FUV Essential Songs: Artist Picks

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Janis Ian | Jonatha Brooke | Phoebe Snow | Jill Sobule | The Kennedys | Lucy Kaplansky | Steve Forbert | Ellis Paul | Christine Lavin

Janis Ian

• "It's All Right, Ma" - Bob Dylan
• "First We Take Manhattan" - Leonard Cohen
• "Moon River"
• "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"
• "In the Pines" - Leadbelly
• "I Cover the Waterfront" - Billie Holiday version preferred
• "I Loves You, Porgy" - Nina Simone version preferred
• "Vincent (Starry Starry Night)" - Don McLean
• "It Ain't Necessarily So"
• "Why'd Ya Do It" - Marianne Faithful

Jonatha Brooke

• "Altar Boy" - Rickie Lee Jones
• "The Best of My Love" - The Emotions
• "Hallelujah" - Jeff Buckley
• "Ain't Nobody" - Chaka Khan & Rufus
• "Paranoid Android" - Radiohead
• "I Have a Love" - from "West Side Story"
• "She's Leaving Home" - The Beatles

Phoebe Snow

• "Kashmir" - Led Zep
• "Foxy Lady" or "Purple Haze" - Jimi Hendrix
• "Thankful and Thoughtful" or "Let Me Have It All" - Sly (from "Fresh," introduced to those by Andy Newmark)
• "All I Want" - Joni Mitchell
• "Georgia on My Mind" - Ray Charles
• "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" - Charlie Parker, with strings
• "They Can't Take That Away from Me" - Fred Astaire or Louis Armstrong
• "Fell on Black Days" - Soundgarden
• "Wouldn't It Be Nice" or "Don't Worry Baby" - The Beach Boys
• "I Only Have Eyes for You" - The Flamingos
• "Don't Let It Bring You Down" - Neil Young
• "Caravan" - Van Morrison
• "It's a Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" - Bob Dylan
• Couldn't pick one Beatles song (can't extract one song from an album)

Jill Sobule

Wow! This is tough.

• "Somewhere" - Tom Waits
• "She's Leaving Home" - Beatles
• "Love is Everything" - Jane Siberry
• "Ooh Child" - The 5 Stairsteps
• "Ziggy Stardust" - David Bowie

The Kennedys

Pete and Maura say, 'we'd pick different songs on different days.'

• "Change is Gonna Come" - Sam Cooke
• "Mr. Tambourine Man" - Bob Dylan
• "This Moment" - Victoria Williams
• "Walk On" - U2
• "What's Going On" - Marvin Gaye
• "When I Go" - Dave Carter and Tracey Grammer

Plus: Five Essential Instrumentals

• "My Foolish Heart" - Bill Evans
• "Sketches of Spain" - Miles Davis
• "Flamenco Sketches" - Miles Davis
• "The Lark Ascending" - Ralph Vaughan Williams
• "The Girl With the Flaxen Hair" - Claude Debussy

Lucy Kaplansky

Very tough to figure this out!

• "A Case of You" - Joni Mitchell
• "Both Sides Now" - Joni Mitchell
• "Grevious Angel" - Gram Parsons
• "Quitting Time" - Maggie Roche
• "When I Get to the Border" - Richard Thompson

Steve Forbert

• "Stardust" - Louis Armstrong
  (the 1931 classic that starts off the Ken Burns Jazz CD from the PBS special)
• "Whiter Shade of Pale" - Procol Harum
• "Cry for Me Baby" - Elmore James
• "Black Magic Woman" - Santana
• "Sweet and Dandy" - Toots & the Maytals
• "Theme from A Summer Place" - Percy Faith & His Orchestra
• "Surf's Up" - The Beach Boys
• "Machine Gun" - The Commodores (instrumental)
• "The Modern Age" - The Strokes

Ellis Paul

10 favorite pop songs:
(Great songs, that happened to go ka-ching for those who wrote 'em)

• "Fire And Rain" - James Taylor
• "You Don't Know Me" - Ray Charles
• "Heart of Gold" - Neil Young
• "Maggie Mae" - Rod Stewart
• "Sonny Came Home" - Shawn Colvin
• "Cat's In The Cradle" - Harry Chapin
• "One" - U2
• "Lose Yourself" - Eminem
• "Hey Jude" - The Beatles
• "Imagine" - John Lennon

10 favorite folk songs:
(Songs about the human condition)

• "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carol" - Bob Dylan
• "Christmas in Washington" - Steve Earle
• "Judas" - Antje Duvekot
• "When I Was a Boy" - Dar Williams
• "Birches.. Bill Morrissey
• "Angel From Montgomery" - John Prine
• "Deportees" - Woody Guthrie
• "Both Sides Now" - Joni Mitchell
• "American Pie" - Don McClean
• "The City of New Orleans" - Steve Goodman

10 favorite singer songwriter songs:
(Personal tales of loves and woes)

• "32 Flavors" - Ani DiFranco
• "Magnolia Street" - Catie Curtis
• "I Saw An Stranger With Your Hair" - John Gorka
• "Arrow" - Cheryl Wheeler
• "The Other Side" - Don Conoscenti
• "Ten Year Night" - Lucy Kaplansky
• "Are You Happy Now?" - Richard Shindell
• "May I Suggest" - Susan Werner
• "Unfamiliar Moon" - Vance Gilbert
• "Ain't Life A Brook" - Ferron

Christine Lavin

These are among the songs I like to play before a show, and they always put me in a happy mood!

• "Stars" - Barbara Cook
• "Guinevere" - Robin Batteau & David Buskin
• "It Was A Very Good Year" - Frank Sinatra
• "Mr. Sandman" - The Chordettes
• "Famous Blue Raincoat" - By Leonard Cohen, but sung by Jennifer Warnes
• "The Blizzard" - Judy Collins
• "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" - Pete Seeger
• "The Dutchman" - Steve Goodman
• "Like To Get To Know You" - Spanky & Our Gang
• "Passing Trains" - Andy Breckman