Walking the Cow! Do you know about the music and art of Daniel Johnston? Of course you do! He makes music of radical innocence and naivety. He created a whole universe and mythology with boxer alter egos, and casper the friendly ghost, and parodies of Bruce Springsteen, “...going to the funeral home and I’m never coming back”. Anyway, he has a wonderful song called Walking the Cow and the internet says that it was named after a blue bell ice cream wrapper! I had no idea! If you click the cow above,it will take you to the song. It’s one of my faves of his. He has so many amazing songs, he is like the Hank Williams of lo-fi. There is a wonderful and sad documentary about him called “The Devil and Daniel Johnston” He passed away in 2019. He was a national treasure! Hannah even has a collection of his original home made cassette tapes that he handed out on the streets of Austin, Texas.
While we are talking about artists who “walk alone”, we stumbled upon a musical artist that went by the name Connie Converse, we didn’t know much about her but a song came on and it jumped out at us! Here is a quote from the Colin McEnroe show about her with the author Howard Fishman who has written a book about her:
“Have you heard the music of Connie Converse? She was a singer-songwriter in New York City in the middle of the 20th century, who, in her lifetime, never received widespread recognition. Then, at 50, she drove off, and was never heard from again.”
This is a fascinating rabbit hole if you are into this sort of thing! You can start like me with this BBC story about her :)
I have to say it again that our most recent volume “Sisters” is a world of wonder and beauty and we will continue on with artist bio’s next week!
Love, Hannah and Chris XO
Connie Converse
Here’s the lyrics for the first Connie Converse song we heard!
We lived alone My house and I We had the earth We had the sky I had a lamp against the dark And I was happy as a lark
We lived alone My house and I We had the earth We had the sky I had a lamp against the dark And I was happy as a lark
I had a stove and a window screen I had a table painted green Sat on a chair with a broken back Wearing a pretty potato sack I had a rug upon the floor And roses grew around my door I had a job, my wants were few They were until I wanted you And when I set my eyes on you Nothing else would do Nothing else would do
We made a little video plug for our holiday sale in the Cinnamon Shop and we wanted to share it with you here because it features so much work by so many of the wonderful artists we’ve worked with over the last 18 months…we love you all!
Hey Duendes…what are you listening to right now?
Hannah: We Lived Alone - Connie Converse Chris: Farenheit 451, Original Score -Bernard Herrmann (Click the picture above!) Steve: Rock & Roll atlantic 8004 -Ruth Brown Luca: Speyside - Bon Iver
TELL US WHAT YOU ARE LISTENING TO and/or READING RIGHT NOW, you can reply to this email and we’ll add it to the playlist and our unmanageable books-to-read list!
Hannahs Block Print :)
We wish you a beautiful week, friends. Keep on keeping on.
All DDRC sets we have left are on sale in our cinnamon shop! What a great holiday gift for someone you love!
