Lucy Kaplansky coming to Montreal, March 4

One of the concerts I’ve most been looking forward to this season is the return to Montreal of the superb New York-based singer-songwriter Lucy Kaplansky.

I remember being quite impressed hearing her do a song or two in New York City – more than 30 years ago – when she was half of Simon & Kaplansky, a duo with Elliot Simon. She later had a duo with Shawn Colvin before leaving the music business to get her PhD and establish a practice as a clinical psychologist.

Lucy returned to music making in the early-1990s and her first album was released in 1994 – I first played it on Folk Roots/Folk Branches on December 1, 1994. That album and all of her subsequent releases – including the Cry Cry Cry collaboration with Dar Williams and Richard Shindell – were staples of Folk Roots/Folk Branches programming until the show ended in 2007. Lucy was a guest on the show in 1999 in a conversation we recorded that summer at the Ottawa Folk Festival.

I’ve loved the three concerts that I’ve seen Lucy do over the years and anticipate a great evening on Friday, March 4, 8:00 pm, at La Sala Rossa (4848 St. Laurent). Contact Hello Darlin’ Productions at 514-524-9224 for information or ticket reservations.

Lucy’s most recent album is Red Horse, a collaboration with Eliza Gilkyson and John Gorka. My review is here.

Below are my reviews of her albums Over the Hills (Montreal Gazette, April 12, 2007) and Every Single Day (Sing Out! magazine, Spring 2002).

--Mike Regenstreif

LUCY KAPLANSKY
Over the Hills
Red House

Themes of familial joys and grief, and continuity of the generations, runs through the finely-crafted and movingly delivered original songs that Lucy Kaplansky offers on her sixth album. She sings about the joys of raising an inquisitive young daughter in "Manhattan Moon" and says goodbye to her dying father in "Today’s the Day." "The Gift" is a poignant tribute to both her grandfather and father as she acknowledges the gift of music they passed down to her. In addition to her own songs, Kaplansky also puts her distinctive stamp on such numbers as "Someday Soon," Ian Tyson’s classic about a young girl in love with a rodeo cowboy, and "Ring of Fire," a hit June Carter wrote for future husband Johnny Cash. ****

--Mike Regenstreif

LUCY KAPLANSKY
Every Single Day
Red House

On her fourth solo album, Lucy Kaplansky brings her considerable skills to bear on a set of songs that examine human relationships and frailties with the combined skills of a singer and songwriter (her songs are collaborations with her husband, Richard Litvin) who is informed with the insights of a highly trained psychologist (Kaplansky has a PhD in psychology and had a clinical practice in New York City for some years before returning to music on a full time basis). So when she sings about an egocentric singer in “Every Single Day” or the lonely person in the midst of the big city in “Nowhere” or the illicit lovers in “Guilty As Sin,” there is much deeper analysis than one often encounters in contemporary songs.

The most moving song on the album is “Song For Molly,” a beautiful, quiet piece in which Kaplansky recalls the relationship that she had at 13 with her institutionalized grandmother in the grips of Alzheimer’s or some other memory-robbing disease.

In addition to her original material, Kaplansky also turns in strong versions of songs drawn from other writers.
My favorite of her covers is Julie Miller’s “Broken Things,” in which the broken-hearted protagonist finds that its never too late to find love again. Her version of the Louvin Brothers’ “The Angels Rejoiced Last Night,” shows Kaplansky’s great affinity for traditional country.

Most of these songs have a layered, produced sound that’s closer to pop music than contemporary folk usually gets, but Kaplansky never lets the arrangements overtake either the songs or her voice.

--Mike Regenstreif

Pete Seeger -- Tomorrow's Children

PETE SEEGER with THE RIVERTOWN KIDS AND FRIENDS
Tomorrow’s Children
Appleseed Records
peteseeger.net

Despite vocal powers that have diminished with age, Pete Seeger remains a vital activist, song leader and musician. Tomorrow’s Children, most of which features Pete singing with or backing up the Rivertown Kids, a group of 20 school kids from around his hometown of Beacon, New York, as well as some other kids and several adult musical friends, is an inspiring album that captures the great sage of the folk music scene doing something that he’s always loved: singing meaningful songs with members of the generation that will carry on making a difference into the future.

Pete is present on every song – variously as a musician, a chorus-singer or a song leader. But it is his inspiration on the youngsters of the Rivertown Kids – and on the adult contributors, too – that makes this album unique.

The manifesto of the Rivertown Kids is heard in “We Sing Out,” a collective song the kids wrote based on the melody of Tom Paxton’s “Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound.” The kids reject the notion that they should be seen, not heard, as they declare their interest in protecting the environment, family farms and local communities, their solidarity with the sick and the poor, and their commitment to justice and equality. Their message is repeated in the series of new verses they wrote to “We Shall Not Be Moved,” the old spiritual that Pete helped popularize as a union and civil rights anthem.

