Jackie Washington 1919-2009

Jackie Washington, the legendary folk/jazz/blues singer, guitarist, pianist and raconteur from Hamilton passed away yesterday at age 89.

From the first time I heard Jackie, at the Mariposa Folk Festival – I think in 1974, maybe ’75 – to the shows I produced for him at the Golem in Montreal until the final concert I saw him do last year with Ken Whiteley and Mose Scarlett at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa, I loved being in his audience. He was a wonderful performer with a seemingly endless repertoire of standards and obscurities. Just as good were the opportunities to sit and visit with him off-stage where the stories and songs would always continue to flow. In 2004, Jackie did a wonderful interview with me on Folk Roots/Folk Branches.

As a guitar player, he had a sense of chords and rhythm that I’ve only ever heard from two other players: the late Freddie Green of the Count Basie Band and the late Ted Bogan of Martin, Bogan & Armstrong. Close your eyes, point your ears to the sky and maybe you’ll hear Jackie sitting in a circle with Freddie and Ted having one heaven of a jam session.

To be in Jackie’s presence was to feel the joy of music and the joy of being alive. I’ll have a Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio feature honouring Jackie sometime in the coming weeks.

This picture, taken in the green room at Library & Archives Canada on May 8, 2008, is of Sneezy Waters, Ken Whiteley and me all kneeling behind Jackie.

--Mike Regenstreif

Diana Jones -- Better Times Will Come

Diana Jones
Better Times Will Come
Proper American
dianajonesmusic.com

Diana Jones released a couple of albums in the 1990s – which I’ve never heard and are now out-of-print – but her breakthrough as a major folk music artist came with My Remembrance of You, an excellent album she released in 2006. The CD revealed an extraordinary songwriter who crafts seemingly plain and simple songs that are actually fully developed character studies wedded to timeless melodies. Better Times Will Come, Diana’s new album, is every bit as good as its predecessor.

I was already familiar with a couple of these songs from versions by other artists. The first is “Henry Russell’s Last Words,” recorded last year by Joan Baez on Day After Tomorrow, a deeply moving true story based on a letter written with a piece of coal on a paper bag by a trapped and dying miner after a mine explosion in 1927. The other is “If I Had a Gun,” whose key line, “one to the heart, one to the head,” gave Gretchen Peters the title to her superb CD released early this year. That song – co-written with Celeste Krenz, Rebecca Folsom and Liz Barnez, the only song on the CD not wholly written by Diana – is sung from the perspective of a battered woman imagining she had the power to drop her abuser with a couple of shots.

Diana, herself, is not the protagonist in many of these songs. But, there is certainly something of her in some of them. Diana was an adoptee who, in adulthood, found her birth mother and developed a relationship with her. She draws on that experience in the poignant “All God’s Children,” the story of an 18-year-old adoptee beginning her own search to find her birth mother.

Other highlights include “Better Times Will Come,” the title track, a hopeful song for our current hard times, “Cracked and Broken,” an affirmation that true beauty is to be found in imperfection, and “Soldier Girl,” sung from the perspective of a woman soldier headed off to serve in some place like Iraq or Afghanistan. The song touches on the class differences that draw some poor people into trying to find some measure of security in the military.

Diana Jones is not a me-oriented singer-songwriter. Her songs are deeply influenced by folk traditions and stand tall in the company of timeless traditional folk songs.

--Mike Regenstreif

Rodney Brown -- Northland

Rodney Brown
North Land
Starslik Records
rodneybrown.ca

Rodney Brown is a veteran singer-songwriter from Thunder Bay who meticulously researches and finely crafts songs that tell stories mostly drawn from the history of northern Ontario.

