Tim Eriksen in Montreal and Ottawa this weekend

Tim Eriksen, one of the premiere interpreters of traditional balladry in the world today, will be in Montreal and Ottawa this weekend. These events are not to be missed by anyone interested in traditional folk music.

There are two events in Montreal on Saturday, September 24.

Tim will be doing a shape-note singing workshop at 3:00 pm at 550 Beaumont #203 and an evening concert launching the 2011-2012 Wintergreen Concert Series at 8:00 pm at Petit Campus (57 Prince Arthur East). Contact Hello Darlin’ Productions at 514-524-9225 for tickets or info for either event.

In the Ottawa area, Tim is doing a Sunday afternoon concert, September 25, 2:00 pm, at the Harry Craig Community Hall (6045 Prince of Wales Drive, North Gower). For information, contact Ann Downey at banjodowney@gmail.com.

Here are my reviews of two of Tim’s albums from Sing Out! Magazine.

TIM ERIKSEN

Tim Eriksen

Appleseed 1053

Tim Eriksen started out playing punk rock with Cordelia’s Dad, a band that evolved into mesmerizing purveyors of hardcore, uncompromising traditional music.  On this equally mesmerizing solo effort, recorded in just five hours, Eriksen offers purist interpretations of traditional songs and tunes as well as well as several songs of his own making that fit seamlessly with the traditional songs.  If not for the liner notes, I would be hard pressed to tell which are the traditional songs and which are his.  Eriksen sings a cappella on some songs while on others he variously accompanies himself on guitar, fiddle and fretless banjo.  Two pieces, “Last Chance,” frailed on the banjo, and a medley of “Mobile Serenade Polka/Shep Jones Hornpipe,” neatly picked on the guitar, are instrumentals.

One of Eriksen’s most powerful original songs is “I Wish the Wars Were All Over,” an anti-war song that he constructed using lyrical fragments from a variety of traditional songs.  Singing from the perspective of a young woman whose lover is off fighting, Eriksen quietly purveys the woman’s devastating uncertainty over whether her man will survive.  Of the traditional songs, highlights include “Brown Girl,” a long version of “Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender” that he learned from a tape of Appalachian ballad singer Frank Proffitt, and an intense, a cappella performance of the even longer “Village Churchyard” garnered from the singing of Roscoe Holcomb.

Eriksen presents this music with absolutely no commercial considerations or compromises in making it palatable for an audience.  The only choice he seems to give a listener is to pay absolute attention or to ignore him and completely tune out.  I choose the former.

 

TIM ERIKSEN

Soul of the January Hills

Appleseed 1120

On a summer day late in the last century, I was at a folk festival listening to Cordelia’s Dad, a band that came out of the punk scene performing traditional folk songs. Sitting with me was a noted scholar and singer of traditional songs – someone who would generally have little truck with any approach to folk music that strays from a traditional approach. I remember him telling me that he was as excited hearing Cordelia’s Dad as anyone he’d encountered in decades. The band’s lead singer was Tim Eriksen, who in the years since, has become even more steeped in traditional folk songs and in developing a compelling and intense approach to their performance.

Soul of the January Hills is a mesmerizing set of 14 songs, all sung a cappella, that Eriksen recorded in one take, in one hour-long session, sitting (or perhaps standing) by himself in a church in Poland. He turned on his digital recorder, sang the songs once, in order, turned off the recorder and had this album.

Among the traditional ballads that Eriksen sings are “Queen Jane,” “Two Babes,” “Lass of Glenshee” and “Drowsy Sleeper.” Listening, one can’t help but be caught up in the tales of lust and murder n the songs’ stories. Somewhat of a specialist in shape note singing, he also sings such hymns as “Amazing Grace,” “Son of God” and “Wrestling Jacob.”

Perhaps the most powerful song is “I Wish the Wars Were All Over,” a song that he compiled from fragments drawn from a variety of traditional songs. He sings it from the perspective of a woman whose love is away at war. Eriksen has recorded “I Wish the Wars Were All Over” before, but this a cappella rendition is even more convincing than his earlier version.

