Pangea, Thank God I'm a Country Boy, Blues, Sally Goodin, Fragile

Colin O’Donohoe
Pangea Orchestra

What is new:
This week I rediscovered John Denver and the song “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” and then from that I started listening to recordings of “Sally Goodin” on youtube. It made me realize that I was guilty of something I’ve seen from various people as I’ve been performing. When I perform traditional music from other countries I have always met people from that country who respond to me with such a perplexed look and ask “why are you interested in that?” They go on to say how ‘that’ music is so old and isn’t very popular any more, and even they themselves don’t know much about it.

I always feel sad like they’re ignoring or denying such a beautiful heritage. With me being born and raised in the U.S., I never really spent much time at all listening to old American folk and traditional music. My dad would play it often but I never spent much time paying attention to it.

So, I met Sally Goodin. Not my Sally Goodin, but THE Sally Goodin. I’m amazed at how similar some of these songs are to traditional Irish jigs and reels. I’ve had fun listening to traditional American musicians and Southern all-stars such as Earl Scruggs and others. I ain’t a Country boy, but I do love the tunes!

***I’ve had a few glitches with the email list sign up. I’m trying to get it fixed asap. In the meantime, email me at wmenyc at gmail.com and I’ll sign you up. Did I mention that I have an amazing new MP3 just waiting to be sent to you? I love my list, very much!! The music is yours if you are interested in getting on the list.

Music I want to learn about: Traditional Southern music!! I want to know the names of people to check out, albums that are amazing, songs that I can’t live without. Please, if you know about traditional southern music from the USA, please send me an email or just post to the blog so the world can read about it! Thank you!!!

Music I can share: Ever want to know what a real blues form was? Since I’ve been talking about American music I think I should try to let you in on the pieces of Americana that I do know about. While Blues today means a lot of music that isn’t really the blues form, I’ll let you in on what that form really is.

The blues is a 12 bar (measure) form. This means that every 12 measures the song form starts over again, like a loop from the ice age (a reference for all the youngins out there who write loop based music)

Anyway the form is broken into thirds and goes basically like this
Part one: the first four measures
One chord (literally the 1 or root chord) for 4 measures
Part II:
The four chord for 2 measures, the 1 chord for 2 measures
Part III
The five chord (1 measure)
The four chord (1 measure)
The one chord (2 measures)
You can also play the five chord at the end of this third part if you’d like.

There are a zillion variations, but this is the basic form. As for the vocal arrangement it generally has one statement that is said twice and embellished the third time, I’ll write one right now
I’ll call it the “nobody reads my blog blues” No one touch this, I’m copyrighting this puppy!
Blues lyric form:

“I checked my blog views, and it said there were none
Yeah, said I checked my blog views, and it said there were none
So I called up my brother, made him read it, and now it says 1”

It basically goes like that. Now those lyrics are purely fictional as I don’t know any poor soul who writes week after week for no fans. Man, that would just be terrible!!

Songs that I adore: Fragile
Sting
I know, I should be putting up an Earl Scruggs or John Denver tune for this post, but I had already written this one. I promise I’ll talk more about those good ol’ boys later.

I could probably listen to this song infinite times and still not be sick of it. I love the melody, the words, the performance, it is all precious.
The lyrics of course are very creative, full of imagery, and pierce your soul (unless your Dick Cheney (he sold his soul for an extra chocolate milk in 4th grade *** little known fact***)
When I start rehearsing with the Pangea Orchestra, it is my hope that we can create a great arrangement of this song.