Eric Taylor – Live at the Red Shack

ERIC TAYLOR

Live at the Red Shack

Blue Ruby Music & Records

bluerubymusic.com

Back in the 1980s, Nanci Griffith was a regular performer at the Golem, the Montreal folk club I was running in those days. Like many of the artists who played the Golem, Nanci stayed with me and we’d often sit up, late at night, talking about music, musicians, singers, songs and songwriters. One of the people she told me about was her ex-husband, a great songwriter, troubled in those days, named Eric Taylor. I’d had a bit of an introduction to Eric via his song, “Dollar Matinee,” which he performed with Nanci on her first LP, There’s a Light Beyond These Woods.

Eric grew up in Georgia and arrived on the Texas folk scene in the early-1970s. Following in the footsteps of songwriters like Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, he was one of the best of the next wave of singer-songwriters in a scene known for its great writers. Eric released his first LP, Shameless Love, in 1981, and then pretty much disappeared for more than a decade.

I was doing the Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio show when Eric re-emerged in the mid-1990s with the eponymously named Eric Taylor, a CD which re-established Eric’s place in the front ranks of contemporary folk-based singer-songwriters. That album, and a series of excellent releases that followed, were staples on the radio show for its entire run.

For Live at the Red Shack, Eric took some songs from his extensive back catalogue – including a couple that have only been available on Nanci Griffith or Lyle Lovett albums and another that was (so far as I know) previously unrecorded – into the Red Shack, a Houston recording studio, and performed them live to a small audience of invited guests. Backing Eric throughout the album are Marco Python Fecchio, an excellent, atmospheric electric guitarist and James Gilmer, a very tasteful percussionist. Nanci, Lyle, Denice Franke and Susan Lindfors Taylor provide duet and/or harmony vocals to some of the songs.

Something I’ve always loved about Eric’s work is that he’s not a navel-obsessed songwriter. Many of his songs are from the perspective of a character completely, or at least seemingly, outside of himself. In one song, he’s a guy from Indiana who just happened to be a tourist in the crowd when John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. In another, he’s a guy in a saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota when news about the death of Crazy Horse comes through in 1877. And, in yet another, he’s a character in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road talking about Dean Moriarty. And in all of these settings, and others, he seems to be singing with complete honesty and authenticity.

Without question, these are all great versions of great songs, but I’ll call attention to a few of my favorite tracks.

One is certainly the afore mentioned “Dean Moriarty,” doubled in length by a spoken word into that sounds like it could have been written by Kerouac back in the day. Another is “Mission Door,” with chorus harmony from Nanci, a beautifully constructed portrait of skid row life. And yet another is a gorgeous duet with Denice Franke on “Blue Piano,” which captures a scene from many years ago of Bonnie Brown playing the painted-blue piano at Anderson Fair, a legendary Houston music club.

It was also great to hear Eric and Nanci reprising their version of “Dollar Matinee,” first recorded on Nanci’s debut album in 1978, and to hear Eric and Lyle team up on “Memphis Midnight, Memphis Morning,” an Eric Taylor song Lyle recorded on Step Inside This House, an album he made in tribute to influential Texas songwriters.

If you appreciate great singer-songwriters, you should be listening to Eric Taylor.

--Mike Regenstreif

Montreal concerts: Tom Paxton, Jesse Winchester

Jesse Winchester

Matt Large and Rebecca Anderson of Hello Darlin’ Productions in Montreal have lined up a superb set of concerts this spring. Among the artists are some of the brightest young performers on the contemporary folk scene and several bona fide legends.

I want to pay particular attention to back-to-back concerts on Saturday and Sunday, April 21 and 22, featuring two legendary and great singer-songwriters, two artists I’ve had the privilege of working with many times over the years, and two men I’ve been honoured to share friendship with over many decades.

Tom Paxton performs Saturday, April 21 and Jesse Winchester performs Sunday April 22. Both concerts are at 8:00 pm at Petit Campus (57 Prince Arthur East). Visit the Hello Darlin’ website or call 514-524-9225 for tickets or more information; call for a special deal being offered if you buy tickets for both concerts.

