Artist:David Byrne
Song:Don't Fence Me In
Album:Red Hot + Blue: Tribute to Cole Porter
Of course David Byrne is best known as the lead singer of Talking Heads. As a solo artist, he likes to experiment with different kinds of music. He even started his own label to do that. And he has recorded on several Red Hot albums to benefit AIDS research. He was born May 14,1952 in Dumbarton, Scotland. His father was an engineer and the family moved to Hamilton, ON in the hope the job market was better. They moved to the Baltimore suburb of Arbutus, MD when dad got a job at Westinghouse. Byrne learned to play guitar, accordion and violin. His father set up a tape recorder so he could make music. After graduating from high school, Byrne attended Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and Maryland Institute College of Art. He met Chris Frantz at RISD and after Byrne moved to New York in 1974, Frantz and his girlfriend Tina Weymouth followed and Talking Heads was formed. Byrne recorded solo albums in 1979 and 1981. But for the most part, he concentrated on Talking Heads until they split up in 1988. Byrne released the 1989 album Rei Momo on his own label Luaka Bop with Warner Bros. distribution. Byrne was never interested in mainstream music. He's never had a hit single. On Rei Momo, he brought in Latin and Brazilian musicians. It was while he was making this album that the Red Hot Organization was started to benefit AIDS research. And they decided to release a Cole Porter tribute album as the first project. They went on to make several benefit albums. Steve Lilywhite was credited as supervising producer. He recruited the participating artists but he didn't produce the individual tracks. But he produced Rei Momo so I'm sure he produced Byrne's recording of Don't Fence Me In. Byrne brought in several Brazilian percussionists to play on the song along with Louisiana accordionist Jimmy MacDonnell and fiddler Kenny Kosek. Many artists appeared on the album. They all did videos so a home video was released too. The album is available on CD. Byrne works on all kinds of things. But he just released a new album with Ghost Train Orchestra called Who Is the Sky? on Matador Records. Ghost Train Orchestra is a big band specializing in vintage early jazz. Here's the video for Don't Fence Me In by David Byrne. The Roy Rogers footage is from the 1943 film Stage Door Canteen.
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