Court and Spark

[mudcub]

As a treat for myself, I thought I'd buy some CDs from the seventies folk-rock period. I am most impressed by female singer-songwriters who wrote, sang, and recorded their own music. In this age of vapid synthesized American Idols, I find it refreshing to go back thirty years and enjoy the originality of the women artists of previous decades.

Here are some CDs I don't own but think I should listen to:

Carole King "Tapestry"
Joni Mitchell "Court And Spark"
Carly Simon (I'll but a best-of CD)
Joan Armatrading "Walk Under Ladders"
Janis Ian (best-of, with "At Seventeen")

What about these artists? Can they be included in the genre?

Laura Nyro
Karla Bonoff
Patti Smith
The Carpenters
Kate Bush
Helen Reddy
Anne Murray

Can you recommend any others? Aren't there some famous lesbian singers I'm missing like Suede and Ferron and Holly Near and Cris Williamson?

Comments

[allanh.livejournal.com]

Court and Spark is one of the best of Joni's albums; it's certainly one of the ones which I never get tired of listening to.

My favorite song on the album, of course, is "Twisted". I can sing it by heart...as can several of my friends. When one of us starts singing it and one or two more join in, it's rather fun to watch the looks of shock around us. Silly Mundanes.

Laura Nyro wrote a number of wonderful songs that other people became famous for...including several Fifth Dimension hits. I have a copy of "The Best of Laura Nyro" which is an excellent overview of her career. It's a little jarring at first to hear some of the songs sung in their original arrangements (the Fifth Dimension substantially jazzed and popped up their arrangements of Laura's songs), but the sound is smooth and relaxing to me.

You might enjoy Holly Near/Cris Williamson's "Lifelines Live" album (I may have that title slightly wrong), which contains a wonderful version of "Harriet Tubman", among other Holly/Cris classics. It's a lot of fun to hear them perform not just with, but also TO each other on the live album.

For Carly Simon, check out a copy of "Letters Never Sent", which is not only highly listenable, but is fascinating to me because it's a "concept" album -- she's pulled a box of forgotten letters off of the top shelf of her closet, and each song is a letter she'd forgotten writing. "Halfway Round The World" is a song about a true story in which Carly was placed on watch/no-entry lists at countries all around the world by a vengeful ex-lover with access to the State Department. "Like A River" is painful but beautiful (and surprisingly singable), in which she comes to terms with her mother's death. It never fails to make my eyes mist up, if not actually cry. "Holiday" is a 32 second evil joke/observation about Certain Performers Who Maybe Should Retire Soon Now. Quite good-bitchy-funny, actually. The song that you may find most interesting on the album is called "The Reason", where she details all of the possible reasons that she can't possibly return someone's love and affection...I've always thought of it as an Aspy Anthem. :)