Folk Roots/Folk Branches with Mike Regenstreif

Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas

2012-01-29T08:38:00.002-05:00

LEONARD COHEN

Old Ideas

Columbia

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

2012-01-15T17:55:00.000-05:00

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

2012-01-14T17:39:00.001-05:00

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

Lauren Sheehan – Rose City Ramble

2012-01-08T16:26:00.002-05:00

LAUREN SHEEHAN

Rose City Ramble

Wilson River Records

laurensheehanmusic.com

Six years ago, in a Sing Out! magazine review of her second album, Two Wings, I wrote that Lauren Sheehan “is one of the best interpreters of the [blues] genre to step forward in the past several years.” I still think that but notice that she refers to herself, on her website, as an “American roots songster.” I like that description as it recalls great musical forebears like Mississippi John Hurt, Lead Belly, and Mance Lipscomb, who, though blues-based, drew inspiration and material from wherever they chose and were thus often referred to as songsters rather than blues musicians.

On Rose City Ramble, her third album, Lauren is very much in that songster tradition. Some of the material is, indeed, straight out of the blues tradition, but she also draws on bluegrass, country, Appalachian folk balladry, and contemporary folk, often combining strains of one influence or another. For example, she finds and brings out the blues inherent and at the essence of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” one of the greatest of all country classics, and also in “The Memory of Your Smile,” a bluegrass classic from the Stanley Brothers repertoire.

You can also feel the blues at the base of “Chilly Winds,” an original song based on the traditional Appalachian ballad, “Cold Rain and Snow,” and in her interpretation of the traditional “Black is the Color (of My True Love’s Hair).” And Lauren’s version of the latter song is very different from that of Nina Simone, who also turned the ancient Celtic song blue.

Among the other highlights on this excellent CD are “Oh, the Candyman,” a swinging variation on “Candy Man” that is very different from either of the standard versions associated with Reverend Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt; a rendition of Blind Willie McTell’s “In the Wee Midnight Hours” featuring sweet harmonies from Zoë Carpenter, Lauren’s daughter, and some haunting harmonica playing by Johnnie Ward; and “Louie’s Blues,” an original tune that draws inspiration and some lyrics from Howard (“Louie Bluie”) Armstrong.

Lauren has a lovely voice that she knows how to use to great effect, she’s an accomplished player whether on guitar, banjo or mandolin, and whether playing solo or with small ensembles, she’s crafted terrific arrangements well suited to each song.

--Mike Regenstreif

Clarksdale Moan – Dewittville Blues

2012-01-07T17:39:00.000-05:00

CLARKSDALE MOAN

Dewittville Blues

Clarksdale Moan

reverbnation.com/clarksdalemoan

One of the things I’ve always liked about going to folk festivals is discovering new – or, at least, new to me – artists that I want to hear more of. Clarksdale Moan, an acoustic blues duo from the Chateauguay Valley area south of Montreal was just such a discovery at the Ottawa Folk Festival in 2010.

Clarksdale Moan is singer and harmonica player Kevin Harvey and guitarist Kenny Pauzé. Their band name is a song title by Son House that refers to the Delta town in Mississippi, about 75 miles south of Memphis, which is so steeped in blues history. The crossroads where legend has it Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil is just outside of Clarksdale.

Appropriately enough, the album leads off with a Robert Johnson classic, “When You Got a Good Friend.” On this track, and most of the rest, Kevin and Kenny showcase their basic sound: Kevin’s relaxed vocals and harmonica fills and Kenny’s full-sounding acoustic guitar arrangements – many played slide style. Most of the songs are either traditional or drawn from familiar artists ranging from first generation blues masters like Johnson and House or more contemporary artists like Kim Wilson and Taj Mahal.

Among my favourite tracks are a sweet version of “Stack O’Lee” and an up tempo take on Muddy Waters’ “Can’t Be Satisfied” in which I don’t miss the fuller band sound I’m used to on that tune.

There are also a couple of Kevin and Kenny’s own songs, both of which use adapted blues melodies. “Someday,” is a positive, hopeful blues while “Dewittville Blues” – which I presume refers to the small village in the Chateauguay Valley near Ormstown, is cast in the familiar “Goin’ down to...” mode.

There are also three songs with an additional musician. Danny Bloom adds a second harmonica to two tracks and Terry Joe “Banjo” plays on one.

--Mike Regenstreif

Top 10 for 2011

2011-12-14T10:58:00.006-05:00

Here are my picks for the Top 10 folk-rooted or folk-branched albums of 2011 (including reissues). I started with the list of more than 400 albums that landed on my desk over the past year and narrowed it down to a short list of about 35. I’ve been over the short list a bunch of times and came up with several similar – not identical – Top 10 lists. Today’s list is the final one. The order might have been slightly different, and there are several other worthy albums that might have been included, had one of the other lists represented the final choice.

1. Tom Russell – Mesabi (Shout! Factory). There are a couple of distinct, but somehow linked, song-cycles on this album. The first explores the nature of the pursuit of art, the nature of legend, and the rewards and the cruelty of fame. The second is about the back-and-forth exchanges and borderland inter-dependencies of the area around El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico. Mesabi is another in Tom Russell’s long series of masterpiece albums – all of them different from each other, all of them layered to reveal more with each hearing.

Click here for my full-length review of Mesabi.

2. Kate & Anna McGarrigle – Tell My Sister (Nonesuch). An essential 3-CD set that reissues the first two highly acclaimed Kate & Anna McGarrigle albums – Kate & Anna McGarrigle and Dancer With Bruised Knees – along with 21 previously unreleased demos – many of them Kate solo – recorded between 1971 and 1974. The third CD of previously unreleased demos is absolutely wonderful. While most of the songs would end up being recorded on later Kate & Anna albums, there are six songs that have never been released before.

Click here for my full-length review of Tell My Sister.

3. Gillian Welch – The Harrow & the Harvest (Acony). It’s been eight years since Gillian Welch’s last album and the wait was rewarded with a superb set of new songs steeped in folk music tradition. The only musicians are Gillian and David Rawlings, her co-writer and long-time partner. The arrangements seem simple but are as deeply complex as the layered songwriting.

4. Stan Rogers – The Very Best of Stan Rogers and Fogarty’s Cove (Fogarty’s Cove/Borealis). The project to remaster and reissue the catalogue of Stan Rogers, arguably Canada’s greatest folk-rooted singer-songwriter, began with The Very Best of Stan Roger, a 16-song overture, and continued with Fogarty’s Cove, his first album. No contemporary songwriter has captured Maritime life as genuinely as Stan did on Fogarty’s Cove.

Click here for my full-length review of The Best of Stan Rogers.

Click here for my full-length review of Fogarty's Cove.

5. Bruce Cockburn – Small Source of Comfort (True North). Small Source of Comfort is Bruce Cockburn at his most intimate, his most musical, and his most incisive. It quickly assumed its place among my favourites of Bruce’s many albums.

Click here for my full-length review of Small Source of Comfort.

6. Diana Jones – High Atmosphere (Proper American). The third in a series of superb albums that Diana Jones has released since 2006 in which she creates seemingly simple and plainspoken (plain sung, really) songs which draw on the traditions of southern folk music. While the songs and performances may be seemingly simple, they are, in fact, skillfully drawn pieces that weave together timeless melodies with lyrics that are poetic and oblique on some songs and which tell stories and present fully fleshed out characters on others.

Click here for my full-length review of High Atmosphere.

7. The Klezmatics – Live at Town Hall (Klezmatics Disc). The Klezmatics, one of the most creative and influential of contemporary klezmer bands, celebrate their 25th anniversary this year with this two-CD set recorded at their 20th anniversary concert in 2006 where the band was joined by a stellar bunch of 26 other guest singers and musicians to play some of the best music from their nine previous albums in what really was a once-in-a-lifetime extravaganza.

Click here for my full-length review of Live at Town Hall.

8. Bruce Murdoch – Sometimes I Wonder Why the World (Bruce Murdoch). These intimate and intense songs seem to flow like 13 movements in a suite. Mature love and human courage are the dominant themes. New songs from Bruce Murdoch are always to be treasured.

Click here for my full-length review of Sometimes I Wonder Why the World.

9. Ry Cooder – Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down (Nonesuch). Drawing on traditional folk, blues, Mexican and rock motifs, and the influence of Woody Guthrie, Ry Cooder shows how vital contemporary topical songwriting can still be. While the anti-Bush pieces may already seem dated in the Obama era, even they speak to enduring themes of war, peace, honesty and accountability.

10. Carrie Elkin- Call It My Garden (Red House). A mature artist who has obviously developed her song-craft and performance styles, Carrie Elkin’s songs are layered in meaning and seem to reveal more each time I’ve listened to this compelling album.

Click here for my full-length review of Call It My Garden.

---Mike Regenstreif

Sloan Wainwright – Upside Down & Under My Heart

2011-12-12T17:25:00.000-05:00

SLOAN WAINWRIGHT

Upside Down & Under My Heart

Derby Disc Music

sloanwainwright.com

There were several poignant musical moments, almost two years ago, at the funeral service for beloved singer and songwriter, and old friend, Kate McGarrigle. Among the most profound, for me, came when Sloan Wainwright, Kate’s friend and ex-sister-in-law, sang “Today,” a beautiful song I’d never heard before.

It turned out to be a song that Sloan and Kate had co-written in 2009, sometime after Sloan’s husband, George McTavey, passed away following a long battle with leukaemia.

I told Sloan how moved I was by the song and she sent me an MP3 demo of “Today” recorded June 27, 2009 at Kate’s house in Montreal with Kate on piano, Chaim Tannenbaum on harmonica and mandolin and Joel Zifkin on viola. It was a song I listened to many times in the months that followed and which I’m pleased to report is included on Upside Down & Under My Heart, Sloan’s new album.

“Today” remains a profoundly moving song – a sad, quiet, dignified memorial to both George and Kate.

The sense of loss pervades several other songs including the haunting “I Wear the Ring,” a song to her late husband telling him that she wears his wedding ring and lets him know their children are all right.