Among the historical figures encountered on North Land are William McGillivray, for whom Brown’s hometown of Fort William was named (Fort William was merged with Port Arthur to create Thunder Bay). In “I Followed You Down,” Brown retraces McGillivray’s early life, before he came to Canada, in Scotland and England. He follows that song with “McGillivray’s Dream,” a song based on Lord of the North West, Marjorie Wilkins Campbell’s biography of McGillivray in which he sings in awe of McGillivray’s early life and then admits to not being able to finish the later chapters dealing with the ultimate failure of the dream and of the evils committed by Lord Selkirk. In “What Would Susan Say?” Brown speculates about how Susan, McGillivray’s wife, might have felt about the Cree woman who was McGillivray’s country wife.

My first encounter-in-song with The Nancy, a fur trade schooner loaned to the British by the Northwest Company in the War of 1812, was in a Stan Rogers song called “The Nancy,” in which Stan told the story of a victory engineered by the crew of The Nancy. Ultimately, though, as Brown relates in his liner notes, The Nancy was destroyed by her own crew rather than face defeat at the hands of Americans. His song, “Avenge The Nancy” tells how the crew of The Nancy gained their revenge.

My favourite track is “John Macdonell and Magdeleine Poitras,” an infectious song that tells the story of a fur trader and his Métis wife and the majestic home they built on the Ottawa River.

There are several other fascinating stories in other songs on this fine album. Rodney’s singing, the excellent arrangements featuring some of Canada’s finest musicians, and Paul Mills’ crystalline production, all serve the songs exceptionally well.

--Mike Regenstreif

Festival Folk sur le canal

Festival Folk sur le canal is returning for a second year on the St. Ambroise Terrace, on the Lachine Canal, behind the McCauslin Brewery at 5080 St. Ambroise Street on Saturday, June 27 from noon until 11 pm.

Joel Plaskett, currently one of the hottest singer-songwriters in Canada, is headlining an excellent line-up that includes a number of artists that I’m always eager to listen to.

Always at the top of my list is Michael Jerome Browne, a master of almost every traditional roots-oriented style from blues to country, from Appalachian music to Cajun and of virtually all stringed instruments.

Others at the festival that I’m looking forward to hearing are Socalled (Josh Dolgin), who blends traditional klezmer and contemporary hip hop into something uniquely his own; Li’l Andy, who’s a fine and insightful country-oriented songwriter; Yonder Hill, whose sublime three-part bluegrass harmonies are something special; and Guy Donis, a most impressive banjo virtuoso.

There are also several groups that I haven’t yet had a chance to see including Ladies of the Canyon, a group that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time.

Last year’s festival on the canal was a great day of music and I’m sure this year’s edition will be too.

Oh, BTW, I'll be one of the MCs at Festival Folk sur le canal.

For information, visit hellodarlinproductions.com or call 514-524-9225.

--Mike Regenstreif

Glengarry Music Festival

As many know, I ride the bus almost every week between Montreal and Ottawa. About halfway there, and halfway back, I pass Vankleek Hill and symbolically wave to Terry Gillespie, the veteran blues and reggae artist who lives out that way.

Terry has put together the Glengarry Music Festival, an interesting series of concerts this summer and early fall in a converted barn in nearby Alexandria featuring an in impressive roster of artists. Actually, it’s really two series of concerts, one spread out over four Saturday nights and the other over four Sunday afternoons. The ticket price – $45 for the evening shows and $35 for the afternoon shows – includes Saturday night dinner or Sunday luncheon.

The Saturday night series opens June 20 with blues artists Sue Foley and Peter Karp teamed up to unveil He Said She Said, their acoustic duet album. While I’ve never seen Peter play, Sue is one of Canada’s mightiest blues artists and I’ve particularly enjoyed the acoustic things I’ve seen her do.

The Saturday night series continues July 18 with legendary South African singer Thandie Klaasen, August 22 with innovative jazz singer Karen Young and September 19 with the excellent blues-soaked singer-songwriter Ray Bonneville.

The Sunday afternoon series begins June 28 with Lynne Hanson, a very fine singer-songwriter from Ottawa, now making her mark all over the place, who blends contemporary folk and alt-country influences.

