Music and summer's harvest

From the pages of the Wall Street Journal to the gardens of the White House, from food blogs to supermarket aisles, there is a buzz going around that we need to pay more attention to vegetables, and that 2011 is in fact the year of the vegetable.

If you’ve been thinking about vegetables, there’s a song for that. A really funny one, good for kids and adults both, it will have you singing along in two languages in no time. The song is called Barnyard Dance in English, El Baile Vegetal in Spanish, and it is by Tish Hinojosa. Follow the link there at the title to hear a snippet of it, and look for it on Hinojosa’s album Cada Nino / Every Child.

There are other songs which include vegetables. James Taylor has Sweet Potato Pie, Marcia Ball has Red Beans and Rice, Tim O’Brien offers Cornbread Nation This year of the vegetable and time of late summer harvest might be just the right moment to be pulling up these to listen to.

Once you check out Baile Vegetal, you may never think about those vegetables sitting quietly (it seems) in your kitchen the same way again.



you may also wish to see
songwriter Tish Hinojosa, at Perceptive Travel



a book about a year of eating food sourced locally at
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

and to help out those who are hungry while having fun learning about languages, geography, and other things visit to learn abouta way to do that...

Another way to support: you could

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Road Trip Music in Virginia

Virginia is a state of contrasts, from the bustling suburbs of DC to the winding roads of the Shenandoah Valley, from the elegance of Colonial Williamsburg to the down home vibe of the Carter Fold. One song that gracefully and gently expresses all that is I Do Love Virginia. It’s sung by Sissy Spacek, and written by Paul Reisler, Terri Allard -- and class of elementary school kids in the Charlottesville, Virginia, area.

They were all participating in Kid Pan Alley, a project Reisler started on the national level some years back. The Charlottesville area collaborations resulted in an album called I Used to Know the Names of All the Stars, a collection of songs both whimsical and serious, funny and somber, sung by nationally and regionally well known professional musicians who live in the area.

Allard, who spearheaded the Virginia project, is one of those. With a smoky alto and a gift for writing songs which tell vivid stories in just a few words, her music walks the territory between folk and country. A fine introduction to Allard’s work is the album Live from Charlottesville. Songs of hope, resilience, and good fun filled the air one winter night for the recording of that album, and there's more about that when you follow the link.

If you've been thinking about the floods in Tennessee, Allard does a very fine version of the flood song Louisiana 1927 on the recording, too.

Virginia is, or has been, home to many musicians. A site which will take you on a journey through a number of the places important in the state’s musical history is The Crooked Road.

Other musicians with Virginia connections for your soundtrack include Robin and Linda Williams, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Pasty Cline, The Carter Family, and Jesse Winchester. If you’re looking for Irish and Scottish music in Virginia, one very good place to find out about it is from the web site of Sunspot Productions.


you may also wish to see

Music Road: Terri Allard
Robin & Linda Williams: The First Christmas Gift
Music Road: music for mothers and children



This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I originally partnered up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’d find there. The Library is closed now, but I think you will still find the journeys through music interesting.
For more about the road trip (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.