Folk Alliance International 2015: Laney Jones and The Lively Spirits

Folk Alliance International is a non-profit organization that sponsors an industry conference for the folk music industry every year, attended by artists, record companies, manufacturers, music publishers, music support services, presenters, managers and agents. This year marks the second year that the conference takes place in Kansas City, Missouri. With a membership of over 2,000 people Folk Alliance is among the top five largest conferences in North America. Thursday, February 19^th, was the second day of the conference and one of the best acts that night was a band called Laney Jones and The Lively Spirits.

                Laney Jones and The Lively Spirits were a band that I stumbled upon completely accidentally. And am I sure glad that I did. Though Jones and her band—Matthew Tonner, Curtis Seligson, and Alex Shames—are from Florida, they are not without local ties. Jones landed at Berklee College of Music in 2013 where she studied until, in typical Berklee fashion, she left to tour with her own band.  Since then she has  been busy touring up and down the East Coast. Recently she made her debut on national TV as part of Great Performances on PBS. She performed her track “Broken Hearts” as part of a masterclass with Alison Krauss. Her style is an even blend of the old and the new, Pop meets Americana, some Brandi Carlile and some Patty Griffin with a little bit of Sara Bareilles thrown in for good measure. She performed a selection of songs from her self-produced 2014 debut Golden Road, as well as from her upcoming new record, due out in 2015.

                Laney Jones and The Lively Spirits will even be making a pit stop in Cambridge at The Lizard Lounge on March 5^th. 

30 Grammy categories were eliminated

The Grammy nominations are out and I'm pleased to see that many of the artists you hear on WUMB were considered worthy of nomination. You can find a complete list at http://www.grammy.com/nominees.

I am, however, disturbed that as part of their decision to eliminate 30 categories, they seemed to have rolled what has previously been two categories into a single Best Folk Album category. In the last few years there has been a Contemporary Folk and a Traditional Folk category and while it was sometime confusing seeing which album ended up in what category, it was at least a chance to honor folk artists who were not primarily songwriters (they did the same thing in the Blues Category).

I think I can sum up my problem with this by asking if Pete Seeger had a new album this year, would it have had a chance in the current Best Folk Album category? You tell me. Am I way off base on this?

Here are the list of nominees for Best Folk Album:

• Barton Hollow — The Civil Wars
• I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive — Steve Earle
• Helplessness Blues — Fleet Foxes
• Ukulele Songs —  Eddie Vedder
• The Harrow & The Harvest — Gillian Welch

- Dave Palmater