Some Favorite Music

Harriet Schock, The Penguin Café Orchestra, Clara Weiss, Wailing Jennies, Jay Ungar, Patrick Omire and Bruce Springsteen

Harriet Schock

Going through so many things I’ve accumulated over the years, I came across the first edition of D Magazine. I’d saved this in part because my friend David Ritz had an article in it about the singer Harriet Schock, who grew up in North Dallas. All of which led me to her wonderful song, “Dancing with My Father”.

The Penguin Café Orchestra

I came upon ”Music for a Found Harmonium” maybe 20 years ago, and it really gets to me. Part of what I like about it is the gradual addition of different instruments as the music goes along.

And there are so many instruments: cello, pizzicato, ukulele, viola, cuatro, clarinet, mandolin, guitar, bass, piano, trombone, oboe, and harmonium—an instrument that was new to me.

Simon Jeffes, co-founded of the Penguin Orchestra Café with cellist Helen Liebmann, has said that the idea came to him in a dream, after he had gotten sick from “bad fish” in a French restaurant. (We’ve all been there—just kidding).

Then there’s the story of the harmonium which, according to Wikipedia, Jeffes found in a back street where he was staying in the summer of 1982 after the ensemble’s first tour of Japan.

This is “Telephone and Rubber Band,” that begins with a commentary by Jeffes:

Clara Weiss

Here is the comment associated with this song “A Voice from the Ruins”:

“Clara Weiss was only a child when the war took everything. No one knows where she came from. By the age of 10, she began singing songs no one had ever heard… yet somehow, everyone felt like they remembered them. Some say these recordings were lost. Others believe they were never recorded at all. This is one of them.”

Wailing Jennies

I have loved the Wailing Jennies since first seeing them on TV maybe 25 years ago. Here they are singing “Long Time Traveler”:

A commentary I found about this song:

“This is a song of death. The narrator of the song is lamenting, saying that there is nothing left on earth that brings them joy and that they have lived for too long away from their heavenly home. They are wishing their friends farewell but are saying that they happily go to angels up above.”

Violin Music that Inspired Me

Here are three songs that inspired me to play the violin: “Southern Soldier Boy”, “Ashokan Farewell” and Bruce Springsteen’s “American Land”:

Patrick Omire

This is “Southern Soldier Boy”, which I came across one day and thought that I’ve got to learn the violin:

Jay Ungar

“Ashokan Farewell” I first heard watching Ken Burns’ documentary on the Civil War:

Bruce Springsteen

“American Land” has two violinists playing along with all the other musicians, creating a sense of joy and excitement. I was lucky to get to play one of the violin parts at our church.

Can you imagine how much Trump would hate this song, which celebrates the arrival of immigrants who have enriched the life of our country.

Music can be so powerful, uniting us, blessing us, telling us stories from across the years.