When a country and a state love each other very much, sometimes they spend private adult-time together and then a stork comes and brings a special bundle of wonderfulness for the world to enjoy. 
Have you ever wondered where you could get all the good-god-it's-cold sensibilities of The Great White North with the gregariously New Englandy accents of a well travelled Boston pub?
Ah yeah ya know ya have... That'd be wicked fackin awesome...
Say no more... You don't need a Canadian passport, or hours of History Channel specials on the Kennedy's to achieve just that level of gooey cultural meltiness, all you need is our eastern most state, the watch dogs of New Brunswick, the keepers of not-in-Georgia-Augusta, the home of not-in-Oregon-Portland, The Pine Tree State, Maine.
This my friends is where lobster and crab go to die...
Aside from providing lovely food from the sea, a recognizable rocky coastline, and a position that acts as a jaunty wave to our friends across the pond, Maine ranks fortieth of the fifty states in total population, and I'm experiencing some severe holiday-induced laziness so between the two, Maine is pretty much lucky I'm not giving them to Canada in exchange for three talented musicians to be named later.
Asking for a long and thoughtful write up in addition to the mere fact I allow them to remain in the union is looking a gift horse in the mouth, and that is something I just cannot abide by.
So how about you learn your place, Maine and just let me do my thing so we can move this list on down the road. Acceptable? Good, I knew you would see it my way...
Here's some Maine facts get 'em while they're hot...
- Virtually one who plays music is originally from Maine, and the exception got the hell out before anyone caught on. No one gets together with one another in Maine and chooses to play instruments. On extremely rare occasions people move to Maine long after they have enjoyed a career in music. I'm convinced that recorded sound is not permitted within the borders of Maine. It excites the Newfoundlanders across the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Maine can NOT risk and invasion...
- Actors can be from Maine. Look at Judd Nelson...
- Writers can be from Maine, ask Stephen King...
- Directors can be from Maine, like John Ford...
- Creators of television series, long and short lived alike can be from Maine, as is David E. Kelley
- Even waitresses can be from Maine. Hence Linda Lavin...
- What do these people have in common? Not MUSIC!!
- OK, alright, it's not YOU Maine, it's me... Just because you abhor music in all it's forms and have contributed practically nothing of your own to the history of American recorded sound, you have a lovely state seal...
- Maine is a geographic anomaly as it is the only US state to border just one OTHER US state, New Hampshire.
- Hawaii and Alaska do not share borders with any other US states, and a handful border just two. Maine is lone exception.
- Keep studying your map, you're not going to find one, trust me...
- Aside from it's extreme northern position amongst the New England states, Maine is not the northernmost state in the union. That distinction belongs to it's opposite coast counterpart, Washington.
- Oh to be blogging on Washington... Then I'd only have three more states to go...
- Speaking of which, if you're from Wyoming, now is the time to release an album, you've still got time to make the list...
-Machias Seal Island and North Rock, off the easternmost point of Maine are currently claimed by both the US and Canada and are located in one of four regions between the two nations who's sovereignty is still in debate.
- The other three are the Straight of Juan de Fuca between Washington and British Columbia, the Dixon Entrance between Alaska and British Columbia, and Michael J. Fox.
- Just kidding. The US has now laid legal claim to Michael J. Fox. It was part of the contract
negotiations for his role in Teen Wolf. Canada would have regained control had Fox been required to complete Teen Wolf Too, but Jason Bateman fell on that sword for the betterment of our nation.
- For a full accounting of US/Canada disputed territories, see here. That way you'll be prepared for the Canada-America War, or as our side will know it, the War of Northern Aggression...
-In Canada this will simply be known as The Retrieval of Lord Stanley's Cup,
sponsored by Molson.
- Yes, the 1992-93 Montreal Canadiens are the last Canadian hockey team to win the Stanley Cup Championship. I feel bad about that... Maybe we SHOULD give them Maine...
- Bring back the Rat Portage Thistles! They'll rectify this injustice!
- Also off of easternmost coastal Maine is Old Sow, the largest tidal whirlpool in the Western Hemisphere.
- This is where Mainers dispose of their used car batteries, motor oil, and beta players. I can't see how any harm can come of that...
