Top Ten Folk Music Sales

Live In London

In 2008 Leonard Cohen embarked on his first tour in 15 years. Quickly recognized as musical folklore in the making, 29 of the original dates sold out almost immediately, leaving fans and critics alike hailing the show as a once in a lifetime experience. By popular demand, the Canadian/UK tour was extended and by the end of that year it had reached 84 markets worldwide, selling more than 700,000 tickets. The Live In London release fully captures and recreates the extraordinary show from that tour that earned Cohen more than 80 five-star reviews for his performances.
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Let It Roll: Songs by George Harrison

This collection is the first to span Harrison’s entire solo recording career, including the #1 Billboard Pop singles “My Sweet Lord,” “Isn’t It A Pity,” “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth),” and “Got My Mind Set On You." Let It Roll also features live recordings of three timeless Harrison-penned Beatles songs, “Something,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and “Here Comes The Sun,” from his 1971 all-star Concert For Bangladesh benefit at Madison Square Garden.

“The keyhole into the world of George Harrison is the music itself. Yet his songs and the accomplishments for which he’s remembered are inextricably bound—and those accomplishments are, without question, eclectic in scope,” Zanes writes.

George Harrison is a twice-inducted member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a solo artist and as a member of The Beatles, and an 11-time Grammy Award winner for his recordings with The Beatles, Traveling Wilburys, and as a solo artist.
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Bob Seger - Greatest Hits

Bob Seger Photos Bob Seger has racked up a lot of worthy tracks over the years, but it took until 1994 for a greatest hits package to appear. Voilà. The bad news: We're missing an awful lot of songs here. Night Moves is Seger's crit-pick album, and a great place to start if you don't have any Seger at all. Next in the rankings is Stranger in Town. Otherwise, his highs are pretty scattered, which would make any best-of package a worthy investment. But if you want to get comprehensive, "Rock & Roll Never Forgets," "Fire Down Below," "Horizontal Bop," "Her Strut," "Betty Lou's Getting Out Tonight," and "Katmandu" aren't on this CD--and you'll have to go to the original albums to secure them. --Gavin McNett
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Secret, Profane and Sugarcane

Joining Costello were Jerry Douglas (dobro), Stuart Duncan (fiddle), Mike Compton (mandolin), Jeff Taylor (accordion) and Dennis Crouch (double bass), some of the most highly regarded recording artists and musicians in traditional American country music, Bluegrass and beyond.

The album includes ten previously unrecorded songs. "Sulphur to Sugarcane" and "The Crooked Line", were co-written with T Bone Burnett while, "I Felt The Chill" marks Costello's second recorded songwriting collaboration with Loretta Lynn.

Costello revisits two songs from his catalogue in string band style. Both songs were originally written for Johnny Cash. "Hidden Shame" was indeed included on Cash's album, "Boom Chicka Boom".

The album title makes reference to "The Secret Songs", Costello's unfinished commission for the Royal Danish Opera about the life of Hans Christian Andersen.

Seeking a new connection from the author to the Anglophone world, Costello wrote about the Andersen's relationship with the world famous singer, Jenny Lind in "She Handed Me A Mirror" and "How Deep Is The Red".

"She Was No Good", relates some of the chaotic details of Lind's famous "All-American" concert tour of 1850, which was promoted by P.T. Barnum. In its aftermath, "Red Cotton" imagines Barnum reading an Abolishionist pamphlet, while manufacturing cheap souvenirs of the adventure.

These four episodes were newly adapted for the instrumentation of this record.

Indeed these are first Costello compositions to be predominantly rooted in acoustic music since his 1986 album, "King Of America", which was produced by T Bone Burnett. He also produced the 1989 album, "Spike".

T Bone adds his distinctive Kay electric guitar to several of numbers, the only amplified instrument on the recording.

Jim Lauderdale takes the close vocal harmony part throughout the record and Emmylou Harris contributed a third vocal part on the chorus of "The Crooked Line" on the final day of recording.

The record concludes with the waltz, "Changing Partners", a song made famous by Bing Crosby.

The cover artwork of "Secret, Profane & Sugarcane" is an ink drawing by the renowned cartoonist, illustrator and author, Tony Millionaire.

Elvis Costello first recorded in Nashville with George Jones in 1979 and returned to the city for "Almost Blue", his 1981 album of classic country covers.

He returned to the city in 2004 to record a duet rendition of "The Scarlet Tide" with Emmylou Harris.

This song, co-written with T Bone Burnett, received an Academy Award nomination for Alison Krauss' rendition in the motion picture, "Cold Mountain" in 2003.

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Secret, Profane and Sugarcane

Joining Costello were Jerry Douglas (dobro), Stuart Duncan (fiddle), Mike Compton (mandolin), Jeff Taylor (accordion) and Dennis Crouch (double bass), some of the most highly regarded recording artists and musicians in traditional American country music, Bluegrass and beyond.

The album includes ten previously unrecorded songs. "Sulphur to Sugarcane" and "The Crooked Line", were co-written with T Bone Burnett while, "I Felt The Chill" marks Costello's second recorded songwriting collaboration with Loretta Lynn.

Costello revisits two songs from his catalogue in string band style. Both songs were originally written for Johnny Cash. "Hidden Shame" was indeed included on Cash's album, "Boom Chicka Boom".

The album title makes reference to "The Secret Songs", Costello's unfinished commission for the Royal Danish Opera about the life of Hans Christian Andersen.

Seeking a new connection from the author to the Anglophone world, Costello wrote about the Andersen's relationship with the world famous singer, Jenny Lind in "She Handed Me A Mirror" and "How Deep Is The Red".

"She Was No Good", relates some of the chaotic details of Lind's famous "All-American" concert tour of 1850, which was promoted by P.T. Barnum. In its aftermath, "Red Cotton" imagines Barnum reading an Abolishionist pamphlet, while manufacturing cheap souvenirs of the adventure.

These four episodes were newly adapted for the instrumentation of this record.

Indeed these are first Costello compositions to be predominantly rooted in acoustic music since his 1986 album, "King Of America", which was produced by T Bone Burnett. He also produced the 1989 album, "Spike".

T Bone adds his distinctive Kay electric guitar to several of numbers, the only amplified instrument on the recording.

Jim Lauderdale takes the close vocal harmony part throughout the record and Emmylou Harris contributed a third vocal part on the chorus of "The Crooked Line" on the final day of recording.

The record concludes with the waltz, "Changing Partners", a song made famous by Bing Crosby.

The cover artwork of "Secret, Profane & Sugarcane" is an ink drawing by the renowned cartoonist, illustrator and author, Tony Millionaire.

Elvis Costello first recorded in Nashville with George Jones in 1979 and returned to the city for "Almost Blue", his 1981 album of classic country covers.

He returned to the city in 2004 to record a duet rendition of "The Scarlet Tide" with Emmylou Harris.

This song, co-written with T Bone Burnett, received an Academy Award nomination for Alison Krauss' rendition in the motion picture, "Cold Mountain" in 2003.

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Roadsinger (To Warm You Through The Night)

For decades, his has been the voice that has carried us through the darkness. One of the most influential and successful singer-songwriters of the last 40 years, Yusuf has provided the perfect salve for a troubled world--a beautifully nuanced, warm voice shielding us against harsh, turbulent times bringing songs of truth and hope.

Just when we need him most, Yusuf is back with roadsinger, an 11-song collection about the evanescent dreams of life and the promise that spiritual fulfillment brings for those who are ready to travel far enough.

"While writing these songs I was getting a new idea every day and every song said, `sing me', Yusuf says, sitting casually on a sofa in a hotel suite in Los Angeles. "You don't `make' the music; you just interpret something that's passing through you."

The enjoyment that comes in being part of this process of creating music is palpable in every note on roadsinger. And Yusuf is certain that every step of his amazing journey has led him to this place. "Songwriting is a life vocation if you're really serious about it," he says. "And, therefore, it comes from your experiences and the times, tastes and troubles that make up your life."

And what a life it has been. Born of a Greek father and Swedish mother in England, Steven Georgiou grew up in the shadow of the West End, London's equivalent of Broadway. On one end of his street was a statue of Eros, the Greek god of love. On the other were theaters that brought some of the best music ever written within feet of his doorstep. "Almost from day one when I decided to get into music, I wanted to write songs for musicals," he says. "I was so inspired by the great composers such as Bernstein, Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein."

A self-taught musician, yusuf always felt that, like these seminal men of music, he had a voice and something to say. "I just had to wait for other people to discover it."

Of course, they did. As Cat Stevens, he sold more than 60 million albums. His tender-yet-passionate style became synonymous with the folk-based singer-songwriter movement of the `70s, although his music transcended any set place and time. Hits like "Wild World," "Morning Has Broken," "Father and Son," "Peace Train," "Oh Very Young," and "Moonshadow" remain as relevant and inviting today as they did 35 years ago.

Always a seeker of enlightenment and universal wisdom, his searching led him to embrace Islam in 1977 after reading an English translation of the Qur'an. There is nothing too posh or pious about Yusuf. His faith is expressed most beautifully in the universal truths of "All Kinds of Roses" from roadsinger. There's a stillness and deliberateness about Yusuf that comes from a place of serenity and surrender.

He smiles softly when he talks about picking up a guitar for the first time again in 2004. "It was that moment around dawn, morning time, when no one else was around. I decided to have a go and it felt so, so, natural. I could put my fingers exactly where they were 30 years ago (laughs) and yet it was so fresh. I think that was the most glorious of moments."

That reentry into mainstream music's atmosphere after a 28-year absence was the critically-lauded "An Other Cup" in 2006. People were relieved "that I didn't sound like I'd gone through some Frankensteinian transformation which made me sound like something else," Yusuf says with a laugh.

"An Other Cup" bridged his eastern and western sensibilities; whereas roadsinger is rooted firmly in the West. That shift happened subconsciously courtesy of a plane trip. "I remember listening to a playlist on a transatlantic flight of [music from] the `70s and that just captured my imagination. I said, `oh gosh, how great it was.' It was Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Carole King, James Taylor, Neil Young, Elton John. But it was more the L.A. stuff and that may have edged me toward doing that again."

Yusuf traveled all over the world to record roadsinger including studios in London, Dubai, and others. He produced the album himself, with assistance on three tracks provided by producer Martin Terefe, best known for his work with Jason Mraz, KT Tunstall, James Morrison and Ron Sexsmith. Some of his musical friends--Michelle Branch, Gunnar Nelson, James Morrison, Terry Sylvester and Holly Williams, also chime in on backing vocals.

Much of roadsinger was recorded live with few overdubs, giving the album an organic, unpretentious feel. Yusuf says, "I borrowed from my own experience making `Tea for the Tillerman,' I realized that some of the best tracks were all live so I went back into recording things live again."

That adds to the immediacy and warmth of the tracks. "When you're doing it live, it has something to do with life right now, which is much more powerful than `let's try and overdub it again'," Yusuf says. "Essentially it's all done simultaneously and that makes it all more vital. The title track actually was a first take. I haven't done that since 1967," he laughs.

Yusuf also revisits his past on the compelling, lovely "Be What You Must" which opens with the lilting, delicate piano melody of "Sitting," an enduring hit from Catch Bull at Four. Accompanied by a children's choir, Yusuf bravely and boldly sings that in order to "Be what you must, you must give up what you are."

On "roadsinger," Yusuf praises love both divine and human. "Thinking `Bout You," is a pure love song of sweet devotion to one who simply makes the world better by their presence.

While much of the album is dominated by Yusuf's exquisite, tasteful guitar work, confident, layered arrangements punctuate the tunes, such as the horns on the lush "Everytime I Dream," or the cellos and violins that provide "The Rain" with a gravitas as Yusuf sings of the world after an epic flood.

Similarly, the searing "World O' Darkness" features some of Yusuf's most plaintive vocals ever captured on disc, often pierced by his piquant guitar work. Just as he examines war on "Darkness," on the yearning "This Glass World" he questions how we've isolated ourselves from others with our material possessions.

Both songs are featured in "Moonshadow," a musical opening later this year constructed around his catalog of songs. "'World O' Darkness' acts as a prologue to the planet in which we find ourselves," Yusuf says. "A world where only moon shines and there is no daylight. It becomes the goal of this one boy, who's very much a dreamer, very much a rebel, perhaps similar to myself, who leaves the social treadmill to find the lost world of the sun."

Like his best music over the decades, roadsinger is about a journey of love, after rejection; truth beyond illusion and, ultimately, hope from the opening track, "Welcome Home," in which Yusuf invites "all seekers this way," to the closing "Shamsia," a gentle, meditative instrumental, where he sends us lovingly back into the world of musical sunshine.

But, luckily for us, Yusuf says his musical "seeking" is far from done so we can count on him to keep looking for the answers. "Seeking the perfect song is always the task of every songwriter and you never make it," he says. "And that's a great thing, that there's always something more to write about, something more to sing out loud about."
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You Don't Have to Be Jewish/When You're in Love the Whole World Is Jewish

"You Don't Have To Be Jewish" and it's follow up, "When You're In Love, The Whole World Is Jewish" were both staples in the Lifson home. Jewish comedy was not available to me as a kid through visits to the Catskills, so these albums, along with "Chanukah Carols" (also available on JMG) were my first exposure to a genre which would help prepare me for the Woody Allen and Albert Brooks movies I would love watching in the next decade, the '70s, and have enjoyed ever since. These very funny records were the brainchild of producer Bob Booker, who had produced a hugely successful pair of albums called "The First Family" which lampooned the Kennedy clan, with actor Vaughn Meader doing a brilliant JFK. These were essential listening for the early '60s, but after JFK's assassination, were quickly antiquated.

For "You Don't Have To Be Jewish," Producer Booker, pairing with writer George Foster, assembled a first class ensemble of comedic actors to play the jokes and blackout type sketches on this LP. Lou Jacobi was seen on countless sitcoms as the "Jewish Dad" type, and Valerie Harper, who would later star as "Rhoda" on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." Also featured were Arlene Golonka, who played Ken Berry's girlfriend on "Mayberry R.F.D." and Bob Mc Fadden, who were the voices behind many cartoon characters including one version of "Popeye" and one of my '60s faves, "Milton The Monster." And who could forget actor Jack Gilford from the many "Crackerjack" commercials he did, where he is caught eating the kid's Crakerjack late at night?

The sketches on these two wonderfully nostalgic albums played like a prequel, maybe more Jewish version, of TV's "Laugh In" which would appear just a couple years later, in the Fall of 1968. The cast of "You Don't Have To Be Jewish" were invited to appear on the Ed Sullivan show, because of the broad appeal of the album's humor. It was clean and quaint, not biting and unsettling, like several of the "hipper" '60s comics, like Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl. These Jewish jokes were ones that could be repeated at any office gathering or weeknight Pan and Poker games, like the ones I recall my parents having in the mid '60s. They still have the black card table with the white leather top that was used at their gatherings back then, when albums like "You Don't Have To Jewish" were such a unifying force.

Classic bits on these two albums, released for the first time as a double disc CD here, include "Secret Agent James Bondtstein" and "The Cocktail Party" which is reminiscent of "Laugh In's" party scenes with the one liners floating in and out of martini glasses. "The Plotnick Diamond" bit is funny too, where Mrs. Plotnick complains that her large diamond comes enshrouded with a curse..."What's the curse her friend asks, in a Yenta-like way, "Mr. Plotnick!" is the reply. You see, these albums showcase the qualities of Jewish life we have all come to know as "trademarks," like: guilt, marrying a nice young doctor, eating as a remedy for anxiety, worrying too much, and of course, more guilt!

Jewish people throughout the ages have relied on humor as a survival technique, and have always been noted for their sardonic and revelatory abilities to translate "agony" into "ecstasy" in the form of humorous dialogue. One can see where comics like Woody Allen got a lot of his early material from gleaning the cultural mores predominant in both these albums, that show Booker and partner Foster's true genius for defining a genre through humor. The live audience present here makes the material play even more like television, helping to create a real "visual" presence for these playets, which are both timeless and charming in their appeal.

May these hilarious records provide you and your family the same "sitting around the hi-fi" happiness that I experienced when I first listened to them, wearing my pajamas that had all the gas station signs on them (my favorite was "Gulf") and eating my strawberry "Whip 'N Chill" light meringue pudding that Mom would make in those little glass dessert cups that were so evocative of the era for me. Food and humor always go well together in Jewish culture...Enjoy!

Hal Lifson
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