Easy Ed
nodepression
New York, NY, United States
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Past articles by Easy:
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: The Elephant in My Music Room
I am sitting in my bedroom, which during this pandemic has been multitasking as an office for my daily income-earning job. It also serves as my music room and sleeping quarters. There are three guitars each tuned differently on three stands, a dulcimer, banjo, five harps in various keys, lots of capos, and a couple of high-priced speakers that I stream my music through. I’m using a MacBook Pro… → Read More
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: Trouble Down in Texas
You may have caught the story on cable news or perhaps social media, but last Friday a singer-songwriter named Clayton Gardner was livestreaming an outdoor acoustic show in front of a small, socially distanced audience in Las Colinas, Texas. He was about 20 feet from the audience and people were shouting out requests. One woman, who chose not to wear a mask, took to the stage, came up to… → Read More
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: I’ve Lost My Mind But Found My Music
This year my birthday happened to fall on a Saturday in February, the 22nd if you need to know, and at my age it’s not something I tend to celebrate any longer. I went to work as I usually do, spoke or texted with my two sons, got nice messages from both my high school girlfriend and first wife, and hopped a train into Manhattan. I grabbed dinner at a fast food dumpling restaurant with filthy… → Read More
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: Ringo at 80
I love this image of Ringo Starr’s drum kit. I was going to use a picture of him, but this set of Ludwig black pearls seems so iconic that it instantly identifies the man who sat behind them. And while there are those who will likely point out that the set could have belonged to Pete Best, get real. There was and is only one Ringo, and on Wednesday he turned 80. You may have tuned in to his… → Read More
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: Goodbye to Ryan Adams and Robert E. Lee
On Feb. 13, 2019, The New York Times published an article titled “Ryan Adams Dangled Success. Women Say They Paid a Price.” It began with a three-paragraph overview of the then-44-year-old artist’s 20-year career, citing his 16 albums, seven Grammy nominations, and collaborations with Willie Nelson, Tim McGraw, and John Mayer. And then the hammer hit the nail. “Seven women and more than a dozen… → Read More
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: An Open Letter to Americana Musicians
Hi there, it’s Ed. Hope this finds you and those in your life healthy and safe, wherever you may be. I won’t bother asking how y’all are coping, because anyone who has had their livelihoods chopped off at the knees — whether a performer, writer, producer, crew member, club owner, festival or concert promoter, recording engineer, retailer, manager, agent, or anybody else in the music ecosystem —… → Read More
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: ‘Urban Music’ and Other Outdated Structures of the Past
When my dad was born in 1919, music that was performed by black people was released on 78 rpm discs and called “race records.” It was a designation of multiple genres, including blues, jazz, and spirituals. By the time I came into the world in the early 1950s, the designation had changed to rhythm and blues, thanks to Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records, who felt it was a more appropriate… → Read More
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: Push Play and Never Skip a Beat
If you happened to look at social media on Tuesday, June 2, you might have seen that major corporations, celebrities, activists, artists, musicians, athletes, a current president’s daughter, and a whole bunch of regular folks had posted a big black square on their pages. The idea was conceived by Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang and it started with an action they created called… → Read More
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: A Close-Up View of The Gambler’s Comeback
Twenty years ago I was the head of sales for an independent record distributor based in Minneapolis that has since faded from existence. When I joined the company, one of our divisions was quite successful in the software industry, providing CD-ROMs to companies such as Circuit City and CompUSA. Another division produced live radio programming that was streamed over the internet, an idea that… → Read More
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: The Dark Side and the Sunny Side
As I sit down with a blank screen in front of me to write my weekly column, I usually begin the process by heading over to No Depression‘s website to check out what’s on the minds of some of the other writers. While we each have our own areas of interest, you certainly don’t want to end up with a half-dozen articles about the same subject matter. And it also gives me the opportunity to scroll… → Read More
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: Larkin Poe and Other Online Finds (But Mostly Larkin Poe)
Sometime during my first week of our pandemic lockdown I was mindlessly surfing through Facebook, as one does, when I came across two women playing and singing in a casual setting with minimal production value but pretty good audio quality. Larkin Poe. Name sounded familiar, but I don’t think I’d ever heard them play before. They were doing this cover version of a ZZ Top song that I’ve never… → Read More
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: The Tuba Player Who Lives Upstairs
In my biography that I posted on my website many years ago, there is one white lie. While it is indeed true that I live in the Lower Hudson Valley of New York, I do not have an apple orchard that I tend to. In fact, I live in a 70-year-old apartment building and despite my living space lacking any flora or fauna, there are several large windows that overlook dozens of beautiful tall trees that… → Read More
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: Will Music Disappear Without a Trace?
It’s week number whatever here in New York and the social isolation experiment seems to be working. They say that thanks to our efforts, we’re flattening the curve. Unfortunately, the death count in this state sadly keeps hovering between seven … → Read More
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: I'll Cry If I Want To
I had a recollection this week from when I was 12 or 13 years old. Some details, such as it being a cool night on a dark street in the Oxford Circle neighborhood of Philadelphia, are crisp, clear, and sharply … → Read More
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: Musically Distanced from A to Z
Perhaps if my kids were a few years younger they might be asking their old man if he’s ever seen anything like this in his lifetime. The daily death count; world shutdown; deserted streets in Manhattan, Paris, and Rome; refrigerated … → Read More
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: King Cotton and The Delta Blues
Do you want to know the absolute, honest-to-god truth? I am laying down on my bed, my computer balanced on my thighs, trying to find a topic for this week’s column, and I’ve got no clue about what I’m going … → Read More
EASY ED'S BROADSIDE: Americana Lost and Found – Soundies and the Panoram
On April 14, 1891, a Chicago businessman named Mortimer Birdsul Mills was granted a patent for a major improvement in what was then called a coin-actuated vending apparatus. It gave consumers of cigars the opportunity to select which one of … → Read More
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: A Long Strange Trip Backstage
When I first began working in the mailroom of a record distributor back in the early ’70s, one of the perks of the job was going backstage either before or after a concert. Documented in films such as Spinal Tap … → Read More
EASY ED’S BROADSIDE: The Artist Currently Known as Prince
I’ve written endlessly over the years about the opportunities and challenges of discovering new music in the current paradigm. With digital streaming platforms now accounting for 80% of music revenue (RIAA Mid-2019 Report), and downloads and physical formats each running … → Read More
EASY ED'S BROADSIDE: Freedom's Just Another Word
During this year’s State of the Union Address, on the night before the U.S. Senate would vote on whether to remove Donald Trump from office after being impeached, the president paused to recognize conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh sitting … → Read More