--Mike Regenstreif

Sing Out! Magazine – Summer 2011

My copy of the Summer 2011 issue of Sing Out! Magazine arrived today (just in the nick of time before summer officially fades into fall this week. The cover story is about the David Wax Museum, a band I met last month when they were part of a workshop I hosted at the Ottawa Folk Festival.

As usual, this issue of Sing Out! has some of my writing including a book review of Woody Guthrie: American Radical by Will Kaufman, and a bunch of CD reviews:

Rory Block – Shake ‘Em On Down: A Tribute to Mississippi Fred McDowell

Jonathan Byrd – Cackalack

Hal Cannon – Hal Cannon

Patti Casey – The Heart of a Waiting Boy

Rachel Harrington – Celilo Falls

Diana Jones – High Atmosphere

Buddy Miller – Buddy Miller’s The Majestic Silver Strings

Job Potter – Job Potter

Danny Schmidt – Man of Many Moons

The Wailin’ Jennys – Bright Morning Stars

Tim Williams – When I was a Cowboy.

--Mike Regenstreif

Scott Alarik – Revival: A Folk Music Novel

Revival: A Folk Music Novel

By Scott Alarik

Peter E. Randall Publisher

315 pages

scottalarik.com

When I first met Scott Alarik in the late-1970s, he was one of the impressive Minnesota-based folksingers who’d soon find some measure of wider recognition through their appearances on the early shows of the A Prairie Home Companion radio show.

A few years later, Scott moved to the Boston area where he continued to perform and record but became primarily known as a freelance writer covering folk music for the Boston Globe, Sing Out! and other publications. Deep Community: Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground, a collection of Scott’s folk music articles was published in 2003. Now, with Revival: A Folk Music Novel, Scott turns his attention to fiction.

The story is set in a scene that Scott knows as well as anyone: the contemporary folk music scene in Cambridge, Massachusetts (as well as the broader North American folk music scene). The main characters are Nathan Warren and Kit Palmer.

Nathan is a veteran performer whose chance at the big time was blown by a combination of music biz politics and his own self-destructiveness. Now sober, he runs a weekly open mike night at a Cambridge bar where he mentors promising young performers and gives chances to any and all who want to get up and share their songs.

The young and painfully shy Kit Palmer is one of those promising young singer-songwriters – perhaps the most promising. Nathan recognizes her talent, helps her overcome her stage fright and – despite their age and experiential differences – they fall in love.

As the story develops, Nathan teaches Kit the art of stagecraft and becomes her backup musician and producer as she begins to climb her own ladder to folk music stardom. All the while Kit’s influence revitalizes Nathan and his own music.

Among the secondary characters is Ryan Ferguson, the veteran freelance folk music critic for the major local newspaper. The paper is going through the same kind of cutbacks and restructuring the Montreal Gazette – where I used to be the freelance folk music critic – went through a few years ago, so I related strongly to the character (whose professional struggles, I’m sure, were based, in large part, on Scott’s own adventures at the Globe). Another is Joyce Warren, Nathan’s ex-wife and a star in the folk music world now based in L.A.

Scott does two things quite brilliantly in Revival. He tells a May-December love story in a way that seems fresh and vital – and he gives a superb primer on the folk music scene as it has evolved almost a half-century after the major folk music revival of the 1960s. Readers get an understanding of the hierarchy of the scene from open mikes in neighborhood bars to community-based, volunteer-driven house concerts and coffee houses, to the major folk club, concert and festival circuit. The independent recording scene, folk music radio and publications are all are part of the primer that should make this book essential reading for any aspiring performer – and for anyone who cares about the scene.

One of the things that I loved about Revival is that Scott has created characters that seem like people I know. In a note that precedes the story, Scott stresses that any similarities to real people in the characters in coincidental, but there are aspects to these characters that I recognize – or at least read into – many people I know, or have known over my years on the folk scene (which pretty much parallel Scott’s), including more than a few good friends.

