*** Welcome to piglix ***

New Multitudes

New Multitudes
A beige background with "Woody Guthrie" handwritten across it in several colors and widths. Along the left-hand side, a small band of brown has the album name written in grey and the performers in gold
Studio album by Jay Farrar, Will Johnson, Anders Parker, and Yim Yames
Released February 28, 2012 (2012-02-28)
Recorded 2006 and 2009–2011
Studio Brooklyn, New York City, New York and East St. Louis, Illinois, United States
Genre Folk rock,alternative country
Length 49:17
Language English
Label Rounder
Producer Farrar, Johnson, Parker, and Yames
Jay Farrar chronology
One Fast Move or I'm Gone
(with Ben Gibbard)
(2009) One Fast Move or I'm Gone2009 		New Multitudes
(2012) New Multitudes2012
Will Johnson chronology
Molina and Johnson
(with Jason Molina)
(2009) Molina and Johnson2009 		New Multitudes
(2012) New Multitudes2012
Anders Parker chronology
Cross Latitudes
(2010) Cross Latitudes2010 		New Multitudes
(2012) New Multitudes2012
Yim Yames chronology
Tribute To
(2009) Tribute To2009 		New Multitudes
(2012) New Multitudes2012 		Regions of Light and Sound of God
(2013) Regions of Light and Sound of God2013
Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source Rating
Metacritic 81%
Review scores
Source Rating
The A.V. Club A−
AbsolutePunk 88%
All About Jazz Positive
Allmusic 3.5/5 stars
American Songwriter 3.5/4 stars
The Boston Globe Favorable
Exclaim! Favorable
Los Angeles Times 3/4 stars
MusicOMH 4/5 stars
The New Zealand Herald 4.5/5
PopMatters 8/10
Rolling Stone 3/5 stars

New Multitudes is a Woody Guthrie tribute album performed by Jay Farrar, Will Johnson, Anders Parker, and Jim James to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Guthrie's birth, released through Rounder Records on February 28, 2012. The project was initiated by Woody's daughter Nora Guthrie to have Farrar add music to her father's lyrics—specifically, his earliest songwriting years in Los Angeles. Over the course of several years, he invited the others to collaborate and recorded at a variety of locations across the United States. Each artist wrote music to lyrics that inspired him and presented it to the collaborators for recording. The result is an album with diverse musical genres that has garnered positive reviews from critics for its varied styles and instrumentation. The quartet promoted the album with a small promotional tour that took them to record stores, radio programs, theaters, and folk festivals. The group has plans for releasing a second volume.

New Multitudes is one of several tribute albums for American folk singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie. Guthrie died in 1967 after an extended battle with Huntington's disease, but his relatively brief career [how does a 26-year career count as brief]helped to inspire innumerable musicians during his lifetime as well as in the 1960s folk revival movement. Initially, this project was announced as a Farrar solo album with Johnson as a contributor. It was intended to follow previous efforts to elaborate on the archives of the Foundation by Billy Bragg and Wilco with the albums Mermaid Avenue (1998) and Mermaid Avenue Vol. II (2000), Blackfire's Woody Guthrie Singles (2003), Jonatha Brooke's The Works (2008), and the various artists compilation Note of Hope: A Celebration of Woody Guthrie (2011). Farrar was initially invited to collaborate with Bragg on the Mermaid Avenue sessions in 1995, but felt uncomfortable working on the material with someone else.Warner Bros. Records wanted all of Son Volt to collaborate with Bragg, but after Farrar declined, he kept the idea in mind. In 2006, he approached Nora Guthrie about returning to her father's lyrics and she agreed.


...
Wikipedia

...