Description: Music and other creative pursuits
Well, I dropped my annual SAD track. At home more and dealing with what this year has been an unusual winter, I have public radio on during the day and got wind of a public domain song contest on WNYC.
I had a song in mind, but couldn’t find it on the list of eligible works, that’s when Vernon Dalhart’s The Prisoner’s Song caught my ear. Released in 1924, it was the first country hit that sold a million copies. It is melancholy in a major key and interpreted by the likes of Johnny Cash and Louis Armstrong. It is cozy, crackly, and plaintive on vinyl as sung by Vernon.
I started checking out a banjo from the Brooklyn Library and got one for this month. Somehow, I gravitate towards minor keys on a very bright sounding instrument. Since the original song is perfect and well-covered as it is, I opted for a different tack. I had just seen The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), and thought a woman prisoner would sing it in a minor key. I thought of James Blake as I laid down an arpeggiated figure with some trap beats. I then added some vocal harmonies to sing over.