Tom Paxton

A story I’ve told before dates back to 1968 or ’69, when I was 14, or maybe just turned 15. I heard there was going to be a big folk concert at McGill University and decided to go. It was a bunch of local acts doing short sets in the first half and a headliner from New York in the second. When I got there, I discovered it was a “blanket concert”: thousands of McGill students – four, five, six and more years older than me – sitting on blankets on the floor of a huge gym. It was pretty full and I had no blanket so I sat on a long bench that lined the back of the gym wall back. Between acts, I had an interesting conversation with the man sitting next to me. He obviously knew a lot about folk music and gave me some suggestions on records to look for. When the intermission was announced, he said he enjoyed talking with me and left.

After the break, the MC, Tex König, introduced “one of the greatest of the Greenwich Village folksingers:  Tom Paxton!” That man I’d been talking to all night walked on stage and did an amazing hour-long set that I still vividly remember 40-odd years later.

That was the “it moment” for me. I started to listen to every record and read every folk music book I could find. I subscribed to Sing Out!, went to coffeehouses and concerts, and was soon a part of the action – hanging out, learning some guitar, producing concerts, running folk clubs, volunteering at folk festivals and writing articles and reviews. It became a way of life – and still is.

Mike Regenstreif & Tom Paxton

So, Tom Paxton, who, some years later, became a good friend, and who I’ve had the pleasure of working with a bunch of times in different contexts over the years, had a lot to do with drawing me into the folk music life.

Tom was one of the greatest singer-songwriters of the 1960s. Dave Van Ronk told me that Tom was the first Greenwich Village folksinger, even before Bob Dylan, who worked hard and consistently at songwriting. He’s never stopped and remains one of our greatest singer-songwriters today.

I’ve had the great pleasure of working with Tom in several different contexts. He played regularly at the Golem, the Montreal folk club I ran in the 1970s and ‘80s, always filling it to capacity, always doing great shows filled with a combination of great new songs and Paxton classics. When Robert Resnik and I booked and programmed the Champlain Valley Folk Festival in Burlington, Vermont in 2000 and 2001, Tom was the 2001 headliner and was part of the annual songwriters’ workshop I hosted there for seven years. And, of course, he was my guest on the Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio show,

Tom, for me, is one of the most special of artists.

So, too, is Jesse Winchester. In fact, I first encountered Jesse at that same McGill concert in 1968 or ’69. He, Penny Lang and Bruce Murdoch, were among the Montreal artists who played in the first half of that concert. It was before Jesse’s classic self-titled first album was released.

Again, as I’ve written before, Jesse is one of the great singer-songwriters of our time and there was a significant period of time when the Montreal folk scene had him almost to ourselves. A few quick anecdotes:

Jesse played often at the Golem, the Montreal folk club I ran in the 1970s and ‘80s. I took over the club at the end of May 1974 and Jesse’s first gig there was at the beginning of August. This was right about the time that his third LP, Learn to Love It, came out and all three nights were sold-out. Jesse, in those days, was not able to perform in the U.S. but was already attracting a lot of attention for his songwriting. A reporter from Rolling Stone magazine showed up and covered the gig as part of a story about Jesse. I believe it was the first time that Rolling Stone had ever covered a Montreal story.

Mike Regenstreif & Jesse Winchester

In November 1975, I was a backstage guest of Ramblin’ Jack Elliott (another Golem performer) at the Rolling Thunder Revue’s first Toronto concert. During the concert, Joan Baez dedicated a song to Jesse (Dave Loggins’ “Please Come to Boston” which has a line, “I’m the number one fan of the man from Tennessee”). I met Joan for the first time at the Rolling Thunder party after the show. When I mentioned that Jesse was a friend, Joan spent about half an hour grilling me about him.

In 1999, when Jesse released his first new album in 10 years, I was honoured that he chose to debut the album as a guest on the Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio show.

Jesse was a headliner in 2000, the first of two years that Robert Resnik and I programmed the Champlain Valley Folk Festival in Vermont. And, like Tom the following year, he was part of the annual songwriters’ workshop I hosted there.

After many years in Montreal and the Eastern Townships, Jesse remarried and now lives in Virginia with his wife, Cindy, so his return trips “home” to Montreal are special occasions to see and play for old friends. And this trip is doubly special because it will be his first visit since a serious health issue last year.

I’m looking forward to being in Montreal and seeing these two old friends next month.

And for folks in Toronto, Jesse will be at Hugh’s Room on April 13-14-15, and Tom will be there on April 20.

