and I realized that the idea of “anything is possible” was taken to a whole new level by blublu.org.
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I came across Corin Raymond and the Sundowners playing at The Cameron House on Queen Street west on a warm sunny Toronto afternoon. The band sounded awesome, and I bought is CD “Record Lonesome Night” more as a souvenir than anything, expecting it to disappoint me. To my delightful surprise every song on the album was great. I listened to it all the way home.
Corin is one of my favorite lyricists. His songs tell great stories, and his lyrics are playfully woven with images and rhyme. I’ve added three of his songs to my set list, and the more I perform them, the more I find in his lyrics to enjoy.
Corin’s “Three Thousand Miles” starts out “Let me tell you ’bout a girl I met in Port Alberta. She was a wild one, her name was Nadine.” It took me a while to realize the song never mentions her again.
Other lines stick in my head like “I don’t know how my broken heart could be so fast.” from “Give it April (Give it may)”. Great stuff.
Check out Corin’s “unbreakable songs” at www.myspace.com/corinraymond or his website CorinRaymond.com.
- the MuseMy set list I pulled together mostly from favorites I’ve listened to for years and obscure songs I have found in my travels, some from local artists (as noted). I added a couple of originals and a setlist with wide variety of folk rock and roots music came together.
1.Knockin on Heaven’s Door Guitar
2.Can’t Judge a book by its cover Guitar, harp
3.Give it April (Give it May) Guitar (Corin Raymond)
4.Ship Comes In Guitar, harp
5.Gray Sky Gold Leaves Piano (Brian Kelly)
6.If you Gotta Go Piano
7.Detroit 1762 Piano (Mustard’s Retreat)
8.Bad Moon Rising Piano
9.Desperado Piano
10.16 Tons Piano
11.Tangled up in Blue Piano
12.Break on Through Piano
13.St James Infirmary Piano
14.Three Thousand Miles Piano (Corin Raymond)
15.Gamblin Willie Piano
16.Ballad of a Thin Man Piano
17.Record Lonesome Night Guitar (Corin Raymond)
18.The Times they are a Changin Guitar, harp
19.This land is Your Land Guitar
20.In my Time of Dyin Guitar
21.Hot Rod Lincoln Guitar
22.Subterranean Homesick Blues shaker, harp
23.Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald Guitar
24.Its All Right Ma Guitar
25.Runnin Round Free Guitar, harp (Brian Kelly)
26.Mr Tambourine Man Piano
27.Yesterday Piano
28.Smoke in the Mirror Piano (Brian Kelly)
29.City of New Orleans Piano
30.Shelter from the Storm Piano , harp
31.The House of the Rising Sun Piano
32.Blowin in the Wind Guitar
33.For What Its Worth Guitar
My next booking at the Raven Coffeehouse is Wednesday, February 11. I’ll be playing well known favorites from Bob Dylan and Stephen Stills as well as some of my favorites from local artists such as Mustard’s Retreat and Corin Raymond. Hope to see you there.
As a youth I learned to play piano through the standard classical training. Reading notes and playing pieces note for note. As I continue to learn and think about music in a different way, I am often amazed at how simple it sometimes seems compared to how I try to understand music from a note by note perspective. I equate this with an article in Discover magazine some time ago that (in brief) demonstrated the becoming a master at a topic was analogous to changing the way we think about subjects from “m - a - r - y - h - a - d - a - l - i - t - t……….” (one letter at a time) to “Mary had a little lamb…..” and you even know what comes next. Hundreds of letters, but only a few score words, and only one poem.
So applying this new way of thinking, I called my buddy Kevin up and said “tell me about sus chords”. I’d been finding them in some of the songs I was learning, but did not understand their purpose.
First, a sus chord is chord a chord with the 3rd replaced by the 4th. In keyboard terms, a Csus is C - F - G. (There are other sus chords, like sus2 that are different, but I assume “sus” to be sus4).
I noted a great way to visualize this on a guitar. If you play “cowboy” chords, common on acoustic guitar (the open chords like A, Am, D, Dm, E, Em) then the sus are very easy to find. Play an Am, then play an A, then move the same finger that changed one more fret in the same direction. The Dsus to Dm is a particularly easy change, and you might recognize that this is in many tunes. One could also think of this as the minor chord having a flat 3rd, the major chord having a 3rd, and the sus chord having a sharp 3rd (4th). Thus, any chord where you know the major and minor forms easily point the way to a sus form.
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