This is Red Molly, with a great Americana sound.
The song is "1952 Vincent Black Lightening." The main characters are Red Molly, James, and a motorcycle. It includes a line about 'red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme.'
Is the ending happy or sad? Not sure...
This is a live version of one of the great pieces of Americana songwriting. The songwriter is the late Steve Goodman ("A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request") and the song is performed by Arlo Guthrie. The ensemble even includes the great old folkmaster Pete Seeger. The song references Goodman's hometown, Chicago, the Illinois Central, the town of Kankakee, and the decline of the railroads.
College World Series starts today...
The college baseball world series is here, featuring four
teams from the SEC and four teams from the ACC.
Really good baseball is played all over the county, yet the grand finale
is just two conferences. Good for
the SEC, good for the ACC, bad for college baseball.
It can be argued, persuasively, that the NCAA baseball
tournament began with 64 teams, and a brutal format that includes
double-elimination pool play and best 2-of-3 super regionals yields the best
eight teams in the country. But two things challenge this view.
First is the selection process. The SEC is good, probably the premier baseball conference in the country, but it is not as good as its press (more on that later). Eleven SEC teams were selected for the tournament. Eleven. No conference should have eleven teams in the playoffs. Again, supporters may claim that is legit because of the number of SEC teams in the national rankings. But this is a self-fulfilling argument. The rankings and ultimately the tournament selectees are not determined by competition; they are determined by sports writers and by committee.
Consider that five of the eleven SEC teams selected by the
committee had losing records in their conference. How can we say one of these teams can be the
NCAA champion when they do not even have a winning record in their own conference. To be sure, the eleventh-place team in the
SEC, with a losing record, has not earned the right to compete for the
championship.
Florida is one of those five teams with a conference record of
13-17. They got hot, for sure, and won
their way into the CWS. But they did not earn the privilege to be there in the first place. It would be much better for the college game
if those teams with a losing record were out and five more teams from around
the country had a chance to show what they’ve got. Those teams could get hot, too, given the
chance. There are other Evansvilles out there for sure. And the SEC would still have 6 teams in. If it takes eleven teams to get four into the
CWS, that is not brag-worthy. The six
best should be able to do the job.
Then there is the conflict-of-interest that makes everything
SEC-related suspect. ESPN owns the SEC
network. With all of the publicity
spurring recruiting, and the TV money coming to the programs --- huge
advantages over the other conferences --- the success of the conference is
tainted. This same conflict-of-interest
should also be embarrassing to the SEC.
I now turn the sound off when I watch the baseball post-season. Most of the announcers are SEC announcers ---
perfectly fine when announcing SEC games, but, it turns out, not so much when
other teams are involved.
I will say that the announcers for the final NC State-Georgia game
were excellent. They kept their
partisanship in check and apparently did their homework. But in many of the games I’ve watched, the announcers
would tell these great anecdotes, and provide timely information about the SEC
team as each batter came to the plate.
When the non-SEC team came to bat, they would then tell great anecdotes
and provide timely information about the fielders. You could almost see the commentators rifling
through papers to find the actual names of the other team’s players. (I will say that it’s been worse. In years past, there would be an on-field reporter,
but she would only be in the SEC team’s dugout.) In one game this year, the announcer repeated
that “the best baseball was played in the South” while noting that Virginia was
pretty good, even though they were from the northeast, where the winters are
cold. Northeast, really?
Then there was the last game of the East Carolina (Greenville) regional. There were no commentators present. The game was being called remotely. So wrong.
So what should be done to even the playing field, so to
speak? First, the SEC network should be
spun off from ESPN, and ESPN should create a national baseball information
scheme, not just a partnership with the SEC.
It would be nice if the NCAA had it together enough to re-configure the
baseball conferences, to be based on regions, not money. Eight competitive regions, with playoffs
leading to 8 world series contenders, one from each region. That is asking too much, I’m afraid, so how about a selection process that
spreads the wealth, that gives colleges not in the SEC bubble a crack at
Omaha. It wouldn’t be that hard. Limit conferences to 6 teams max, and teams
that have winning conference records (and conference winners, of course - they earned it).
Having said this, there is for sure great baseball during
the post-season. And as a championship format it is light years ahead of
college football, where they pretend to pick a national champion based on two
games. There is no defense of that
system, except to note that it brings in a lot of money to the NCAA. Bogus.
Baseball is still God’s sport, and it would not take much to
make the college game much better. Just the will to do
it.
Genre: Americana
Setting: the mountains of western North Carolina
This record features some unique talent. It is sung by Donna Britton Bukevicz (singer/producer/owner of Molly Girl Music). The fiddle playing is by B.E. Farrow (seen on America's Got Talent, performing with Ganstagrass; he also tours with Dom Flemons, troubadour of ole time music).
Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers
A great piece of Americana --- a lament that atheists don't have music to call their own.
The Pogues and Shane MacGowan ---
So, yes, an Irish band in an Americana blog.
Former front man Shane MacGowan just died. If you've followed him, you could be forgiven for wondering how he lasted this long. A poster child for hard living. But he and the Pogues have been a force in Irish music. Sure, I like "Fairy Tale of New York" and "Dirty Old Town" (by Irish folkie Ewan MacColl --- father of the wonderful late Kirsty MacColl), and collaborations with Steve Earle. But tributes haven't mentioned my favorite: "If I Should Fall from Grace with God" ...