--Mike Regenstreif

Jon Brooks – Delicate Cages

JON BROOKS

Delicate Cages

jonbrooks.ca

Delicate Cages, the fourth album in six years by Toronto-based singer-songwriter Jon Brooks, is an ambitious examination of some of the various “cages” of the human condition – some of them literal, some metaphorical, some of them based on real people, others drawn from the artists’ imagination, all of them, in one way or another, insisting that we look at the world, or, at least a small slice of it, through someone else’s eyes.

The ethos of the album is established in “Because We’re Free,” the opening song in which the narrator reflects on a series of natural disasters and human-caused catastrophes and questions why God didn’t prevent or alleviate such occurrences. The answer comes in the songs title which is repeated at the end of each chorus.

Among the most powerful songs are two that are based on real people.

“Son of Hamas,” was inspired by the book, Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices, the autobiography of Mosab Hassan Yousef, the eldest son of a founder of the Islamic terrorist organization who worked clandestinely over a period of years to prevent terrorism. The song is a glimpse into the life of a heroic young man viewed as a traitor by his own family.

“The Lonesome Death of Aqsa Parvez,” is the story of a teenaged victim of a so-called honour killing, at the hands of her father and brother, which took place in a Toronto suburb in 2007.

The most infectious song is “Hudson Girl,” essentially a love song for Jon’s wife. But, it’s a love song with political overtones when the second verse explains that Jon’s Hudson girl, as a child moving with her family, was among those driven out of Quebec by Bill 101, the repressive language law – Jon gives thanks to Bill 101 in the song for delivering his wife to him.

Although many of these songs deal with difficult subject matter – and kudos to Jon’s fearlessness in tackling such material with the right mix of honesty and sensitivity – the album’s ultimate message is one of hope when Jon explains in “There Are Only Cages,” the penultimate track, that there is a good cage, “the cage of freedom” and “this cage of freedom is love.”

The album ends, with Jon by himself at the piano, playing a contemplative instrumental reprise of “Because We’re Free.”

Pictured: Jon Brooks and Mike Regenstreif at the 2010 Ottawa Folk Festival.

--Mike Regenstreif

Ottawa concerts: Ron Hynes, Finest Kind

There are a couple of concerts coming up here in Ottawa that I’m really looking forward to.

Ron Hynes is performing Wednesday, February 29, 8:00 pm, at Irene’s Pub (885 Bank Street; 613-230-4474).

As I noted in my review of Stealing Genius, his most recent album, Ron “is, without question, one of Canada’s greatest singer-songwriters – a writer whose genius can be found in decades worth of great songs.”

Ron is also a great performer and Irene’s is the smallest venue I’ve ever seen him in – so it should be a treat to hear him in such an intimate setting.

Pictured: Ron Hynes and Mike Regenstreif at the 2007 Branches & Roots Festival in Ormstown, Quebec.

In a concert I can walk to, Finest Kind will be performing Saturday, March 10, 7:30 pm, at St. Martin’s Anglican Church (2120 Prince Charles Road). Information and tickets are available at this link.

Finest Kind (Ann Downey, Shelley Posen, Ian Robb), whose repertoire ranges from traditional British, Canadian and American folk songs to contemporary songs mostly arranged in glorious three-part harmonies, are fabulous whether singing a cappella or accompanying themselves on such instruments as guitar, banjo, bass and concertina.

Pictured: James Stephens, Finest Kind (Ian Robb, Ann Downey, Shelley Posen) Tao Rodriguez-Seeger and Mike Regenstreif at the 2009 Ottawa Folk Festival.

Here is my review of For Honour & For Gain, Finest Kind’s most recent album, from the November, December 2010, January 2011 issue of Sing Out!

FINEST KIND

For Honour & For Gain

Fallen Angle 09

On their fifth CD, Finest Kind – the Ottawa-based trio of Ian Robb, Shelley Posen and Ann Downey – continue to offer superbly arranged versions of traditional and traditionally-oriented contemporary songs from Great Britain, the United States and Canada, including two written by Shelley. Half of the 18 songs are sung a cappella and half feature instrumental arrangements featuring Finest Kind and a cast of several guest musicians.

My favorite a cappella track is “John Barleycorn Deconstructed,” Shelley’s brilliant parody of the British folksong “John Barleycorn – which they recorded on their previous CD, Silks & Spices, released in 2003 – in which they explain, line by line, how and why they arranged the song. Not only is it hilarious, but it gives us an understanding into the work that an accomplished ensemble like Finest Kind puts into their arrangements.