The Sunday afternoon series continues July 26 with local fiddler Ashley MacLeod, August 30 with Montreal blues legends Stephen Barry and Andrew Cowan in their creative duo setting, and winds up September 27 with Toronto’s Johnny Max Trio playing blues.

For information, visit glengarrymusicfestival.com or call 613-678-5862.

--Mike Regenstreif

Songs of Steve Gillette

Folk Roots/Folk Branches with Mike Regenstreif is now a 30-minute feature heard occasionally on CKUT, 90.3 FM in Montreal.

Thursday June 11, 2009

The songs of Steve Gillette

For the past 20 or so years, Steve Gillette has been recording and touring in a partnership with his wife, Cindy Mangsen. But Steve’s history on the folk music scene goes back to the mid-1960s. He first came to prominence in the mid-1960s when Darcy Farrow and several other songs he wrote in traditional folk song styles became popular through the recordings of Ian & Sylvia, and then, many other artists.

This Folk Roots/Folk Branches features interpretations of Steve Gillette songs by a variety of artists.

MIKE REGENSTREIF- commentary 1

IAN & SYLVIA- Darcy Farrow
The Complete Vanguard Studio Recordings (Vanguard) or Early Morning Rain (Vanguard)
CAROLYN HESTER- 2:10 Train
At Town Hall (Bear Family)
SCOTT ALARIK- Molly and Tenbrooks
All That is True (Scott Alarik)

MIKE REGENSTREIF- commentary 2

RONNY COX- Grapes on the Vine
Songs…with Repercussions (Wind River)
LAUREL CANYON RAMBLERS- Back on the Street Again
Back on the Street Again (Sugar Hill)

MIKE REGENSTREIF- commentary 3

MATT WATROBA- Bed of Roses
The Best is Yet to Be (Ledgewood)
TED HAWKINS- Happy Hour
The Ted Hawkins Story: Suffer No More (Rhino) or Happy Hour (Rounder)

MIKE REGENSTREIF- commentary 4

STEVE GILLETTE- The River
The Ways of the World (Compass Rose)

MIKE REGENSTREIF- commentary 5

For more on Steve Gillette, visit compassrosemusic.com/.

This feature is available as a podcast (for two months) for streaming or downloading at secure.ckut.ca/64/20090611.09.45-10.14.mp3.

Folk Roots/Folk Branches is now a blog featuring Mike Regenstreif’s playlists, CD and DVD reviews, news and commentaries.

frfb.blogspot.com

Nanci Griffith -- The Loving Kind

Nanci Griffith
The Loving Kind
Rounder
nancigriffith.com

Back in the early-1980s, when I was running the Golem, I used to book a number of artists – most notably Odetta – through Len Rosenfeld, an agent in New York City. Len asked me to take a chance on an unknown singer-songwriter from Texas that he really liked and sent me copies of Nanci Griffith’s first two LPs, There’s a Light Beyond These Woods and Poet in My Window,released on tiny a Texas label called Featherbed (later reissued by Philo/Rounder). I really liked them too and started booking Nanci at the Golem. She played there regularly through the rest of my tenure at the Golem (the end of 2007). During that period Nanci recorded two of the very best albums of her career, Once in a Very Blue Moon and The Last of the True Believers. Her song, “Banks of the Pontchartrain,” from The Last of the True Believers was based on Nanci’s trips to Montreal to play at the Golem.

This new album, I think, is Nanci’s best set of mostly original material since The Last of the True Believers and her best album, period, since the two Other Voices albums in the 1990s. She’s again writing songs with something to say, she’s singing like she means it and she’s surrounded herself with a tight, small band of ace musicians including Matt McKenzie on bass, Barry Walsh on keyboards, Shad Cobb on fiddle and co-producers Pat McInerney on drums and Thom Jutz on guitar.

