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This week’s Monday Morning Brew (Exclusive to all our Premium Substack Newsletter Readers) includes tracks from singer and actress Marianne Faithfull and American composer, improviser, and pedal steel pioneer Susan Alcorn, who both passed away towards the end of last week. The Guardian described Marianne as one of the UK’s most versatile and characterful singer-songwriters. Nick Cave said that “Through her extraordinary, defiant and lived-in voice, Marianne brought her own maverick truth to every song she sang, and every story she spoke. We loved her very much.”
Susan’s bio shares how, as one of the world’s premiere exponents of her instrument; she took the pedal steel guitar far beyond its traditional role in country music. Having first paid her dues in Texas country & western bands, she began to expand the vocabulary of her instrument through her study of 20th-century classical music, visionary jazz, and world music.
Drew Daniel & M.C. Schmidt (Matmos) wrote: We are stunned and saddened at the news that Susan Alcorn has passed. A phenomenally gifted improviser, arranger, and musician whose pedal steel playing bridged so many musical worlds from free improv and jazz to radical reworkings of Olivier Messiaen, Astor Piazzola and Pablo Casals. She was a delightful presence- funny, sharp, immediate. Just a week ago, we attended her concert with David Grubbs and The Caribbean in Baltimore and we were so moved by her playing and her politically astute final words about the need for all of us to stand up to the fear and fascism of this new moment we are all in. I cannot believe that she is gone. I am so grateful to you, Susan, for your deep gifts. R.I.P.
You can also hear new music from Dana Gavanski, The Gentle Good, Chris Brain, Stein Urheim, Sam Amidon, Rosie Miles, David Thomas Broughton, Joshua Burnside, Blue Lake, Rose City Band and more.
Substack subscribers can listen here:
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