Other highlights among the unaccompanied songs are “Bay of Biscay,” in which the sleeping Mary is visited by the ghost of her long lost lover, and “From Dover to Calais,” a modern shanty written by Toronto songwriter Howard Kaplan.

There are also lots of gems among the songs with instrumental back-up. Favorites include the shanty-meets-Cajun arrangement of “Bully in the Alley” featuring Ian’s lead vocal, Shelley and Ann’s harmonies, the fiddle of co-producer James Stephens and Jody Benjamin’s triangle; the Appalachian folksong, “Short Life of Trouble,” featuring Ann on lead vocal and banjo; “Lowlands Low,” a variant of “The Golden Vanity” that Shelley, a folklorist by trade, collected in the Ottawa Valley; and a beautiful, poignant version of Utah Phillips’ “He Comes Like Rain (Like Wind He Goes).”

If I have one minor quibble with this album, it’s that Ann is too seldom heard as lead vocalist (not that I have any problem listening to Ian or Shelley’s leads). ---Mike Regenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Anne Hills & David Roth – Rhubarb Trees

ANNE HILLS & DAVID ROTH

Rhubarb Trees

Wind River Records

annehills.com

davidrothmusic.com

I’ve come to think of Anne Hills, who has been high on my list of favorite singers for about three decades, as the queen of collaborations. Anne’s first LP, The Panic is On, released in 1982, was a collaboration with Jan Burda. Since then, in addition to a bunch of superb solo recordings – click here for my review of Points of View, Anne’s most recent solo album – she has recorded collaborations with Cindy Mangsen and Priscilla Herdman (Herdman, Hills & Mangsen); Cindy Mangsen and a bunch of guest stars; Jay Ansill; Michael Smith (one of my favorite memories from the Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio show was a live performance of Michael and Anne singing “The Dutchman); Tom Paxton; Steve Gillette, Cindy Mangsen and Michael Smith (Fourtold); Tom Paxton and Bob Gibson (Best of Friends); and, now, with David Roth.

Before developing into a superb songwriter in her own right, Anne first established her reputation and as an interpretive singer. David Roth was a songwriter I was first introduced to via several of his songs that Anne recorded many years ago. A new duet version of one of those songs, “May the Light of Love,” opens Rhubarb Trees, a lovely, often thought-provoking, occasionally humorous, collection of excellent material written or co-written by Anne and/or David.

There are new versions of several other excellent songs already familiar through previous recordings by either Anne or David. Among Anne’s are “The Child Within,” a reflection on the passage of years in rural West Virginia; “I Am You,” a universalist anthem, co-written with Michael Smith, which describes people of all races, religions, genders, and orientations as part of the same human family; and “Orphans,” a devastating reflection on children of war.

In addition to “May the Light of Love,” another of David’s songs which I recognize from one of his earlier albums is “That Kind of Grace,” actually co-written about 20 years ago with Anne, which connects events of the civil rights movement with the then-current Rodney King case.

Among the highlights of the newer material are Anne’s “Nightime Falls,” a poignant reflection on the circle of life inspired by the final illness and passing of her father; and David’s “Everything That Happens Makes Me Stronger,” a song he put together based on poems written by young people whose families have been caught up in the recent economic crisis.

Although many of these songs deal with heavy topics, there are also songs filled with humor. Among them are “Rhubarb Trees,” co-written by Anne and David, which was inspired by the Mary Hills painting they chose for the cover of the CD digi-pak; David’s “Neuroplasticity,” a three-part a cappella round inspired by speakers at a psychology conference; and “The Strange Meanderings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama Down to Nashville, Tennessee,” a hilarious country music parody co-written by Anne, David and Michael Smith, which imagines the Dalai Lama’s adventures writing country-and-eastern songs in Music City.

The arrangements on this lovely album are kept simple. Some tracks are just Anne and David, with bassist Mark Dann joining them on others.

