Brandi Carlile: Music Profile #9
Ten songs plus the usual political potshots.
I’ll use the occasion of Brandi on SNL tonight (backing a new album) for my next profile-in-music. (Among previous ones: Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Sam Cooke, Emmylou Harris, Sandy Denny.) Coming up for her: performing Joni’s Blue album in NYC. First, as per usual, some political cartoons. Enjoy then subscribe, it’s still free.
A Little Brandi, Straight Up
Usually for these profiles I provide a little more bio material but I want to get this up before SNL. You can find her story online easily, and then there’s her recent memoir (from growing up fairly poor to rocking in obscurity and coming out, and then hooking up with “the twins” on guitar who still play and live with her in the Great Northwest and share songwriting and producing etc.). Anyway, here’s a selection of some of her best, IMHO, starting with her breakthrough, “The Story,” and the Austin City Limits episode where I first caught her.
“The Story”
“That Wasn’t Me”
“Hold Out Your Hand”
“The Joke” at the Grammys
“Folsom Prison Blues”
“Looking Out”
“Madman Across the Water”
And her new single, “Right on Time”
“Mainstream Kid”
“A Case of You”
“Essential daily newsletter.” — Charles P. Pierce, Esquire
“Incisive and enjoyable every day.” — Ron Brownstein, The Atlantic
“Always worth reading.” — Frank Rich, New York magazine, Veep and Succession
Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including the bestseller The Tunnels (on escapes under the Berlin Wall), the current The Beginning or the End (on MGM’s wild atomic bomb movie), and The Campaign of the Century (on Upton Sinclair’s left-wing race for governor of California), which was recently picked by the Wall St. Journal as one of five greatest books ever about an election. His new film, Atomic Cover-up, just had its world premiere and is drawing extraordinary acclaim. For nearly all of the 1970s he was the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. Later he served as longtime editor of Editor & Publisher magazine. He recently co-produced a film about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.