Review Text
Over the years songwriter Jesse Palidofsky has shared his music at the National Theatre, on the Hudson River sloop Clearwater with Pete Seeger, at festivals like Common Ground on the Hill and the Washington Folk Festival, and at the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian National Folklife Festival with the Archie Edwards Blues Heritage Foundation. He has sung one-on-one with hundreds of terminally ill patients in hospices and hospitals, and also led singing for groups of a thousand people or more, performed for conferences of clinical psychologists, as well as for inmates at the Detroit House of Correction and at the maximum security prison in Salem, Oregon. Jesse's CD of original compositions, FOOD FOR THE LONG HAUL, reflects the rich diversity of his Detroit musical heritage, moving seamlessly from the harmonica-driven 'Crossing the Poison River', to the Appalachian-style political broadside,'Ballad of Sammie Abbott' to the jazzy sax and hilarious verbal juxtapositions of 'I Need Mercy (A Million Times a Day)', to the sublime, Sweet Honey in the Rock-style spiritual, 'Send Down Your Healing Water'. This is mature, inspired music, lyrically and harmonically. It well rewards repeated listening! 'Jesse's music is quite wonderful...He brings artistry and social concern together in a very powerful way!' Parker Palmer, Author of A HIDDEN WHOLENESS and LET YOUR LIFE SPEAK '...Jesse played his song, 'I've Got the Swannanoa Sleep Deprivation Blues', which brought the house (at Asheville, NC's Be Here Now) to it's feet with cheers and applause.' Robert Caldwell PERFORMING SONGWRITER MAGAZINE 'I expected them (Jesse Palidofsky Group) to be good, but I didn't expect then to be THAT GREAT!' Lisa Null WASHINGTON FOLK FESTIVAL 'Jesse uses his music to transport people to a profound level of self and soul, which creates openings for people's deeper experience...' Margaret Kornfeld AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PASTORAL COUNSELORS In the mid 1970's Jesse founded COMPARED TO WHAT! Coffeehouse, showcasing an amazing array of Detroit-based talent, from legendary blueswoman Sippie Wallace to songwriter Michael Smith ('The Dutchman', 'Spoon River'), from Motown session musicians like saxophonist Norma Jean Bell and bassist Ralph Armstrong (who both moved on to Jean Luc Ponty's band), to future Prairie Home Companion regular Claudia Schmidt and Ray Charles' lead trumpeter Marcus Belgrave.
