FolkBlog

Franklin Park Conservatory is one of the coolest places in Central Ohio. For their annual Blooms and Butterflies exhibit, which runs from March through Labor Day, they convert one of the conservatory rooms into a butterfly environment, importing butterflies from South America and letting them loose. It’s just so darn relaxing and mind clearing, almost Zenlike, to watch butterflies flit around from flower to flower. It’s nearly impossible to think bad thoughts while watching butterflies.

There are a lot of people in our public discourse who could benefit from butterfly immersion therapy. War, no! Butterflies, yes! Anyway, moving on to the music…

Railroad Earth is scary good. And they keep getting better. Their just-released The Good Life is one of the best albums I’ve heard all year. They keep expanding the parameters of what they can do with their instrumentation, moving effortlessly from bluegrass breakdowns and the bluegrass flavored jam band material that is so prevalent on their first two albums to country flavored pop that would not have been out of place on an early Eagles album. The songwriting keeps getting better, too. The highlight for me is “Goat,” a rock-tinged number touching on scapegoating.

Washington, DC, area singer/songwriter Leah Morgan has a really nice debut CD, Zero Dollars Spent. She has an outstanding voice, and a pleasant folk/rock sound.

Johnny Miles is another singer/songwriter worth watching. He aims for a more sparse, acoustic sound and when it works it works really well. Awakening contains several really well-written songs, though some of the tracks are just a little long and rambling. Miles is based out of New Jersey

I forgot to mention Alan Kelly when I added his music last week. I received a couple albums from him of really well-crafted and well=produced singer/songwriter material. He’s been around for a while, and has a maturity in his songwriting that the younger singer/songwriters above lack right now (but appear likely to display a few CDs down the road). His just-released CD is “Quiet Lives of Consequence” and it’s Good Stuff. Alan Kelly is based in Colorado.

Minnesota songwriter Steve West has put out a no-frills 29-minute CD of folk/rock, Love and Other Natural Disasters. The song “Lonely Man” is particularly catchy, and you’ll catch it on the OFF if you listen long enough over the next couple weeks.

Canadian singer/songwriter Barry McLoughlin seems to me that he’s trying just a little too hard to be the next Gordon Lightfoot on his CD, Pieces. When he relaxes, as on tracks like “The Most Wonderful Girl in the World”, a song about a daughter growing up 500 miles away, he scores. Many of the other tracks are run-of-the-mill lite-rock.

Also added several songs from the new Oasis Acoustic Sampler #46. Standout tracks include songs added this week by Murphy Henry, Late Bloomers, Lindsay Smith, Brad Yoder and Gary Lynn Burt, though I added tracks from several additional artists to the rotation that may be added over the next few weeks.