Chris Rawlings – Northern Spirits

CHRIS RAWLINGS

Northern Spirits

Cooking Fat Music

chrisrawlings.ca

As I noted in my review of Autumn Gold in 2012, “Chris Rawlings was one of my favourite local singer-songwriters when I first started hanging out on the Montreal folk scene back around 1969. He was then in the early stages of his solo career after spending a few years as part of a band called Rings and Things.” In 1972, “when I started my first concert series at Dawson College in Montreal, Chris headlined my second concert presentation. And when I started running the Golem Coffee House in 1974, Chris was one of my frequently-presented artists.”

A new CD from Chris is always welcome and Northern Spirits, which includes both new and vintage material (some of which I’d never heard before), is arguably his strongest release since the early LPs Pearl River Turnaround and Soupe du Jour.

The album starts strongly with one of the new songs, “Song of the Bush Pilot,” inspired by stories Chris heard from bush pilot Chick Bidgood. Sung from the old bush pilot’s perspective, his reminiscences come vividly to life.

Other new songs include a couple written with Lynn Heath, Chris’ wife. “Heavy Lifting” is a topical piece that touches on concerns about the environment and world conflicts while “Ezekiel’s Bones,” thoughtfully recounts and comments on the biblical legend.

My favourite new song is “The Lancashire Lass,” which recounts the life story of Chris’ late mother.

Among the older recordings I particularly like “Louis Riel,” Chis’ ballad about the legendary Métis leader who was tried – many believe unjustly – for treason and hung in 1885. I’m not sure when it was recorded but one of the musicians on the track is the master pedal steel player Ron Dann, who passed away about 25 years ago. Chris pairs the song with “La Chanson de Louis Riel,” which combines Riel’s own words with a traditional melody. Chris' newly recorded vocal is paired here with an arrangement of “La Chanson de Louis Riel” taken from an LP of traditional tunes adapted for a recorder quartet that Chris recorded in the 1970s (or, perhaps, early-‘80s).

Another older song (although I’m not sure if the recording is old or new) that I was happy to hear

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again for the first time in years was “English Band in Le Studio,” which recounts a 1970s-era incident at a recording studio in Morin Heights, Quebec. I wasn’t there at the time but I remember hearing the story from Chris and others who were shortly after it occurred.

Wish list: I hope someday Chris will release a recording of his (and Paul Lauzon’s) masterful setting of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s epic 19th century poem. I still clearly recall several of Chris’ stunning performances of the piece from three and four or more decades ago.

Pictured: Chris Rawlings and Mike Regenstreif at the 2007 Branches & Roots Festival in Ormstown, Quebec.

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Russ Kelley – Crazy Shades of Blue

RUSS KELLEY
Crazy Shades of Blue
Ark Road Music Productions 
russkelley.com

While Crazy Shades of Blue may be Russ Kelley’s debut CD as a singer-songwriter, he’s no newcomer. I knew Russ back in the early-1970s and used to listen to him a lot in the bars and coffee houses of Montreal. He’d been a member of Rings and Things, a Montreal folk group of the ‘60s that was just a little before my time, and was working a lot then in a duo with Sue Lothrop, who had also been part of Rings and Things. I remember Russ and Sue for their sweet harmonies and eclectic repertoire.

I lost contact with Russ for many years after he left Montreal and later learned from him that he’d moved to Nova Scotia and was performing there until he suffered a vocal cord injury in the late-1980s that led to surgery and the loss of part of his vocal range.

Russ quit performing after the vocal cord injury and became a cultural bureaucrat. When I reconnected with him about 10 years ago he was living in Ottawa as head of the music section of the Canada Council. He retired from the Canada Council in 2011 and, happily, got serious again about songwriting and performing.

Of course, Russ’ voice is now rougher than I remember from back in the day – it’s a ragged but right kind of voice well-suited suited to the conversational kind of delivery he’s adopted and Russ knows how to use it to communicate the words and emotions behind the songs.

Crazy Shades of Blue is a varied album of mature songs that draw on contemporary folk, blues and jazz influences. One song, “Elaine,” is from back in the days when I used to see Russ play in Montreal, with the rest, I believe, being of recent vintage.

Among my favourite tracks on the album are the folkier songs like “Sometimes It’s So Simple,” which kicks off the CD, “Somewhere Later Down the Road,” which features some nice slide guitar work by Doug Cox, and “In the Middle of the Day,” inspired by a story Russ heard told by comedian Margaret Cho.

Others highlights include the jazzy title track which features Jane Bunnett’s saxophone moving nicely in and around Russ’ singing, and “I Disappear,” an exploration of personal identity after the dissolution of a marriage.

For folks here in Ottawa, Russ launches Crazy Shades of Blue at the National Arts Centre Fourth Stage on Wednesday, June 19, 7:30 pm.

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Chris Rawlings – Autumn Gold

CHRIS RAWLINGS

Autumn Gold

chrisrawlings.ca

Chris Rawlings was one of my favourite local singer-songwriters when I first started hanging out on the Montreal folk scene back around 1969. He was then in the early stages of his solo career after spending a few years as part of a band called Rings and Things. Forty years ago this fall, when I started my first concert series at Dawson College in Montreal, Chris headlined my second concert presentation. And when I started running the Golem Coffee House in 1974, Chris was one of my frequently-presented artists. Some of the material on this collection of live tracks and previously unreleased studio recordings dates from those days.

Among the highlights are a couple of topical songs written from perspective of a Quebec anglophone. “Farewell to Quebec,” recorded live in Toronto in 1989, is a bittersweet farewell that captures well the feelings of so many people caught up in great anglo exodus from Quebec that became a tidal wave in the 1970s and ‘80s (and which still continues to this day).

And “Hey René,” recorded in 1976, is a reaction to the election of Quebec’s first separatist government under René Lévesque. One of the most prophetic lines in the song says, “What will you do when the contract comes due and the union bosses that supported you want more?” We found out the answer to that in 1982 when Lévesque and his finance minister, Jacques Parizeau, rolled back public sector wages by 20% in what was the most draconian anti-labour legislation in Canadian history.

Other highlights include a 1972 recording of “House of D,” covered back in the day by Christopher Kearney, a folk-rock song that reaches out to a teenage girl caught up in a cycle of abuse and detention and Chris and Paul Lauzon’s dreamy setting of William Butler Yeats’ “Lake Isle of Innisfree” recorded live in 1998 (but which I remember from back in the 1970s).

I particularly liked hearing Chris’ versions of two of the late Wade Hemsworth’s classic songs. “The Log Driver’s Waltz,” recorded in 1972, includes harmonies from Wade himself and three original members of the Mountain City Four: Anna McGarrigle, Peter Weldon and Jack Nissenson, while the solo version of “The Wild Goose,” recorded at the Wade Hemsworth Tribute Concert in Montreal in 2002, is beautiful and haunting.

The album ends with a rollicking version of Chris’ own classic, the tongue-twisting “Pearl River Turnaround” recorded live at Expo ’86 in Vancouver with fiddler Christophe Obermeir.

Chris precedes “Pearl River Turnaround” with a song written and sung by Obermeir at Expo ’86 on which Chris backs him on recorder. As the one track featuring a different lead singer, it interrupts the flow and unnecessarily throws the album off its Rawlings-track.

Overall, Autumn Gold nicely rekindles some fond musical memories from my salad days.

Pictured: Chris Rawlings and Mike Regenstreif at the 2007 Branches & Roots Festival in Ormstown.

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