Soundcheck Weekly Music Roundup - Too Sad For The Public – New Project Remakes Old Songs

For many years, the producer, composer, and arranger Dick Connette has been creating music built on a wide variety of American traditions, from Cajun to blues to children’s rhymes. Working with the singer Sonya Cohen – daughter of John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers and niece of Pete Seeger – he released several albums of these songs under the name Last Forever. But Sonya passed away at age 50 in 2015. Since then, Connette has been working with a varied group of singers and musicians (including Suzzy Roche, Gabriel Kahane and others) on a project called Too Sad For The Public. The first album, called Vol. 1, Oysters Ice Cream Lemonade, is out on June 16. Here, he casts an even wider musical net; many of the songs are still based on traditional music, but one is built on the sounds of Washington DC Go Go music (more on that next week). This track, called “Young Loves To Love,” will immediately be familiar to fans of Van Morrison. With lead vocals by Ana Egge, it’s a medley of Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” and “Sweet Thing,” featuring Jay Berliner on guitar (who played on Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks album). More than a cover, though, it’s a typically personal take on these familiar songs, making them into something new and strange. 

Too Sad For The Public will spread the joy in a live setting this Friday, June 2, at Roulette in Brooklyn.

Click here to read the full piece and listen to the song