James Taylor "Lo And Behold"

Despite my claim that there are no new old songs, sometimes we do go looking for them.

How do you keep the station's library from stagnating? Well, the easiest thing to do is remove songs. If something is burned out, or if it has aged poorly, pull it out of rotation.

That's the simple solution, but it does alter the recipe. If you reduce the number of, say, songs from the 70s that mvyradio plays, you reduce the percentage of songs from the 70s that mvyradio plays.

And like a recipe, if you suddenly reduce the percentage of, say, carrots that you put into the soup, it ultimately alters the flavor.

So we will dip into an artist's catalog and see if there is anything we can bring into the library.

I recruited Barbara to help me look at James Taylor's 70s output, to see if we could improve the quality of JT tracks. Though he is one of the primary artists some people associate with the station, we actually only play a 1/2 dozen songs by Taylor at this point. Over the years, we've weeded out tracks. Time to, uh, weed in . . .

One of the simple things to do, was to look back at songs we used to play, to see if we could put anything back into rotation. We found a couple, though we also found some that were still burned, or still sounded too dated for mvyradio today.

The other thing to do (and this is why I needed Barbara), was too try to think about what tracks would stand out on the air, to anyone who owned the album.

In 1970, you (but not me, since I was only 1 year old) might have bought the "Sweet Baby James" album because of the song "Fire And Rain." But you probably listened to that record a whole lot over the years. So even if an album track wasn't a radio hit, if the album was popular, then the songs is going to be familiar to lots of folks/fans.

That's why you'll now hear "Lo And Behold" on mvyradio, added to rotation this week.

As we were doing this, it got me thinking about the future.

In 20 years time, will we be able to do this exercise for albums released in 2012?

Fewer and fewer people are listening to albums, as we move to a digital, "singles" musical culture. Some of the people who like Mumford And Sons, will only download "The Cave" and "Little Lion Man" without ever digging into the album to discover "Timshel."

Will a future radio station Music Director be able to pick up "Sigh No More" and ask the question, "What non-singles will people remember from this record?" and actually come up with something new to play? Probably not.

Mumford And Sons "Little Lion Man"

I remember hearing David Letterman talk about some city that he had only limited experience with. Maybe it was Cleveland. For the sake of the larger point, let's just say, Cleveland.

He was asking his guest about their home town, Cleveland, and he prefaced the question by saying that the only time he'd ever been to Cleveland, was as part of a flight with a lay-over, and for the hour or so he was there, the skies were very overcast.

Now, whenever he thought about Cleveland, he pictured it as a grey, overcast place. Of course, he knew that Cleveland isn't always grey and miserable, but that's what he saw in his head, because that was the full breadth of his experience.

If you only have one experience with something, it can lead you to extrapolate, incorrectly.

Back in the summer of 2010, we got a copy of the Mumford And Sons single "Little Lion Man." I hadn't really heard anything about them, other than they were gaining popularity and commercial radio was starting to pay attention to them.

I listened to the track a bunch of times, but we didn't have a full length record to check out, so my experience with Mumford And Sons started and ended with this track.

Okay, if they were an "It" band, that released a Rockin' track that drops and F-bomb in the chorus, well, I don't know. Good song. But is this just another generic "We rock" rock band that churns out generic rock songs that generic radio stations play so that non-discriminating rock fans can chant inane, "edgy" choruses while they drive to the office? I don't think I need to go out of my way to play that song . . .

I kept hearing about Mumford And Sons, and when the label sent out a second single, at the end of 2010, I listened. And listened. And listened again. And I pulled out the album.

These were not generic rock tracks. Hell, they weren't really rock tracks at all. Rockin' for sure. But Mumford And Sons was more about taking Folk in new directions. Songs featured the banjo for f's sake!

When I only knew "Little Lion Man," I was only able to imagine the album at 12 tracks just like that. I extrapolated, incorrectly.

I loved the second single, "The Cave." And the third single, "Roll Away Your Stone." And the full album. And when I heard the acoustic version of "Little Lion Man" I loved that.

And it turns out, the mvyradio listeners did too.

A record that we nearly passed over, turned out to be our #2 album of 2011.

Cleveland Rocks!


Hear the original version on Youtube.


Hear the acoustic version on Youtube.

Mumford & Sons "The Cave"

What's more "Country" sounding to you? A mandolin or a banjo?

My instinct would be to say, a banjo. You can slip a mandolin into a tasteful rock song (think "Losing My Religion") but you can't hide the twang of a banjo.

I wrote about Nickel Creek last week, and a friend from high school commented that it was strange that a progressive act like Nickel Creek never found the mass-appeal audience that Mumford & Sons is finding.

Why?

Both are great bands with great songs. And both are driven by instruments that are country-music-associated.

But only one band gets airplay on Modern Rock radio.

I can remember when this Mumford & Sons song song came in to mvy and we had decided we'd play it, but I did note that it was pretty remarkable that a song with a driving banjo was receiving widespread acceptance.

But how is it different, or "less country" than Nickel Creek?

I'm not sure, but I'll share my theory.

It's a simple guilt-by-association.

Nickel Creek came up from the bluegrass scene, shepherded by the likes of Alison Krauss. No matter how many Nirvana or Pavement covers they went on to do, they were always going to be a "Country" act.

Mumford & Sons is from the U.K. They aren't associated with American mainstream country in any way whatsoever.

And here's where we get to the prejudice.

Just as there are many people who won't listen to the Grateful Dead because of the culture of Deadheads, there are people who steadfastly won't listen to anything Country music, because of some of the stereotypes that Country is associated with.

So even a cool band like Nickel Creek, gets the cold shoulder.

But a cool band like Mumford & Sons, one that's foreign and dynamic and whatever, catches the attention of folks because they are unfettered by that blanket bologna.

Listen to both songs, and tell me which is more "Country."

And tonight, listen to mvy Live at 9pm, as we play the Chris Thile (formerly of Nickel Creek) and Michael Daves set from Newport Folk 2011, at 9pm ET. You can also hear the set on demand, or even download it at mvyradio's Newport Folk 2011 page.



See Mumford & Sons on Youtube.


See Nickel Creek on Youtube.