Beyond loss and grief are songs like “I Can See Now” and “I Am Free” in which she affirms her continuing life and songs of hope like “Upside Down & Under My Heart,” which she sings as an expectant mother to a yet unborn child.

Musically, Sloan blends strains of folk, blues and pop into something of her own. Her greatest strength, perhaps, is her voice, a warm contralto marked by unique phrasing that brings each song to life, whether singing quietly and contemplatively or powerfully and forcefully.

--Mike Regenstreif

Bonnie Ste-Croix – Canadian Girl

2011-12-12T13:49:00.000-05:00

BONNIE STE-CROIX

Canadian Girl

Bonnie Ste-Croix

bonniestecroix.com

I met singer-songwriter Bonnie Ste-Croix at the 2010 Ontario Council of Folk Festivals (OCFF) conference in Ottawa where she told me about an interesting project she had in the works. She was travelling to each of Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories and recording a song there with guest musicians from each locale. It was a highly ambitious project, to say the least, for an independent musician.

Bonnie is a thoroughly Canadian girl. She grew up in the Gaspé, has since lived in Montreal, Banff, Vancouver and, now, Halifax, and, as she sings in the album’s title track, regards the entire country – and its seasons and customs – as home. And, in her various collaborators from west to east and north to south, she’s found kindred musical spirits.

The album’s strongest tracks include the fore-mentioned “Canadian Girl,” recorded in Halifax with fiddler Natalie MacMaster and singer Laura Smith; “Front Porch Song,” recorded in Toronto with Stephen Fearing playing the Six String Nation Guitar that Jowi Taylor has been bringing around the country over the past five years and singers Kate Reid and Lynne Hanson, a catchy, slice-of-life-in-the-neighbourhood tune; “On Était Bien,” featuring the members of Dentdelion and Dale Boyle, which sounds like a Quebec folksong; “If I Could Sail,” recorded in St. John’s with The Once, a lament for a lover at sea; and “October Song,” a lovely tribute to the Canadian autumn featuring fiddler and harmony vocalist Shari Ulrich and fiddler Julia Graff (Shari’s daughter).

Each of the guest musicians brings something special to the songs they contributed to. And while many of the songs are not lyrically or stylistically specific to the places they were recorded, Bonnie has succeeded gloriously in creating a musical tribute to Canada and in recognizing there are excellent and creative musicians and singers in every part of the country.

--Mike Regenstreif

The Klezmatics -- Live at Town Hall

2011-12-06T16:24:00.000-05:00

This review is from the December 12, 2011 issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.

The Klezmatics

Live At Town Hall

Klezmatics Disc

klezmatics.com

The New York City-based Klezmatics, without doubt one of the most creative and influential of contemporary klezmer bands, celebrate their 25th anniversary this year with the release of a two-CD set recorded at their exciting 20th anniversary concert in 2006. The current line-up of the band was joined by their former clarinetists Margot Leverett and David Kraukauer, and a stellar bunch of 24 other guest singers and musicians, to play some of the best music from their nine previous albums in what really was a once-in-a-lifetime extravaganza.

Live At Town Hall opens with the exuberant, joyfully over-the-top “Man in a Hat,” a Yiddish-English celebration of Manhattan, sailors, world travel and lust. Lead singer Lorin Sklamberg sings the double entendre lyrics with an elastic facility few singers in any genre of music can match. Meanwhile the band – virtuoso players all – wails in triple time.

From there we journey through a marvellous set that includes several extended medleys and suites.

Among the many highlights are four songs featuring special guest singers.

Joanne Borts and Sklamberg sing a duet on “Di Krenitse,” an Itzik Fefer poem set to music by Israeli singer Chava Alberstein. The arrangement draws on both klezmer and cabaret styles.

“Elijah Rock,” an African American spiritual which references biblical prophets Elijah, Moses and Ezekiel, features singer Joshua Nelson and an arrangement that could raise the roof on Preservation Hall in New Orleans.

Adrienne Cooper is featured on a powerful version of “I Ain’t Afraid,” a Holly Near song with added Yiddish lyrics by Cooper and Michael Wex, which the Klezmatics turned into a post-9/11 anthem extolling both defiance to terrorism and reconciliation of peoples.

And Susan McKeown, the superb Irish traditional singer, joins the band on “Gonna Get Through This World,” one of several songs drawn from the Klezmatics’ two albums of the Woody Guthrie Jewish-themed lyrics they set to music.

Other highlights include several other songs from the Guthrie project including “Holy Ground,” sung beautifully by Sklamberg with a choir of other Klezmatics and guests adding gorgeous harmonies, and just in time for right now, the celebratory “Hanuka Gelt.”

Along with Sklamberg, who plays accordion, guitar and piano in addition to his lead vocals, the core Klezmatics include Frank London on trumpet, horns, keyboards and percussion; violinist Lisa Gutkin; Matt Darriau on clarinet alto saxophone and kaval; Paul Morrissett on bass and tsimbl; and drummers David Licht and Richie Barshay. They are not just one of the best bands in klezmer music, they’re one of the best bands in any kind of music.

--Mike Regenstreif

The Boxcar Boys -- Don't Be Blue

2011-12-06T16:09:00.000-05:00

This review is from the December 12, 2011 issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.

The Boxcar Boys

Don’t Be Blue

The Boxcar Boys

theboxcarboys.ca

The five musicians of the Boxcar Boys – one of whom is a woman – look like a klezmer band dressed in Depression-era clothing on the cover of their debut CD, Don’t Be Blue.

Their instrumentation of clarinet (John David Williams), trombone (Karl Silveira), sousaphone (Rob Teehan), violin (Laura C. Bates) accordion (Ronen Segall) is probably more klezmerish than any other style of music being played these days. And, they do sound very much like a klezmer band on original numbers like “The Handcuff King” and “Waltz for Rotman,” both composed by Bates, or “Mugg’s Island” and “Jägerbomb Blues” by Williams.

But, this Toronto-based combo also draws on traditional jazz, folk, ragtime, and even country music. Two of the best tracks are an unusual and very haunting treatment of the country classic, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” by Hank Williams, and a happy-sounding version of the 1920s jazz tune, “I Ain’t Gonna Give Nobody None of My Jelly Roll.”

Great stuff!

--Mike Regenstreif

Canadian Folk Music Award Winners

2011-12-04T20:21:00.022-05:00

The Seventh Annual Canadian Folk Music Awards took place tonight at the Isabel Bader Theatre in Toronto.

The awards went to:

VOCAL GROUP OF THE YEAR

Good Lovelies - Let The Rain Fall

INSTRUMENTAL GROUP OF THE YEAR

The Creaking Tree String Quartet - Sundogs

CHILDREN’S ALBUM OF THE YEAR

Benoît Archambault - Les pourquoi

PRODUCER OF THE YEAR

Mark Howard, David Travers-Smith - Bright Morning Stars (The Wailin' Jennys)

INSTRUMENTAL SOLO ARTIST OF THE YEAR

Jayme Stone - Room of Wonders

SOLO ARTIST OF THE YEAR

Bruce Cockburn - Small Source of Comfort

ENSEMBLE OF THE YEAR

Genticorum - Nagez Rameurs

WORLD ARTIST OF THE YEAR - SOLO

Kiran Ahluwalia - aam zameen : common ground

CONTEMPORARY SINGER OF THE YEAR

Suzie Vinnick - Me 'n' Mabel

PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES

Geoff Berner - Victory Party

ABORIGINAL SONGWRITER OF THE YEAR

Vince Fontaine - Songs For Turtle Island

AUTEUR-COMPOSITEUR FRANCOPHONE DE L’ANNÉE

Alexandre Poulin - Une lumière allumée

ENGLISH SONGWRITER OF THE YEAR

Lynn Miles - Fall for Beauty

YOUNG PERFORMER OF THE YEAR

Molly Thomason - Beauty Queen

UNSUNG HERO

Jane Harbury

TRADITIONAL SINGER OF THE YEAR

Dave Gunning – a tribute to John Allan Cameron

NEW/EMERGING ARTIST OF THE YEAR

Dave Gunning - a tribute to John Allan Cameron

WORLD ARTIST OF THE YEAR – GROUP

Minor Empire - Second Nature

TRADITIONAL ALBUM OF THE YEAR

Genticorum - Nagez Rameurs

CONTEMPORARY ALBUM OF THE YEAR

Bruce Cockburn - Small Source of Comfort

Congratulations to all the nominees and recipients, to the Canadian Folk Music Awards organizers, and to Andy Frank and David Newland of Rootsmusic.ca for the webcast.

--Mike Regenstreif

Holger Petersen – Talking Music: Blues Radio and Roots Music

2011-12-03T17:56:00.001-05:00

Talking Music: Blues Radio and Roots Music

By Holger Petersen

Insomniac Press

326 pages

insomniacpress.com/

Holger Petersen’s primary gig for the past 35 years has been running Edmonton-based Stony Plain Records, which he’s built into one of the world’s premiere roots music labels. He is also a veteran and much-respected host of two weekly blues radio programs, Natch’l Blues on the Alberta-wide public station CKUA (for more than 40 years), and Saturday Night Blues on CBC (for 25).

Holger’s an excellent interviewer – I wouldn’t hazard a guess as to how many he’s done in his combined 65 years of weekly broadcasts – and he’s taken transcriptions from 19 of what must be the among the best and turned them into a page-turner for anyone who’s fascinated with great blues and roots artists, producers and musicologists.

As it happens, I’m familiar with the work of all of Holger’s subjects in Talking Music: Blues Radio and Roots Music. I know a couple of them, have met a few others, and have interviewed some of them myself. Despite that familiarity, I was drawn into these interviews and could hear the voices – and Holger’s – in my head as I read their words.

There are lots of fascinating stories here: David “Honeyboy” Edwards on the death of Robert Johnson;

legendary musicologist Alan Lomax talking about the discover of Lead Belly and decrying the state of contemporary blues; Jay McShann on his early days in Kansas City and having a kid sax player named Charlie Parker in his band; Ian Tyson on both his early folk days and the renaissance of cowboy culture; Chris Barber talking about the first British blues tours he organized for legends like Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee; Jeff Healey on his love for traditional jazz; Lucinda Williams on her early Folkways records; Sam Phillips on recording artists like B.B. King and Elvis Presley early in their careers; Eric Bibb and his dad, Leon Bibb, talking about their relationships with Paul Robeson; and, so many, many more.

All the people in this book – famous or not – are important figures in the history of music and the insights in these interviews serves to enhance appreciation for them and their work.

--Mike Regenstreif

Concert review: Leon Redbone at the Shenkman Centre

2011-12-03T15:32:00.005-05:00

In the 1970s, I produced several Montreal concerts with Leon Redbone. The first, at Redpath Hall in 1974, a year or so before Leon's first LP came out, was one of the most successful shows I put together in those days (I also think it was one of the first times, if not the first time, he had headlined in a concert hall, rather than club setting).

I booked Leon into the 400-seater and needed to sell about 200 tickets to break even. About a week before the show, we’d moved about 150 tickets and it looked like I’d probably break even or maybe even make a little money with a good walk-up sale.

Then, all of a sudden, there was an item in Rolling Stone in which Bob Dylan raved about Leon. Ticket sales went crazy. The show sold out. We added a second show and it sold out. We sold 800 tickets for an artist yet to make his first record. And another couple of hundred people were turned away at the door.

The last time I saw Leon was at a folk festival, circa 1980 or ’81. So, until Thursday night’s concert at the Shenkman Centre in Ottawa (and a quick visit backstage – thank you, Richard Flohil!), it had been a good 30 years since I’ve seen him live.

All the Redbone magic from decades ago was very much in evidence at the Shenkman Centre. The music – blues, jazz and Tin Pan Alley songs from 70 and more years ago –was great and the shtick, straight out of pre-war vaudeville, was hilarious.

After a short, charming opening set by young and very promising singer-songwriter Ariana Gillis, accompanied by her father, David Gillis, Leon – accompanied by Paul Asaro, a wonderful stride pianist – ambled on to the stage in a Chaplinesque manner, using his cane to great comedic effect.

The repertoire was all old songs – most of them instantly recognizable – and included great arrangements of numbers like “Diddy Wa Diddie,” which was requested more than once before Leon got around to it, “Polly Wolly Doodle,” “Shine On Harvest Moon,” with the audience harmonizing perfectly, “Big Time Woman,” “Marie,” and “Sweet Sue,” all sung, and occasionally whistled, with Leon’s studied drollness.

Watching Leon expertly play the guitar was a joy. His fingers seemed to dance all over the fret board and his playing seemed like it was based as much on piano as guitar arrangements. And, in Asaro, he had a terrific stride pianist to play with.

Asaro’s piano was hidden behind a barrier so he was only to be seen when sticking his head up to take an occasional blow or to enter or exit the stage. While this kept all the visual attention on Leon, Asaro was very much a part of the show. His playing was great, easily matching Leon’s dexterous finger and fret work. And Asaro also occasionally played Abbott to Leon’s Costello in some back and forth comedy bits that would look dumb on paper but were hilarious in the way they pulled them off.

It’s funny what you remember sometimes. Sitting watching Leon, I recalled a line from the Montreal Star review by rock critic David Freeston about a Leon Redbone concert I produced in 1977 or ’78 at Pollack Hall.

“It was the darndest thing I ever saw,” wrote Freeston.

Yeah, and Leon is still pretty close to the darndest thing going, 30-odd years later.

--Mike Regenstreif

Various Artists – Note of Hope: Woody Guthrie & Rob Wasserman, a collaboration in Words and Music

2011-11-27T10:22:00.001-05:00

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Note of Hope: Woody Guthrie and Rob Wasserman – a collaboration in words and music

429 Records

woodyguthrie.org/noteofhope.htm

“The note of hope is the only note

That can keep us from falling to the bottom of the heap of evolution

Because, largely, about all a human being is anyway

Is just, a hoping machine.”

-Woody Guthrie, Notes About Music, 3/29/1946

During the almost-14-year run of the Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio show on CKUT in Montreal, I did a bunch of special programs devoted to the songs of Woody Guthrie.

Almost 11 years ago, on January 4, 2001, Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter and director of the Woody Guthrie Archives, joined me on one of those shows to talk about Woody, the archives and the various projects she had done, or had in the works, to bring the thousands of unheard songs in the archives to life.

One of the projects she mentioned was a multi-artist collection being spearheaded by the great bassist Rob Wasserman. I was already a big fan of Rob’s playing and of his Duets album for which he collaborated with a different artist on every track, so the Woody Guthrie project was something I quickly began looking forward to.

Years passed since that radio show. When I’d see Nora over the years, she’d tell me the project was still ongoing. Finally, Note of Hope is out, released in conjunction with celebration leading to the centennial of Woody’s birth on July 14, 2012.

Rob Wasserman’s bass playing is the heartbeat of this collection, and the soul is Woody Guthrie’s writings, dating from his New York – particularly Brooklyn – years of 1942 to 1954.

It’s an eclectic collection of artists and an eclectic range of material that Rob and Nora have assembled for Note of Hope. There are artists rooted in folk, rock, jazz and hip hop – or various combinations thereof – and the songs, mostly set to music by the individual artists themselves, or in collaboration with Rob, stretch far and away, both lyrically and musically, from the standard Woody Guthrie canon. In addition to having been a prolific songwriter, Woody was also a prolific prose writer and I'm sure some these pieces were not written as songs. Several of the most compelling tracks are performed as spoken word pieces with musical backing.

The spoken word tracks, and a couple of others that are kind of sung-spoken, remind me of Jack Kerouac’s recorded readings with musical backing.

Among the spoken word pieces is “Voice,” performed by Ani DiFranco, a Coney Island meditation on how it is not real, authentic, everyday people reflected in popular culture – something that’s not much different 60 or 70 years later.

Another is “I Heard a Man Talking,” a reading by the late Studs Terkel, the legendary Chicago radio interviewer and oral historian. The piece, written in 1943, is a story that could have come out of Kerouac’s On the Road, written almost a decade later. It makes me wonder if Kerouac’s stream-of-consciousness writing style was at least partially inspired by Woody’s writing.

And then there’s “There’s a Feeling in Music,” read by Pete Seeger on top of a banjo and bass arrangement composed and played Tony Trischka and Rob. Written in 1942 just two years after Woody and Pete met for the first time in New York City, it is a beautifully written rumination on why music and songs are so important and so much a part of our lives.

“The Debt I Owe,” set to music with some of his additional words by Lou Reed is almost a talking song too. The narrator walks around Coney Island – where Woody lived with wife Marjorie Mazia Guthrie and kids Arlo, Joady and Nora – ruminating on money troubles in a way that seems to so reflect the burdens of so many in our own 21st century economic crisis. But, there’s another layer to the song. The real debt is not about money, it’s about the times we’re living in – “the bell is ringing out danger,” Lou sings (and a line Lee Hays and Pete Seeger would use a few years later) – and the people we love and sometimes hurt, and owe so much to.

Other highlights include “Wild Card in the Hole,” set to music and sung by Madeleine Peyroux, another song that seems as reflective of our own times as of 1949 when Woody wrote the words; and “Old Folks,” set to music and sung by Nelly McKay, in which the narrator muses on the weariness and accomplishment of old age and the optimism of youth.

The finale, “You Know the Night,” set to music by Rob and Jackson Browne, and sung by Jackson, is an amazing 15-minute tour-de-force in which Woody vividly recalls the night he met Marjorie. Written in 1943, it almost presages songs like “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” that Bob Dylan would start writing two decades later.

The performing artists in this collection are of our time, but I never cease to be astounded how so much of Woody’s writings, from six or seven decades ago, seems to be as much, or more so, of our time as his.

--Mike Regenstreif

Healing Garden Music Fest

2011-11-24T17:07:00.002-05:00

My friend Terry Eagen from Waltham, Massachusetts, lost his wife, Mary, to leukemia in 1992. Since, then Terry has honoured Mary’s memory by spearheading the creation of healing gardens at several cancer care facilities in Canada and the U.S.

Terry fundraises for the gardens by holding annual Healing Garden Music Fests in several American and Canadian cities. Ottawa’s seventh annual Healing Garden Music Fest is this coming Sunday, November 27, 2:00-5:00 pm, at the Bronson Centre. Proceeds from this concert will support the completion of the Mary Eagen Garden at the Irving Greenberg Family Cancer Centre at the Queensway Carleton Hospital.

Artists appearing on Sunday include Lynn Miles, Missy Burgess, Amanda Rheaume and Ana Miura. Special guest stars are Michael Burgess – Missy’s brother – best known for his starring role in Les Miserables and Keith Glass of Prairie Oyster.

Tickets are $25 at the door. I’m sure it will be a wonderful afternoon. For more info, visit patiorecords.com.

--Mike Regenstreif

Stan Rogers – Fogarty’s Cove (reissue)

2011-11-22T18:16:00.002-05:00

STAN ROGERS

Fogarty’s Cove

Fogarty’s Cove/Borealis

borealisrecords.com/artists/stan-rogers/

This review discusses the newly remastered and reissued version of Fogarty’s Cove, Stan Rogers’ first album.

As I noted in my review of The Very Best of Stan Rogers, Stan and I were friends for the last eight years of his life after meeting at the 1975 Mariposa Folk Festival. I invited him to come and play at the Golem, the Montreal folk club that I ran in the 1970s and ‘80s, and he played his first three-night gig there in February 1976.

Stan and I talked a lot that weekend about his artistic vision and the kind of records he’d like to make given the opportunity. As it happened, he got the opportunity to record his first LP later that year, thanks in no small part to the efforts of producer Paul Mills – who would go on to produce all but one of Stan’s albums – and the financial backing of Mitch Podolak, founder and then-artistic director of the Winnipeg Folk Festival, who bankrolled the production and release of Fogarty’s Cove.

Stan was, in my opinion, the finest folk-rooted songwriter that Canada has yet produced – and that was already more than obvious to me from the songs on Fogarty’s Cove – many of which he performed that February weekend at the Golem.

When he died at the so-very-young age of 33, Stan left behind a formidable body of work including several themed albums capturing specific regions of Canada and their distinctive people. He started that ongoing project with Fogarty’s Cove, about Atlantic Canada and its people. Along with several other albums, Stan went on to record Northwest Passage about the prairies and From Fresh Water about the Great Lakes region of Ontario. Eventually, he would have done projects about most, if not all, of Canada’s regions.

Stan’s parents both grew up in Nova Scotia and he spent much time there himself visiting relatives. No contemporary songwriter has captured Maritime life as genuinely as Stan did on Fogarty’s Cove (and in other songs that would later turn up on Turnaround, and two live recordings: Between the Breaks…Live and Home in Halifax). Whether it’s the lives of fishers and their families in songs like “Fogarty’s Cove” and “Make and Break Harbour,” the transformation of modern day Halifax in “Fisherman’s Wharf,” the played-out mining area in “The Rawdon Hills,” or the 18th century story he tells in “Barrett’s Privateers,” a song that seems so real and authentic you’d swear it was a time-tested traditional sea chantey.

Another highlight on the album is “Forty-five Years,” a beautiful love song inspired by his wife-to-be and “a day in Cole Harbour.” It would turn out to be one of Stan’s best-loved and most venerable songs.

I’ve listened to this album countless times. Stan played a cassette for me before it was released and I wore out at least a couple of copies of the original LP before moving on to the first CD version. But Fogarty’s Cove has never sounded as great as it does on this newly remastered version. It’s like hearing these amazing songs for the first time. Stan and accompanists Garnet Rogers and David Woodhead, his touring band of the time, and Curly Boy Stubbs (Paul Mills), Grit Laskin, Ken Whiteley, Bernie Jaffe and John Allan Cameron sound glorious.

Click here to read my first review of Fogarty’s Cove from the May 7, 1977 edition of The Montreal Gazette.

--Mike Regenstreif

Sneezy Waters in concert and on CD

2011-11-20T17:53:00.005-05:00

Until last night, it must have been the better part of 20 years since the last time I saw Ottawa legend Sneezy Waters do a full evening’s concert. It was too long a wait, but a wait that was richly rewarded last night at the National Arts Centre’s Fourth Stage as Sneezy and his five-piece back-up band put on one of the best shows I’ve seen this year.

Sneezy is yet another artist I’ve seemingly known forever. He played often in the 1970s at the Golem, the Montreal folk club I ran back then. In fact, he was the second artist and the first out-of-towner to play there after I took over the Golem in 1974.

Then, of course, there was his long run brilliantly starring in the stage show (and film adaptation) of Hank Williams: The Show He Never Gave, a show I saw several times in Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa during its 13-year run from 1977 to 1990.

But, over the past couple of decades, Sneezy hasn’t toured very much and his hometown concerts have become special events. Last night’s concert – a celebration of his new CD (see below) – sure was.

Sneezy put together a fabulous band for the occasion. Joining him on guitars were Vince Halfhide and Dave Bignell, Ed Bimm on keyboards, Ann Downey on bass – all of whom play on the new CD – and Alistair Dennett on drums. There was no hint that this was any kind of a pick-up or special occasion band. They sounded like they’ve been playing together for years. Theirs was a full, varied, often-creative sound that never needed to overpower the audience with volume. They stretched out and soloed like veteran jazz players on many of the tunes.

The Fourth Stage at the NAC was completely sold out and most of the audience seemed to be Sneezy fans from way back when. When he launched into familiar songs from the old days like “You’ve Got Sawdust on the Floor of Your Heart,” written by his brother, M. John Hodgson, but forever associated with Sneezy, or “I Saw the Light,” the Hank Williams classic, the audience needed no prompting on when to sing along in just the right places.

And it was a varied repertoire that encompassed, mixed, matched and blended strains of jazz, blues, folk, country, rock, reggae and even African music in an eclectic repertoire that drew on all of those traditions.

In addition to many of the songs on the new CD, concert highlights included “Blue Light Boogie,” the show opener which had Sneezy cast as a 1940s jump blues jazzbo, “Cold Cold Heart,” which proved Sneezy is still the best Hank Williams interpreter around, and the encore song, a bouncy version of Tony Bird’s “Bird of Paradise.”

And, generous band leader that he was, Sneezy played some fine back-up guitar and provided harmonies on five songs, scattered throughout the concert, featuring band members Vince Halfhide and Ann Downey on two songs each and Ed Bimm on one.

SNEEZY WATERS

Sneezy Waters

sneezywaters.com

Sneezy Waters has never been a prolific recording artist. By my count, the eponymously titled Sneezy Waters is only his fourth album in a career that stretches back more than four decades, and the first new recording since 1997’s A Letter Home. It’s an album that was well worth waiting for and showcases Sneezy as a mature singer, relaxed in his repertoire, who knows just how to communicate the essence of a song. Just listen to him pull off an a cappella version of Duke Ellington’s “Solitude.” I can’t even think of any jazz singers I’ve heard do that (or who would have the guts to try).

Sneezy is an interpretive singer rather than a typical singer-song-writer. But, there is one almost-original song here. “(When I’m Loving Them) I Only Think of You,” which sounds like it could have come straight out of The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams, and could be a new country classic (if only there were still such a thing) was written by his brother, M. John Hodgson. Speaking of country classics, Sneezy’s version of “I Heard the Bluebirds Sing” has all the requisite harmonies.

There are a lot of other highlights to this 13-song collection. Sneezy beautifully captures the late-night loneliness inherent to Tom Waits’ “Invitation to the Blues,” and with a one-word lyric change at the end of Willie P. Bennett’s “Me and Molly,” turns the song into a poignant elegy for Willie.

There’s a lot of fun to be had in such numbers as Leroy Carr’s “Papa’s On the Housetop,” Mance Lipscomb’s “Buckdance,” a guitar instrumental that’s made even more fun by Brian Sanderson’s sousaphone playing, and “Ever Since You Told Me That You Loved Me (I’m a Nut),” a very early Tin Pan Alley novelty tune.

Sneezy also very effectively brings “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime,” the Yip Harburg-Jay Gorney Depression-era classic, back to life.

My favourite track on the CD is the album-ending version of Mary McCaslin’s “Circle of Friends,” a song that brings me right back to my Golem days when friends like Sneezy and Mary and Willie (and so many more) would ply their song-sharing trade on the small stage.

--Mike Regenstreif

Andy Statman -- Old Brooklyn

2011-11-14T15:23:00.000-05:00

My review of Old Brooklyn by Andy Statman for The Forward is now available on their Arty Semite blog.

--Mike Regenstreif

Paul Geremia – Love My Stuff

2011-11-11T21:34:00.000-05:00

PAUL GEREMIA

Love My Stuff

Red House

paulgeremia.org

As I noted in my Sing Out! magazine review of his 2004 album, Love, Murder & Mosquitos, I was a teenager and Paul Geremia was in his mid-20s when I first encountered him at the Back Door Coffee House in Montreal, circa 1969 or ’70. Paul was certainly a factor in my developing a taste for traditional country blues and he’s remained one of my all-time favorite revivalists of pre-war blues traditions, and one of my favorite songwriters within the idiom. Now, after more than 40 dedicated years of playing the music, and despite the fact that he came from outside the culture that originally produced the genre, I am almost loath to still think of Paul as a revivalist; the blues have become as much a part of Paul’s essence as anyone who was born to them.

Love My Stuff is a great 18-song live collection built from many gigs recorded over a long period of time at various locations. While most of the tracks are from the past decade, a few stretch back about three decades. And while most of the performances are solo, Paul singing with his guitar and, sometimes, harmonica, the terrific swinging version of “Dr. Jazz,” a great old King Oliver tune from the 1920s – also done by Jelly Roll Morton – adds Rory MacLeod on bass, and Sleepy John Estes’ “Special Agent,” features Rich DelGrosso on mandolin, in effect playing Yank Rachell to Paul's Sleepy John.

A few of the other highlights include nifty versions of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Shuckin’ Sugar Blues” and “Silver City Bound,” Lead Belly's tribute to Blind Lemon; Blind Willie McTell’s “Savannah Mama,” featuring Paul’s soulful slide work; and a terrific version of “See See Rider,” one of the most popular of the early traditional blues songs featuring some great singing and guitar and harmonica playing.

The vast majority of these songs date from the pre-World War II era. But there are three examples of Paul’s excellent songwriting. “Cocaine Princess” is a clever kiss-off tune to a messed-up woman who wasn’t the woman of his dreams, while “Where Did I Lose Your Love,” is a blues for a woman who might have been. Then, on the infectious “Kick It In the Country,” he sounds like he might be singing to a woman who falls somewhere in between the princess and the woman whose love he lost.

I’ve seen Paul play lots of concerts over the past four decades – I booked him a lot at the Golem, the Montreal folk club I ran in the 1970s and ‘80s – and have never been disappointed at the beginning, middle or end of an evening. I’ll say the same about this live album. Paul Geremia is one of the great ones, he is.

--Mike Regenstreif

Ottawa Folklore Centre celebrates 35 years

2011-11-10T21:00:00.001-05:00

This weekend, the Ottawa Folklore Centre – which quite justifiably bills itself as “not your average music store – celebrates its 35th anniversary this coming Sunday evening with an all-star concert that represents more folk diversity than most of today’s weekend-long folk festivals.

Included on the bill are blues artists Terry Gillespie and Jesse Green, singer-songwriters Ana Miura, Missy Burgess and Doug McArthur, folk vaudevillians Sheesham & Lotus, banjo pickers Mary Gick, Ann Downey and Paul Hornbeck, tango accordionist Alicia Borisonik, harmonica player Marc Seguin, bagpiper Ross Davison, drummer Don Gibbons, the Folka Voca Choir, the Bytown Ukulele Group, and the Ottawa Folklore Centre Jazz Band.

Arthur McGregor, the Ottawa Folklore Centre’s founder and proprietor will host the concert. And if I know Arthur, there's going to be some singing along.

The concert takes place Sunday, November 13, 7:00 pm, at the Mayfair Theatre, 1074 Bank Street in Ottawa (about a 90 second walk from the Ottawa Folklore Centre).

Proceeds from the concert will benefit the May Court Hospice. Call the Ottawa Folklore Centre at 613-730-2887 for tickets or info.

And, as if the concert wasn’t enough, there are some Saturday and Sunday afternoon workshops at the Folklore Centre.

The Ottawa Folklore Centre is an incredible resource: a music store, a music school and the heart and soul of city’s folk music scene. Few cities boast a folklore centre of this calibre. We’re lucky to have it.

Happy Anniversary and congratulations to Arthur and all his crew!

--Mike Regenstreif

Guy Clark – Songs and Stories; Various Artists – This One’s for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark

2011-11-04T20:11:00.004-04:00

I can pinpoint when I became a fan of the songwriting of Guy Clark. It was in 1972 when Jerry Jeff Walker released his eponymously named LP, Jerry Jeff Walker. It was the LP that marked Jerry Jeff’s move from the Greenwich Village folk scene to the Austin folk/outlaw country scene.

Two of the best songs on Jerry Jeff Walker, “That Old Time Feeling” and “L.A. Freeway” were credited to Guy. I was starting to play a little guitar then and learned “L.A. Freeway” from that record.

Not much later, I learned a Guy Clark song called “Lone Star Hotel Café” from my friend Bill Staines.

So Guy Clark’s was a name I already knew when his own first LP, Old No. 1, was released in 1975. By then I was a Montreal Gazette music reviewer and I remember writing glowingly about that LP. I’ve been a fan ever since. I’ve listened a lot to every record he’s ever made and have had a chance to hang out with him a couple of times at folk festivals and on his one trip to Montreal for an Outremont Theatre concert in 2001 with Jesse Winchester (while in Montreal he also did an extended interview with me on the Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio show).

Guy is one of the all-time great singer-songwriters, one of the definitive songwriters of the Texas country-folk school. He turns 70 this week and the milestone is marked by a new live album, Songs and Stories, which was released in August, and This One’s for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark, a 2-CD homage by 30 fellow artists.

GUY CLARK

Songs and Stories

Dualtone

guyclark.com

Although they were sitting on the stage at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville, there’s a real living room feeling to Songs and Stories, a friendly, informal, 69-minute set that has Guy Clark and friends sharing songs and stories from across his long career. Joining him on stage are Verlon Thompson, his regular guitar player and occasional songwriting collaborator; guitarist and mandolin player Shawn Camp, also an occasional songwriting collaborator; and the excellent rhythm section of bassist Bryn Davies and drummer Kenny Malone (one of those all-too-rare drummers who knows how to play with acoustic folk musicians without ever getting in the way).

Guy is older and has had some health problems in recent years which you can hear it in a voice that isn’t as strong as it once was – though it’s still as expressive – and in somewhat diminished energy level. But that’s OK, in essence Guy is a storyteller-in-song and his ability to sing us a story, to instil memories in us that are not our own, remains undiminished.

Among my favourite of Guy’s performances in the set are “The Randall Knife,” a poignant memory of the father he lost three decades ago, “Dublin Blues,” a meditation on beauty, great art and great music set to the old folk melody from “Handsome Molly,” and “The Cape,” a song he introduces as being “about jumping off a garage,” but is really an affirmative song about having confidence in one’s self.

Guy also does a fine version of Townes Van Zandt’s “If I Needed You.” There are probably no other artists who understand Townes’ songs on a level with Guy.

Guy also turns things over to Shawn and Verlon – hot pickers both – for two songs each. Shawn does a couple of his co-writes with Guy including “Sis Draper,” the story of a great fiddler that’s one of the most infectious tunes from Guy’s catalog. Verlon does a couple of his own songs that show he’s a fine artist in his own right.

VARIOUS ARTISTS

This One’s for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark

Icehouse Music

guyclarktribute.blogspot.com

“Let’s give her a good go and make old Guy proud of us,” says Rodney Crowell as he kicks off “That Old Time Feeling,” a perfect gem of a song from 40 or so years ago. It’s the opening track to This One’s for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark, a loving 2-CD, 30-song homage to one of the all-time greatest songwriters on the occasion of his 70th birthday.

This album is filled with lots of great artists singing lots of great songs. Most of the artists are the kind of Texas or Nashville folk you might expect on an album like this. But, there are a few surprises, including Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith who does a nice version of “Broken Hearted People.”

There are few weak tracks here. A few of my favourites include Rosanne Cash’s lovely version of “Better Days,” highlighted by the superb steel guitar work of Lloyd Maines; Willie Nelson’s mature take on “Desperadoes Waiting for a Train,” a song Guy wrote as a very young man in tribute to an old man of 70 (his grandmother’s boyfriend, Guy told me when he was on Folk Roots/Folk Branches); “Let Him Roll,” a talking song ably performed by John Townes Van Zandt II, Townes’ son; Joe Ely’s version of the fore-mentioned “Dublin Blues”; Ramblin' Jack Elliott's fine version of “The Guitar,” a kind of musician's ghost story; and a sweet duet by John Prine and Emmylou Harris on “Magnolia Wind.”

The album ends by bring me full circle back to Jerry Jeff Walker, the artist who introduced me to Guy Clark songs almost 40 years ago. Jerry Jeff sings “My Favorite Picture of You,” the one song of 30 I’ve never heard before. It’s a beautiful new love song that’s as finely crafted as anything Guy’s written before.

There are few missing artists who should be here – Tom Russell, Nanci Griffith, Bill Staines and Jesse Winchester – come to mind. And there are lots of other Guy Clark songs I wish there was room for. Be that as it may, This One’s for Him is a great tribute to a great artist. Kudos to co-producers Tamara Saviano and Shawn Camp; and to Guy’s long-time accompanist, Verlon Thompson, who, with Shawn, plays on most of these songs.

I'm sure, Rodney, you guys made old Guy proud with this album.

Happy Birthday, Guy!

--Mike Regenstreif

David Rea 1946-2011

2011-10-30T10:08:00.002-04:00

(Photo: Jack Bawden)

David Rea passed away Thursday in Portland, Oregon. He had just turned 65 the day before. Apparently, he’d been ill for several months.

I brought David to play in Montreal a lot in the 1970s. Mostly at the Golem, but he was also on a Pollack Hall concert I produced in 1976 that also included Bruce “Utah” Phillips, Kate & Anna McGarrigle with the Mountain City Four, Erik Frandsen, and the White River Bluegrass Band. David was a sweet guy, an amazing guitarist, a fine songwriter and a great performer.

It was as a guitarist that David first made his mark. Gordon Lightfoot hired David as his lead guitarist when he was just 17. After Lightfoot, he played for several years with Ian & Sylvia and did live and session work with artists ranging from Mike Seeger to Joni Mitchell. He played guitar on Jesse Winchester’s first album.

David made three early LPs with backing from members of bands like Mountain (David co-wrote their hit, “Mississippi Queen”) and the Grateful Dead. But, I think he surpassed those albums with three excellent CDs that were released between 1993 and 2000.

I had a chance to catch up with David at the 2001 Folk Alliance Conference in Vancouver. It was the first time we’d seen each other in 20 or more years. He was as good as I've ever seen him at a couple of too-short showcases I saw him do there.

David was a great musician and – for many years – a great presence in the folk music world. He is missed.

--Mike Regenstreif

Michael Jerome Browne – The Road is Dark

2011-10-27T23:35:00.002-04:00

MICHAEL JEROME BROWNE

The Road is Dark

Borealis

michaeljeromebrowne.com

I was going to start this review by saying Michael Jerome Browne is a jack-of-all-root-music-styles. From blues to country to Appalachian mountain music, Cajun, swing, R&B – he can do it all. It’s a bit of understatement, though, to call him a jack-of-all-roots-music-styles when, in fact, he’s a master of most of those styles. He’s got encyclopedic knowledge of the music he plays, a giant repertoire drawn from the legendary artists who pioneered the various genres he plays, and – with songwriting and life partner B.A. Markus – has created a significant body of original material that stands tall with the time-tested standards he plays.

While Michael plays a variety of styles, and just about any instrument with strings, blues has been the dominant genre in his repertoire, much of it from the first few decades of the recording era in the American South (or inspired by that early music).

Whether or not you buy into the mythology of Robert Johnson at the crossroads at midnight, that kind of blues can be a scary music that delves deeply into the dark places of the soul. And that’s where Michael takes us on many of the songs on The Road is Dark – six taken from tradition and/or earlier artists, eight created by Michael and B.

Among the highlights from the songs Michael adapts is “Doin’ My Time,” which sounds like something Furry Lewis might have played if he played electric guitar. Actually, it comes from bluegrass pioneers Flatt & Scruggs and is an example of the stylistic cross-pollination of black and white music in the American South. Another is Michael’s intense version of Reverend Gary Davis’ “Death Don’t Have No Mercy.” The sustain on Michael’s solo electric guitar arrangement allows the notes to seemingly cut deeper into the soul than on some of the familiar acoustic versions of the song.

Among my favourites of the original songs are “Graveyard Blues,” played on the fretless banjo and sounding like a bluesy Appalachian folk song, in which the narrator, a kind of rake and rambling man, seemingly near death and seemingly without regrets, talks about the facts of his life; “If Memphis Don’t Kill Me,” a good-timey jug band song featuring Michael on mandolin with fine back-up from Ottawa musicians Steve Marriner on harmonica, and Ball & Chain – Michael Ball and Jody Benjamin – on fiddle and guitar; and “Sing Low,” with Michael on banjo and Mighty Popo on guitar, a haunting song inspired by the code songs African American women sang during slavery and dedicated to the struggle of Afghan women to emerge from their oppression.

I also really enjoyed Michael’s interplay with John McColgan’s inventive percussive washboard on three tracks including “G20 Blues,” a topical commentary on the bungled over-the-top police response to protesters at last year’s G20 Summit in Toronto. (John and Michael played together for years in the Stephen Barry Band.)

Among Michael’s launch concerts for The Road is Dark are shows Saturday, October 29, 8:00 pm at L’Astral, 305 St. Catherine Street West in Montreal; and Saturday, November 5, 8:00 pm, at the Westboro Masonic Hall, 430 Churchill Avenue North, in Ottawa.

--Mike Regenstreif

Kate Campbell – Two Nights in Texas

2011-10-23T21:49:00.000-04:00

KATE CAMPBELL

Two Nights in Texas

Large River

katecampbell.com

Since the release of her debut album, Songs from the Levee, in 1995, I’ve felt that Kate Campbell – who grew up in Mississippi – was one of the most compelling singer-songwriters of the Deep South. Her finely-crafted songs beautifully capture the essence of the South and its people, particularly the dramatic changes that began unfolding in the South during Kate’s childhood in the 1960s as the Civil Rights Movement changed forever how people thought and acted.

Two Nights in Texas, recorded April 8-9, 2010 in Wimberley, Texas captures Kate’s warm voice, guitar and occasional piano – superbly backed by Sally Van Meter on Dobro, Scott Ainslie on guitar and banjo and Don Porterfield on bass – as she runs through a retrospective of original songs that, at 65 minutes, only scratches the surface of her rich catalog.

As noted, some of the most affecting of Kate’s songs are those documenting the Civil Rights Movement that she witnessed first-hand as a child in the Deep South in the ‘60s.

“Crazy in Alabama” captures that time and place vividly as she sings about the segregation that “never made one lick of sense,” the violence of the era as groups like the Klan tried to stand in the way of the inevitable changes that were coming – “And the train of change/Was coming fast to my hometown/We had the choice to climb on board/Or get run down” – and the civil rights marchers who “all held hands as they sand and wept/And freedom rang in every step.”

Other songs that recall that era include “Galaxie 500,” in which she recalls a child's joy at times spent in the family car only to have that joy shattered when the car radio announces the murder of Martin Luther King, and “A Cotton Field Away,” which captures that moment in time when white and black children finally encounter each other thanks to court-ordered desegregation and learn how much alike they really were.

Other highlights include “New South,” in which she observes how much contemporary pop culture has homogenized away much of the South’s distinctiveness making it much like anywhere else, “Tupelo’s To Far,” written from the perspective of Elvis Presley at a time when he might have wished he could go back to before stardom had overtaken his life, “See Rock City,” a third-person observation of a young woman’s quest for freedom from the small town life she grew up in, and the final medley of “Rosa’s Coronas/Lanterns on the Levee.” The first song in the finale is written from the perspective of a Cuban woman missing her daughter and granddaughter who’d escaped to America and wondering how they fared there while the second is an inspiring song of friendship, of love, of hope.

--Mike Regenstreif

Canadian Folk Music Awards nominations

2011-10-19T16:29:00.003-04:00

The nominations were announced today for the Seventh Annual Canadian Folk MusicAwards. The award ceremony takes place Sunday, December 4 at the Isabel Bader Theatre in Toronto.

Here are the nominations.

TRADITIONAL ALBUM OF THE YEAR

Dave Gunning - A Tribute to John Allan Cameron

Finest Kind - For Honour & For Gain

De Temps Antan - Les Habits de Papier

La Volée d’Castors - Le Retour

Genticorum - Nagez Rameurs

CONTEMPORARY ALBUM OF THE YEAR

Twilight Hotel - When the Wolves Go Blind

Les Charbonniers de l'Enfer - Nouvelles fréquentations

Lynn Miles - Fall for Beauty

Bruce Cockburn - Small Source of Comfort

Good Lovelies - Let The Rain Fall

CHILDREN’S ALBUM OF THE YEAR

Kathy Reid-Naiman - I Love to Hear the Sounds

Benoît Archambault - Les pourquoi

Marky Weinstock - Songs For Dreamers

Colleen Power with Crooked Stovepipe - For Little Ones

Will Stroet - Walk & Roll

TRADITIONAL SINGER OF THE YEAR

Enoch Kent - Take A Trip With Me

Dave Gunning – a tribute to John Allan Cameron

Lizzy Hoyt - Home

Eileen McGann - Pocketful Of Rhymes

Joel Fafard - Cluck Old Hen

CONTEMPORARY SINGER OF THE YEAR

David Myles - Live at the Carleton

Suzie Vinnick - Me 'n' Mabel

Cat Jahnke - The Stories are Taking Their Toll

Bruce Cockburn - Small Source of Comfort

Matthew Barber - Matthew Barber

INSTRUMENTAL SOLO ARTIST OF THE YEAR

Jayme Stone - Room of Wonders

Jaron Freeman-Fox - Manic Almanac : Slow Möbius

Anne Lindsay - Hurry On Home

April Verch - That's How We Run

Don Ross - Breakfast for Dogs

INSTRUMENTAL GROUP OF THE YEAR

The Creaking Tree String Quartet - Sundogs

Qristina & Quinn Bachand - Family

MAZ - Télescope

Eh?! - Eh?!

RAZ-DE-MARÉE/TIDAL WAVE - Marche du St-Laurent

VOCAL GROUP OF THE YEAR

Finest Kind - For Honour & For Gain

Les Charbonniers de l'Enfer - Nouvelles fréquentations

The Wailin' Jennys - Bright Morning Stars

Good Lovelies - Let The Rain Fall

Genticorum - Nagez Rameurs

ENSEMBLE OF THE YEAR

The Creaking Tree String Quartet - Sundogs

MAZ - Télescope

The Wailin' Jennys - Bright Morning Stars

Harry Manx & Kevin Breit - Strictly Whatever

Genticorum - Nagez Rameurs

SOLO ARTIST OF THE YEAR

Ken Whiteley - Another Day's Journey

Mae Moore - Folklore

David Francey - Late Edition

Bruce Cockburn - Small Source of Comfort

Ruth Moody - The Garden

ENGLISH SONGWRITER OF THE YEAR

Ron Hynes - Stealing Genius

David Francey - Late Edition

Mae Moore - Folklore

Lynn Miles - Fall for Beauty

Bruce Cockburn - Small Source of Comfort

AUTEUR-COMPOSITEUR FRANCOPHONE DE L’ANNÉE

Jean-François Lessard - Jean-François Lessard

Alexandre Poulin - Une lumière allumée

Claude Cormier - Acoustique

Les Surveillantes - La racine carrée du coeur

ABORIGINAL SONGWRITER OF THE YEAR

Vince Fontaine - Songs For Turtle Island

Robert Davidson & Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson - New Journeys

janet panic - Samples

Don Amero - The Long Way Home

Kristi Lane Sinclair - I Love You

WORLD ARTIST OF THE YEAR - SOLO

Lenka Lichtenberg - Fray

Massiel Yanira - Una Voz

Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson - New Journeys

Zekuhl - I BOLO

Kiran Ahluwalia - aam zameen : common ground

WORLD ARTIST OF THE YEAR – GROUP

Ouzo Power - Greatest Hits (Volume 1)

Nizar Tabcharani & The Backstrings - Bayati Ana

Trio Bembe - Oh My Soul

MAZ - Télescope

Minor Empire - Second Nature

NEW/EMERGING ARTIST OF THE YEAR

Dave Gunning - a tribute to John Allan Cameron

Andrea Ramolo - The Shadows and the Cracks

Ruth Moody - The Garden

Ashley Condon - Come In From The Cold

Joe Nolan - Goodbye Cinderella

PRODUCER OF THE YEAR

Dave Gunning w/ Allie Bennett & John Meir - a tribute to John Allan Cameron (Dave Gunning)

Paul Mills - Stealing Genius (Ron Hynes)

Steve Bell, Dave Zeglinski, Murray Pulver - Kindness (Steve Bell)

David Travers-Smith - Soon The Birds (Oh Susanna)

Mark Howard, David Travers-Smith - Bright Morning Stars (The Wailin' Jennys)

PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES

New Country Rehab - New Country Rehab

Twilight Hotel - When the Wolves Go Blind

Jaron Freeman-Fox - Manic Almanac : Slow Möbius

Ruth Moody - The Garden

Evalyn Parry - SPIN

Geoff Berner - Victory Party

YOUNG PERFORMER OF THE YEAR

Qristina & Quinn Bachand - Family

Olivia Korkola - Playing in Traffic

Rebecca Lappa - Not in Neverland

Molly Thomason - Beauty Queen

The Doll Sisters - The Road - EP

--Mike Regenstreif

Mighty Popo – Gakondo

2011-10-14T14:51:00.001-04:00

MIGHTY POPO
Gakondo

Borealis

mightypopo.ca

The bio on his website tells me I can say Mighty Popo (Popo Murigande), the Ottawa-based singer, songwriter and masterful guitarist is “a Rwandan/Burundian refugee/survivor whose music is steeped in African tradition.”

Although I’ve heard and highly enjoyed Mighty Popo live several times, primarily at the Ottawa Folk Festival, I was unprepared for the remarkable beauty of Gakondo, his first all-acoustic album. The singing, playing and arrangements – some solo, some featuring backup by African and Canadian musicians and singers – are utterly compelling, from the title track, a song about Popo’s family history, which opens the album to “Rwampunga,” an adaptation of a Rwandan traditional song, at the end. The album is a stunning investigation of the traditional musical roots of Mighty Popo’s heritage,

Popo sings all of these songs in Kinyarwanda, a Rwandan language. Except for brief references to some of them in the liner notes, I have no idea what most of them are about. But, even for a lyrics-oriented listener like me, it hardly seems to matter. Mighty Popo’s soulful musicality and quietly-hypnotic performances, even when he whispers on "Nibarize," seem to communicate all that is necessary for a complete appreciation.

--Mike Regenstreif

Joel Mabus – American Anonymous

2011-10-10T16:26:00.001-04:00

JOEL MABUS

American Anonymous

Fossil

joelmabus.com

As I’ve noted before, Joel Mabus has a most impressive body of work spanning both traditional and contemporary folk music. He’s a fine singer, plays any number of stringed instruments – some at virtuoso level -- has a deep repertoire of traditional ballads, old-time music and blues, and is a songwriter whose work consistently equals the venerable traditional music in his repertoire.

Joel devotes American Anonymous to 14 authentic folksongs, all of which were written by that venerable songwriting team of Trad and Anon. Joel’s impeccable solo performances – his voice and either guitar, banjo or autoharp – are riveting.

Among the highlights are a version of “In the Pines,” played on the autoharp, which brilliantly captures the inherent loneliness of the lyric, and a unique ragtime guitar arrangement of “Rising Sun Blues (House of the Rising Sun)” which turns the song into more of fun thing than the tragic ballad we’re used to.

Other favourites include Joel’s hot-picking takes on “Grieve My Lord No More” and “The Fox” on the guitar, and “Sally Gal” and “Ebenezer,” the album’s only instrumental, on banjo.

Joel ends the set with a great version of “A Closer Walk with Thee” that reminds me a lot of how Merle Travis reinterpreted some great old African American spirituals.

American Anonymous, like virtually every other album Joel Mabus has ever made, gets my strongest recommendation.

--Mike Regenstreif

Hilda Bronstein -- Hilda Bronstein Sings Yiddish Songs with Chutzpah!

2011-09-27T14:37:00.000-04:00

This review is from the September 19, 2011 edition of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.

HILDA BRONSTEIN

Hilda Bronstein Sings Yiddish Songs with Chutzpah!

Arc Music

chiribim.com

When I first opened this CD, I assumed that the word chutzpah was being used to describe British singer Hilda Bronstein’s approach to the singing of Yiddish songs. While I wouldn’t say there’s a lack of chutzpah in her singing, Chutzpah is actually the name of the klezmer band she fronts.

The album is a collection of 17 Yiddish-language songs – many of them familiar – drawn from various sources including classic Yiddish films and theatrical musicals, settings of Yiddish poems and several Holocaust-era songs. Bronstein sings the quieter, sombre songs with all due respect and the more celebratory, upbeat songs with much verve.

Chutzpah, which includes Israeli accordionist Yair Schleider, and violinist Meg Hamilton, also noted for her work in the She’koyokh Klezmer Ensemble, provide Bronstein with arrangements that move from swinging to contemplative.

Among the highlights are such toe-tappers as “Abi Gezunt,” made famous by Molly Picon in the 1938 film Mamele, “Di Grine Kuzine,” an ultimately bitter song about Jewish immigration to America in the early part of the 20th century, and “Farbay di Teg,” a Yiddish version of a Russian folksong whose English version (adapted by Gene Raskin), “Those Were the Days” was a hit in the 1960s by Mary Hopkin.

Some of the CD’s most poignant moments come in songs like “Makh Tsu Di Eygelekh,” a lullaby composed in the Lodz Ghetto, and “Slutsk,” a Yiddish theatre song recalling a shtetl in Belarus.

--Mike Regenstreif

She’koyokh Klezmer Ensemble -- Buskers’ Ballroom

2011-09-27T14:29:00.001-04:00

This review is from the September 19, 2011 issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.

SHE’KOYOKH KLEZMER ENSEMBLE

Buskers’ Ballroom

Arc Music

www.shekoyokh.co.uk

The She’koyokh Klezmer Ensemble has become somewhat of a sensation in British music circles for their tight, soulful variation on traditional Ashkenazic klezmer music musically informed by strains and influences from Sephardic, Roma, Balkan and Parisian jazz traditions.

The joyous dance tune “Russian Shers,” which opens the album and gives various instrumentalists the chance to interact with each other in a way that lots of fun, is among my favourite tracks on the CD. Others include “Bendi Glendi,” in which guitarist Matt Bacon demonstrates his great facility on a Django Reinhardt-like jazz tune; “Hora with Onions,” a Naftule Brandwein tune that becomes a showcase for violinist Meg Hamilton; “Rampi Rampi,” a Turkish Roma piece in which percussionist Vasilis Sarikis and singer Cigdem Aslan – who was born in Istanbul – are highlighted; and “Train to Orestiada,” which features clarinetist Susi Evans on an arrangement that’s imagined as a Ukranian klezmer band playing in a Greek nightclub in Athens.

While I’ve called attention to a few of the She’koyokh musicians as pertaining to the cited selections, they and the rest of the band – Oliver Baldwin on tambura, Robin Harris on trombone and Ben Samuels on mandolin – are all delightful throughout the 14 selections clocking in at more than an hour.

--Mike Regenstreif

Jesse Winchester update

2011-09-24T14:18:00.001-04:00

Back in July, I reported that my old friend Jesse Winchester had cancelled his concert bookings after being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus.

Some good news! After rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, and surgery last week, Jesse is now cancer-free and on the road to recovery.

Cindy Winchester, Jesse’s wife, has been keeping folks up-to-date with Jesse’s progress on his Caring Bridge site. You can also leave messages for Jesse (and Cindy) there.

--Mike Regenstreif

Tim Eriksen in Montreal and Ottawa this weekend

2011-09-19T21:58:00.000-04:00

Tim Eriksen, one of the premiere interpreters of traditional balladry in the world today, will be in Montreal and Ottawa this weekend. These events are not to be missed by anyone interested in traditional folk music.

There are two events in Montreal on Saturday, September 24.

Tim will be doing a shape-note singing workshop at 3:00 pm at 550 Beaumont #203 and an evening concert launching the 2011-2012 Wintergreen Concert Series at 8:00 pm at Petit Campus (57 Prince Arthur East). Contact Hello Darlin’ Productions at 514-524-9225 for tickets or info for either event.

In the Ottawa area, Tim is doing a Sunday afternoon concert, September 25, 2:00 pm, at the Harry Craig Community Hall (6045 Prince of Wales Drive, North Gower). For information, contact Ann Downey at banjodowney@gmail.com.

Here are my reviews of two of Tim’s albums from Sing Out! Magazine.

TIM ERIKSEN

Tim Eriksen

Appleseed 1053

Tim Eriksen started out playing punk rock with Cordelia’s Dad, a band that evolved into mesmerizing purveyors of hardcore, uncompromising traditional music. On this equally mesmerizing solo effort, recorded in just five hours, Eriksen offers purist interpretations of traditional songs and tunes as well as well as several songs of his own making that fit seamlessly with the traditional songs. If not for the liner notes, I would be hard pressed to tell which are the traditional songs and which are his. Eriksen sings a cappella on some songs while on others he variously accompanies himself on guitar, fiddle and fretless banjo. Two pieces, “Last Chance,” frailed on the banjo, and a medley of “Mobile Serenade Polka/Shep Jones Hornpipe,” neatly picked on the guitar, are instrumentals.

One of Eriksen’s most powerful original songs is “I Wish the Wars Were All Over,” an anti-war song that he constructed using lyrical fragments from a variety of traditional songs. Singing from the perspective of a young woman whose lover is off fighting, Eriksen quietly purveys the woman’s devastating uncertainty over whether her man will survive. Of the traditional songs, highlights include “Brown Girl,” a long version of “Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender” that he learned from a tape of Appalachian ballad singer Frank Proffitt, and an intense, a cappella performance of the even longer “Village Churchyard” garnered from the singing of Roscoe Holcomb.

Eriksen presents this music with absolutely no commercial considerations or compromises in making it palatable for an audience. The only choice he seems to give a listener is to pay absolute attention or to ignore him and completely tune out. I choose the former.

TIM ERIKSEN

Soul of the January Hills

Appleseed 1120

On a summer day late in the last century, I was at a folk festival listening to Cordelia’s Dad, a band that came out of the punk scene performing traditional folk songs. Sitting with me was a noted scholar and singer of traditional songs – someone who would generally have little truck with any approach to folk music that strays from a traditional approach. I remember him telling me that he was as excited hearing Cordelia’s Dad as anyone he’d encountered in decades. The band’s lead singer was Tim Eriksen, who in the years since, has become even more steeped in traditional folk songs and in developing a compelling and intense approach to their performance.

Soul of the January Hills is a mesmerizing set of 14 songs, all sung a cappella, that Eriksen recorded in one take, in one hour-long session, sitting (or perhaps standing) by himself in a church in Poland. He turned on his digital recorder, sang the songs once, in order, turned off the recorder and had this album.

Among the traditional ballads that Eriksen sings are “Queen Jane,” “Two Babes,” “Lass of Glenshee” and “Drowsy Sleeper.” Listening, one can’t help but be caught up in the tales of lust and murder n the songs’ stories. Somewhat of a specialist in shape note singing, he also sings such hymns as “Amazing Grace,” “Son of God” and “Wrestling Jacob.”

Perhaps the most powerful song is “I Wish the Wars Were All Over,” a song that he compiled from fragments drawn from a variety of traditional songs. He sings it from the perspective of a woman whose love is away at war. Eriksen has recorded “I Wish the Wars Were All Over” before, but this a cappella rendition is even more convincing than his earlier version.

--Mike Regenstreif

Sing Out! Magazine – Summer 2011

2011-09-19T20:25:00.001-04:00

My copy of the Summer 2011 issue of Sing Out! Magazine arrived today (just in the nick of time before summer officially fades into fall this week. The cover story is about the David Wax Museum, a band I met last month when they were part of a workshop I hosted at the Ottawa Folk Festival.

As usual, this issue of Sing Out! has some of my writing including a book review of Woody Guthrie: American Radical by Will Kaufman, and a bunch of CD reviews:

Rory Block – Shake ‘Em On Down: A Tribute to Mississippi Fred McDowell

Jonathan Byrd – Cackalack

Hal Cannon – Hal Cannon

Patti Casey – The Heart of a Waiting Boy

Rachel Harrington – Celilo Falls

Diana Jones – High Atmosphere

Buddy Miller – Buddy Miller’s The Majestic Silver Strings

Job Potter – Job Potter

Danny Schmidt – Man of Many Moons

The Wailin’ Jennys – Bright Morning Stars

Tim Williams – When I was a Cowboy.

