Quick Q and A with Alastair Moock
 by Kathy S-B  ·  20 February 2009

Alastair Moock will be joining musical colleagues Rose Polenzani, Tim Gearan, and Jennifer Kimball as one-quarter of the Boston T Party on stage at the me&thee on Friday, February 27. Alastair has brought his considerable talents to Marblehead on a couple of other occasions so it’s with great joy that we welcome him back.

For more information about Alastair Moock, visit his website. You can also check out this wonderful video of him singing “God Saw Fit to Make Tears” here.

You've played at many venues in exotic places like Norway, France, and Poland. How did you develop a fan base in those countries? And what are those audiences like? Do they understand the words?

The singer-songwriter thing is especially strong in countries where English is widely spoken — Norway, the Netherlands, of course the UK. But there’s a strong Americana/blues scene all over Europe. I think there’s an affection for the sound and for American culture. It’s amazing how willing the rest of the world is to separate American people and culture from American politics, even during these last eight years.

A recent article about you in the Boston Globe cited your admiration for both Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. What is it about the music of those two legends that moves you the most?

My parents had Pete Seeger and Weavers records at home and I globbed on to them early. Later, my dad took me to see Pete and Arlo in concert and I was really moved by the experience. It was the feeling of community, but also the strange sense that music could actually do something; inspire people.

You actually do workshops about Guthrie’s music in schools around the area. What is the main message that you try to convey to the kids when you tell them about Guthrie. Do you find that the majority of students are largely unschooled in the ways of Guthrie and may only be aware that he wrote ‘This Land is Your Land” and nothing beyond that.

It depends a bit on where I am, but most kids are only vaguely familiar with him. They know the song but not who wrote it. The performances and workshops I do around Woody have a couple of different goals. One is to flesh out a bit of American history. Woody’s own story, his first 25 years, is the story of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression; the story of the rise of labor unions and collective action; the story of social protest in America. The nice thing is Woody tells the whole story for you through his songs. In the workshops, I use Woody as a jumping off point to teach songwriting skills.

I read an article in which you cited the fact that term “folk music” has lost its meaning and that by branding the kind of acoustic music that you play as “Americana” music, you’re actually expanding it to include both traditional and contemporary singer-songwriter type music. Do you feel that “Americana” is becoming known as a catch phrase these days? Or do you still feel that many folks just have no inkling what this type of music is all about? And if so, what can we do to spread the word, especially to the younger generation?

None of the terms are very satisfying or correct, are they? I guess Americana or Roots feel like better descriptors, but only because the term Folk seems so diluted by what I’d call acoustic Pop. All I know is that all of these terms have their own organizations now - there’s an Americana Music Association, a Roots Music Association, and a Folk Alliance - and I’d rather get together and play music with my friends than go to any of their conferences.

Ellis Paul is said to have called you “the second coming of John Prine.” Was / Is Prine an inspiration to you?

It was a nice compliment. Prine was definitely an influence but his lyrics smile in their very own way.