Paxton

GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award Winner Tom Paxton, and GRAMMY Winner Cathy Fink co-wrote 28 brand new songs together during the pandemic's lockdown - ALL NEW is the second recording by Tom with Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer - The first, Live in the UK, received a GRAMMY nomination as Best Folk Album in 2004. The double CD was recorded in both live concert and studio sessions at Tonal Park in Takoma Park, MD in January 2022 by Charlie Pilzer. Tom's on guitar and vocals, Cathy on banjo, guitar and vocals, and Marcy plays guitars, mandolin, cittern, banjo-ukulele, banjo-cello and washboard. Della Mae's Kimber Ludiker joins on fiddle, mandolin and harmony. Alex Lacquement plays bass and harmonica. The songs range in topic from love to comedy, history, social justice and great storytelling. Musical styles include folk, bluegrass, swing, country, and Celtic.

Looking for the Moon is the first new solo studio CD for adults since 1994 by one of the great folksingers and songwriters of this century, Tom Paxton. His fans in the music world were waiting: the CD was subsequently nominated for a 2002 Grammy Award in the “Best Contemporary Folk Album” category. In a career entering its fifth decade, Paxton has recorded over 40 albums and created a body of incisive, heartfelt and universally relevant songs that have been covered by artists ranging from Pete Seeger to Placido Domingo to Willie Nelson. “The Last Thing on My Mind,” “Ramblin’ Boy,” “Whose Garden Was This?,” “The Marvelous Toy” and “Bottle of Wine” are only a few of the Paxton compositions that have become modern folk and topical standards.

Award-winning composer, improvising-trombonist and bandleader Alex Paxton describes Music for Bosch People like this: 'It’s like minimal but loads more notes like video-games but with more song like jazz but much more gay like old music but more current like yummy sweet but more stick like paint but more scratch like tapestry but filthily like prayer but more loud like loud groove and more rude like fingers and faces too but somehow more smelly like smelly things cooking with more chew and change like louder prayers that groove with like stinking-hot-pink in poo-brown but even more desperate-like than that like drums and Dream Musics…'

Veteran folk-pop singer Tom Paxton was still delivering excellent albums in the early 1990s, one fine example being It Ain't Easy. Paxton was always a thoughtful lyricist and a masterful storyteller, and as usual, he gives us a lot to think about. "Billy Got Some Bad News Today" describes a man who has just learned he has a serious illness, while "Living the Street Life" examines the horrors of homelessness without preaching. "Something Going On" finds Paxton portraying a parent whose son is using crack cocaine, and on "Mister Can't-Go-On," he tries to dissuade a man from committing suicide. True to form, Paxton really makes us feel for his characters from the man calling a suicide prevention hotline to the homeless man, the singer-songwriter brings these individuals to life in a most insightful, moving fashion.

Growing up in Los Angeles, Jerron Paxton would sit with an ear by the radio, eagerly absorbing the nuances and history of Black American traditional music that connect him to his ancestral roots in the South.

‘In every moment of the piece’, says Alex Paxton, ‘I’m asking myself what is the most sonically sensual thing that can happen here, and here, and here.’ The result, from a multi-award-winning composer described as ‘unique, inventive, brave and arresting’, is an album of joyful music performed by orchestra, ensemble and improvisers.

This compilation features everything released by The Hollywood Argyles between 1960-62, including rare 45s and unissued demos, many of which have never previously appeared on CD. The Hollywood Argyles were archetypical one-hit wonders, topping the US charts in 1960 with the multi-million selling, worldwide hit "Alley-Oop", but never quite being able to get a follow-up hit away. As a result, their cash-in LP and subsequent singles have all become huge collectors' items. The Argyles' Main Man, singer/songwriter/producer/entrepreneur Gary Paxton, had earlier been one half of a vocal duo, Skip & Flip, who'd hit the US charts in 1959 with a pair of million-sellers, "It Was I", and "Cherry Pie". Both are included herein as bonus tracks, alongside a handful of Skip & Flip rarities.