Vince Halfhide – Vince Halfhide

VINCE HALFHIDE

Vince Halfhide

vincehalfhide.com

Master guitarist Vince Halfhide is a veteran Ottawa musician. Decades ago, he played with Terry Gillespie in Heaven’s Radio and in more recent years I’ve seen him as an MVP sideman for artists like Sneezy Waters and Missy Burgess. I’ve also seen him on occasion playing solo and quickly came to appreciate that he’s a fine singer-songwriter himself. I’ve long hoped that he’d release a CD that I can enjoy and share on the radio.

With the eponymously named Vince Halfhide, Vince has delivered that CD – a fine collection of 12 well-crafted original songs mostly in folk and acoustic blues veins.

The album open with “Memphis Rounder,” an infectious ragtime blues that hearkens back to the days when legends like Furry Lewis and Gus Cannon were playing for change on Beale Street in Memphis. Other tunes drawing on the blues include “Sonny Boy Said,” a tribute to delta blues legends Sonny Boy Wiliamson and Robert Johnson, and to blues mythology, featuring some hot licks from Vince’s guitar that are matched by Monkeyjunk’s Steve Marriner on harmonica, and “Devil Made Rock & Roll,” a heaven-and-hell tune on which Vince’s guitar and vocals are underpinned by producer Ken Whiteley on the organ and Rebecca Campbell’s haunting harmonies.

One of the most compelling of the folk-styled songs is “Teizo’s Song,” a ballad sung from the perspective of an immigrant who arrived in Canada from Japan in 1910 and worked hard to build a life for himself and his family only to lose his property, rights and freedoms – along with 22,000 other Japanese Canadians placed in internment camps – during the Second World War.

Other highlights include “Sleepy Little Town,” a gentle song that captures the scene in a quiet place far removed from urban life, and “The Junk Man’s Singing,” a character study featuring some nice fiddling by Rosalyn Dennett.

But my very favorite song is “Cobalt Miner’s Daughter,” a beautiful love song set in northern Ontario.

Vince will be launching Vince Halfhide with a concert on Friday September 7, 8 pm, at the Westboro Masonic Hall in Ottawa. Tickets are available at his website.

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–Mike Regenstreif

Lynne Hanson – River of Sand

LYNNE HANSON
River of Sand
Well Done Music 
lynnehanson.com

Lynne Hanson’s first three recordings – released between 2006 and 2010 – were all good albums that showcased a singer-songwriter of great promise. After a four-year wait since her previous release, Lynne delivers on that promise with River of Sand – 11 songs delve deep into personal darkness, whether she’s seemingly writing about herself or obviously about a character she’s created.

Several songs delve into broken, ended relationships but she writes and sings with depth about contradictory feelings – “I say that I don’t care/ I’m stone but I’m lying,” she sings in “Whiskey and Tears,” and “Our home became four walls of love grown cold/ My heart still broke the day that it was sold,” she sings in “This Old House.”

Other songs explore the effects of depression. In “This Too Shall Pass,” the narrator contemplates the absolute loneliness of depression and, perhaps, a final ending. In “Heaven and Hell,” she feels like she’s being strangled by the devil.

The crutch of drinking and losing one’s self in the effects of alcohol are vividly explored in several songs including the title song as well as the aforementioned “Whiskey and Tears” and “Colour My Summers Blue.”

Lynne also steps outside of herself in “Good Intentions,” in which a character named Suzy finds herself compromised at the hands of a would-be rapist and fights back with lethal force.

The album ends on a brighter note. While still singing about a broken relationship in “Trading in My Lonesome,” co-written with producer Lynn Miles, Lynn sings about the personal redemption borne of real closure.

It is obvious, listening to these songs that Lynne is writing about these emotions with authenticity. The songs, and her clear country alto, are well served by finely crafted arrangements featuring such musicians as guitarist Keith Glass, fiddler Lyndell Montgomery, Anders Dreup on pedal steel and guitar, and Lynn Miles and Rebecca Campbell on harmony vocals.

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--Mike Regenstreif