Freegal App for Apple and Android: Free, Legal Music on the Go

Freegal now has an app for mobile devices, both for Apple and Android.

It's as easy as iTunes for getting songs on your phone. Except these are free, and even though they're from the library, you get to keep them always.

As soon as I heard about it, I downloaded the free app. Then I punched in my zip code, chose my library, and entered my card number and pin.

Now that it's all set up, all I have to do is tap on the arrow and the song downloads into the Freegal library on my phone. So cool.

To learn more about Freegal, click here.

Miranda Lambert: Tough and Tender

The first song I heard Miranda Lambert sing was "Gunpowder and Lead," a hard-rocking revenge cry from a woman planning to meet an abusive boyfriend with a little comeuppance.

Her songs were so incendiary, that at first the radio stations didn't want to play them, but when her album Kerosene went to the top of the country charts, they changed their mind.

Surprisingly, Lambert's inspiration was not a ne-er-do-well boyfriend of her own, but the women who were clients of her parents. Lambert's parents owned a private detective agency, and sometimes opened their homes to women trying to get out of abusive relationships.

Lambert has her tender side, as well, in songs like The House That Built Me. When she sings this meditative song about memories from a house her voice reminds me of Nanci Griffith.



Photo credit: Luke Lambert, via Wikimedia

You can get free and legal downloads of Miranda Lambert's music through Freegal. To learn more about the service, click here.

To read more about Lambert and her songs, click here.

Adele: Free and Legal Music Downloads

Best quote from Adele's website:

 "I love food and hate exercise...I don't want to be on the cover of Playboy or Vogue. I want to be on the cover of Rolling Stone or Q. I'm not a trend-setter ... I'm a singer. I never want to be known for anything else. I'd rather weigh a ton and make an amazing album...."

Adele's songs are available for free and legal download from the Freegal website. Read more about how to access this service here.

All of the tracks on her albums 19 and 21 are available to download for free. Read more about the songs that are available.

Photo: Christopher Macsurak via Wikimedia

Jason Aldean: Free and Legal Music Downloads

I first heard country singer Jason Aldean on one of those compilation CD's of best country songs of the year.

The song was "Crazy Town," his ode to his  Nashville experience. "One year they repossess your truck/ the next you make a couple million bucks."

I like the strong beat and the lyrics. My 14-year old daughter loves the hard-hitting violin intro. For more info on Aldean, as well as where to get free downloads click here: Jason  Aldean   For more info on Freegal, click here: Freegal

[Jason Aldean at McElroy Auditorium , Larry Gaffey
CC-BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia ]

Doc Watson: Free and Legal Music Downloads

Doc Watson, who passed away recently, played Appalachian strings music and was one of America's most respected folk artists.

Roger Wolmuth, a People magazine contributor said in 1987, "Watson's blizzard-quick flat picking and warm, mountain-clear baritone have ... established the soft-spoken Blue Ridge Mountain native as one of America's premier acoustic musicians."

Blinded by a childhood illness, the musician sometimes played on the street for change, when he wasn't working on his family's farm. After Watson became famous, a reporter asked him if he was ever ashamed of playing on the street. He replied, "No, I was selling something then, just like when you bought a ticket to get in here." He recounts, "That hushed [the reporter] up right quick." He also commented, "Blind people, most of them, are oversheltered. People don't understand. I went and did as I pleased."

[photo credit: Doc Watson (Photo by Austen Millkulka) via Wikimedia CC-BY-SA 3.0]

You can download free songs from Doc Watson through the site Freegal, which is provided by many public libraries. To learn more about this free service, click here: How You Can Download Free Music from Freegal

Freegal includes tracks from his albums Songs for Little Pickers and Rambling Hobo as well as recordings he made with the legendary Chet Atkins.

"Doc Watson." Contemporary Musicians. Vol. 59. Detroit: Gale, 2007. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 31 May 2012.