Eric Bibb – Deeper in the Well

ERIC BIBB

Deeper in the Well

Stony Plain

ericbibb.com

Although he’s been an accomplished musician since he was a teenager in the 1960s, Eric Bibb really only landed on my radar in 1998 with the release of an inspired and inspiring album called Good Stuff.

I soon discovered Eric was the son of actor and folksinger Leon Bibb (who was a prominent participant in the post-War folk revival) – and the godson of Paul Robeson and the nephew of pianist John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet, talk about a musical pedigree – and that I was previously unfamiliar with Eric because he’d spent most of his career living and performing in Europe.

Good Stuff launched Eric’s career in North America and he was soon a significant presence on the folk, blues and jazz festival circuit. He was my guest several times on the Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio program when he’d come to play at the Montreal International Jazz Festival.

Since Good Stuff, Eric has recorded prolifically, both solo albums and collaborations with other artists, and I’ve written about many of them here and in various publications. These albums have almost always been among my favourites for any year they’ve been released and are all albums I’ve returned to often over the years. His new album, Deeper in the Well, will be no exception.

To keep all of his recordings sounding fresh, Eric has done things a little differently from album to album. This time around, he travelled to Louisiana to record at Dirk Powell’s studio in Pont Breaux with Dirk, who plays just about anything with strings, plus accordion; fiddler Cedric Watson; drummer Danny DeVillier; harmonica player Grant Dermody, who contributed so much to Eric’s Booker’s Guitar album in 2010; and Christine Balfa on Cajun triangle.

A little over half the album’s songs are Eric’s originals, including “Bayou Belle,” the appropriately swampy opening track that blends the acoustic blues Eric is so expert at with the Cajun and Creole influences of Louisiana.

As with all of Eric’s albums, it’s hard to pick favourites. But a few of mine from initial listening would include “Money in Your Pocket,” a count-your-blessings kind of song co-written with Michael Jerome Browne; “Music,” an infectious celebration of music-making; a happy sounding version of “Dig a Little Deeper in the Well,” learned ago from Doc Watson; and a thoughtful version of Bob Dylan’s “The Times There are A-Changin’” which Eric makes sound as vital in 2012 as it was almost half a century ago.

While it doesn’t say so in the credits, there are a couple of equally excellent tracks that I suspect were recorded, at least partially, elsewhere. Eric’s “In My Time,” which contrasts good times and hard times, brings together Eric’s soulful singing, and fluid, finger-picked guitar, with the sublime playing of dobro-master Jerry Douglas; and an almost West African-sounding version of Taj Mahal’s “Every Wind in the River” features back-up by master-of-all-roots music Michael Jerome Browne and studio wiz Michel Pepin, both of Montreal.

As mentioned, Deeper in the Well is yet another Eric Bibb album I’ll be listening to years from now.

Pictured: Michael Jerome Browne, Mike Regenstreif and Eric Bibb during Folk Roots/Folk Branches at CKUT, June 30, 2005, (Photo: Sari Matinlassi) 

I'm now on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

I'm also on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mikeregenstreif. 

--Mike Regenstreif

Ottawa Folk Festival update #2

More on the Ottawa Folk Festival.

As I mentioned on January 18, Ottawa Bluesfest’s Mark Monahan and his team “obviously know how to put on the big concerts that have come to dominate the evening concerts at folk festivals. I remain optimistic that he’ll maintain and develop the creative daytime workshop programming that I believe is the heart and soul of great folk festivals.”

Well, I’m happy to report that he’s assigned curatorship of the daytime workshop programming to the Ottawa Folklore Centre. That is the best news I’ve heard about the festival in a very long time. I think this is a great move that will ensure that the 2011 Ottawa Folk Festival’s daytime programming will continue to be the heart and soul of the festival.

Ottawa Folklore Centre owner Arthur McGregor has been involved in the folk music scene for a very long time and he has a deep understanding of the kind of programming I’ve been referring to. He’s already talked about continuing the kind of participatory workshops the Folklore Centre has coordinated in past years for the festival (excellent move) and depending on the selection of artists he’ll have to work with, I think there is the potential for this to be a great festival.

Pictured: Dan Frechette, Riley Baugus, Dirk Powell, Courtney Granger, Martha Scanlan, Robert Michaels &  bass player, and Mike Regenstreif at the Ottawa Folk Festival (2006).

  

--Mike Regenstreif

Grant Dermody -- Lay Down My Burden

GRANT DERMODY
Lay Down My Burden
Grant Dermody
grantdermody.com

I was quite impressed, in 2003, with the debut album by Grant Dermody, a Seattle-based singer and harmonica player. As I wrote in Sing Out! magazine, “Despite the diversity of the collaborations, the tastefulness of Dermody’s harp, his relaxed vocals and a good choice of material, make for a nicely cohesive album...I’m looking forward to hearing more of Dermody’s playing on future projects.”

Earlier this year, in a review of Eric Bibb’s great album, Booker’s Guitar, I said, “the only other musician is harmonica master Grant Dermody. Grant’s playing is always creative – I especially like his use of chromatic harmonica on “Flood Waters” – and complements Eric’s singing and playing beautifully. Eric and Grant’s playing together is some of the finest guitar-harmonica duo work since Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee were in their prime.”

Lay Down My Burden, Grant’s second solo album, is also a fine effort in which he and various collaborators offer fine examples of various blues and gospel styles and also occasionally delve into old-timey country music.

The album opens with one of my favourite tracks on the CD, a sweet version of the Reverend Gary Davis spiritual, “I’ll Be Alright,” which kind of picks up where Grant and Eric left off on Booker’s Guitar, except that it’s Grant singing the lead vocal on the gentle, optimistic song along with Eric’s sublime fingerpicking and some equally sublime harmonica playing by Grant.

From there the album moves on through a series of other collaborations ranging from full band settings to unique combinations with one or two other musicians to several tracks in which Grant backs up older bluesmen John Dee Holeman, Louisiana Red and the late John Cephas.

A couple of the most interesting tracks are harmonica duets. “Rain Crow Bill,” sees Grant and Mark Graham trading harp licks and whoops in the tradition of Sonny Terry (in fact, I have a recording of “Rain Crow Bill” from the 1940s in which Sonny and Woody Guthrie are trading harp licks and whoops). On “Twelve Gates to the City,” the second harmonica is ably played by Joe Filisko.

A few of the other highlights include “David’s Cow,” a playful guitar-fiddle-harmonica hoedown; a sad version of Dirk Powell’s “Waterbound”; and a beautiful a cappella arrangement of Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More” in four-part harmony.

Most of the songs on this album – whether drawn from the traditional repertoire or from Grant’s own song bag – feel timeless.

--Mike Regenstreif

Joan Baez in Kitchener, Montreal and Ottawa this week

Ottawa is folk music central this coming weekend as it hosts the annual Ontario Council of Folk Festivals  (OCFF) conference. I’m going to step out of the conference for a couple of hours on Saturday evening for the Joan Baez concert, five blocks away at the National Arts Centre.

Half a century after a still-teenaged Joan took the 1959 Newport Folk Festival by storm, she remains a great performer. The last time I saw her perform – 2003 in Burlington, Vermont – Joan was remarkable.

According to Joan’s website, her band includes three great acoustic musicians: John Doyle, the great Celtic guitarist; Dirk Powell, an incredible multi-instrumentalist who’s one of the most innovative of today’s old-time and Cajun musicians (I’ve hosted folk festival workshops a couple of times with Dirk, see the photo in the post below, and he is truly amazing – when Linda Ronstadt was a guest on Folk Roots/Folk Branches, she raved about Dirk’s playing on the Zozo Sisters CD she’d just released with Ann Savoy); and virtuoso bassist Todd Phillips, whose work, 30 years ago, with the original David Grisman Quintet redefined the possibilities in acoustic music.

Addendum (October 13): As noted, the above information about who is in Joan's band was found on her official website. However, I'm now given to understand that Dirk Powell will be the only musician with her. -MR

Joan’s three Canadian dates this week are:

Wednesday, October 16 – Centre in the Square, Kitchener, Ontario
Friday, October 15 – St. Denis Theatre, Montreal, Quebec
Saturday, October 16 – National Arts Centre, Ottawa, Ontario.

Here’s a CD review I wrote for the September 4, 2008 issue of the Montreal Gazette.

JOAN BAEZ
Day After Tomorrow
Razor & Tie

Almost 50 years into her recording career, Joan Baez teams with producer Steve Earle and a select group of acoustic musicians for one of her strongest albums in three decades. Although these songs – by such writers as Earle, Eliza Gilkyson, Tom Waits and Diana Jones – are all of recent vintage, each has a timeless quality to it. Waits’s title track, for example, written from the perspective of a soldier returning home, dates from the current Iraqi War. But it could have come from any other war time. The most beautiful song is Gilkyson’s "Rose of Sharon," an adaptation of the biblical "Song of Solomon." Baez’s voice, though lower than it was in her youth, is a remarkable instrument still capable of great beauty and power.

-Mike Regenstreif

Pictured: Joan Baez and Mike Regenstreif backstage at the Flynn Theatre, Burlington, VT. (October 12, 2003)

--Mike Regenstreif

Riley Baugus, Jenny Whiteley & Dan Whiteley in Ontario and Quebec

A very interesting collaboration of Riley Baugus, one of the finest contemporary masters of traditional Southern, old-time music, who was recently on tour and CD backing Willie Nelson in his traditional country project, and Jenny Whiteley, one of Canada’s best singer-songwriters and multiple Juno-winner, and her brother, multi-instrumentalist Dan Whiteley, is now on tour with dates this weekend in Kingston, Montreal and Wakefield (near Ottawa).

Riley was a guest on Folk Roots/Folk Branches in 2006. We recorded the conversation in August 2006 at the Ottawa Folk Festival where I hosted a couple of workshops that he participated in. He should not be missed by anyone interested in traditional Southern music.

This review I wrote of Riley’s album, Long Steel Rail, is from the January 11, 2007 issue of the Montreal Gazette.

RILEY BAUGUS
Long Steel Rail
Sugar Hill

Although Riley Baugus is a relatively young singer, banjo player and fiddler from North Carolina, his music is deeply rooted in ancient Appalachian balladry and the traditional old-time country music he grew up playing. It is obvious that Baugus is a modern master of this old music. Performing songs like "Old John Henry" and "Lonesome Road Blues," Baugus’s singing and playing powerfully evokes generations of earlier musicians who have passed these songs along. When he lays down his instruments for an a cappella rendition of "Now is the Cool of the Day," his voice is spine-tingling. Baugus’s principal collaborators on the album are co-producers Tim O’Brien, who plays mandolin and guitar, and Dirk Powell, who plays fiddle and guitar.

-Mike Regenstreif

And click here for my review of Jenny’s latest album, Forgive or Forget.

It should be a great concert They’ve already played in Toronto and have these dates coming up:

Friday, October 8, 10 pm – The Grad Club in Kingston
Saturday, October 9, 8 pm – The Yellow Door in Montreal (presented by Hello Darlin’ Productions)
Sunday, October 10, 4 pm – The Black Sheep Inn in Wakefield.

Pictured: Dan Frechette, Riley Baugus, Dirk Powell, Courtney Granger, Martha Scanlan, Robert Michaels &  bass player, and Mike Regenstreif at the Ottawa Folk Festival (2006).

--Mike Regenstreif

Ball & Chain -- Louisiana Love Bug

BALL & CHAIN
Louisiana Love Bug
Ball & Chain
ballandchain.ca

Cajun-inspired music dominates much of Louisiana Love Bug, the latest album by Ottawa’s Ball & Chain – Michael Ball and Jody Benjamin – a duo well known for their excellent take on traditional country music.

In fact, the album was recorded in Louisiana and features back-up from several musicians well-known in Cajun and Zydeco music circles including Dirk Powell of Balfa Toujours who variously plays guitar, bass, piano and accordion; Zydeco accordionist Corey Ledet; pedal steel player Richard Comeaux; and guitarist Mark Trichka. Michael plays fiddle, mandolin, bass and viola, while Jody’s on guitar and triangle.

Either Michael or Jody wrote six of the album’s 13 songs and several including Michael’s kick-off tune “Yessirree,” a high octane rhythmic workout driven by Ledet’s accordion, and Jody’s “Whirlybird,” which starts out in waltz-time and then kicks into high gear, are firmly in Cajun mode. Jody’s “He’s Already Gone,” sounds like a classic country song from decades ago.

Speaking of classic country, they also do fine versions of Roger Miller’s “A Girl Like Me,” Wayne Kemp’s “Love Bug,” and “Open Pit Mine,” an almost folk-like song recorded in 1962 by George Jones.

The album was produced by Dirk Powell, a great musician who’s been in several folk festival workshops I’ve hosted over the years. When Linda Ronstadt was a guest on Folk Roots/Folk Branches in 2006, she was raving about Dirk who had just played on Adieu False Heart, the Zozo Sisters album she’d made with Ann Savoy.

Ball & Chain will be performing Sunday, March 7, 7:00 pm, as part of the Spirit of Rasputin’s concert series at the Elmdale House Tavern, 1084 Wellington Street West, in Ottawa. They’ll open the show and then team up with Michael Jerome Browne as the Twin Rivers String Band.

--Mike Regenstreif