- Although, in recent years, discarded Kennebunkport deck furniture has been found washed up off the beaches of Corryveckran, Scotland.
- Somebody should totally wrangle a wild Deerkey from the back woods of Kentucky and toss him in there just to see what happens...
- Deerkey could SO fight the Loch Ness Monster with the winner earning a shot to wreak havoc on the city of Glasgow. Only Sean Connery will be able to stop them before it's too late...
- I'm not sure if this should be Deerkey II or Highlander IV...
- Wait... there already WAS a Highlander IV? Why wasn't someone jailed for this?
Alright, you may have noticed I no longer care to write anything about Maine, so let's move on to the artists. ONE of them was born in Maine, and is certifiably awesome with a capital A and then SOME... Heh... Get it? I'm clever... The others are tenuously shaky connections that I don't have the patience or the desire to feel bad about...
Solo Artist: Juliana Hatfield
If you are not familiar with Juliana Hatfield, click back to Connecticut and read up on Liz Phair. Now imagine if Liz HADN'T pissed everybody off by releasing pop styled singles and posed for album selling cheesecake shots to make a buck. You end up with a much thinner, much more one dimensional catalog, but a whole lot of chick that rocks.
That's Juliana Hatfield.
Juliana didn't spend much of her early life in Maine, explaining why she was allowed to cultivate her musical yearnings without fear of government intervention. Remember, Newfoundland... Instead, she grow up in Boston suburbs, but she was birthed in Maine, and all sorts of indie rock awesomeness comes from Massachusetts, so Juliana gets Maine, and Maine can really, really use her...
Much of the Juliana Hatfield catalog has been relegated to college rock stations and more recently, indie satellite radio but if you dig deep there is a lot of joy, misery and hard core sloppy guitar madness within the music of Juliana and her Hatfield Three. If hard rocking ladies of the 90's are your thing, and lord knows they are mine, I urge you to get your hands of a copy of Only Everything, Juliana's Pony: Total System Failure, or any of the early records under the name Blake Babies. As enjoyable as this under appreciated rockin' good fun is, one of my favorite factoids about Juliana is the fact she does not have a sister.
Why is this special, you ask? Because Juliana's first chart single and to date the biggest hit of her career was My Sister from 1993's Become What You Are album. A track about the common love/hate relationship between a girl and her older sister in which Juliana runs the gambit between respect, adoration, hate, dispassion and eventually acceptance much in the way that those of us with siblings tend to over the course of our young lives. The song is autobiographical and touches nerves in people who group up in a multi-child environment, yet Juliana herself was an only child. It just goes to show you, you don't need a sibling to experience sibling rivalry...
If you're not familiar, here's Juliana's My Sister. Sorry to ruin the joke...
Band: Peter, Paul & Mary
Just as you'll learn of our honorable mention below, Peter, Paul & Mary are from New York, and has an exceptionally razor-thin link to Maine. Noel 'Paul' Stookey lived in Maine whilst raising his three children and touring with Peter and Mary. He later moved his family to Massachusetts, but in 2005 returned to Maine where he currently resides. So there's your link. It's the best I can do.
As far as merit goes, there is plenty of good in Peter, Paul & Mary if you enjoy American Folk music, and oddly enough, I do. Surprisingly, in spite of PP&M's honest and connected sound, the three artists were not aligned by locale, the stars, or the winds of fate, but rather by Albert Grossman an entrepreneur and folk music manager who was looking to bring together a folk 'supergroup' comprised of a 'tall blond', a 'funny guy', and a 'good looking guy', whom he found in the form of Mary Travers, Noel "Paul" Stookey, and Peter Yarrow respectively.
Despite the fact that as a group the trio was the invention of a music industry insider, they still managed to record well known an arguably penultimate versions of American folk tunes such as 500 Miles, Lemon Tree, and Pete Seeger tunes If I Had a Hammer and Where Have All the Flowers Gone?. In addition to scores of others. The band's most popular original composition was Pete Yarrow's Puff the Magic Dragon. Upon the initial split of the band's members, Noel Stookey penned The Wedding Song (There is Love) for Peter's marriage to Marybeth McCarthy in 1971. The band reformed in 1978 to play at a protest on the use of nuclear energy, and have been touring and recording ever since, having released an additional 16 albums and collections since that time.
