Jolie Holland...

I hope everybody had a good President's Day. If you were like me you spent the day venerating and celebrating the great men who comprise the illustrious list of our nation's presidency. First I watched John Ford's amazing 1939 Young Mr. Lincoln before reviewing all of Taft's interoffice mail and then moving on to a survey of Grover Cleveland's weight loss efforts. Just kidding, but I do believe that the recently released on DVD Young Mr. Lincoln is a kick ass movie.

I have a suspicion that most folks that read Bars & Guitars are probably familar to some degree with Jolie Holland since she's one of those indie alt-country chanteuse types like Neko Case or Caitlin Cary or perhaps Feist. So why am I posting about her? Pretty much because I'm making an effort to keep it real in the sense that I want this blog to be about music that I'm digging and not play the blogosphere game of "must get on cool tip band immediately because everyone else is posting about them and I love being part of the hype even though I've only listened to that album once". Of late I've been listening to Holland's album Escondida a great deal. She has such an amazing and mutable voice that's equally at ease tackling tunes that range from old time blues to bluegrass to light rock. She's defiintely plying a territory that's steeped in a traditional American context (bluegrass, trad country, vocals) but she's able to update any and all of those sounds with her amazing voice and her modern lyrical storytelling. It's a fantastic album and I highly recommend picking it up. It's available on eMusic if you've got an account (and you should).

1 song from Escondida

Goodbye California