Revival: A Folk Music Novel is a terrific read for anyone who likes a good story and an essential read for anyone who cares about or wants to understand today’s folk music scene.

--Mike Regenstreif

Tom Russell -- Mesabi

TOM RUSSELL

Mesabi

Shout! Factory

tomrussell.com

Three years ago, I had the pleasure of writing the booklet essay for The Tom Russell Anthology: Veteran’s Day, Tom Russell’s 2-CD, career spanning retrospective, in which I referred to him as “the best songwriter of my generation.” It’s a conviction I’ve repeated several times since and which is only reinforced by Mesabi, yet another in his long series of masterpiece albums – albums that essentially raise and set the bar for contemporary singer-songwriters.

There are a couple of distinct, but somehow linked, song-cycles on this album. The first explores the nature of the pursuit of art, the nature of legend, and the rewards and the cruelty of fame.

The album begins with about 10 seconds of solo acoustic guitar picking out the melody line to “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” as an intro to “Mesabi,” the album’s folk-rock title song named for the Mesabi Iron Range in Minnesota, the area that Bob Dylan grew up in during the 1940s and ‘50s. The song begins with a description of the kid that was the young Robert Zimmerman in Hibbing and shifts up into the 1960s and the kid who was the young Tom Russell listening to and being inspired by the troubadour kid singing “Don’t Think Twice” on his uncle’s record player.

While “Mesabi” was about the creation of a legend, it leads into “Where the Legends Die,” a literate jazz piece about the realization that legendary figures are just as human and flawed as the rest of us.

Flawed legends are the heart of the next pair of songs. “Farewell Never Never Land,” which shifts from a Stephen Foster-like intro to a folk-rock setting, tells the tragic story of Bobby Driscoll, a Disney child actor – he was the voice of Peter Pan in the classic animated version from 1953 – that grew up to be a drug addicted has-been who died of old age at 31.

Tom sings “The Lonesome Death of Ukulele Ike,” as the song’s title character in a bouncy 1920s or ‘30s pop style. Ukulele Ike – Cliff Edwards – was a popular singer in those days, and achieved his greatest success as the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio. (Who can forget his classic rendition of “When You Wish Upon a Star?”) Ultimately, though, Edwards died penniless, another fallen legend.

“Sterling Hayden” is a tribute, of sorts, to the tough guy actor, author and raconteur who mostly lived life on his own terms, famously expressing one major regret: naming names before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era. “I don't think you have the foggiest notion of the contempt I have had for myself since the day I did that thing,” Sterling Hayden wrote years later. Tom brings a variation of that quote into the song, which he sings as both a third-person narrator and as Hayden himself. Tom’s song refers to seeing Hayden interviewed on the Johnny Carson show. I can also vividly remember a series of fascinating interviews he did in the ‘70s with Tom Snyder on the Tomorrow show.

“Furious Love (For Liz)” follows. It’s a short, sad lament for Elizabeth Taylor sung at the time of her death and recalling many years earlier when Taylor lived with husband Nicky Hilton in El Paso, across from Juarez, Mexico, long before Juarez became a battleground in the Mexican drug wars. The song is also the first hint at the direction Tom will soon move the album in.

In “A Land Called Way Out There,” set to a kind of folk-brass band arrangement featuring members of Calexico, Tom recalls the quick, early death of James Dean and then sings a new version of “Roll the Credits, Johnny,” which Tom first recorded in 2008 as one of the two new songs on The Tom Russell Anthology: Veteran’s Day. The song uses the symbolism of the end of a movie to bring closure to the first of the two major song-cycles on the album.

“Heart Within a Heart,” is a beautiful, spiritual song featuring the gospel harmonies of Regina and Ann McCrary. It provides a few minutes of respite between the album’s two main thematic blocks.

