Canadian Spaces – CKCU – Saturday July 6, 2013

CKCU can be heard at 93.1 FM in Ottawa and ckcufm.com on the web.

This week’s show was co-hosted by Mike Regenstreif and Chris White.

Canadian Spaces on CKCU in Ottawa is Canada’s longest-running folk music radio program. It is heard Saturday mornings from 10:00 am until noon (Eastern time). It was hosted for more than 33 years by the late Chopper McKinnon and is now hosted by Chris White and a rotating cast of co-hosts. Today was my second time in the co-host’s chair.

Guests: Lenny Gallant and Three Piece Sweet (Christine Graves, Chris MacLean & Jennifer Noxon)

Ruth Moody- Trouble and Woe

These Wilder Things (True North)

Doug McArthur- Boots & Saddles

The Dust of Davy Crockett (Tableaux Vivants)

Eve Goldberg- Let Me Rise

A Kinder Season (Borealis)

Dale Boyle- Leaving Dogtown

Throwback (Dale Boyle)

Maria Dunn- Shareholders’ Reel

Piece By Piece (Distant Whisper)

Old Man Luedecke- Song for Ian Tyson

Tender is the Night (True North)

Ian Tyson- Smuggler’s Cove

All the Good ‘Uns Vol. 2 (Stony Plain)

Bobby Dove- Steal Away

Dovetails (Bobby Dove)

Mighty Popo- Kamananga

Gakondo (Borealis)

Tom Russell & the Norwegian Wind Ensemble- East of Woodstock, West of Vietnam

Aztec Jazz (Frontera)

Martha Wainwright- Matapedia

Sing Me the Songs: Celebrating the Works of Kate McGarrigle (Nonesuch)

Linda McRae- Gepetto’s Boy

Rough Edges & Ragged Hearts (42 RPM)

The next two songs punctuated Chris White’s phone conversation with Lennie Gallant.

Lennie Gallant- Peter’s Dream

Lennie Gallant Live (Revenant)

Lennie Gallant- Seven Years

When We Get There (Universal)

The next four songs punctuated our conversation with Three Piece Sweet.

Three Piece Sweet- Procrastinator

Live in the studio

Three Piece Sweet- Sparks will Fly

Live in the studio

Three Piece Sweet- Oh Luck

Live in the studio

Three Piece Sweet- Soltarlo

Live in the studio

The show is now available for online listening. cod.ckcufm.com/programs/129/12667.html

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

Mighty Popo – Gakondo

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