My favourite songs on the album are the title song, a tribute to an interracial couple – whose name really was ‘Loving’ – who defied state law to marry in Virginia in 1958. Theirs was the precedent setting case at the U.S. Supreme Court that struck down American laws barring interracial marriage; “One of These Days,” a sweet remake of a tune from The Last of the True Believers; “Across America,” a celebration of the hope that came alive as the old Bush era gave way to the new Obama era; and “Up Against the Rain,” a song for the late, great Townes Van Zandt. I once spent a very intense evening chatting with Townes and I think Nanci’s really captured something of the torment that was at the heart of his soul.

If I’m remembering right, Jerry Jeff Walker, in the liner notes to Guy Clark’s first album – Old No. 1, a great album, BTW – talked about the “natural music of the acoustic guitar.” The Loving Kind, I think, is a return to the natural music of Nanci Griffith.

--Mike Regenstreif

Corin Raymond -- There will Always be a Small Time

Corin Raymond
There will Always be a Small Time
corinraymond.com

From reading his bio, I gather that Corin Raymond has an earlier album and one or two before that as a member of a duo called the Undesirables, but this CD was my first exposure to him and his songs. Most of the album is solid stuff – very good songs with nice arrangements and superior production. Raymond turns in fine performances making this an album I can recommend with little hesitation, an album I expect to put on years from now and still enjoy.

There are a few songs, though, that rise above the pack. “Michelene” is a gorgeous love song with the kind of lyrical anglo-franco interplay that Daniel Lanois was doing on a couple of his early songs and an arrangement built around some excellent accordion work by Treasa Levasseur. And “The Lonely One” is a lost-at-love rock ‘n’ roll ballad that could have been a hit for Roy Orbison back in the day.

THE killer song, though, is “There will Always be a Small Time,” a near-perfect piece of songwriting that captures the essence of why musicians are compelled to play music, of why songwriters are compelled to write songs, of why they’re compelled to play their music and perform their songs for whoever’s wanting or willing to listen, and of why they make records to sell from the stage. It’s a song that celebrates the human connections that are possible when real musicians play real music for real people without any kind of corporate filters.

“There will Always be a Small Time” is one of those it’s-worth-the price-of-the-album songs. That there’s lots of other worthwhile stuff on the CD is almost a bonus.

--Mike Regenstreif

HOTCHA! -- Dust Bowl Roots: Songs for the New Depression

HOTCHA!
Dust Bowl Ballads: Songs for the New Depression
hotcha.ca

This album by HOTCHA! – the Toronto-based duo of singer-songwriter-accordionist Beverly Kreller and singer-songwriter-guitarist Howard Druckman – does a really fine job of evoking the music of the Great Depression by combining period pieces like Louis Armstrong’s “Ol’ Man Mose” with very cool in-the-tradition originals like “Mines Went Down,” a lament for the devastation wrecked on miners’ lives when the mines close down that’s very effectively set to a Gene Krupa-like drum pattern.

HOTCHA!’s original songs are very well crafted. You can almost feel the dry, dusty heat in “Hey Little Waterboy,” the slow, small town pace-of-life in “Harlan’s Porch,” and the desperation that leads to evil deeds in “Sweet Miss Sally.”

A couple of the covers, “Walkin’ After Midnight,” a hit for Patsy Cline, and “Catfish John,” a ‘70s tune that’s been done by the Grateful Dead and a lot of bluegrass bands, date from decades after the Depression, but they don’t sound at all out-of-place here.

This music doesn’t seem like it’s from Toronto – there’s more of a rural, American southwest feel to it – but I wouldn’t be surprised if Kreller and Druckman have listened to the stuff Toronto’s Original Sloth Band was putting out back in the 1970s. HOTCHA’s approach to the vintage tunes sometimes reminds me of the Sloths.

Dust Bowl Roots: Songs for the New Depression seems especially timely coming, as it does, in these tough economic times.

