I am a singer-songwriter with genre trouble.
in this day of niche marketing
I don't have a nich, the
truth is I'm all over
the place.
I need a genre!
Home
Calendar and Shows
Singing About Life Store
Singing About Life Links
Jimmie Rogers
Some of Jimmie Roger's Lyrics
Some of Penelope's
Lyrics
Otis
Roy, Jimmie Roger's Imitator,
Penelope plays backup and
her
award-winning Minnie Pearl imitation.
Singing About Life genre
is not new. Actually many old blues song, like Jimmie Rogers' blue yodels, are
Singing About Life Song.
|
|---|
OK, in truth, I am calling for this genre so that I
can better explain the kind of music I do.
But I am not alone.
There are many musicians whose music more appropriately fits under
Singing
About Life than the traditional genres
How do you recognize them?
They have niche identity issues and musically they
are all over the place, sometimes rockish, sometime bluesy, sometimes
pop, even rap.
You see they don't care about the niche of their songs,
they are trying to describe a situation or a real emotion.
Singing About Life genre, means: songs that come from the lives of ordinary people, people who have good times and bad times. They have car trouble, money trouble, and sometimes love trouble, but they do the best that they can.
The washer it's broke, the pickup it quit, last week little Johnny he came down real sick, And sometimes I'm scared and lonely at night, but that is the way of a truck driver's wife.
And it's hard to be a truck driver's woman, the wife of a long-hauling man, but when he gets home blues his sweet love's my own, so I'm doing the best that I can, I'm the wife of a truck driving man.""Wife of a Truck Driving Man"by Penelope Torribio
album, Headed For a Good Time
Singing About Life music can be sung by ordinary people, with ordinary voices. In fact, this is what the singer-songwriter strives for. They don't want to wow people with vocals that can not be sung by their audience. They want people to sing their songs, to be one with them, to share emotions and life's ups and downs musically.
Even their sad songs are meant to make one feel better, like you are less alone, like music is a tool for getting through life.
"I love how country people they
can lay their troubles down,when they get out on the dance floor, they
just stomp 'em into the ground."
"Hard Country Music" by Penelope
Torribio
album, Headed For a Good Time
"Now That's Country," Jimmie Roger tribute.
Left to right: Otis Roy, Babe Sims, Penelope, Lee Dacus, Carl Walden
Click titles to hear some of
Penelope's Songs
My Daddy Was the Best
There's No Road From the Barroom to
My Heart."
Albums
Headed for a Good Time
Watch Out! I'm Singing the Blues
Family Man
Children's Albums
The Rain is Coming
Dinosaur Dance
Under the Blue Blue Sea
Guardians of the Earth
The Grass is Green
Sing the Calendar Songs
I
was introduced to traditional country blues by Otis Roy, the Pomona Blue
Yodeler. Otis heard Jimmie on
the radio when he was a young boy, a young cotton picker, in a poor family
of eleven children. He fell in love with Jimmie Rogers' songs and
even heard him perform,in person,1928.
It was the depression and like millions of other people of this time, he believed
that Jimmie was the voice of common man and woman.
"I got the blues so bad the whole
wide world looks blue.
I got the blues so bad, the whole wide world looks blues. I
ain't got a job and I don't know what to do." yodel lay he oh, yodel
lay he oh, yodel lay he.
Otis was not alone
in his appreciation of Jimmie Roger's and his songs. Up until 1995, Babe Sims and a whole
group of people, who knew Jimmie Roger's songs, would meet, every Thursday
night, at the Holt Radiator's shop to sing the olds songs, I learned these
songs and for eight years backed Otis at festivals and events all over
Southern California. I also sang my own songs, many in the Jimmie
Roger's tradition, and I could do a mean Minnie Pearl imitation.
for more about Jimmie Rogers and
friends click here.
For lyrics of some of Jimmie Roger's Songs and a song about meeting Jimmie click here
You can also view some of the show on youtube
click on the titles.
Penelope
and Otis Part 1
(Saw Jimmie Rogers, Penelope and Otis Roy)
Penelope
and Otis Part 2
(Laid Of Blues-Penelope)
Penelope Torribio is on the first
Females
on Fire, Compilation features
"A Little Bit Of Gold"
Embed code:
