Nearly 50 years after their founding, Seldom Scene has a new album for us this summer. Called Changes, this project zeroes in on the music of the 1960s and ’70s – the time of their founding by bluegrass legends John Duffey and John Starling – and the great songwriters of that era.
A first single has just been released, Everybody’s Talkin’, which will spur the memory of many a pop music lover of a certain age. The song had appeared in the 1969 film, Midnight Cowboy, and won a Grammy Award for Harry Nilsson. It had been originally recorded three years earlier by the songwriter, Fred Neil, but it was Nilsson’s version that resonated with the public.
And now the Scene have given it a grassy gloss for a new generation of listeners, with Lou Reid taking the lead vocal.
Other classic songs included on Changes are:
- Everybody’s Talkin’ (Fred Neil)
- Steel Rail Blues (Gordon Lightfoot)
- Darcy Farrow (Stephen B. Gillette-Thomas Campbell)
- Louise (Paul Siebel)
- A Good Time (John Prine)
- Seven Bridges Road (Steve Young)
- Bob Dylan’s Dream (Bob Dylan)
- Pack Up Your Sorrows (Richard Farina-Pauline Marden Bryan)
- Changes (Phil Ochs)
- I’ll Be Here In the Morning (Townes Van Zandt)
- Morning Sky (Dan Fogelberg)
- Sweet Baby James (James Taylor)
The full album won’t hit until June 7 on Rounder Records, the first from Seldom Scene in five years, but the single is available now wherever you stream or download music online.
Seldom Scene is Dudley Connell on guitar, Lou Reid on mandolin, Fred Travers on reso-guitar, Ronnie Simpkins on bass, and Ron Stewart on banjo and fiddle.