-Mike Regenstreif

Romi Mayes -- Achin In Yer Bones

Romi Mayes
Achin In Yer Bones
romimayes.com

It’s probably inevitable that Winnipeg singer-songwriter Romi Mayes would get compared a lot to Lucinda Williams. Like Williams, Mayes is a brutally honest and open songwriter whose music reflects a life lived – at least partially – on the edge, and she stakes out a similar musical turf at the crossroads of folk, blues, real-deal country and rock ‘n’ roll. And her producer, Gurf Morlix, also produced Williams’ middle period albums.

The open honesty in Mayes’ lyrics is established from the get-go in the title track that opens this CD. The song recalls her much younger self, burnt out on a Kerouacian ramble, really needing to get back home, even if it meant 40 lonely hours on a Greyhound.

Some of my favourite pieces on the album include “I Won’t Cry,” a song whose defiant lyrics in the face of a break-up are in sharp contrast to the slow, sad melody and singing in which you can hear the cry in her voice, and “Hard Road,” a constantly-touring musician’s revelation that she needs to come in off the road for a while.

Romi Mayes performs Wednesday, June 3, 8:00 pm, at Petit Campus, 57 Prince Arthur East in Montreal – hellodarlinproductions.com/romi_mayes.htm – and Thursday, June 4, 8:30 pm, at the Black Sheep Inn in Wakefield – theblacksheepinn.com.

-Mike Regenstreif

Ian Tyson concert review

Ian Tyson
Concert at Canadian Tulip Festival (Ottawa)
May 16, 2009

In my not so humble opinion, Ian Tyson has been one of the all-time great Canadian singer-songwriters since Ian and Sylvia burst on the scene in the early-1960s. I still love most of the Ian and Sylvia albums from back in the day as well as his solo work since the 1970s. I saw Ian in concert on Saturday for the first time since he started singing with what he calls his “new voice.” A couple of years ago a combination of vocal scarring and a bad virus took away the familiar smoothness and much of the range from the great tenor we’d known for 45 or so years. My last Ian Tyson concert was at Hugh’s Room in Toronto on November 27, 2006 before the change in his voice (and the night before Ian and I sat down for the long, career-spanning interview that ran on Folk Roots/Folk Branches on December 14, 2006).

Actually, I was surprised at how strong Ian’s singing seemed to be. While it was certainly not what it was back in 2006, Ian’s voice seemed to be considerably stronger than it was on Yellowhead to Yellowstone and other Love Stories, his album released late last year. Ian’s unique timbre and vocal inflections were there. There was no mistaking the singer and he still knows how to communicate the essence of a song to his audience.
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There was also no mistaking the quality of his songs. Much of the set was devoted to sad songs of lost love and of the quickly disappearing west of the modern-day cowboys and included a lot of the material from Yellowhead to Yellowstone and other Love Stories and other relatively recent albums. He also occasionally reached back for a classic like “Navajo Rug,” co-written with Tom Russell, or way back to the Ian and Sylvia days for “Someday Soon” and “Four Strong Winds.”

After a well-deserved standing ovation, Ian encored with a poignant version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” the only song of the night that he didn’t write or co-write.

-Mike Regenstreif

Susan Werner -- Classics

Susan Werner
Classics
Sleeve Dog Records
susanwerner.com

The last Susan Werner album I heard was a fascinating concept album called The Gospel Truth which blended gospel-infused arrangements with lyrics that questioned religious belief and what some people do in the name of religion. With Classics, Werner has come up with another interesting concept taking 10 classic pop, rock, folk and reggae songs from the 1960s and ‘70s and arranging them for her voice and a small chamber orchestra, and adding excerpts from classical compositions to some of them.

An interesting concept if it could be pulled off properly, but certainly one that had the potential to easily descend into some kind of bland mush in the hands of the wrong artist, producer and arranger-conductor. I’m happy to report that Werner was the right artist; that she and Crit Harmon were the right co-producers; and that Brad Hatfield, who also played piano, was the right arranger and conductor. This album succeeds on every score, from the choice of songs – and classical compositions to pair some of them with – to Werner’s gorgeous, intimate singing and the lush classically-oriented arrangements.