Here are Peter Paul & Mary performing Puff The Magic Dragon, looking startlingly like stereotypical aging folk musicians. Hey, I guess the stereotype has to start someplace...
Honorable Mention: Don McLean
Don McLean, like all good singer songwriters of the 1960's and 70's, was born in New York. He put out one extremely successful album with two very good songs, and a number of lesser known albums that I cannot judge on merit as I have never searched them out. I do really like the songs American Pie, and Vincent, and McLean has since moved to Maine in an effort to live a simpler life than that offered to a New York musician. Thanks Don, it gave me an excuse to include you, because two songs wouldn't get you on the New York list...
Another interesting factoid I was not aware of until looking into the life and times of Don McLean is that the song Killing Me Softly With His Song was not written BY him, but WAS written ABOUT him, originally as a poem entitled Killing Me Softly With His Blues by fellow song writer Lori Lieberman , and adapted by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel for song. While Lieberman recorded the original version in 1971, the most widely recognized version of the song was recorded two years later by Roberta Flack.
Also interesting about Lori Lieberman, she lent her vocal talents to the Schoolhouse Rock series, singing the ode to ethnic diversity The Great American Melting Pot. So aside from being killed softly by Don, she apparently also learned an appreciation for mixing metaphors about food and our great nation...
Here's Don, doing what he do, American Pie
As they are rare, and somewhat linked, I would be remiss if I did not mention that another singer songwriter of this same generation also moved to Maine after gaining notoriety, Mr. Dan Fogelberg.
While Dan left us much too young in 2007 after battling for many years with prostate cancer, I cannot admit to enjoying very much of his music. After all, if I did, I would also have to admit to crying at sunsets, enjoying long romantic walks on the beach, eating quiche, and owning the complete works of James Taylor. Say, sweet baby James was born in Massachusetts, a state that will be coming up shortly, and in which he will not be mentioned...
Before we say hello to Boston, Cambridge, a slew of indie masterworks and 70's rockers, we'll visit the home state of the only American officially in my top 5 list. The tiny burg of Maryland... See you there!
Have you ever wondered where you could get all the good-god-it's-cold sensibilities of The Great White North with the gregariously New Englandy accents of a well travelled Boston pub?
Ah yeah ya know ya have... That'd be wicked fackin awesome...
Say no more... You don't need a Canadian passport, or hours of History Channel specials on the Kennedy's to achieve just that level of gooey cultural meltiness, all you need is our eastern most state, the watch dogs of New Brunswick, the keepers of not-in-Georgia-Augusta, the home of not-in-Oregon-Portland, The Pine Tree State, Maine.
This my friends is where lobster and crab go to die...
Aside from providing lovely food from the sea, a recognizable rocky coastline, and a position that acts as a jaunty wave to our friends across the pond, Maine ranks fortieth of the fifty states in total population, and I'm experiencing some severe holiday-induced laziness so between the two, Maine is pretty much lucky I'm not giving them to Canada in exchange for three talented musicians to be named later.
Asking for a long and thoughtful write up in addition to the mere fact I allow them to remain in the union is looking a gift horse in the mouth, and that is something I just cannot abide by.So how about you learn your place, Maine and just let me do my thing so we can move this list on down the road. Acceptable? Good, I knew you would see it my way...
Here's some Maine facts get 'em while they're hot...
- Virtually one who plays music is originally from Maine, and the exception got the hell out before anyone caught on. No one gets together with one another in Maine and chooses to play instruments. On extremely rare occasions people move to Maine long after they have enjoyed a career in music. I'm convinced that recorded sound is not permitted within the borders of Maine. It excites the Newfoundlanders across the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Maine can NOT risk and invasion...
- Actors can be from Maine. Look at Judd Nelson...
- Writers can be from Maine, ask Stephen King...
- Directors can be from Maine, like John Ford...
- Creators of television series, long and short lived alike can be from Maine, as is David E. Kelley
- Even waitresses can be from Maine. Hence Linda Lavin...
- What do these people have in common? Not MUSIC!!