--Mike Regenstreif

Steve Gillette & Cindy Mangsen – Home By Dark

STEVE GILLETTE & CINDY MANGSEN

Home By Dark

Compass Rose Records

compassrosemusic.com

Individually, Steve Gillette and Cindy Mangsen had well established reputations in the folk music world long before they met, married and began touring and recording together as a duo (while also maintaining their both their solo careers and collaborative efforts with other artists). Steve has been an A-list songwriter since first making his mark in the 1960s with “Darcy Farrow,” a standard of the folk repertoire since Ian & Sylvia recorded it in 1965, while Cindy’s reputation as a fine interpretive singer – particularly of traditional ballads – dates back to the 1970s.

Over their years together, I’ve noticed the influence that Steve and Cindy have had on each other. Steve is less concerned with singing his own songs than he is in singing great songs whether he wrote them or not (and he still writes great songs) while Cindy has become a fine songwriter herself while still remaining a sublime interpreter of traditional music. All of that is on display on Home By Dark, their fifth album as a duo (mixed among various solo efforts and collaborations with other artists).

Steve and Cindy almost evenly split the lead roles on this album. Among Steve’s highlights are his version of Doug Johnson’s “Holy Smoke,” which uses Native American legends in a song about the California wildfires wrought each year by the Santa Ana Winds, and his two original songs, “The California Zephyr,” co-written by Denise Fleming,” and “Home By Dark.” The former is a sad portrait of a woman riding the train that runs between Chicago and San Francisco, broken by alcohol and lost in her memories of a love that’s long gone (or perhaps was never requited). The latter is a poignant circle-of-life song that begins with a childhood memory of hopping on a bicycle to explore the immediate world with just the need to be “home by dark” and moves on to a father’s contemporary desire to leave the demands of the daily working life early enough in the day to be “home by dark” to spend the evening with his children.

Cindy’s highlights include a stunning and haunting version of “The Two Sisters,” a compelling tale of sibling jealousy and murder, her own equally haunting “Seal Harbor,” based on the traditional stories of the seal folk, which she introduces with her setting of Rudyard Kipling’s “Seal Lullaby,” and a beautiful version of “Some Boats,” written by Anne Hills, another of Cindy’s frequent collaborators.

Other highlights include their delightful duet on “The Gnu,” a hilarious song from one of Flanders & Swann’s shows, and a couple of instrumental medleys – “Rosmini’s Rag,” featuring some fine guitar picking by Steve in a tribute to Dick Rosmini, a great guitarist of the 1960s who lost his battle with ALS in 1995, and “Manomet Waltz/The Mathematician,” featuring some equally fine concertina playing by Cindy.

--Mike Regenstreif

Catherine Russell – Strictly Romancin’

CATHERINE RUSSELL

Strictly Romancin’

World Village Records

catherinerussell.net

Catherine Russell has been just about my favourite present-day jazz singer ever since she finally released Cat, her debut album, in 2006 following a long career as a back-up singer for a variety of artists. The daughter of Luis Russell – who served as band leader for Louis Armstrong back in the day – and Carline Ray, a pioneering woman jazz musician, Cat is a great singer who brings out the best in classic and traditional jazz and blues tunes. Writing in the Montreal Gazette, I called that first album “glorious.” So too have been all of her subsequent releases.

Strictly Romancin’, Cat’s fourth album, is appropriately enough, being released on Tuesday, Valentine’s Day, as most of the songs, most of them classics, some of them obscure-but-great classics, deal with one aspect or another of romance.

There are, of course, different sides to the love relationship. There’s the ready-for-Valentine’s Day woman singing “I’m in the Mood for Love” and “Romance in the Dark”; the hopeless romantic singing “Ev’ntide”; and the spurned or out-of-love woman singing “Under the Spell of the Blues” and “No More.” Whether it’s an inherent loneliness in “Under the Spell of the Blues” or the anticipation of “Romance in the Dark,” Cat nails the appropriate feelings and emotions expressed in each song.

Among my very favourite tracks are humour-laced songs like Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s kiss-off song “I’m Checkin’ Out, Goom’Bye,” an arrangement highlighted by the playful interaction between Cat and John Allred’s trombone, “Satchel Mouth Baby,” Mary Lou Williams’ shout-out to Louis Armstrong, and “Everybody Loves My Baby,” a fun, swinging tune made famous by the Boswell Sisters.

Certainly one of the most special tracks is the Sister Rosetta Tharpe-Marie Knight spiritual “He’s All I Need.” Backed by Mark Shane’s gospel piano, Cat and her mother, Carline Ray, sound positively inspired.

Cat’s arrangements are perfectly suited to each of the tunes and feature a terrific group of ace musicians – both the core members of her touring band and guests who contribute to select tracks. In addition to those already mentioned, some of the instrumental highlights include Matt Munisteri’s guitar solo on “Don’t Leave Me,” Joe Barbato’s romantic Paris café accordion on “I’m in the Mood for Love,” and Dan Block’s playful clarinet on “Everybody Loves My Baby.”

Catherine Russell draws on the influences of many great singers of bygone years to create a unique voice of her own and to make classic material seem as fresh and vital as ever. Kudos to Cat, to all of the musicians, and to producer Paul Kahn, for another in her series of excellent albums.

Click here for my review of Catherine Russell’s 2010 album, Inside This Heart of Mine.

Pictured: Catherine Russell and Mike Regenstreif at CKUT during Folk Roots/Folk Branches (June 28, 2007).

--Mike Regenstreif

Alberta Hunter – Downhearted Blues: Live at the Cookery

ALBERTA HUNTER

Downhearted Blues: Live at the Cookery

Rock Beat Records

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta_Hunter

Back in the 1970s and early-‘80s I used to get to New York City several times a year. One of my great pleasures in being in New York was getting to spend time in the company of the great Dave Van Ronk.

One night Dave asked me if I’d heard Alberta Hunter perform yet. One of the greatest of the classic blues singers of the 1920s and ‘30s, Hunter, by then in her 80s, had recently resumed performing again after many decades spent working as a nurse in a New York hospital.

When I told Dave I hadn’t seen a Hunter show, he marched me over to a club called the Cookery, for a marvelous set by the elderly, but still energetic, performer. Accompanied by a pianist and bassist, she was entrancing singing old songs like dating from her early career 50 and 60 years before, as well as great versions of several tunes from later decades. It was a very similar show to one recorded in December 1981 and now released as Downhearted Blues: Live at the Cookery.

Hunter's excellent accompanists on the live album are pianist Gerald Cook and bassist Jimmy Lewis, who, from the sound of things, I'd guess, were probably the musicians I saw her perform with.

Listening to the CD, I’m so reminded of that night I spent at the Cookery listening to Hunter, still great, singing classics from early in her career like “Down Hearted Blues” and “The Darktown Strutter’s Ball,” new material like “Remember My Name” and “The Love I Have For You,” and other great tunes like “Georgia On My Mind.” And on songs like “Handy Man,” Hunter, in her mid-80s, still knew how to exude a raunchy sexiness.

I would consider all of Alberta Hunter’s recordings, from her earliest sides in the 1920s through to the comeback albums she made in the ‘70s and ‘80s, to be essential. This live album is an important addition to her catalogue.

--Mike Regenstreif

Blue O’Connell – Choose the Sky

BLUE O’CONNELL

Choose the Sky

blueoconnell.com

If Blue O’Connell had just chosen to perform instrumentals on Choose the Sky – six of its 13 compositions are instrumentals – it would be easy to simply applaud an album of often haunting, creative classical guitar or guitar/flute pieces influenced by sounds of nature and by strains of classical, folk, new age and Native American music. The compositions and the way she plays them on guitar and, occasionally, on flute, is spacious, calming and lovely.

The vocal songs, too, are spacious, calming and lovely. But, when Blue sings, the timbre in her singing voice quickly tells us that she is an unusual singer-songwriter. Hers is a voice obviously affected by a hearing disability – a disability she has not allowed to stop her from appreciating, making and sharing music.

A musician, since childhood, Blue began to progressively lose her hearing as a young adult. She continued to make music using hearing aids for more than 20 years until three years ago when she received a cochlear implant in one ear and a digital hearing aid in the other. She then had to undergo therapy and rehabilitation to understand and process sounds in a new a different way.

“All the while, I kept at my music even though it did sound very strange in the beginning,” she explains on her website.

There is a seeming innocence to Blue’s lyric writing that finds joy in the sights of the sky, that wonders how she will be affected by a spiritual encounter or where the inner muse for creating music comes from. Perhaps the most moving song is “To Belong,” an empowering declaration about overcoming disability.

While Blue performs solo on most of the album, a few songs are sweetened by contributions from cellist Peter Markush, harmony singer Mary Gordon Hall and guitarist Jeff Romano.

And while there may be a seeming innocence to her lyric writing and a seeming purity to her melodies, I can’t help but think that I’m just a little bit wiser from having listened to Blue O’Connell’s inspiring music.