Tom lives near El Paso in the West Texas borderlands just north of Mexico and he’s often written about the back-and-forth exchanges and border town interdependencies of the area. The next song-cycle is about that and is heralded in the first few bars of “And God Created Border Towns,” by the quasi-mariachi sounds of pianist Augie Meyers (legendary for his work with the late Doug Sahm, from the days of the Sir Douglas Quintet to the Texas Tornados), accordionist Joel Guzman and Jacob Valenzuela on trumpets. The song lays bare the realities of the border: migrants looking for a better life are exploited and murdered by the thousands, guns flow south across border to enable the drug wars, and the drugs flow north to the seemingly insatiable American market.

“Goodnight, Juarez” is a Tex-Mex lament for Jurarez’s descent from an open tourist town to the battleground it’s become. Tom looks at contemporary Juarez and remembers the time – not that many years ago – when it was a different place and imagines how it could be again. “Juarez, I had a dream today/ The children danced, as the guitars played/ And all the violence up and slipped away/ Goodnight, Juarez, goodnight.”

“Jai Alai,” named for a once-popular sport, is a brilliant, fast-paced flamenco piece – featuring the guitar Jacob Mossman – about passion: for the game – and for love.

The borderland song-cycle draws to a close with a new version of “Love Abides,” the finale from Tom’s folk-opera, The Man from God Knows Where, an album I still consider the best, the most important, piece of work by any musical artist in the past three decades or so. It’s a beautiful song that looks at a world filled with tragedy but also filled with blessings, hope and love.

The album ends with two songs labeled as bonus tracks but which I think are a kind of restatement of the first theme Tom explores on this album.

Tom's sublime, newly definitive version of Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” is a duet with Lucinda Williams on top of an atmospheric arrangement by the musicians of Calexico that brings us back to the Mesabi Iron Range. The song seems as fresh and as topical now as when the troubadour kid wrote it almost half a century ago.

The finale, “The Road to Nowhere,” written for the new Monte Hellman film, Road to Nowhere (“Roll the Credits, Johnny” is also used in the film), could be about almost any of the fallen heroes and legends in the songs sung earlier in the album – or not yet written about.

I’ve mentioned a few of the musicians Tom uses on this album. Among other great contributors worth noting are pianist Barry Walsh, who co-produced the album with Tom; multi-instrumentalist Fats Kaplin, who played in Tom’s band back in the 1980s; guitarist Thad Beckman, who tours with him now; legendary pianist and studio arranger Van Dyke Parks; and harmony singer Gretchen Peters.

As I mentioned at the top of this review, Mesabi is another in Tom Russell’s long series of masterpiece albums – all of them different from each other, all of them layered to reveal more with each hearing. And, I’ll say it one more time: Tom Russell is the best songwriter of my generation – the generation that followed 10 or 12 years after Dylan.

By the way, I’m not sure how long it will be there, but tomrussell.com is currently giving away free downloads of “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.”

Mesabi is scheduled for release on September 6.

--Mike Regenstreif

Andy Statman in Montreal

I wish I could be in Montreal tomorrow night when the Montreal Jewish Music Festival, presented by KlezKanada, presents a concert with Andy Statman, one of my favourite instrumentalists – on both the mandolin and the clarinet. Andy is a virtuoso in bluegrass and klezmer music and in new Jewish music and jazz.

The show is Thursday, September 1, 7:30 pm, at the Rialto Theatre, 5723 Park Avenue. Yiddish folk singer Abby Rosenfeld opens the concert. Call 514-770-7773 for tickets.

Andy is also giving a bluegrass mandolin masterclass at the Rialto at 4:30 pm.

Here is my review of two Andy Statman albums that appeared in Sing Out! Magazine in 2007.

ANDY STATMAN

Awakening from Above

Shefa 3002

ANDY STAMAN

East Flatbush Blues

Shefa 3001

Awakening from Above and East Flatbush Blues are two very different albums recorded by Andy Statman.  On the former, he plays clarinet and, on one tune, mandolin while on the latter, he plays mandolin and, on one tune, clarinet. On both, he’s supported by the highly creative rhythm section of Jim Whitney on double bass and Larry Eagle on drums and percussion. The differences are in the origins of their respective repertoires and in the primary instrument played by Statman on each disc, but the two albums are linked by the virtuosity of Statman and his accompanists, and by their obviously deep commitment to the respective musics.

