So this morning I loaded into the mp3 players a few albums that I hadn’t listened to in a while to go to the grocery store. Three of the albums were Bill Miller’s Raven in the Snow, Todd Snider’s Songs for the Daily Planet and Darryl Purpose’ album Traveler’s Code. I don’t really think I’ve mentioned a lot about these three guys but they are three of my favorites.
Bill Miller is a Native American singer/songwriter of Mohican heritage. He was born on the Stockbridge-Munsee reservation, near Shawano in northern Wisconsin. I have several of his CDs and the one I listened to Raven in the Snow was released in 1995. His instrumental Cedar Dream Songs won a Grammy Award for “Best Native American Music Album”. I haven’t heard this CD but there are some nice instrumental tracks on the albums I have so I think I’ll have to check it out! Anyway Miller is a great songwriter so if you don’t know him check him out!
The other two albums I didn’t listen to all the way through I will in the future write more about both artists but for now Ill just write about two of my favorite songs from these albums. The first is from Todd Snider’s album Songs for the Daily Planet is in my opinion one of the best debut albums and high on my list of all time favorite albums. The songs that I skipped to was “You Think You Know Somebody” a very emotional song about a very serious topic child abuse that’s passed on from generation to generation. Here’s Todd performing the song, although he screws the song up singing one verse twice and leaving out a few important verses. I’ve included them after the video!
We went off to college
Start our freshman year
Well I went off to school
About an hour away from here
But you know Jackie he took off
Went to college out of state
He used to call me all the time
He used to tell me it was great
He said I’m coming home for Christmas
And I hope you’ll do the same
Well he’d say that he was coming
But Jackie never came
Ah, you think you know somebody
You think they know you
You think you know somebody
But man you never do Well the night that he got married
Well I was his best man
He’s moved back to town
And now we’re neighbors again
I’ve since found myself a wife
So now I’m married too
Our families get together
Every Sunday afternoon
His boy and my boy
They sit out and talk at night
Until Jackie calls for his boy
And then he takes off like a light
The last artist was Darryl Purpose now you know I like story songs and Purpose writes some of the best and one of my favorites by him is the song “Mr. Schwinn”.
Here’s a nice performance of the song. So if you don’t know these guys check them out. Like I said I’ll probably write in more detail about all of them in the future!