Sandy Cash – Voices from the Other Side

Voices from the Other Side
Sandy Cash
sandycash.com

(This review is from the March 18, 2013 issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.)

Singer and songwriter Sandy Cash has an interesting back story. In the 1980s, the Detroit-born artist was a Jewish Studies major at Yale University who thought she might become a Conservative or Reform rabbi. However, she embraced Orthodoxy, gave up her rabbinical ambitions, and moved to Israel where she married, started a family, and pursued a career in musical theatre and, eventually, as a folksinger.

The 11 songs on Voices from the Other Side range from the poignant to the hilarious and include several commentaries on contemporary Israeli realities. “Song of Zion” is a response to those who would delegitimize the State of Israel while “Freeze Frame Truth” captures a moment at a West Bank checkpoint through the eyes of both a 19-year-old Israeli soldier who would much rather be travelling or starting university than searching a Palestinian woman’s car for explosives, and the Palestinian woman herself who is subjected to the search. Cash portrays both sympathetically while, at the same time, recalling the suicide terrorist attacks which led to the establishment of such checkpoints.

One of the more poignant songs is “Gilad’s Guitar,” an adaptation of a song called “Mom’s Guitar” by Stuart Kabak, which pays tribute to the power of song and of passing music on from one generation to the next. The guitar Cash plays was once owned by a cousin of her husband named Gilad who perished as a soldier in the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

Perhaps the album’s most affecting song on the CD is Cash’s version of Kabak’s “Numbers” which describes an emotional encounter with an elderly Holocaust survivor.

Among the more humorous songs are “Free Food Bar,” about a mother’s desire to fulfil the varied menu demands of her children – one’s a vegetarian, another can’t stand veggies, a third likes everything done fancy while a fourth just eats corn flakes – and Deirdre Flint’s witty “Bridesmaid’s Dress Song,” about the horrible, expensive, never-to-be-worn-again creations so many bridesmaids are forced to wear.

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Erynn Marshall – Tune Tramp

ERYNN MARSHALL
Tune Tramp
Hickoryjack 
hickoryjack.com

Erynn Marshall is a Canadian ethnomusicologist and fiddler now based in Galax, Virginia, home to the Old Fiddler’s Convention, the longest-running fiddle contest. For Tune Tramp, she tramped around various locations in Canada and the United States recording 20 different tunes with various combinations of 45 musicians – an ambitious and completely successful undertaking – after noting that old-time music is played differently in different regional locales.

Erynn is a superb fiddler and she seems to adapt easily to whatever collaborators she’s working with from tune to tune and blend beautifully with them. Her fiddle is front and centre on some tunes and plays a significant supporting role on others.

Some of my favourites among many include a couple of tunes recorded here in Canada. On “Milwaukee Blues,” she fiddles and sings harmony with Pharis Romero on guitar and lead vocals and Jason Romero on banjo and harmony vocals. Then, on the delightful “Ragged But Right,” Erynn and her partner, mandolinist Carl Jones who is also heard on many of the tracks, are joined by Toronto-based musicians Arnie Naiman on vocals and banjo, Chris Coole on guitar, Chris Whiteley on harmonica and Ken Whiteley on jug.

A few of the other highlights include an up-tempo string band version of “Rovin’ Gambler” featuring lead vocals by guitarist Mac Snow; a Cajun version of “Poor Hobo,” sung by Joel Savoy and featuring twin fiddles by Erynn and Joel and a great lap steel solo by Carl; a sad duet with Skip Gorman on the Delmore Brothers’ “Fugitive’s Lament”; and the title song, “Tune Tramp,” a beautiful song written and sung by Carl with Erynn on fiddle that captures the spirit of the album.

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Various Artists – Son of Rogues Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Son of Rogues Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys
Anti- 
anti.com/artists/rogues-gallery/

About 35 or 36 years, I spent some time hanging around the Philadelphia Folk Festival with an aspiring record producer named Hal Willner. We were introduced, as I recall, by the legendary folk music photographer David Gahr. Some years later, Hal began to produce fascinating compilation albums, including wonderful tributes to such composers as Nino Rota, Thelonious Monk and Kurt Weill.

In 2006, he put together Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys, a wonderful 2-CD set of mostly non-traditional renditions of mostly traditional songs of the sea. It was an album that polarized the folk music world. Some, me included, loved it. It fit perfectly into my reasoning for naming my radio show (and, now, this blog) Folk Roots/Folk Branches – music rooted in, or branching out, from some kind of folk-based tradition. There were a lot of great tracks but a lot of traditional purists – some of the same folks who are still pissed about Bob Dylan at Newport in 1965 – hated the album as it wasn’t faithful to the finger-in-one-ear tradition of a cappella singing which some think of as the only authentic way to approach much of this kind of material.

My guess is this 2-CD sequel, Son of Rogues Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys, will meet a similar reception. Personally, I’ve been having a lot of fun listening to this diverse group of artists – some of whom I’ve long loved, some of whom I’ve never previously appreciated, and a few of whom I’d never even heard of – re-imagine these songs of the sea.

The album begins with a rollicking version of “Leaving of Liverpool” by poguemeister Shane McGowan and a folk-rock rendition of “Sam’s Gone Away” by Robyn Hitchcock before settling into Beth Orton’s extended version of “Bamboo (River Come Down),” written by my late friend Dave Van Ronk and made famous by Peter, Paul and Mary on their first album. Ironically, it’s a song that Dave himself hated and quickly dropped from his performing repertoire.

