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.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

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–Mike Regenstreif

Shawna Caspi – Forest Fire

SHAWNA CASPI

Forest Fire

shawnacaspi.com

(A version of this review was published in the September 18, 2017 issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.)

That Shawna Caspi has become an accomplished guitarist, singer and insightful songwriter is well documented on Forest Fire, her fourth CD, a collection of seven original songs and two covers performed quietly, yet with confidence and strength, in contemporary folk-rooted settings.

The album opens with “Love in a Moving Van,” in which she uses the inherent difficulties in a couple’s do-it-yourself move with a U-Haul truck as metaphors for the difficulties in maintaining a relationship over time.

Mike Regenstreif & Shawna Caspi at the Ottawa Grassroots Festival (2015)

Among the other highlights are “Devil’s Rolling Pin,” which uses a driving, minor-key setting to celebrate the discovery of exciting new music at the end of an otherwise difficult day; the heartrending “Never Enough,” an observational song about a mother’s efforts to change the ways of a wayward son; and “Brave Parade,” a song of courage “in an angry age,” written by Lynn Miles. 

Shawna’s singing and guitar playing gets fine support from producer Don Kerr on drums, fiddler Rosalyn Dennett, Dave Matheson on keyboards, bassist Ben Whiteley and multi-instrumentalist Joel Schwartz.

Shawna is also a visual artist and did the impressionistic painting of the forest fire on the CD cover.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif