RECENT SONGS FROM "I HEAR AMERICA SINGING"
September 1 — Women on strike in Chicago coined the phrase. Mimi Fariña put it to music. Hear Mimi and her sister Joan Baez sing “Bread and Roses.”
August 25 — Road weary? Johnny Cash went everywhere, man. Watch him sing, with Lynn Anderson, “I’ve Been Everywhere.”
August 18 — O say, 50 years later, can you see Jimi Hendrix astonishing, astounding “Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock.
August 11 — Need a lift? Watch Tracy Chapman stun a crowd with an a cappella of an old folk tune — “Where the Soul Never Dies.”
August 4 — Summer hasn’t gotten any cooler since this classic summed it up. Watch The Lovin’ Spoonful sing “Summer in the City.” And check out those sideburns.
July 28 — A kid, a dog and pure joy. From the cartoon “The Point,” watch Harry Nillson’s “Me and My Arrow.”
July 21 — “She was an angel, that flew home too soon.” Kate Wolf died 30+ years ago but her songs live on in covers and in an annual Kate Wolf Festival. Here she sings “Green Eyes.
July 14 — A classic tribute to travel, the moon, and the loneliness they can inspire. Watch Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie sing. . .
I hummed a tune to that rising moon.
She gets lonesome Way Out There.
June 16 — Gentle and gentlemanly, with a guitar style that filled a room. Watch Mississippi John Hurt play “Spike Driver Blues,” (aka “John Henry”).
June 9 — In the echo of D-Day you can still hear the music that kept spirits afloat. Watch The Andrews Sisters sing “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”
June 2 — Remember when you first saw Leon Redbone? Who is that guy? What a style! What a voice! Sadly, Redbone died this week. Watch him sing “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone.”
May 19 — “You have to be a man to play baseball for a living,” Roy Campanella said. “But you have to have a lot of little boy in you.” John Fogerty caught that spirit in “Centerfield.”
May 12 — Dar Williams remembers what it was like when your babysitter was just so cool. Watch “The Babysitter’s Here.”
April 28 — Turned away from a Louisiana motel, Sam Cooke wrote this anthem of the Civil Rights movement. Watch father and son, Brian and Thomas Owens, own “A Change is Gonna Come.”
April 21 — Few had ever heard whales croon until Judy Collins made them her backup singers. Watch her sing (with humpbacks) “Farewell to Tarwaithe.”
April 14 — John Hartford sings, fiddles, tap dances, all a once. To “The Julia Belle Swain.”
April 7 — Her classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God” sings in prose. But Zora Neale Hurston could do some singing herself. Listen.
March 31 — Steve Goodman sings his tribute to long-suffering fans, “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request.”
March 24 — Train songs come and go but did any come as plaintive as Emmy Lou Harris’ “Tulsa Queen?”
March 17 — Shy and reclusive, Harry Nillson rarely performed in public. Here’s a rare video.
March 10 — Got the blues? No one had them like Bessie Smith. Here she sings “St. Louis Blues.”
March 3 — The best songwriter from Texas, Townes Van Zandt sings “Pancho and Lefty.”
February 24 — “I’m not sure Rhiannon Giddens is actually human,” a Youtube commenter writes. “I think she must be some sort of alien or celestial being. . .” Hear her sing and fiddle “Pretty Little Girl with the Blue Dress On.”
FEBRUARY 17 — The song is Woody Guthrie’s. The slide is from the Delta. It doesn’t get any grittier, any more American. Watch Ry Cooder gently tear the blues out of “Vigilante Man.”
FEBRUARY 10 — From another dark time — the era of Vietnam and Watergate — watch Paul Simon sing “American Tune.”