--Mike Regenstreif

Scott Alarik – Revival: A Folk Music Novel

2011-09-13T21:52:00.000-04:00

Revival: A Folk Music Novel

By Scott Alarik

Peter E. Randall Publisher

315 pages

scottalarik.com

When I first met Scott Alarik in the late-1970s,he was one of the impressive Minnesota-based folksingers who’d soon find somemeasure of wider recognition through their appearances on the early shows ofthe A Prairie Home Companion radio show.

A few years later, Scott moved to theBoston area where he continued to perform and record but became primarily knownas a freelance writer covering folk music for the Boston Globe, Sing Out! andother publications. Deep Community: Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground,a collection of Scott’s folk music articles was published in 2003. Now, withRevival: A Folk Music Novel, Scott turns his attention to fiction.

The story is set in a scene that Scottknows as well as anyone: the contemporary folk music scene in Cambridge,Massachusetts (as well as the broader North American folk music scene). Themain characters are Nathan Warren and Kit Palmer.

Nathan is a veteran performer whose chanceat the big time was blown by a combination of music biz politics and his ownself-destructiveness. Now sober, he runs a weekly open mike night at aCambridge bar where he mentors promising young performers and gives chances toany and all who want to get up and share their songs.

The young and painfully shy Kit Palmer isone of those promising young singer-songwriters – perhaps the most promising.Nathan recognizes her talent, helps her overcome her stage fright and – despitetheir age and experiential differences – they fall in love.

As the story develops, Nathan teaches Kitthe art of stagecraft and becomes her backup musician and producer as shebegins to climb her own ladder to folk music stardom. All the while Kit’sinfluence revitalizes Nathan and his own music.

Among the secondary characters is Ryan Ferguson,the veteran freelance folk music critic for the major local newspaper. Thepaper is going through the same kind of cutbacks and restructuring the MontrealGazette – where I used to be the freelance folk music critic – went through afew years ago, so I related strongly to the character (whose professionalstruggles, I’m sure, were based, in large part, on Scott’s own adventures atthe Globe). Another is Joyce Warren, Nathan’s ex-wife and a star in the folkmusic world now based in L.A.

Scott does two things quite brilliantly inRevival. He tells a May-December love story in a way that seems fresh and vital– and he gives a superb primer on the folk music scene as it has evolved almost ahalf-century after the major folk music revival of the 1960s. Readers get anunderstanding of the hierarchy of the scene from open mikes in neighborhoodbars to community-based, volunteer-driven house concerts and coffee houses, tothe major folk club, concert and festival circuit. The independent recordingscene, folk music radio and publications are all are part of the primer thatshould make this book essential reading for any aspiring performer – and foranyone who cares about the scene.

One of the things that I loved aboutRevival is that Scott has created characters that seem like people I know. In anote that precedes the story, Scott stresses that any similarities to realpeople in the characters in coincidental, but there are aspects to these charactersthat I recognize – or at least read into – many people I know, or have knownover my years on the folk scene (which pretty much parallel Scott’s), includingmore than a few good friends.

Revival: A Folk Music Novel is a terrific read for anyone who likes a goodstory and an essential read for anyone who cares about or wants to understandtoday’s folk music scene.

--Mike Regenstreif

Tom Russell -- Mesabi

2011-09-01T23:08:00.001-04:00

TOM RUSSELL

Mesabi

Shout! Factory

tomrussell.com

Three years ago, I had the pleasure of writing the booklet essay for The Tom Russell Anthology: Veteran’s Day, Tom Russell’s 2-CD, career spanning retrospective, in which I referred to him as “the best songwriter of my generation.” It’s a conviction I’ve repeated several times since and which is only reinforced by Mesabi, yet another in his long series of masterpiece albums – albums that essentially raise and set the bar for contemporary singer-songwriters.

There are a couple of distinct, but somehow linked, song-cycles on this album. The first explores the nature of the pursuit of art, the nature of legend, and the rewards and the cruelty of fame.

The album begins with about 10 seconds of solo acoustic guitar picking out the melody line to “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” as an intro to “Mesabi,” the album’s folk-rock title song named for the Mesabi Iron Range in Minnesota, the area that Bob Dylan grew up in during the 1940s and ‘50s. The song begins with a description of the kid that was the young Robert Zimmerman in Hibbing and shifts up into the 1960s and the kid who was the young Tom Russell listening to and being inspired by the troubadour kid singing “Don’t Think Twice” on his uncle’s record player.

While “Mesabi” was about the creation of a legend, it leads into “Where the Legends Die,” a literate jazz piece about the realization that legendary figures are just as human and flawed as the rest of us.

Flawed legends are the heart of the next pair of songs. “Farewell Never Never Land,” which shifts from a Stephen Foster-like intro to a folk-rock setting, tells the tragic story of Bobby Driscoll, a Disney child actor – he was the voice of Peter Pan in the classic animated version from 1953 – that grew up to be a drug addicted has-been who died of old age at 31.

Tom sings “The Lonesome Death of Ukulele Ike,” as the song’s title character in a bouncy 1920s or ‘30s pop style. Ukulele Ike – Cliff Edwards – was a popular singer in those days, and achieved his greatest success as the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio. (Who can forget his classic rendition of “When You Wish Upon a Star?”) Ultimately, though, Edwards died penniless, another fallen legend.

“Sterling Hayden” is a tribute, of sorts, to the tough guy actor, author and raconteur who mostly lived life on his own terms, famously expressing one major regret: naming names before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era. “I don't think you have the foggiest notion of the contempt I have had for myself since the day I did that thing,” Sterling Hayden wrote years later. Tom brings a variation of that quote into the song, which he sings as both a third-person narrator and as Hayden himself. Tom’s song refers to seeing Hayden interviewed on the Johnny Carson show. I can also vividly remember a series of fascinating interviews he did in the ‘70s with Tom Snyder on the Tomorrow show.

“Furious Love (For Liz)” follows. It’s a short, sad lament for Elizabeth Taylor sung at the time of her death and recalling many years earlier when Taylor lived with husband Nicky Hilton in El Paso, across from Juarez, Mexico, long before Juarez became a battleground in the Mexican drug wars. The song is also the first hint at the direction Tom will soon move the album in.

In “A Land Called Way Out There,” set to a kind of folk-brass band arrangement featuring members of Calexico, Tom recalls the quick, early death of James Dean and then sings a new version of “Roll the Credits, Johnny,” which Tom first recorded in 2008 as one of the two new songs on The Tom Russell Anthology: Veteran’s Day. The song uses the symbolism of the end of a movie to bring closure to the first of the two major song-cycles on the album.

“Heart Within a Heart,” is a beautiful, spiritual song featuring the gospel harmonies of Regina and Ann McCrary. It provides a few minutes of respite between the album’s two main thematic blocks.

Tom lives near El Paso in the West Texas borderlands just north of Mexico and he’s often written about the back-and-forth exchanges and border town interdependencies of the area. The next song-cycle is about that and is heralded in the first few bars of “And God Created Border Towns,” by the quasi-mariachi sounds of pianist Augie Meyers (legendary for his work with the late Doug Sahm, from the days of the Sir Douglas Quintet to the Texas Tornados), accordionist Joel Guzman and Jacob Valenzuela on trumpets. The song lays bare the realities of the border: migrants looking for a better life are exploited and murdered by the thousands, guns flow south across border to enable the drug wars, and the drugs flow north to the seemingly insatiable American market.

“Goodnight, Juarez” is a Tex-Mex lament for Jurarez’s descent from an open tourist town to the battleground it’s become. Tom looks at contemporary Juarez and remembers the time – not that many years ago – when it was a different place and imagines how it could be again. “Juarez, I had a dream today/ The children danced, as the guitars played/ And all the violence up and slipped away/ Goodnight, Juarez, goodnight.”

“Jai Alai,” named for a once-popular sport, is a brilliant, fast-paced flamenco piece – featuring the guitar Jacob Mossman – about passion: for the game – and for love.

The borderland song-cycle draws to a close with a new version of “Love Abides,” the finale from Tom’s folk-opera, The Man from God Knows Where, an album I still consider the best, the most important, piece of work by any musical artist in the past three decades or so. It’s a beautiful song that looks at a world filled with tragedy but also filled with blessings, hope and love.

The album ends with two songs labeled as bonus tracks but which I think are a kind of restatement of the first theme Tom explores on this album.

Tom's sublime, newly definitive version of Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” is a duet with Lucinda Williams on top of an atmospheric arrangement by the musicians of Calexico that brings us back to the Mesabi Iron Range. The song seems as fresh and as topical now as when the troubadour kid wrote it almost half a century ago.

The finale, “The Road to Nowhere,” written for the new Monte Hellman film, Road to Nowhere (“Roll the Credits, Johnny” is also used in the film), could be about almost any of the fallen heroes and legends in the songs sung earlier in the album – or not yet written about.

I’ve mentioned a few of the musicians Tom uses on this album. Among other great contributors worth noting are pianist Barry Walsh, who co-produced the album with Tom; multi-instrumentalist Fats Kaplin, who played in Tom’s band back in the 1980s; guitarist Thad Beckman, who tours with him now; legendary pianist and studio arranger Van Dyke Parks; and harmony singer Gretchen Peters.

As I mentioned at the top of this review, Mesabi is another in Tom Russell’s long series of masterpiece albums – all of them different from each other, all of them layered to reveal more with each hearing. And, I’ll say it one more time: Tom Russell is the best songwriter of my generation – the generation that followed 10 or 12 years after Dylan.

By the way, I’m not sure how long it will be there, but tomrussell.com is currently giving away free downloads of “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.”

Mesabi is scheduled for release on September 6.

--Mike Regenstreif