--Mike Regenstreif

Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas

LEONARD COHEN

Old Ideas

Columbia

leonardcohen.com

The songs of Leonard Cohen have been an important part of my life since 1968, when – like almost everyone in Montreal (or, at least, English-speaking Montreal) into music and/or poetry – I sat down with his newly-released first LP, Songs of Leonard Cohen, a masterwork of songwriting. I lost myself in Leonard’s voice, his music and his words on that album. Especially the words. I’ve been listening to those songs, over and over again, and to the songs on every album he’s released since, and I still find layers of meaning and new ways to interpret so many of them. A well-established man of letters, a poet and novelist, who was well into his 30s before recording that first album, Leonard has never been a simple singer-songwriter churning out ephemeral pop music.

 

Even the songs on Leonard’s minor albums like Death of a Ladies Man or the somewhat uneven Dear Heather have kept me enthralled. And I’ve stayed enthralled when listening, over and over again, to albums like I’m Your Man built around mechanical-sounding, programmed keyboards, an approach to music-making I generally loath and have no time for in the hands of almost anyone but Leonard Cohen.

Curiously, despite using variations on that programmed keyboard approach on much of his recorded work since 1988, his concert tours in that same period have featured ensembles of world-class musicians and harmony singers and impeccable arrangements.

This brings us to Old Ideas, the song-poet’s latest masterwork. Recorded in the wake of a two-year world tour, the sound of music played by real musicians – happily – outweighs the mechanical sound of programmed keyboards. It’s very intimate music-making. The arrangements, mostly, are quiet, and Leonard’s singing, mostly, is conversational; conversational and hypnotically mesmerizing.

I referred to the album as a masterwork and, indeed, it is. Like so much of his best work, there are layers and layers of meaning and understanding that I think will continue to reveal themselves over a period of years of repeated listening.

That’s already started to happen for me with several songs, perhaps most notably with “Amen,” a long, prayer-like song, perhaps a conversation with God. At first, when Leonard sings that he’s “been to the river” and then makes reference to the “Laws of Remorse,” I thought, perhaps, the song was inspired by the Tashlich ceremony of the Jewish New Year, when the sins of the past year are symbolically cast into the water. I still think that’s part of what the song is about. On second and third listening, though, piecing together the different images – “the horror,” “the victims,” the “night [that] has no right to begin,” “the filth of the butcher,” “the Eye of the Camp,” and several others – I now think the song’s major theme is a deep rumination on the Holocaust; perhaps an attempt to address the most difficult question of modern Jewish philosophy: how could God have allowed the Holocaust to occur?

Another song I’ve interpreted differently on subsequent playing is “Crazy to Love You,” which Leonard performs solo – just his voice and nylon-string guitar. On one level, it’s seemingly a song about craziness we go through – early in a relationship – in trying to mold ourselves into who we want the romantic object our desire to think we are. But, then, I thought maybe it’s about the craziness that performing artists – singers, actors, etc., even poets – go through in establishing the character or persona under which they perform.

Among my first favourites is “Banjo,” which seems to use an image of a broken banjo floating on the sea as a metaphor for something that is personal and important that has been lost. Maybe I’m over-interpreting here, but when the brass section comes in midway through the song with its echoes of a New Orleans second line march, I couldn’t help but think the broken banjo floating out there represents all the music-making that was lost to Hurricane Katrina.

Although much of Old Ideas ponders such major themes as love, human mortality and spirituality, it’s not an album bereft of humour. In the opening song, “Going Home,” Leonard sings about himself in the third-person. Is it his inner muse singing about his outer person, or, as Freud might have it, his super-ego singing about his ego and id? Or, is it just Leonard having some fun?

And speaking of humour, look at the album cover. Leonard, in his trademarked black suit and hat, sitting in a backyard in the sun. So much of his work suggests the hours of night, of darkness, but there he is, sitting in the sun.

I suppose one of the beauties of Leonard’s work is that it’s so open to interpretation. Every song on Old Ideas is layered with ideas – the ideas Leonard had when he wrote the songs, and maybe more that continued to grow; and certainly the ideas that each of us, individually, hears and develops from listening and endlessly re-listening to the songs. What I hear in these old ideas is not necessarily what anyone else hears, or, even, what the poet – part Jewish mystic, part Zen monk – might have intended.

Almost four-and-a-half decades after Songs of Leonard Cohen, at age 77, Leonard has produced yet another impeccable, compelling, masterpiece.

--Mike Regenstreif

Folk Uke – Reincarnation

FOLK UKE

Reincarnation

Folk Uke

folkuke.com

I’m not sure how long they’ve actually been playing together but Folk Uke has been on my radar since 2005 when they released their first CD – just called Folk Uke – and it generated some significant airplay on the Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio program. The duo of Cathy Guthrie and Amy Nelson blended their voices so simply and so beautifully, you’d swear they were sisters (I have heard Cathy singing with her real sisters and that sounds pretty great, too).

Although they’re not siblings, both Cathy and Amy do come from musical families. Cathy is one of several musically talented children of old friend Arlo Guthrie (and grandchildren of Woody Guthrie) and Amy’s dad is Willie Nelson. Both fathers have contributed some back-up playing to both Folk Uke CDs.

Folk Uke’s style is seemingly simple -- mostly built around their voices which harmonize and intertwine so closely it’s hard to really tell who’s who, and their ukuleles (with Amy also playing guitar). Most of the back-up arrangements are low-key keeping most of the attention most of the time on Cathy and Amy. But they simply ooze charm throughout most of the set, whether singing sweet love songs Harry Nilsson’s “He Needs Me” and “Reincarnation” or put-downs and break-up songs like “My Little Singer,” “Quattro Momento” and “Filthy Floors.”

Cathy and Amy also show they can be artistically fearless by taking a bitterly ironic approach – which risks misinterpretation – to the subject of domestic violence in “I Miss My Boyfriend.” While they sing from the perspective of a woman missing her abusive boyfriend, Shooter Jennings speaks from jail as the violent boyfriend.

Folk Uke’s harmonies and stripped down approach is a delight to hear.

BTW, along with Cathy and Amy, some other progeny of musical parents contributed to this album. Cathy’s brother, Abe Guthrie, played piano and bass and co-produced the sessions; Shooter Jennings, who plays the role of the incarcerated boyfriend in “I Miss My Boyfriend,” is Waylon Jennings’ son; Casey Kristofferson, who co-wrote “Blessed and Cursed” is the daughter of Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge; and Gabriel Rhodes, who was one of the album’s recording engineers, is the son of Kimmie Rhodes.

--Mike Regenstreif

Missy Burgess – Play Me Sweet

MISSY BURGESS

Play Me Sweet

Missy Burgess

missyburgess.com

I heard Ottawa-based singer and songwriter Missy Burgess for the first time about four years ago when she slipped me a copy of Lemon Pie, her second album. I liked it a lot gave it a nice – albeit brief – review in the Montreal Gazette.

As someone who turned to performing, and, particularly to recording as a fairly mature artist, you can hear the weight of experience Missy brings to her strong original material and to the interpretive voice she brings to standards and the gems from other writers she chooses to cover. Although her voice sounds like neither, she reminds me of Penny Lang and Rosalie Sorrels in that regard.

As good as Lemon Pie was, Play Me Sweet is a big step forward for Missy and I suspect producer-guitarist Keith Glass – of Prairie Oyster – has a lot to do with it. His superb musicianship is all over the CD, he co-wrote four of the songs with Missy, and contributed another two songs of his own. In addition to the co-writes with Keith – one of which Chris White also had a hand in – Missy also wrote two of the tracks herself and there are three more excellent covers.

At the top of my list of favourite tracks is Missy’s “Don’t Go to Cincinnati,” sung from the perspective of a woman whose man divides his time with her and with another woman in Cincinnati. The minor key arrangement is reminiscent of Brechtian cabaret songs filtered through Tom Waits. Speaking of Waits, Missy’s world-weary version of his “Time,” is one of the best interpretations of that great song I’ve heard.

Other favourites include Keith’s “Sundown Blues,” a classic country break-up song; Missy and Keith’s “Play Me Sweet,” whose portrait of a sad man on a train builds slowly and poetically over three verses; and a sweet version of “Smile,” the inspiring buck-up standard composed by silent film star Charlie Chaplin.

Although I’ve just mentioned a few of the songs, the quality of the material, Missy’s singing, and Keith’s spot-on arrangements, turn each of the 11 songs on Play Me Sweet to gold.

--Mike Regenstreif