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Courier Post Online - Appel Farm: Performers Showcase Performer's Diversity
6/1/2007
All Day
Appel Farm: Performers showcase festival's diversity
Friday, June 1, 2007
Their music is nothing alike, but both headliner Joan Armatrading and first-time performer Adrienne Young are perfect examples of the Appel Farm Arts and Music Festival's diversity.
For more than 30 years, the London-based Armatrading has been a critic's darling, churning out consistently strong albums that contain elements of pop, folk, rock and even jazz. Last month, the dusky-voiced singer finally hit the top spot on the U.S. charts, when her latest release, "Into The Blues," raced to No. 1 in its first week of release and also landed at the No. 2 slot on the iTunes Blues Chart.
Playing every instrument on the record (aside from percussion), "Into The Blues" is the best showcase to date for Armatrading's acclaimed, but often overlooked, electric guitar-playing.
"I'm a very good guitarist," the 56-year-old Armatrading said in a recent phone interview. "The record company did some focus groups with samples of my electric guitar playing and people were guessing that it was Eric Clapton or Mark Knopfler. I guess that's because there's not too many women playing electric guitar in the style I'm playing it."
Armatrading says she knew even as a youngster that music was her destiny.
"I was pretty young when I woke up one morning and just wrote a song," she recalls. "It's in the DNA, just a God-given gift." A longtime blues fan, Armatrading decided to make a blues album, albeit one that integrates other elements of her songwriting style.
"I was going for a whole sound and feel," she said. "The songs were very quick to write, but my best songs have always taken about 10 or 15 minutes to write. The arrangements, of course, take a bit longer, but the framework comes easily."
Adrienne Young, meanwhile, has built a strong fan base with her blend of bluegrass, country and American folk. The Nashville-based multi-instrumentalist recently released her third album, "Room To Grow."
She's such an ardent supporter of sustainable agriculture that there are bundled seed packets in the album's liner notes, and Young is donating a portion of each CD sold to a nonprofit fund that supports local farming efforts and community gardens.
Young's music, while often touching on themes related to nature, is highly personal, she says.
"When you get down to it, the cycles of the earth and the cycles of human experience are inextricably linked," the singer-songwriter said. "When I get overwhelmed by the extraneous experiences of modern-day living -- if I can get out to the woods, be quiet and stop over-thinking -- it becomes clear that we are eternal and that peace is an option, but it has to begin inside of us."
The new album, she says, is her most introspective effort yet.
" "Room To Grow' is about the inner journey of trying to understand how one life relates to every other life," Young said. "And while there are references to the natural world, it's a lot about my own experiences of recent years -- about losses, and acknowledging the pain of letting go of people we love and the old remnants of who we used to be. I really do believe in the songs on this record."
-- Nicole Pensiero
Friday, June 1, 2007
Their music is nothing alike, but both headliner Joan Armatrading and first-time performer Adrienne Young are perfect examples of the Appel Farm Arts and Music Festival's diversity.
For more than 30 years, the London-based Armatrading has been a critic's darling, churning out consistently strong albums that contain elements of pop, folk, rock and even jazz. Last month, the dusky-voiced singer finally hit the top spot on the U.S. charts, when her latest release, "Into The Blues," raced to No. 1 in its first week of release and also landed at the No. 2 slot on the iTunes Blues Chart.
Playing every instrument on the record (aside from percussion), "Into The Blues" is the best showcase to date for Armatrading's acclaimed, but often overlooked, electric guitar-playing.
"I'm a very good guitarist," the 56-year-old Armatrading said in a recent phone interview. "The record company did some focus groups with samples of my electric guitar playing and people were guessing that it was Eric Clapton or Mark Knopfler. I guess that's because there's not too many women playing electric guitar in the style I'm playing it."
Armatrading says she knew even as a youngster that music was her destiny.
"I was pretty young when I woke up one morning and just wrote a song," she recalls. "It's in the DNA, just a God-given gift." A longtime blues fan, Armatrading decided to make a blues album, albeit one that integrates other elements of her songwriting style.
"I was going for a whole sound and feel," she said. "The songs were very quick to write, but my best songs have always taken about 10 or 15 minutes to write. The arrangements, of course, take a bit longer, but the framework comes easily."
Adrienne Young, meanwhile, has built a strong fan base with her blend of bluegrass, country and American folk. The Nashville-based multi-instrumentalist recently released her third album, "Room To Grow."
She's such an ardent supporter of sustainable agriculture that there are bundled seed packets in the album's liner notes, and Young is donating a portion of each CD sold to a nonprofit fund that supports local farming efforts and community gardens.
Young's music, while often touching on themes related to nature, is highly personal, she says.
"When you get down to it, the cycles of the earth and the cycles of human experience are inextricably linked," the singer-songwriter said. "When I get overwhelmed by the extraneous experiences of modern-day living -- if I can get out to the woods, be quiet and stop over-thinking -- it becomes clear that we are eternal and that peace is an option, but it has to begin inside of us."
The new album, she says, is her most introspective effort yet.
" "Room To Grow' is about the inner journey of trying to understand how one life relates to every other life," Young said. "And while there are references to the natural world, it's a lot about my own experiences of recent years -- about losses, and acknowledging the pain of letting go of people we love and the old remnants of who we used to be. I really do believe in the songs on this record."
-- Nicole Pensiero
