Advice to budding musicians? Neko Case is all over it: You, too, can write and sing great songs — and play a mean guitar all the while.
One the most acclaimed songwriters of the past decade, Case is all about empowering her fans.
“I love the demystification of the mythology of rock ‘n’ roll,” Case said last week from her Vermont home. “Everybody should feel that good — not just people in bands. Let’s just say you wanna play guitar on your couch. That’s awesome. You really can do it. And you should.”
Case co-headlines (with Judy Collins) the Swallow Hill RootsFest on Saturday at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, and we wanted to ask her to ruminate on the ideals behind Swallow Hill.
The Denver-based organization’s mission statement is all about “the teaching, presentation and preservation of roots, folk and acoustic music.” And here are Case’s thoughts on those three aspects of one of Denver’s most cherished organizations.
Teaching: “I grew up in the ’80s, during the Reagan era. I lived through the ’70s too, but the Reagan era was when music and art got cut in the schools. I remember having music class and then suddenly not having music class. There was a big void. We didn’t do anything difficult in there, but we got together and sang songs.
“It was like exercise and playtime, but a more focused playtime, and it made everybody feel good about themselves. And for somebody to decide that it’s a waste of money to have kids singing songs, especially considering what we’ve learned in research about what it does for your brain . . . Well, school didn’t feel like a place where I felt like I was really included after that.”
Presentation: “The first time I remember performing in front of people was myself and three other violin students playing ‘Good King Wenceslas,’ the Christmas tune. I can still hear the eeeh eeh eeeeeh, but you know, my parents acted like it was cool. And it was probably pretty cute, but that’s the first time I remember doing that.
“I wasn’t scared, but I did wonder if it sounded like music. I was a really self-conscious little kid. But I didn’t feel self-conscious about that. I wasn’t as shy then. I didn’t feel any kind of performance rush.
“I wasn’t playing music. I was playing notes the way they were supposed to be played — well, not even the way they were supposed to be played. But I was doing a task. They never taught us the point of it. Why are we doing this? It was detached, an odd why-are-we-doing-this kind of thing.”
Preservation:”It’s funny, ’cause roots and folk music and country music are definitely in full swing right now, so it’s a precautionary thing. There will be a time when it falls out of favor again, but people will make sure that great things that happen now aren’t forgotten. You want the next generation of people who are going to be interested in that sort of thing to have something good to go on.
“For example, we still have great field recordings, old country records, people going out to the sticks with acetate. I love the idea of archiving and making sure that things are preserved — but still honoring the hand-to-the-instrument teaching and seeing somebody sing something right in front of you. We live in an age of super Auto-Tune, and it’s great to hear somebody sing without a machine.”
Ricardo Baca: 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com; Twitter @RVRB
SWALLOW HILL ROOTSFEST FEATURING NEKO CASE, JUDY COLLINS, JIM LAUDERDALE, PAPER BIRD AND TRACE BUNDY.
Folk/neo-folk. Ellie Caulkins Opera House, 1101 13th St. Saturday. 7 p.m. $35-$140. or 303-777-1003, ext. 2
