From: martin@lyra.cis.umassd.edu (Gary Martin)
Subject: Re: Newport Cost Rebuffed/Review Finished
Organization: University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 19:35:56 GMT

In article <1992Aug13.052356.29097@mips2.ma30.bull.com> ddean@granite.ma30.bull.com (Douglas J. DeAngelis) writes:

   If you make the effort to get there by 9:30, you can get great seats.
   In fact, you can get the kind of seats that are impossible to get at 
   "theatre" type shows because they are all given out as political favors.

Well, this works if not too many people do it.  Further back from the
stage, later arrivals, many of whom are there mainly to party, compete
with the distant stage for your attention.  (Based on recollections from
the 1989 festival.)

   Rachel Polisher - I wonder if I'm just in a bad mood while I write...nah,
   I can honestly say that this was the worst performer I have ever seen
   at Newport.  She obviously has connections with the organizers; I mean, she
   doesn't even have a record out.  I can't think of any redeeming qualities, 
   and I can think of about 50 other performers who could have made great use
   of that spot on the bill

So can I, but I think your analysis is overly harsh. Her music takes a
little getting used to.  I heard her for the first time at Kerrville
in 1990, when she did the opening set of the festival (which I guess
means that she was a NewFolk winner in 1989).  At that point, her songs
made no impression on me and her voice was strikingly unusual and a
bit hard to get used to.  Since then, I've heard her do a few radio
interviews and a brief "pre-opening" set on the WERS live broadcast
from Passim.  I taped the most recent radio interview and listened
to it again just a few hours ago.  Each time I hear her, I'm more
and more impressed by the quality of her writing and her choice of
songs by other songwriters.

In this interview, she covered a Buddy Mondlock song about a child
who daydreams about running away with the circus and a Don Henry
song about Martin Luther King, Jr., and did three originals: "Shooting
Stars" and "Rough Edges" and one whose title eludes me now.  They
were all very fine songs, but none of them were the kind of song that
is easy to grasp on the first hearing.  They are not straightforward,
either lyrically or harmonically, so they feel kind of unfamiliar the
first half dozen times you hear them.  But I'm beginning to notice
and appreciate some of the word play and images, and see that these
are songs that will slowly reveal themselves through repeated listening.

For contrast, I'd like to relate an experience from the 1992 Kerrville
NewFolk competition.  One of the winning songs, Nashville songwriter
Karen Taylor-Good's "OBGWhyMe Blues", about a visit to the gynecologist,
was a tremendous hit with the audience, drawing a standing ovation
during the competition and again during the winners' concert a week later.
I found it to be a powerful, chilling, clever, and humorous piece of
writing, but it is so "in your face" that I can't imagine wanting to
hear it again (after having heard it only four times) for a long, long
time.  I think that in one hearing, you can get just about all it has
to offer.  But that's the kind of song that works well at a big festival.

For Boston-area people who'd like a chance to hear Rachel Polisher in
a more favorable setting, she's opening for Tony Bird at Passim
this weekend (Friday and Saturday 8 and 10:30).


--
Gary A. Martin, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, UMass Dartmouth
Martin@cis.umassd.edu
Newsgroups: rec.music.folk,soc.culture.celtic