Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday November 29, 2022: Remembering Jack Hardy

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif finds connections and develops themes in various genres. The show is broadcast on CKCU in Ottawa on Tuesdays from 3:30 until 5 pm (Eastern time) and is also available 24/7 for on-demand streaming.

CKCU can be heard live at 93.1 FM in Ottawa and https://www.ckcufm.com/ on the web.

This episode of Stranger Songs was recorded and can already be streamed on-demand by clicking on “Listen Now” at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/595/58468.html

Theme: Remembering Jack Hardy (1947-2011)

I first met Jack Hardy sometime around 1978. Jack was a brilliant guy, a dedicated songwriter, and, perhaps, the world’s greatest champion of the art of songwriting. He was already on his lifelong mission to help anyone dedicated to the art of song-craft find and develop their voice. He was the guiding light, the guru, of the new song movement in New York City.

Jack Hardy- The Sparrow

The Nameless One (Great Divide)

Suzanne Vega- Saint Clare

Fast Folk Musical Magazine: A Tribute to Jack Hardy (Smithsonian Folkways)

David Massengill- Tree of Rhyme

Fast Folk Musical Magazine: A Tribute to Jack Hardy (Smithsonian Folkways)

Diana Jones & Mike Regenstreif on Zoom (2021)

Diana Jones- Go Tell the Savior

Fast Folk Musical Magazine: A Tribute to Jack Hardy (Smithsonian Folkways)

Jack Hardy- Dover to Dunkirk

The Nameless One (Great Divide)

Dave Van Ronk- The Drinking Song

To All My Friends in Far-Flung Places (Gazell)

Jack Hardy- Song for Dave

Coin of the Realm (Great Divide)

With the exception of “Jack’s Crows,” the songs on this program were written by Jack Hardy. Jack hosted a weekly songwriters’ exchange in his New York City apartment for more than 30 years and John Gorka was one of the many songwriters who passed through Jack’s apartment. John wrote “Jack’s Crows” as an allegorical song inspired by those songwriters’ exchanges. In the liner notes to the album, Jack’s Crows, John wrote, “Some days I look up and find I am one of Jack’s crows.”

John Gorka, Mike Regenstreif & Lucy Kaplansky (2012)

John Gorka- Jack’s Crows

Jack’s Crows (High Street)

John Gorka- Down Where the Rabbits Run

Fast Folk Musical Magazine: A Tribute to Jack Hardy (Smithsonian Folkways)

Lucy Kaplansky- Forget-Me-Not

Fast Folk Musical Magazine: A Tribute to Jack Hardy (Smithsonian Folkways)

Jack Hardy- Orphan from Madrid/Guernica

Landmark (Great Divide)

Mike Regenstreif & Ronny Cox (2013)

Ronny Cox- I Ought to Know

Fast Folk Musical Magazine: A Tribute to Jack Hardy (Smithsonian Folkways)

Terre Roche- The Tailor

Fast Folk Musical Magazine: A Tribute to Jack Hardy (Smithsonian Folkways)

Mike Regenstreif & Erik Frandsen (1976) photo: Felicity Fanjoy

Erik Frandsen- Potter’s Field

Fast Folk Musical Magazine: A Tribute to Jack Hardy (Smithsonian Folkways)

Jack Hardy- In Memory of Federico Garcia Lorca

Noir (Great Divide)

Rod MacDonald & Mike Regenstreif (2005)

Rod MacDonald- Resolution

Fast Folk Musical Magazine: A Tribute to Jack Hardy (Smithsonian Folkways)

Christine Lavin- Murder

Fast Folk Musical Magazine: A Tribute to Jack Hardy (Smithsonian Folkways)

Jack Hardy- If I Ever Pass This Way Again

The Passing (Prime CD)

Jonathan Byrd- Autumn

Fast Folk Musical Magazine: A Tribute to Jack Hardy (Smithsonian Folkways)

Nanci Griffith- Fare Thee Well

Fast Folk Musical Magazine: A Tribute to Jack Hardy (Smithsonian Folkways)

Jack Hardy- Singer’s Lament

Bandolier (Great Divide)

Next week: Songs of Eric Andersen.

