Audiology

Back in 2004, a wonderful CD, Beautiful Dreamer, was released with a menageries of singers performing songs by Stephen Foster in whatever way they wanted to interpret it.  The singers included such wide-ranging people as John Prine, Michelle Shocked, Yo-Yo Ma, Roger McGuinn, Suzy Bogguss and others.

What I particularly like about the album are some of the lesser-known songs.  And this is a particular gem, a rare song for the time, eloquent and elegant, a deeply-humanizing lament by a black man over the loss of his love, "Nelly Was a Lady," sung by Alvin Youngblood Hart.