Awakening from Above is a deeply spiritual collection of Jewish music. Unlike most of today’s contemporary Klezmer musicians whose approach to the music is essentially cultural, Statman approaches the melodies as an expression of his Chasidic religiosity. Many of them are based on the Chasidic tradition of wordless songs, or niggunim. Closing your eyes, Statman’s clarinet assumes the role of the rabbi’s voice singing a niggun to his followers gathered around the table after a Sabbath meal. Whitney and Eagle assume the roles of those followers who clap out the rhythms and add their voices to that of the leader.

Although I’m a secular Jew, there is something about Statman’s playing of these religious melodies that stirs me very deeply and seems to take me back to a time when the lives of my ancestors in the Eastern Europe of the 18th and 19th centuries were defined by their religion. There is a profound understanding of this music, and where it comes from, that is communicated through Statman’s virtuoso playing. More than once after listening to this album, I’ve needed to sit for a while in silent contemplation.

The 12 tunes on East Flatbush Waltz include traditional favorites like “Arkansas Traveler” and “Golden Slippers,” Bill Monroe classics like “Rawhide” and “Blue Grass Stomp,” and several of Statman’s own compositions. Bluegrass music is the obvious starting point, and Statman’s playing frequently shows that his masterful bluegrass technique takes a back seat to no one, but his approach in playing the music will certainly not sit well with purists who cannot fathom a band that departs from the standard line-up of mandolin, banjo, guitar, fiddle and bass.  No, Statman and company approach the music as highly creative jazz players.  Bluegrass, in effect, is the inspiration and the starting point for some amazing flights of musical imagination and improvisation. Their 10 minute version of “Old Joe Clark” takes the tune to places it’s never been before with an intensity it’s never had before. While this may not be an album for bluegrass purists, it is an album for someone who purely loves music.  ---Mike Regenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Ottawa Folk Festival – Sunday and wrap-up

Sunday in Ottawa was cloudy, very windy and unseasonably cool courtesy of the northwestern edge of Hurricane Irene. Unlike Montreal, just 120 miles to the east, we were spared Irene’s torrential rains – all we felt was an occasional isolated drop or two.

We started our Ottawa Folk Festival day at the Falls Stage watching the last half-hour or so of Ball & Chain and their band playing a fine set of Cajun music for dancing. Sylvie even got me up on the dance floor for a number.

We stayed put for a strong concert performance by Lynne Hanson, one of Ottawa’s finest singer-songwriters. Lynne’s songs are firmly rooted in the storytelling tradition and fiddler Lyndell Montgomery’s playing really helped bring out the best in them.

Then it was up to the workshop area where I hosted a round robin session called Southern Folk with two great Texas-based singer-songwriters, Kelly Willis and Hayes Carll, Lynne Hanson – who comes from southern Canada – and the David Wax Museum, a Boston-based band influenced by Mexican and Appalachian folk music. All of them played some great songs and I had a fine time hosting.

We then headed back to the Falls Stage to hear an excellent set by Anaïs Mitchell – who was in a songwriters’ workshop I hosted in 2006 at the Champlain Valley Folk Festival in Vermont – and the first half of a charming performance by Catherine MacLellan.

By then, the cold was really getting to us. As much as I wanted to stick around and hear concerts by Lynn Miles, Hayes Carll, Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison, and Levon Helm. It just wasn’t in the cards. It was “Goodnight Irene” for us.

As I mentioned, I really think there were two very different festivals happening at Hog’s Back Park this past weekend. A variation on Bluesfest, particularly at night and particularly on the main-stage; and a variation on the traditional Ottawa Folk Festival on the rest of the grounds, particularly during the daylight hours. The formula was successful in that it brought in bigger crowds than the Ottawa Folk Festival has seen in years.

If that’s what it takes to have a successful folk festival in Ottawa, then, I suppose, that’s what it takes. But, there are a few things that can be done to make the festival better.

