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Jane Selkye's one of the best San Francisco Bay Area singers and songwriters, well-respected by her peers. Jane has played on the same bill with Leo Kottke, The Church acoustic, Arlo Guthrie, Deborah Iyall, Mare Winningham, UK Squeeze acoustic duo Difford and Tillbrook, to name a few. Jane's style marries powerful, finely-textured vocals and lush harmonies with surprising, toothsome lyrics. Her songs make effective use of alternative guitar tunings that pick up where Joni Mitchell left off. i gorgona (pronounced "ee gore-GO-nuh") was recorded at OTR studios with celebrated producer Cookie Marenco on the board. Cookie, a former A & R executive with Windham Hill, received five grammy nominations for record production, a gold record, and has worked with artists from Kristen Hersh and Mary Chapin Carpenter to Max Roach. i gorgona features players like Joe Gore (pj harvey), Jim Campilongo (Norah Jones), and Scott Amendola (T. J. Kirk, Charlie Hunter Trio). The CD's title means "The Mermaid" in Greek. The central theme, female madness and rage, is symbolized by the Greek oral myth about the gorgona, Alexander the Great's sister: ...After Alexander the Great had conquered all the countries in the known world, ... he went on a quest for the water of immortality. When he brought the glass carafe of this water home, he gave it to his sister to keep while he rested at his palace in Macedonia. After he had rested, he called for his sister to bring him this water to drink. She, having thought the carafe held ordinary water, told him that she had tripped and spilled it, but would bring him a fresh carafe. Alexander went mad with rage and cursed his sister. He cursed her to live forever a half life, half woman, half fish, able to live fully neitheron the earth nor in the sea. God heard him and changed her into a mermaid that people see swimming through the waves. The Greeks say she is seen in the waters around Thasos, and that she swims up to your ship and grasps the edge of the deck with her hands; then she asks, 'Is Great Alexander living?' And you must answer, 'He lives and reigns, zei kai vasilevi. Then she will take your ship in her hands and take you herself where you want to go, swiftly and safely; she will still the waves, and teach you the music of the sea. But if you tell her that Alexander is dead, then she will go into a rage, and pound your ship with her huge fist down onto the floor of the sea. Or she will be grief-stricken, and begin to cry and chant mourning songs, mirologhia, and no one will survive, because when the mermaid mourns, everyone drowns. The mermaid's mirologhia become powerful typhoons, and she tears out strands of her shining hair, which become bolts of lightning, and her sobs make the huge swells that wash over ships during storms. Greek songwriters when they introduce a new song say 'I learned it from the Gorgona.' -from Dinner with Persephone by Patricia Storace Check out the artist's website: http://www.plainjane.org Track List: 1. Catfish 2. I Saw Her Tattoo 3. Thin Atmosphere 4. His Back Pocket 5. Every Seven Years 6. Flatfoot Vertigo 7. Hollywood Movie 8. Inside a Week 9. Nasturtium 10. Memphis 11. The Flowering Grove at Fountain and Vine 12. Mrs. Baines Suggested CDs:Other Genres:
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