Accordions rock

I've long said that there never was a band that couldn't be improved with a good accordion player, and now the Seattle newspaper has validated my love of this maligned instrument with a feature about a comeback of sorts for what used to be the most popular instrument in the world. Accordions were relegated to uber-dork status by generations of nerdy teachers teaching kid/victims how to play Lady of Spain, but that could be said of any instrument. I first got hip when I saw an accordion in Richard Thompson's rock bands in the early 1990s, and I realized there was an organic depth in that reedy sound that no synthesizer has ever come close to matching. Then I discovered Zydeco, the greatest dance music on earth, which depends on the squeezebox for its fluid pulse. Then I heard classical Indian singers who often use accordion-like instruments to make a lovely chordal drone as a musical bed. The newspaper story notes that Arcade Fire is among the newer bands to use accordion, but there are many, past and present. The Continental Drifters are one of my favorites, plus Donna the Buffalo, Tom Waits, the Decemberists, Barenaked Ladies, and our good pals Last Train Home. On the un-rock side, you've not lived until you've seen Jeff Taylor play his dazzling swing style with the Time Jumpers here in Nashville. And in just one other random grab from memory of great moments in accordion, check the documentary Music From The Inside Out, in which a single street musician playing Vivaldi on accordion stops an entire symphony orchestra in its tracks one evening. It's magic.

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[Popular Music]

Instead, the network has been accepted by fans of all forms of inspirational music, Humbard said. http://music.postedpost.com/category/popular-music/