Frank Beacham: Tom Paxton is 76 years old today. Paxton is a folk singer and singer-songwriter who has been writing, performing and recording music for fifty years. In 2009, Paxton received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Paxtons songs have demonstrated enduring appeal, including modern standards such as The Last Thing on My Mind,” Bottle of Wine,” Whose Garden Was This,” The Marvelous Toy and Ramblin Boy.” Paxtons songs have been recorded by Pete Seeger and The Weavers, Judy Collins, Sandy Denny, Joan Baez, Doc Watson, Harry Belafonte, Peter, Paul and Mary, Marianne Faithfull, The Kingston Trio, The Chad Mitchell Trio, John Denver, Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner, Willie Nelson, Flatt & Scruggs, The Move, The Fireballs and many others. He has performed thousands of concerts around the world in such places as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong, Scandinavia, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and all over the United States. His songs have been translated into various languages. Paxton enjoys a strong relationship with fans throughout the world. Paxtons songs can be emotionally affective and cover a wide range of topics, from the serious and profound to the lighthearted and comical. What Did You Learn in School Today? mocks the way children are often taught lies. Jimmy Newman is the story of a dying soldier and My Son John is a moving song about a soldier who comes back home and cannot even begin to describe what he has been through. Beau John is a civil rights era song about taking a stand against racial injustice. A Thousand Years tells the chilling tale of Neo-Nazi uprising, and Train for Auschwitz is about the Holocaust. On the Road to Srebrenica is about Bosnian Muslims who were killed in a 1995 massacre in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Bravest is a song about the firefighters who gave their lives while trying to save others on September 11, 2001. Then there are Paxtons short shelf life songs,” which are topical songs about current events and things in the news. These songs can be lighthearted and comical, or serious depending on the situation, and they change all the time as new ones are written and old ones can reappear as things seem to have a way of cycling around in this world. They include: In Florida,” about the 2000 election; Without DeLay,” a song about the former congressman; Bobbitt,” about John and Lorena Bobbitt; Little Bitty Gun,” which lampoons Nancy Reagan; Im Changing My Name to Chrysler,” about the federal loan guarantee to Chrysler in 1979 (which was rewritten in 2008 as I Am Changing My Name to Fannie Mae about the 700 billion dollar bailout of the U.S. financial system); The Ballad of Spiro Agnew,” and Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation (which became George W. Told the Nation in 2007). Paxton continues to perform yearly tours of the United States and United Kingdom. Here, Paxton sings “Bottle of Wine” in 2011.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 05:38:02 +0000
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