Other highlights from the first CD include a lovely, ragged take on “Shenandoah,” sung by Tom Waits with harmony vocals and some lovely guitar playing by Keith Richards; Ivan Neville’s second line arrangement of “Mr. Stormalong”; and a soulful, cabaret arrangement of “Off to Sea Once More” by Macy Gray. The most beautiful moments are in Gavin Friday and Shannon McNally’s version of “Tom’s Gone to Hilo” (which Kate and Anna McGarrigle often performed as “Johnny’s Gone to Hilo”).

Highlights on the second CD include Dr. John’s setting of “The Lure of the Tropics,” a century-old poem by Clarence Leonard Hay; Jenni Muldaur’s lovely rendition of “Row the Boat, Child,” an African-American rowing shanty from the singing of Peter Davis of the Georgia Sea Island Singers; a good-time version of “Whiskey Johnny” by Michael Gira with Dixieland horns; and a poignant version of “Mrs. McGrath,” sung by Anjelica Huston to the accompaniment of a string quartet.

While most of the tracks were recorded especially for this release there are a couple of selections from other sources. There’s an instrumental medley of “Wedding Dress Song” and “Handsome Cabin Boy,” recorded back in the ‘60s by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, and Marianne Faithfull’s lovely version of “Flandyke Shore” with harmonies by Kate and Anna McGarrigle, from her 2008 album Easy Come, Easy Go (which was produced by Hal Willner).

Caveat: As is any project of this type, there are bound to be occasional clunkers. But tracks like Katey Red and Big Freeduia’s annoying take on “Sally Racket” (Oy, what a racket!) are few and far between.

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--Mike Regenstreif

Judy Collins – Live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the Temple of Dendur

JUDY COLLINS

Live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the Temple of Dendur

Wildflower

wildflowerrecords.com

Judy Collins, who gracefully bridges the worlds of folk, art and popular song, has been one of our most compellingly elegant singers for more than 50 years – a milestone celebrated at this concert recorded at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Her voice is as beautiful as ever as she moves through a 12-song set encompassing both classic and recent material.

Although known primarily as an interpretive singer, Judy is also a very fine songwriter and includes three of own songs in this set. She begins with “Open the Door,” which was titled “Song for Judith (Open the Door)” when she originally recorded it in 1971, is a perfect invitation-in-song. “Since You Asked,” dating from the mid-1960s, is a beautiful love song performed this time as a duet with Shawn Colvin, while the more recent “In the Twilight” evokes the memories of an older woman who has lost them to Alzheimer’s disease.

Among the most overtly folk-rooted songs are Woody Guthrie’s “Pastures of Plenty,” sung as a duet with Ani DiFranco in a surprisingly effective collaboration, and Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” which she precedes with a story of hearing Dylan write the song, one of his most enduring classics. Judy’s much more mature phrasing on this version of “Mr. Tambourine Man” makes it even more convincing than it was on her 1965 recording.

Other songs that seem even more convincing decades later include Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” “Moon is a Harsh Mistress,” with composer Jimmy Webb at the piano for the occasion, and a sublime piano, cello and voice arrangement of Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns.”

I’m surprised, I suppose, at the absence of any of the Leonard Cohen songs that have been such an important part of Judy’s repertoire and, perhaps, by the inclusion of “Diamonds and Rust,” Joan Baez’s recollection of her love affair with Dylan, written a decade after the fact. Although there’s no denying the beauty and grace in Judy’s version, it is such a personal song about such a well known relationship that I find it odd hearing it from anyone but Joan – a reaction I also had when I heard Judy and Joan’s duet of “Diamonds and Rust” a few years ago.

Live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the Temple of Dendur is a beautiful and intimate concert recording.

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--Mike Regenstreif

The Pogues – The Very Best of the Pogues

THE POGUES
The Very Best of the Pogues
Shout! Factory 
pogues.com

When they burst on the scene in 1984 – 29 years ago – with their first LP, Red Roses for Me, the Pogues were something special playing traditional Irish folksongs, and some in-the-tradition contemporary material, with an attack that was equal parts Clancy Brothers and the Clash. By the second album, Rum, Sodomy and the Lash, a year later, their original material, good enough that much of it could be mistaken for traditional, was dominant.

The Pogues in their prime were a great band fronted by Shane McGowan, an inspired singer and songwriter, with a seeming predilection for self-destruction and unpredictability that meant their star shone all too briefly before flaming out.

The 18 songs included on The Very Best of the Pogues are drawn from all of the albums the Pogues released between 1984 and 1995 and provide a great introduction to the band. Most of the tracks feature McGowan but other Pogues take several lead vocals – including Spider Stacy on his “Tuesday Morning,” from Waiting for Herb, one of a couple of albums the Pogues released after McGowan burned out.

Among the highlights are such exceptional McGowan songs as the rousing “If I Should Fall from Grace with God,” “Sally MacLennane,” whose drunken main character seems like it could have been inspired by the author, and “Body of an American,” as great a song about an Irish wake as I’ve ever heard.

Of course, “Fairytale of New York,” McGowan’s fabulous duet with the late Kirsty MacColl, one of the best Christmas season songs ever, is included, as is their compelling version of Ewan MacColl’s “Dirty Old Town.”

Listening to these songs, I'm reminded how great the Pogues were in those days. The songs are as fresh and as vital now as they were back in the day – in fact, thanks to remastering, they sound better than ever.

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--Mike Regenstreif