HUXTABLE, CHRISTENSEN & HOOD
Under the Weather
Fool’s Hill Music
Huxtable, Christensen & Hood – Teresina Huxtable, Carol
Christensen and Liz Hood – began
playing coffeehouses and folk festivals in the 1970s. Around 1980, they released
their first LP, the excellent Wallflowers,
which effectively mixed traditional folksongs with a few of Terri Huxtable’s
originals – mostly sung in glorious three part harmonies. A second LP, Melancholy Babies, came out around 1986
and added a couple of old pop songs to the folk and original material.
Finally, 30 years
later, comes Under the Weather, a
third album from the trio – a set that expands on the folk, original and pop
material to include songs from three superb folk-rooted songwriters who have
passed away in recent years.
They open the Under the Weather with a lovely version
of “Talk to Me of Mendocino,” my late friend Kate McGarrigle’s exquisite ode to New York State, the California
coast and lost love. Later in the set are superb versions the late Victoria Armstrong’s “Santa Fe River,” and
the historical narrative “John D. Lee,” written by my late friend Bruce “Utah” Phillips, which vividly
describes an 1857 massacre in Utah. All three of these borrowed songs are among
the highlights of the album.
Other highlights
include “The Isle of St. Helena,” a Napoleonic ballad that effectively uses
snare drums and flutes to help provide a military backdrop to the arrangement; a
spine tingling solo a cappella version of “Open the Door Softly”; a Nova Scotia
version of “Since Love Can Enter an Iron Door,” featuring the voices on top of
a reed organ and accordion arrangement (with an effectively a cappella verse);
and Terri’s “The Stroll,” whose lyrics evoke high school dances from the long
ago and whose arrangement suggests early rock ‘n’ roll.
It’s nice to hear
the voices of Huxtable, Christensen & Hood again after all these years.
LISA NULL
Legacies
Folk-Legacy Records
Lisa Null is another artist
from the 1970s that I hadn’t heard in decades – save for a track on Singing Through the Hard Times, a Utah Phillips tribute released in 2009.
Although she hadn’t
made a new album in more than 30 years, Lisa decided to record much of her
repertoire after a serious illness in order to ensure the songs she loves will
remain. On Legacies, a 2-CD boxed set,
Lisa offers a 72-minute collection of traditional folksongs, a 63-minute
collection of mostly original songs, and a 68 page booklet of extensive notes.
My memories of Lisa
from back in the day are of a singer of traditional folksongs who worked with guitarist Bill Shute on the
folk festival circuit. And, indeed, the CD of traditional material shows that she
still knows how to communicate the stories and feelings at the essence of these
songs whether singing a cappella or working with some simple, but beautifully
arranged accompaniments.
Among the
traditional highlights are “The Banks of Champlain,” a historical ballad with
piano accompaniment by Donna Long, in
which a woman mourns her lover’s death in a War of 1812 battle; “Dink’s Song,”
the achingly beautiful song collected by John
Lomax more than a century ago that Lisa sings a cappella; and “I Went to
See My Mother,” an Ozark song from the singing of Almeda Riddle that Lisa performs with banjo player Bob Claypool.
I don’t recall hearing
Lisa singing her own songs back in the day so the second CD in this collection
came as a surprise. The only one I previously knew was “I’m Going Home to
Georgia,” a beautifully realized song from the perspective of an old man full
of regrets, that I remember from one of Sally
Rogers’ early LPs. Lisa sings it here with an unusual harp (David Scheim) and electric bass (Pete Kraemer) arrangement that works perfectly.
Other highlights
from the collection of “Newer Songs and Tunes” include “Turn Me Loose and Let
Me Go,” a song of comfort and farewell also featuring Scheim and Kraemer; “Come
Take Me Home Again, Kathleen,” an a cappella song written in the style of a
traditional Iriah ballad about the historical troubles in Ireland; and the bouncy “Follow
the Money,” with Lisa on electric piano, one of several instrumental tunes she
composed.
The second CD also
includes several songs Lisa did not write and I was most taken by the quietly
powerful “Andy Goodman (To His Mother),” a song written by Jean Ritchie following the brutal 1964 murders of civil rights
workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner. Sung from Goodman’s perspective, it’s a song I’d
never heard before (although I own many of Jean’s recordings and saw her
perform numerous times).
Like Huxtable,
Christensen & Hood, it’s good to hear Lisa again after all these years.
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--Mike
Regenstreif