Among the adult contributors to the album are Dar Williams and David Bernz, who are heard with Pete on “Solartopia,” a new song inspired by Harvey Wasserman’s book of the same name on green energy; Sarah Underhill, who sings “River,” my favourite Bill Staines song, with Pete; and David Amram and Victorio Roland Mousaa who perform “Mastinchele Wachipi Olewan (The Rabbit Song),” a Lakota round dance song.

Ultimately, I think this album is a step in Pete’s passing of the torch to younger generations. There is a version of “Turn, Turn, Turn” with new children’s verses written by Toshi Seeger (Pete’s wife), and a version of Pete’s classic “Quite Early Morning,” sung with the Rivertown Kids, that says “And so keep on while we live/Until we have no more to give/And when these fingers can strum no longer/Hand the old banjo to young ones stronger.”

Pete wrote “Quite Early Morning” back in the late-1960s. Clearly, he wasn’t ready to give up his banjo or guitar 40-something years ago. Now, at 91, Pete Seeger still has more to give and his fingers continue to keep on strumming. And Pete's still got a firm hand on the torch.

--Mike Regenstreif

Red Horse -- Gilkyson, Gorka, Kaplansky

RED HORSE
Red Horse
Red House Records
redhouserecords.com/redhorse.html

Red Horse is a project that brings together three of today’s finest singer-songwriters, Eliza Gilkyson, John Gorka and Lucy Kaplansky, as a kind of contemporary folk supergroup (something that Lucy did about a dozen years ago with Dar Williams and Richard Shindell as Cry Cry Cry). There are 12 songs with each taking the lead vocal on four with the others providing some gorgeous harmonies. Each sings one of their own songs, one written by each of the other two, and one cover tune.

It’s a lovely, compelling CD filled with exquisite arrangements of superbly written songs. Given the three principals, how could it be anything but?

Eliza opens the album with a lovely version of Neil Young’s “I Am a Child,” that perfectly captures the song’s naïveté. Later in the album Eliza offers lovely versions of Lucy’s “Promise Me,” a slow, luxurious love song; John’s “Forget to Breathe,” a dreamer’s imagining of a more perfect world; and her own “Walk Away from Love,” a song she first recorded on Hard Times In Babylon.

Lucy’s first song is a fine reprise of her love song “Scorpion,” originally recorded on Flesh and Bone. She goes on to sing sublime versions of Eliza’s “Sanctuary,” a song I’ve always interpreted as a kind of prayer from someone dealing with something dark and difficult; John’s “Blue Chalk,” a compassionate song about others in those dark and difficult places; and the traditional “Wayfaring Stranger.”

John’s first song in the spotlight is Eliza’s “Wild Horse,” a new song to me (it’s not on any of the seven of Eliza’s albums on my shelves) that captures the essence of a free spirit in an arrangement that is seemingly perfect in its sparseness. John goes for a fuller production in his folk-rock version of Lucy’s love song, “Don’t Mind Me,” and then gets beautifully sparse again on the very folkish “Coshieville,” a song written by Stuart McGregor but which I associate with the great Scottish folksinger Archie Fisher, and his own “If These Walls Could Talk,” which I also don’t recognize and assume to be a new song.

This is a CD I expect to listen to often in the months – indeed, years – to come. My one criticism is that the album was recorded in three different places with the files passed around so that the others could add their parts. While this approach resulted in a beautiful album, I miss the spontaneity that could have only come from Eliza, John and Lucy being in the studio and singing live from the floor together.

The cover art, by the way, is a painting by Tom Russell, a great singer and songwriter who has also become increasingly recognized for his great visual art.

--Mike Regenstreif

This week in Folk Roots/Folk Branches history (June 1-June 7)

Folk Roots/Folk Branches with Mike Regenstreif was a Thursday tradition on CKUT in Montreal for nearly 14 years from February 3, 1994 until August 30, 2007 (and around the world via the web for most of those years). Folk Roots/Folk Branches continued for some time as occasional features on CKUT, and is now a blog. Here’s the 40th instalment of “This week in Folk Roots/Folk Branches,” a weekly look back continuing through next August at some of the most notable guests, features and moments in Folk Roots/Folk Branches history.

June 2, 1994: Show theme- Remembering the Golem, the Montreal folk club I ran from 1974-1976 and 1981-1987, 20 years after I first took over.
June 1, 1995: Show theme- The legacy of Lead Belly.
June 6, 1996: Extended feature- Songs of Jesse Winchester.
June 4, 1998: Guest- David Amram.
June 3, 1999: Guest- Dar Williams.
June 7, 2001: Extended feature- A tribute to the late John Hartford.
June 6, 2002: Extended feature- Songs of Wade Hemsworth.
June 5, 2003: Guest- Brendan Nolan.
June 2, 2005: Guest- Seán Tyrrell.
June 1, 2006: Guest- Penny Lang.
June 5, 2008 (Folk Roots/Folk Branches feature): A tribute to the late Bruce “Utah” Phillips.

Pictured: Utah Phillips and Mike Regenstreif at the 2005 Champlain Valley Folk Festival.

--Mike Regenstreif