Among my favourite tracks are a beautiful version of Bob Marley’s “Waiting in Vain” that’s juxtaposed with excerpts from Erik Satie’s “Gynopedies #1” arranged for piano with woodwind and string accents, and an almost aggressive-sounding string arrangement of Paul Simon’s “A Hazy Shade of Winter” that also includes excerpts from the Winter movements of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.”

In Werner’s hands, Pete Seeger’s “Turn Turn Turn” almost seems like it was written for piano and strings rather than 12-string guitar, while “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” first recorded by Nina Simone, takes on a Spanish tinge when paired with the “Adagio from Concierto de Aranjuez” by Rodrigo.

Werner ends the album with the apt “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times,” a relatively obscure Beach Boys tune.

-Mike Regenstreif

Ramblin' Jack Elliott -- A Stranger Here

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott
A Stranger Here
Anti-
anti.com
ramblinjack.com

There’s so much that can be said about Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. He spent time with Woody Guthrie and his family in the early-1950s, travelled with Woody on his last great road trip and was the prototype for the young Bob Dylan a decade later.

Jack spent part of the 1950s in England where his performances and early recordings inspired people like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Rod Stewart to get guitars and learn folk music. Mick Jagger has been quoted as saying that bought his first guitar after seeing Jack perform when he was a school kid.

Jack has an amazing repertoire of Woody Guthrie songs, Dylan songs, traditional cowboy ballads, blues, truck driving songs, Lead Belly songs and much else. And he’s one of the greatest storytellers of all time. I once saw him on stage for an hour, keeping the audience enthralled and in stitches and only getting around to, maybe, three songs.

I first met Jack in 1971 when he played a five-night stand at the Back Door, a Montreal coffee house that closed shortly after his gig there. I was 17 years old and fascinated with Woody Guthrie. I watched Jack perform for three or four nights and then ventured into the back room and asked him about Woody. He talked to me about Woody Guthrie for a long time that night, 38 years ago.

Over the years I’ve seen Jack many times and in many different situations: with Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, at folk festivals, and in concerts and coffeehouses; we worked together several times when he played at the Golem, the Montreal coffeehouse that I ran from 1974-’76 and 1981-‘87. I got introduce Jack when he came back to Montreal, for his first Montreal concert since the Golem, in 2006 to play the Pop Montreal festival.

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott’s life is the stuff of legend and myth. You never know what Jack might do, or where he might take us, in any given show or on any given record. On this record, Jack’s takes us deep into the country blues performing classic songs. Some of these songs come from early masters of the genre like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Leroy Carr who were long gone before Jack arrived on the scene as Woody’s apprentice 60 or so years ago. Others come from artists like Mississippi John Hurt and Reverend Gary Davis who Jack would have had the opportunity to know during the folk and blues revival of the 1960s. Of the 10 songs, I only recognize one, “How Long Blues,” as one that Jack has done before.

While Jack has included blues on many of his earlier albums, this is the first time he’s devoted a whole set to the genre. Working with producer Joe Henry and a remarkably creative studio band including such stellar musicians as Van Dyke Parks, Greg Leisz, David Hidalgo and David Piltch, Jack sounds amazingly free and relaxed in singing these songs. Although he doesn’t sound at all like her, there’s a Billie Holiday-like quality to his singing. The arrangements seem to be both as old as the songs – and as Jack himself – and, yet, utterly new and contemporary.

I believe it was Greil Marcus who coined the term “old weird America” to describe the wonderful music that Harry Smith compiled in his landmark Anthology of American Folk Music and that was so inspirational to subsequent generations of folk music revivalists. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott’s A Stranger Here is a contemporary take on old weird America.

–Mike Regenstreif

Sunny and her Joy Boys -- Introducing... Sunny and her Joy Boys

Sunny and her Joy Boys
Introducing... Sunny and her Joy Boys
Stony Plain
stonyplainrecords.com

I’d never heard the delightful singer Sunny Crownover before I slipped this CD into the player. But I go back a long time with a couple of the Joy Boys.

