June, 2005 UPDATE: An anthem for nonviolence, "Don't Obey" from The Feral Crow CD, is airing over Srebrenica and Kosovo on radio FEDRA in Serbia and Montenegro. The album has been requested for airplay in Australia, Italy, Germany, Denmark, and The Netherlands and reached #22 on the folkradio.org top 100 albums in January 2005. All eleven tracks have seen airplay.
The headline to the story in the Brattleboro Reformer was "History Caught Up with Me: Ainslie delivers the right songs at the right time." [Reviews of this album and Ainslie's other work are available at his website, http://cattailmusic.com, along with a free download of "Don't Obey" off "The Feral Crow."]
In that review, Jon Potter wrote:
"Before Americans had ever heard of Abu Ghraib, Scott Ainslie wrote the song "Confession" about the torture and murder of South African activist Steven Biko. It was always going to be a powerful cautionary tale, a compelling reminder that we must not let that happen again. Then came Abu Ghraib."
"History caught up with me in a way I never expected it to," said the Brattleboro musician, long known for his soulful and scholarly mastery of the Blues, "I think we need a song like "Confession" on the airwaves. If we're going to become a torturing nation, we have to confront what that means."
"I was writing a song that was sort of pointing a finger at these other countries. It turns out, it's point at us. It turns out, it's pointing at me," Ainslie said in a recent interview." In the interview Ainslie went on, "When I realized that the compass needle was starting to turn [toward torture, war, violations of international law and human rights], I knew I had to do this...to give these songs the best chance at life."
"Ainslie has done that and more on his new Cd, "The Feral Crow," a mature, razor-sharp record." ----Jon Potter, The Brattleboro Reformer
Featuring Jerry Marotta (Peter Gabriel's drummer for a decade), Marc Shulman (Suzanne Vega's electric guitar player for seven years on the road), producer and bassist Scott Petito, vocalist Leslie Ritter (formerly half of 'Leslie & Amy'), and keyboardist Peter Vitalone, "The Feral Crow" is a big, beautifully recorded and produced album rich with powerful images, ideas, portraits, and an album, as Jon Potter wrote, "whose love songs have calluses, whose music spans genres, styles and a thousand riffs picked up on the road." And Potter's summation:
"This record in particular has been cooking for 10 years, the 10 years I've made those other three blues records," said Ainslie. There have been songs that haven't 'fit' those other records," said Ainslie. "I'm not one of those performers that feels he needs to fill the world up with his songs. I tend to write when I have to."
Three songs off this album, "Don't Obey," "Rice Grows Again in Vietnam," and "Confession" have recently been added to the archives at the Centre for Political Song, Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland where Ainslie is in the good company of Phil Ochs, Bruce Cockburn, Dylan, Rage Against the Machine, Sting, and other powerful topical writers. For more information go to: http://cattailmusic.com.
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