sun 01/12/2024

Simone Felice: Video Exclusive part 2 | reviews, news & interviews

Simone Felice: Video Exclusive part 2

Simone Felice: Video Exclusive part 2

Catskill Woodsman concludes his tour of personal inspiration

Felice: contemplating something "pretty holy"

In the final instalment of our exclusive Simone Felice video series, the singer and poet from New York's Catskill mountains takes us on a tour of three further locations that kept him sane, whilst, around him, life seemed like an extract from the book of Job. These are also the places that inspired his forthcoming album, released April 2.

As ever Felice proves an amiable and charismatic guide, and his haunts are the sort of places to nourish the soul of anyone in need of contemplation. But Felice is not anyone and he has also written a piece of prose-cum-blank-verse to accompany it. And what that means is much less clear.

Felice writes: "I live in a country of echoes. There, in the furthest distance, a dead genius screams the star spangled banner out into the abolished afternoon: electric, tortured, perfect. Girls round the maypole. And a war cry, painted men who dance to drums of hide and bone in a fire's light before this world was cured. Beautiful. I've heard a poet's song of a night but eyed he not. Woman's voices, magic, hushed, love songs of child-birth and lamentation. Shots fired in anger, a horse falling in a dark road, silent night...    

Didn't I tell myself one day I'd set out, court adventure, play the lover, make my fortuneI walk a landscape of shadows. Walk this ten mile circuit since my world began. Over and over, crimson and clover. See it here in digital. And didn't I tell myself one day I'd set out, court adventure, play the lover, make my fortune. Hold now, there I am, seventeen, dead and undying, caught on the wind like the rest: 'Unless you leave... unless you run... unless you leave your life will pass you by.'

Yet here I am. Mill-high. Crows feet. Still reaching. Lost in the twilight's last gleaming."

Firstly, we travel with Felice  to the waterfall  he and his brothers would walk to from their cabin retreat where they wrote music on an old steel-stringed acoustic guitar. In the freezing midwinter, the waterfall has partially turned to ice.

Watch Felice's Waterfall

Next, we are shown around an old abandoned  timber-frame Catholic Church, where local rumour has it, Bob Dylan was secretly married in the late sixties. Although a religious sceptic, Felice says he found something “pretty holy” up there.

Watch Felice's Bob Dylan Church

Finally, Felice drives up to the frozen Cooper lake. Whilst recovering from an almost fatal condition, where one aorta started to turn to stone through calcium deposits, Felice would go there to put things in perspective. He still visits almost every day.

Watch Felice's "Frozen Lake"

  • The lead single from Simone Felice, "You and I Belong" is released March 19

Comments

Hey there Chuck,love the videos,I want more!

Add comment

The future of Arts Journalism

 

You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!

We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d

And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters