Chanson du jour : Let's Get Some Beers, Pete Nelson

I don't call what I do 'folk music'. The best term I've come up with is 'foreground music', meaning it's not meant to be background music, but has to be more closely listened to, as opposed to the hook-oriented pop music that shoots straight into your brain. 'Foreground music' might for example, tell a story where, if you miss the beginning, you don't get the end. ...Pete Nelson

La chanson du jour est tirée de l'album The Restless Boys Club publié en 1996 par le romancier Pete Nelson sur le jeune label Signature Sounds. C'est un bon album d'où ressort cette fabuleuse chanson, "Let's Get Some Beers" où l'on entend successivement Bill Morrissey, John Gorka, Cliff Eberhart, Greg Brown et Pete Nelson, qui composent le Restless Boys' Choir, avec Cormac -not the writer- McCarthy à l'harmonica.

Chacun explique à sa façon que la cinquantaine arrivée, tout ce que l'on fait de mieux, c'est de parler de ses échecs sentimentaux, professionnels ou simplement personnels autour d'une bibine (ou d'un café)!

MP3 : Let's Get Some Beers (Pete Nelson, 1996)

On le trouve chez Signature Sounds ou chez CDbaby

Voici le compte-rendu de All Music Guide. Je n'ai pas trouvé trace de Peter Mulvey sur le disque, mais à part ça, c'est intéressant.

Pete Nelson is certainly not the only storytelling folk singer in the business. It has, in fact, become something of a folk reviewer's cliché to compare a singer/songwriter to a novelist, short story writer, or playwright. But such descriptions are unavoidable in discussions of Nelson's work, and they are even more apt when applied to him than they are to better-known storytellers like Dar Williams, Ellis Paul, and Darryl Purpose. That's because story seems primary to Nelson and music only secondary. On his debut album, The Restless Boys' Club, fundamental conventions of popular music are regularly tossed aside if they don't suit the narrative. In the liner notes, his lyrics are printed in prose format with complete sentences, paragraphs, and quotation marks. Nelson's choruses, usually the heart and soul of a song, tend to be brief and unmemorable, almost thrown away; enlisted in service of the verses rather than the other way round. Meter and rhyme are all but vanquished from the tragicomic opener, "Norman," and on "Let's Get Some Beer," the purported solo artist steps aside to let an all-star cast (John Gorka, Bill Morrissey, Cliff Eberhardt, and Greg Brown) voice his characters. Nelson's own voice -- soft, thin, and sometimes unsteady -- seems a liability on the first listen, but he uses its gentle, unaffected simplicity to great effect. Of course, none of this would work if the stories weren't well told. But Nelson has a great gift for quietly underscoring the poignant depth of ordinary events in ordinary lives. And though he isn't nearly as good a singer or composer as most of the celebrity guests that play on his albums (Paul Williams, Chistine Lavin, and Peter Mulvey, to name a few), he finds plenty of luminous musical moments to shed light on those well-crafted narratives. ~ Evan Cater, All Music Guide