EP 381: - Co-Founder of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band John McEuen Talks New Spoken Word Album: The Newsman

Grammy winner John McEuen will release his new album, The Newsman, on April 12 on Compass Records. An unprecedented move for McEuen, the album is 10 spoken word tracks (and one instrumental), all mini-movies, with John’s unique style of music behind each. From the opening title track, a true story about a man who sold newspapers and was a tremendous influence on the young musician in Los Angeles, to the final cut, “Julie’s Theme,” inspired by Julies Verne telling a friend, in a French cemetery, about his recently deceased young wife, McEuen presents an album filled with stories that will inspire and perhaps bring a tear to your eye.

The different tracks on the album range from “Killed at the Ford,” a Civil War-era poem that tells of the death of a young soldier as he and friends go to meet a picket-guard by a ford,  not expecting trouble. A shot is fired from the woods, and the young man is dead. Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow doesn’t end the poem there, but relates how it affects the young man’s family at home. “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” one of the most famous poems written by Robert Service, was published in 1907, told from the perspective of the man who cremates the prospector who died in the Yukon, while searching for gold. The Stephen Vincent Benét poem “The Mountain Whippoorwill” (published in 1925). “FlyTrouble” is a Hank Williams Sr. classic from 1949, and one of “talking blues”numbers that McEuen has recited many times over the past years.“OldRivers” was released by Walter Brennann1963,  Thomas Monroe wrote “Nui Ba Den” while he was in Vietnam in 1968.More recent writings are “Pineapple John” by John Carter Cash, Hans Olson’s“I’ll Be Glad When I Run Out Of Gas” and Thaddeus Bryant’s “Red Clay.”

This album is a soundtrack for films not yet made.” McEuen says that watching the Tom Hanks film News of the World made him finish this album. “I feel like that character, having to read the news to people who have not yet heard it. And, my first ‘song’, the title cut, was about that type of fellow, in a way, and his story had to be told.I find in this final year of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, this album comes in a good space.That was a great 50-year run for me, and now that it has run its course, it’s time for The Newsman. I look forward to going out and telling people about those 50 years that impacted so many, especially me, playing some new music, and throwing a few of these stories in along the way.” McEuen believes these spoken word offerings can fit on radio. “It is my suggestion to add one of these cuts in between other music you are playing, finding styles that fit each – as they are each different. Listening to from top to bottom is a lot to ask of anyone! I look forward to seeing what people program with various cuts.”

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