The first, as Ian Robb suggested in a Maplepost message, is shut down the main-stage during the day. The overbearing sound from that stage just puts an unnecessary damper on several of the other stages and the jamming area. The daytime programming on the mainstage was unnecessary and the crowds drawn by some of the main-stage headliners (as opposed to the folkies who come for the festival experience) only show up at night anyway.

Second, the festival should be booked with an artistic vision that includes creative workshop programming. The Ottawa Folklore Centre did a great job with what they had to work with, but the workshop programming was an afterthought in the grand scheme of the festival when it should be at the forefront because that’s what makes a folk festival special.

Third, there were a few too many acts booked that had no connection to folk or roots music. While headliners like Steve Earle, Colin Hay and Levon Helm certainly do belong at folk festivals, there were some who just didn’t.

Fourth, include more traditional music and dance and more traditions. I’d have loved to have seen some klezmer music, some Celtic music, some traditional African music and so much more. There should always be room for traditional music and a diversity of traditions at a folk festival.

This was year one for the Ottawa Folk Festival under Bluesfest management. Despite such problems as sound bleed, I did think it was a more-than-worthy festival. I hope it will continue to evolve into the great festival it can be.

--Mike Regenstreif

Ottawa Folk Festival – Saturday

“I think there may be two Ottawa Folk Festivals happening this weekend: a variation on the Bluesfest scene at the main-stage and a variation on the traditional Ottawa Folk Festival scene at other stages,” I wrote in my previous post after Friday night’s offerings.

After Saturday and Sunday’s full day schedules, I’m convinced of that. During the weekend days, I felt like I was at a folk festival (in spite of the fact that the Falls and RavenLaw stages and the jamming areas still had to contend with overbearing sound bleed from the main-stage much of the time.

When we arrived on the grounds a little after noon, the Old Sod Band was playing for contra dancers at the Falls Stage and the workshop stages were all getting into gear. As I’ve mentioned before, the daytime workshops, for me, are the heart and soul of a good folk festival. Despite the challenges of a it being a festival that wasn’t booked with workshops in mind, Arthur McGregor and his team at the Ottawa Folklore Centre did a good job of putting together the workshop programming.

The first workshop we settled into was Storytelling and Mythology featuring Anaïs Mitchell, Garland Jeffreys and Gandalf Murphy. Although I didn’t warm up to the Gandalf Murphy band, I enjoyed Anaïs’ songs from Hadestown, her folk-opera about the Orpheus myth – which was perfect for the workshop’s theme – and Garland's great story songs about the New York City hew grew up in.

Then it was back to the Falls Stage to hear a set of accomplished acoustic pop songs by Ron “Doc” Weiss. Accompanied by a bassist and percussionist, the set was highlighted by Ron’s intricate acoustic guitar playing in a style not unlike Bruce Cockburn’s.

Then it was to the workshop area to hear an excellent session called Old Traditions, New Songs with Rick Fines, Vance Gilbert and Jayme Stone. Rick played songs he’d written based in the ragtime and jazz traditions, Vance did songs based on jazz – including singing in the voices of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Tom Waits, Vance is a dead-on impressionist – and a cappella balladry, while Jayme’s banjo (and his fiddler accompanist) took us around the world and back to the classical era.

The workshop schedule included several on-stage interview sessions and I was tapped to conduct an interview with the Scottish-Australian singer-songwriter Colin Hay, who first came to prominence about three decades ago as lead singer, guitarist and principal songwriter of Men At Work, one of the most successful bands of the early-1980s. I had a great time chatting with Colin about his career and hearing him play a few of his excellent recent songs. (I left the festival grounds before his two-hour evening concert later that night, but I heard from several people that it was one of the finest concerts of the festival.)

We finished up the workshop day watching a nice Bluebird North songwriters’ round-robin featuring Rick Fines and two accomplished Ottawa artists, Ana Miura and Megan Jerome.

All in all, it was a great afternoon of folk festivaling and we decided to call it a day after the workshop area shut down for the evening. I really wanted to get some rest and be back on Sunday for a full day leading up to Levon Helm’s festival-closing concert.

--Mike Regenstreif