Durham County Poets – Grimshaw Road

DURHAM COUNTY POETS

Grimshaw Road

durhamcountypoets.com

Ormstown, Quebec, a small town in the Chateauguay Valley about an hour or so southwest of Montreal, has a music scene that is seemingly out of proportion to its size and the finest band to come out of that scene is the Durham County Poets, a five-piece unit whose mostly original repertoire encompasses such styles as folk, blues, rock, swing and gospel – often mixed and matched within the same song.

I quite liked the Poets’ first two albums. Both Where the River Flows, released in 2012, and Chikkaboodah Stew, from 2014, were full of good songs and fine performances. But, their brand new release, Grimshaw Road, is their best yet. With more than five years of performing together, they’ve really gelled as a band and their songwriting – each of them contributes or collaborates – is stronger than ever.

The band is fronted by lead singer Kevin Harvey, a naturally laid back vocalist who nails the essence of whatever song he’s singing, bringing it to life in a way that serves the music and, particularly, the lyrics. He’s well supported by guitarists David Whyte and Neil Elsmore, bassist Carl Rufh and drummer Jim Preimel. Several of the band members occasionally double on other instruments and there are some guest musicians on some tracks including producer John McColgan on percussion and veteran Montreal saxophonist Jody Golick.

The album opens with the band in blues mode on “Grimshaw Road,” in which the singer relates a late-night encounter with the devil. It sounds like it could be an encounter like Robert Johnson’s mythologized visit to the crossroads, but the narrator here hears the sound of a heavenly choir and is guided away by an angel.

A few of my favorite songs on the album include the contemplative “Streets and Sidewalks,” which is reminiscent of early James Taylor; the infectious “Monday Morning,” a swinging blues about a workingman starting his week; the jazzy “Bowl Full of Lazy,” which sounds like it could have come from one of Tom Waits’ early LPs; and “Outside Cat,” a jump blues that could be taken literally as a description of an actual cat prowling the neighborhood or metaphorically as a hipster description of someone living by his own rules.

In addition to the original material there are two songs not written by members of the Durham County Poets. Both are great performances and both feature guest vocalists in duet with Kevin. On a beautiful version of the late Penny Lang’s “Diamonds on the Water,” they are joined by Michael Jerome Browne (I presume this is one of the songs they’ll perform on June 15 at the Montreal Folk Fest on the Canal’s tribute concert to Penny) and their version of Blind Willie Johnson's “On Your Bond,” with Suzie Vinnick, comes from deep in the gospel well.

One minor complaint: The CD digipac and lyric booklet feature black-and-white photos – which I quite like – but the lettering for the credits and lyrics are in white and, unfortunately, white lettering on a black-and-white background is frequently difficult to read.

Among the stops on the Durham County Poets’ series of album-launching concerts is a show here in the Ottawa area on Friday, June 16, 8 pm, at the Black Sheep Inn in Wakefield.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Michael Jerome Browne – The Road is Dark

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