Find me on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Maggie Roche – Where Do I Come From: Selected Songs

MAGGIE ROCHE

Where Do I Come From: Selected Songs

StorySound Records

storysoundrecords.com 

As I’ve mentioned before, “I first started writing record reviews for the Montreal Gazette back in 1975 and one of the LPs I wrote about that first year was Seductive Reasoning, the debut of a sister duo, Maggie & Terre Roche, built around quirky, affecting songs and terrific harmonies. Later, younger sister Suzzy Roche joined up and they became The Roches, releasing a series of albums between 1979 and 2007.”

Maggie, the eldest sister – who lost her battle with cancer on January 21, 2017 at age 65 – was a uniquely gifted songwriter responsible for almost all of the songs on Seductive Reasoning, as well as on many of the The Roches’ albums. Where Do I Come From: Selected Songs is a lovingly compiled 2-CD set of Maggie’s songs including tracks from albums by The Roches, as well as duo albums by Maggie & Terre and Maggie & Suzzy, a couple of previously unreleased demos from the early-‘70s, a solo home recording of what was probably Maggie’s final song, and a new studio recording of a previously unreleased Christmas song of Maggie’s by family members Suzzy, Lucy Wainwright Roche, Oona Roche, Dave Roche and guest Daisy Press.

Whether singing solo on the demos or in beautiful or soaring harmonies with one or both of her sisters, Maggie’s songs are always compelling for their poetic lyrics – whether narrative or oblique – and gorgeous melodies.

While I could easily heap praise on all 32 songs, I’ll cite a few as particular favorites. For those of us who have worked in small folk clubs, “Malachy’s” rings with authenticity. Similarly, “Hammond Song” captures the 20-something angst that so many of us were feeling in the ‘70s as we created paths in life that steered away from conventional expectations. “The Married Men” balances guilt and defiance within irresistible harmonies, while “My Winter Coat” is a delightful eight-minute celebration of something simple. And those four highlights barely scratch the surface.

The album ends with a solo home recording of “Where Do I Come From,” a fragmentary song that Suzzy found after Maggie had passed away. Assuming that Maggie knew her time was short adds much poignancy to thoughts like “All I got is me/ My hands are full of time/ Wanting to be free/ Is that a crime/ No one seems to hear the beating of my heart/ Don’t want you to come near/ I’m torn apart.”

While almost all of these songs were already very familiar to me, these “selected songs” are a great reminder of Maggie’s brilliant creativity.

My one regret about Where Do I Come From is that it doesn’t include a version of “Apostrophe to the Wind,” a lovely early song of Maggie’s that was never included on any of the albums she made with her sisters. I learned it from the late Jack Hardy when he was staying at my apartment in Montreal in the early-1980s and was hoping this collection might include a demo of Maggie singing it.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

–Mike Regenstreif

Lucy Wainwright Roche & Suzzy Roche – Mud & Apples

LUCY WAINWRIGHT ROCHE & SUZZY ROCHE

Mud & Apples

lucywainwrightroche.com

suzzyroche.com

Lucy Wainwright Roche is the daughter of singer-songwriters Suzzy Roche – best known as one of The Roches with her sisters Maggie and Terre – and Loudon Wainwright III.

As I mentioned in my review of her 2010 album, Lucy, “Lucy reminds me more of her mother’s music than her father’s. The melodies, the sometimes quirky lyrics, the way she harmonizes…have a similar kind of appeal to The Roches.”

So it’s not surprising that Lucy – who maintains an active solo career and also works in a duo with her half-sister, Martha Wainwright – has formed a duo with her mother and released Mud & Apples, a lovely combination of original material (four by Suzzy, one by Lucy) and six well-known, but well-suited, cover songs.

The album opens with Suzzy’s “Cold October Day,” a break-up song that begins on a cold autumn day with the narrator’s brave and philosophical resoluteness to move on – after all the sun still comes up the next day – and then moves through the seasons. She’s still resolute at the start of winter when the snow comes – she knows it will eventually melt – but admits to her heartbreak in spring. Finally, come summer, she’s come to terms with the break-up and does move on. The song is a subtle reminder of the importance of the cycle of seasons on our lives and of taking the needed time to deal with emotions.

Suzzy’s other fine songs include “Melancholy Ways,” which may have been written as a personal heartbreak song but which, in these particularly troubled times, also works as a song of universal heartbreak as we witness recent events in Dallas, Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Paris, Brussels, Jerusalem, Baghdad and so many – too many – other places; “There’s a Guy,” a partner’s tribute to a longstanding love; and “Dinner Out,” in which she offers comfort and advice to a friend going through difficult times.

Lucy’s title song, “Mud and Apples,” is a lovely lullaby that a mother might sing to comfort a child at bedtime.

Among my favorites of the cover songs are “Rhythm of the Rain,” the Cascades 1963 hit that was also beautifully done by my late friend Jesse Winchester on his final studio album, A Reasonable Amount of Trouble; Paul Simon’s “Bleecker Street,” a sad portrait of a Greenwich Village scene in the early-1960s; and a simultaneously familiar and fresh sounding version of “Both Sides Now,” Joni Mitchell’s enduring classic.

As on many of the great Roches albums, it’s sometimes hard to tell who is singing lead and who is supplying the perfect familial harmonies. And Lucy (vocals and guitar) and Suzzy (vocals, guitar, piano) get strong but subtle and never obtrusive support from pianist Patrick Tully, bassist Stewart Lerman, who has worked on any number of Roches-related projects, and multi-instrumentalist David Mansfield. (Chaim Tannenbaum recently told me that he can’ imagine why anyone would want to make an album without having David Mansfield on it.)

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Terre Roche – Imprint

TERRE ROCHE

Imprint

Earth Rock Wreckerds

terreroche.com

I first started writing record reviews for the Montreal Gazette back in 1975 and one of the LPs I wrote about that first year – they were LPs in those days, it would be well into the 1980s before CDs came along – was Seductive Reasoning, the debut of a sister duo, Maggie & Terre Roche, built around quirky, affecting songs and terrific harmonies. Later, younger sister Suzzy Roche joined up and they became The Roches, releasing a series of albums between 1979 and 2007.

Terre Roche released her first solo album in 1998 and has participated in several other projects. Imprint, an exquisite album released in 2015, is just her second solo project.

Imprint is an intimate album. It’s just Terre’s voice and guitar with bassist Jay Anderson. Most of the time all we hear are the live-off-the-floor sounds of the voice, guitar and acoustic stand-up bass and the communication between Terre and Jay is remarkable. The voice, guitar and bass weave in and out and around each other in a seemingly effortless way. There are overdubs on some songs – a harmony vocal or second guitar part from Terre and some percussion from Jay that blends in so organically that these parts, too, seem like they’re coming off the floor at the same time.

Terre’s songwriting – she wrote 12 of the 13 songs on Imprint – is also quite remarkable. Her lyrics can be somewhat oblique or abstract on some songs, more straightforward and obvious on others – but they are always captivating, quietly demanding the listener's full attention.

Among my favorite songs is “Tinkle,” a sad, extended portrait of a disintegrating relationship. Jay’s bass playing on this track seems like a human heart beating as Terre sings to a departing lover. Another heartbreaker is “Maxwell,” a poignant elegy for a loved pet cat who has passed on.

While most of these songs seem too quiet and too personal to have been Roches songs, there are some that are reminiscent of the sister trio. I can easily imagine the three of them belting out “Stick Up Hair,” which lampoons a trumpian politician who is “naughty” and “mean” and has “stick up hair.”

“Calabash Boom” and “Waning Cats and Dogs” with their Roches-like overdubbed harmonies also remind me of the trio.

Imprint is the work of a highly creative singer, songwriter and musician. These songs continue to reveal more every time I listen again to the album.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif