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A new music podcast from writer, researcher & producer Sophie Abramowitz, artist & musician Sarah Bachman, and folklorist, writer & SPINSTER co-owner Emily Hilliard. The tongue-in-cheek name is inspired by the phenomenon of women folk musicians of the 20th-21st centuries being dubbed, for better or worse (usually worse), “the female Bob Dylan.” This is a podcast about gender & genre, singer-songwriters, the idea of tradition, and what we need to do to find Connie Converse (according to ChatGPT). Join us as we hang out, talk a little trash, and reassess the women of the folk scene.
14 Episodes
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In our last official episode of the season, we celebrate the brilliant, iconoclastic life of singer, guitarist, and activist, Odetta. We talk interpreters & inheritors, Black music & Black history, and Odetta's role as a connector between the folk revival & the civil rights movement. We also redeem theater kids and confess our brushes with Unitarianism.
Our Last Waltz Thanksgiving Special! While Sophie rests her voice, our friend Kana Zink steps in to help us rate the performances in Martin Scorsese's documentary of The Band's 1976 farewell show on a scale from "superior" to "madness or genius?" We also discuss Levon Helm's thousand yard stare, visit Garth Hudson's mulch factory, and consider the correlation (or causation?) between V-neck depth and ego.
We bring one of our favorite songwriters and theme song artist Lou Turner on the pod to discuss Joni’s road album Hejira and Lou’s not-on-the-road album Microcosmos (2022). We also talk Nashville’s weird music underbelly, try hard troubadours, and that Wolf Eyes side project “Crazy Labrador.”
Round two of our own personal Joni Jam. Hissing of Summer Lawns - Hejira - Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter corridor, confronting Joni’s blackface and redface, collaborations with Jaco Pastorius and Larry Klein, streaming-era gripes, and sitting through Brandi to hear Joni.
An on-the-ground recap of last night’s Joni Mitchell & The Joni Jam show at the Hollywood Bowl from someone who was really there, man.
We enter the world of Joni Mitchell to discuss the dialectic of muse and muse-er, the appeal and cultural baggage of confessional songwriting, the bad men of the folk revival, "the cool girl" trope, life in Saskatoon and Laurel Canyon, and more. Featuring the brilliant and very fun Joni expert Allison Chomet!
As we dug deep into Joan Baez’s history and lore we found ourselves drawn to her little sister Mimi Fariña, whose story is usually hewn to her husband Richard and to Joan. For a few minutes, we unspool the moment and send our flowers to Mimi and her beautiful voice.
We follow Joan Baez’s life through her meteoric popularity when folk music was the thing and discuss what exactly that thing was: as in, we talk revival and invention, tradition and interpretation, authenticity, corniness, and theft. We also sit with Joan’s politics, how she’s been positioned as *the* female counterpart to Dylan, and her vibe as a committed barefoot person.
Vashti Bunyan’s 1968-69 horse-drawn caravan trip from South London to the Isle of Skye has become a symbolic heroine’s journey of the British folk revival, but what was Vashti’s own vision for the trip? Drawing from her introspective memoir Wayward, we consider that voyage–with its terrible lentils and terrible men–which required her to let go of so much, including her music career. We discuss her preference for “plain sounds,” her rejection of the folk label, and how through her rediscovery 30 years later, she finally found her artistic agency and adoring audience.
Riffing on that Richard Thompson song about Anne Briggs (or was it Vashti Bunyan?), haylofts, and steamies.
We have the inimitable Jake Xerxes Fussell on the pod to help us think through the big question: WHAT (not who) is Bob Dylan? We also discuss Bobby D’s fashion choices, the difference between interpreters, presenters, and makers of tradition (and whether that matters), who (or what) Bob Dylan serves, and the difficulty of writing a good song about the current political moment.
Working from a biography with an unreliable narrator, we attempt to shake the great Connie Converse free from its pages and offer a fresh perspective on her music, radical politics, and deep community ties. We consider how to grapple with an artist’s legacy and the cloud of mystery surrounding them in a way that is respectful and ethical, while mindful of a biographer’s positionality, biases, and personal connection to their work.
In the words of the inimitable Garth Brooks this is the week we let the conversation begin. Intro to the pod + Sophie, Sarah, and Emily. And to Bob Dylan (courtesy Chat GPT), and the wonderful Connie Converse (as well as to the book about her, which we did not love). Episode 0! Who is she!
THE FEMALE BOB DYLAN launches Thursday 8/22 with new episodes every other Friday.
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