While I’m a self-professed joiner of bandwagons, one cliché I’m not is a one hit wonder. While we’re celebrating the well-deserved coronation of a new American folk singer, I would like to share two other outstanding songs from the same genre. One by an American band you’ve perhaps heard of, and another by a human being who will almost certainly be new to your auditory lexicon.

For My Family by the Devil Makes Three is a great track from an album I’ve listened to dozens of times.

Ben Bullington’s Toe the Line is the last selection in our trio. Ben was a doctor, a great friend of my father’s and a ridiculously talented musician from Montana. This song is my favorite from his album White Sulphur Springs, named after the small town where I spent the earliest years of my life.

A fall from grace

Finally, I’d like for us to take a moment of silence to mark the sad passing of a once notable publication. For many years Rolling Stone was a celebration of music, a showcasing of legendary artists and a place to promote alternative views especially those unfriendly to the established order. Boy how times change. We pour a drink in commemoration of a life once lived but now gone, another brethren lost to the GCF (Great Cultural Fuckening).

If there was any justice in the world Rolling Stone would celebrate the rise of a new American icon. Alas… Oliver Anthony laments “working overtime hours for bullshit pay,” “we got folks in the street, ain’t got nothing to eat,” and “your dollar ain’t shit, and it’s taxed to no end.” And for this politically charged message of hate and far right extremism he must be banished far, far away from wandering ears.

What can I say about whoever thought up this hogwash? To borrow from Henry Miller: “In the scheme of things he’s not worth the brine to pickle a herring.”