A few people have asked for my year end top whatever thing (and why they ask, I'll never know). So I'm writing it here so it can be linked by whoever wants it.
Favorite records this year: Neon Mirage, Stan Ridgway. His best record since the majestic and time-tested Mosquitoes. Pretty much as great, Wig by Peter Case, which might be the best white blues album I've heard in ... lest's not count, shall we? And Mose Allison's The Way Of The World and Merle Haggard's I Am What I Am were each really strong discs that should age nicely enough to make us overlook bad 1980's productions. But the hands down was the Keith Jarrett/Charlie Haden release, Jasmine. The record should be called "Improvising is the closest man gets to divinity, and electric instruments are toxic."
Movie: I didn't see anything this year except the Raymond Scott doc, which I was in. I liked the movie, but my hair looked really weird.
City: There wasn't a new one for me. My enduring loves for Huntsville and Tucson were reignited this year.
Gig: Not exactly a gig, but finally making a record with Jim Cavender, A Cellarfull of Noise. That was so totally worth the wait, my best duet stuff pretty much ever. The show in Mobile with Ben Harper and David White and the Echo Back Porch show with Mark Borinstein and Lee Joseph (the second one) were both high points, as was the most recent one with Wyatt Stone on bass. I learned a lot from each the duo shows I played this year, too. Every duo gig -- Jim Cavender, Patria Jacobs, Candye Kane, the great Phil Alvin and especially Al Perry -- was a learning experience where brand new things happened. And I loved being invited to play the 13 Guitar Rumble, Mike Vernon's Link Wray tribute show, for which I played electric guitar, something I don't generally care for and don't intend to do again anytime soon. Again, I've come to believe all those remarks Keith Jarrett has made about electricity over the years.
Show I Saw: Big Sandy, Frank Fairfield. My two favorite hopes for the future/links to the past/joys in the present. I've been verbal on Big Sandy elsewhere. Frank is like a visiting a dimension you only read about. He is The Old, Weird America.
TV: Big Love, Mad Men.
Rara avis: Anything by Roger Miller, especially the bootleg of him live at the Birchmere in 1991, solo. The depth of his creativity and scope of his songwriting are staggering. Oh: the mono Beatles stuff.
Other: Nick Lowe. The recent NPR Tiny Desk Show podcast was as great as anything I've encountered in the last coupla years.
On the whole, it was not a fun year. A lot of people are really struggling out there, and there ain't a whole lot of money on the street for people to be brave with. The midterms pointed to a national feeling of discontent. So did the relative lack of personal stake people seem to feel about their government, two years after feeling we had turned a new corner.
On a personal level, some folks close to me had awful health problems, family problems, and whatever else, and you made fantastic examples of yourselves by being strong, gracious, and humble. Some of you are small, true heroes, and I'm grateful to know you.