- OK, alright, it's not YOU Maine, it's me... Just because you abhor music in all it's forms and have contributed practically nothing of your own to the history of American recorded sound, you have a lovely state seal...- Maine is a geographic anomaly as it is the only US state to border just one OTHER US state, New Hampshire.
- Hawaii and Alaska do not share borders with any other US states, and a handful border just two. Maine is lone exception.
- Keep studying your map, you're not going to find one, trust me...
- Aside from it's extreme northern position amongst the New England states, Maine is not the northernmost state in the union. That distinction belongs to it's opposite coast counterpart, Washington.
- Oh to be blogging on Washington... Then I'd only have three more states to go...
- Speaking of which, if you're from Wyoming, now is the time to release an album, you've still got time to make the list...
-Machias Seal Island and North Rock, off the easternmost point of Maine are currently claimed by both the US and Canada and are located in one of four regions between the two nations who's sovereignty is still in debate.
- The other three are the Straight of Juan de Fuca between Washington and British Columbia, the Dixon Entrance between Alaska and British Columbia, and Michael J. Fox.
- Just kidding. The US has now laid legal claim to Michael J. Fox. It was part of the contract
negotiations for his role in Teen Wolf. Canada would have regained control had Fox been required to complete Teen Wolf Too, but Jason Bateman fell on that sword for the betterment of our nation.- For a full accounting of US/Canada disputed territories, see here. That way you'll be prepared for the Canada-America War, or as our side will know it, the War of Northern Aggression...
-In Canada this will simply be known as The Retrieval of Lord Stanley's Cup,
sponsored by Molson.- Yes, the 1992-93 Montreal Canadiens are the last Canadian hockey team to win the Stanley Cup Championship. I feel bad about that... Maybe we SHOULD give them Maine...
- Bring back the Rat Portage Thistles! They'll rectify this injustice!- Also off of easternmost coastal Maine is Old Sow, the largest tidal whirlpool in the Western Hemisphere.
- This is where Mainers dispose of their used car batteries, motor oil, and beta players. I can't see how any harm can come of that...
- Although, in recent years, discarded Kennebunkport deck furniture has been found washed up off the beaches of Corryveckran, Scotland.
- Somebody should totally wrangle a wild Deerkey from the back woods of Kentucky and toss him in there just to see what happens...
- Deerkey could SO fight the Loch Ness Monster with the winner earning a shot to wreak havoc on the city of Glasgow. Only Sean Connery will be able to stop them before it's too late...
- I'm not sure if this should be Deerkey II or Highlander IV...
- Wait... there already WAS a Highlander IV? Why wasn't someone jailed for this?Alright, you may have noticed I no longer care to write anything about Maine, so let's move on to the artists. ONE of them was born in Maine, and is certifiably awesome with a capital A and then SOME... Heh... Get it? I'm clever... The others are tenuously shaky connections that I don't have the patience or the desire to feel bad about...
Solo Artist: Juliana Hatfield
If you are not familiar with Juliana Hatfield, click back to Connecticut and read up on Liz Phair. Now imagine if Liz HADN'T pissed everybody off by releasing pop styled singles and posed for album selling cheesecake shots to make a buck. You end up with a much thinner, much more one dimensional catalog, but a whole lot of chick that rocks.
That's Juliana Hatfield.
Juliana didn't spend much of her early life in Maine, explaining why she was allowed to cultivate her musical yearnings without fear of government intervention. Remember, Newfoundland... Instead, she grow up in Boston suburbs, but she was birthed in Maine, and all sorts of indie rock awesomeness comes from Massachusetts, so Juliana gets Maine, and Maine can really, really use her...
Much of the Juliana Hatfield catalog has been relegated to college rock stations and more recently, indie satellite radio but if you dig deep there is a lot of joy, misery and hard core sloppy guitar madness within the music of Juliana and her Hatfield Three. If hard rocking ladies of the 90's are your thing, and lord knows they are mine, I urge you to get your hands of a copy of Only Everything, Juliana's Pony: Total System Failure, or any of the early records under the name Blake Babies. As enjoyable as this under appreciated rockin' good fun is, one of my favorite factoids about Juliana is the fact she does not have a sister.
Why is this special, you ask? Because Juliana's first chart single and to date the biggest hit of her career was My Sister from 1993's Become What You Are album. A track about the common love/hate relationship between a girl and her older sister in which Juliana runs the gambit between respect, adoration, hate, dispassion and eventually acceptance much in the way that those of us with siblings tend to over the course of our young lives. The song is autobiographical and touches nerves in people who group up in a multi-child environment, yet Juliana herself was an only child. It just goes to show you, you don't need a sibling to experience sibling rivalry...
If you're not familiar, here's Juliana's My Sister. Sorry to ruin the joke...
Band: Peter, Paul & Mary
Just as you'll learn of our honorable mention below, Peter, Paul & Mary are from New York, and has an exceptionally razor-thin link to Maine. Noel 'Paul' Stookey lived in Maine whilst raising his three children and touring with Peter and Mary. He later moved his family to Massachusetts, but in 2005 returned to Maine where he currently resides. So there's your link. It's the best I can do.
As far as merit goes, there is plenty of good in Peter, Paul & Mary if you enjoy American Folk music, and oddly enough, I do. Surprisingly, in spite of PP&M's honest and connected sound, the three artists were not aligned by locale, the stars, or the winds of fate, but rather by Albert Grossman an entrepreneur and folk music manager who was looking to bring together a folk 'supergroup' comprised of a 'tall blond', a 'funny guy', and a 'good looking guy', whom he found in the form of Mary Travers, Noel "Paul" Stookey, and Peter Yarrow respectively.
Despite the fact that as a group the trio was the invention of a music industry insider, they still managed to record well known an arguably penultimate versions of American folk tunes such as 500 Miles, Lemon Tree, and Pete Seeger tunes If I Had a Hammer and Where Have All the Flowers Gone?. In addition to scores of others. The band's most popular original composition was Pete Yarrow's Puff the Magic Dragon. Upon the initial split of the band's members, Noel Stookey penned The Wedding Song (There is Love) for Peter's marriage to Marybeth McCarthy in 1971. The band reformed in 1978 to play at a protest on the use of nuclear energy, and have been touring and recording ever since, having released an additional 16 albums and collections since that time.
Here are Peter Paul & Mary performing Puff The Magic Dragon, looking startlingly like stereotypical aging folk musicians. Hey, I guess the stereotype has to start someplace...
Honorable Mention: Don McLean
Don McLean, like all good singer songwriters of the 1960's and 70's, was born in New York. He put out one extremely successful album with two very good songs, and a number of lesser known albums that I cannot judge on merit as I have never searched them out. I do really like the songs American Pie, and Vincent, and McLean has since moved to Maine in an effort to live a simpler life than that offered to a New York musician. Thanks Don, it gave me an excuse to include you, because two songs wouldn't get you on the New York list...
Another interesting factoid I was not aware of until looking into the life and times of Don McLean is that the song Killing Me Softly With His Song was not written BY him, but WAS written ABOUT him, originally as a poem entitled Killing Me Softly With His Blues by fellow song writer Lori Lieberman , and adapted by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel for song. While Lieberman recorded the original version in 1971, the most widely recognized version of the song was recorded two years later by Roberta Flack.
Also interesting about Lori Lieberman, she lent her vocal talents to the Schoolhouse Rock series, singing the ode to ethnic diversity The Great American Melting Pot. So aside from being killed softly by Don, she apparently also learned an appreciation for mixing metaphors about food and our great nation...
Here's Don, doing what he do, American Pie
As they are rare, and somewhat linked, I would be remiss if I did not mention that another singer songwriter of this same generation also moved to Maine after gaining notoriety, Mr. Dan Fogelberg.
While Dan left us much too young in 2007 after battling for many years with prostate cancer, I cannot admit to enjoying very much of his music. After all, if I did, I would also have to admit to crying at sunsets, enjoying long romantic walks on the beach, eating quiche, and owning the complete works of James Taylor. Say, sweet baby James was born in Massachusetts, a state that will be coming up shortly, and in which he will not be mentioned...
Before we say hello to Boston, Cambridge, a slew of indie masterworks and 70's rockers, we'll visit the home state of the only American officially in my top 5 list. The tiny burg of Maryland... See you there!
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