I’ve been listening to bandleader, guitarist and producer Duke Robillard since he fronted the first Roomful of Blues album in 1977. I was very happy to have Duke as a guest a couple of times on Folk Roots/Folk Branches; once in the company of Kansas City legend Jay McShann, the late, great swing and blues pianist and singer. Of all of Duke’s many and varied recordings, my favourites are his swing and jazz albums. And this is one of his best swing and jazz albums.

I’ve known Billy Novick since 1978. I ran a small booking agency back then and among my clients were Billy and Guy Van Duser, a fantastic clarinet and guitar duo whose swing revival shows straddled the folk and jazz scenes. Three decades later Billy is still one of my all-time favourite clarinet and sax players – and you should hear him play jazz tunes on the pennywhistle too.

Even before I listened for the first time, I kind of knew that with Duke and Billy in the band, I was going to really like this album, that it would be good, really good. And it sure is. Joining Sunny, Duke and Billy is Paul Kolesnikow on guitar – both he and Duke are playing acoustic archtops – and Jesse Williams on acoustic bass. Sunny and her Joy Boys are a terrific, tight unit whether they’re swinging on old Ella Fitzgerald numbers like “Strictly From Dixie” and “Undecided” or stretching out on a torchy jazz ballads like Duke Ellington’s “I Got It Bad (and That Ain’t Good)” and “That’s My Desire.”

The four players – virtuosos all with great senses of swing – are fantastic. Billy’s clarinet and sax and Duke’s lead guitar weave beautifully and infectiously around the rhythms laid down by Paul and Jesse. When Sunny comes in with her captivating vocals she takes us right back to what was great about the swing era.

In his liner notes, Duke says most of these tunes are ones that he’s wanted to do for more than 35 years. If he was waiting for the right combination of singer and musicians, he sure found them in Sunny and her Joy Boys.

--Mike Regenstreif

Caroline Doctorow -- Another Country: The Songs of Richard and Mimi Fariña

Caroline Doctorow
Another Country: The Songs of Mimi and Richard Fariña
Narrow Lane Records
carolinedoctorow.com

Mimi and Richard Fariña had a very brief career in the mid-1960s, releasing two fine albums – Celebrations for a Grey Day and Reflections in a Crystal Wind – in 1965 that still hold up remarkably well, before Richard was killed, at just 29, in a motorcycle accident on Mimi’s 21st birthday. A third album, Memories, included outtakes and a couple of solo tracks each by Mimi and her sister, Joan Baez, singing Richard’s songs, was released in 1968. The 12 songs and one brief instrumental on Caroline Doctorow’s tribute to the Fariñas were all drawn from those three albums.

Recording a successful tribute album like this means walking a tightrope in that the interpretations must retain the essence of the original versions while bringing something new to the songs. The arrangements have to simultaneously reflect the spirit of the times in which the songs come from while still sounding relevant today. Caroline Doctorow and her primary collaborator, producer Pete Kennedy, succeed admirably on this CD. Most of Caroline’s versions are every bit as good as the originals and there are even a couple, “Hard Lovin’ Loser” and “Sell-Out Agitation Waltz,” that I think are far better than the originals. Pete knows how to play and produce rock and roll much better than Richard did, so these rockier songs fare much better in his hands than they did in Richard’s.

Among my favourites on the CD is Caroline’s version of “Reflections in a Crystal Wind,” a lyrically oblique song that I’ve always heard as a young person trying to come to an understanding of what makes love, and the world, go round. Nanci Griffith supplies some lovely harmonies. Another is “The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood,” done here in a version that is both haunting and beautiful.

In addition to the Fariña songs, the album is built around Caroline’s excellent vocals and Pete’s excellent arrangements. Pete’s playing, on a variety of often-overdubbed instruments, is always superb. Other musicians and singers who contribute include Happy Traum, Eric Weissberg, John Sebastian, Nanci Griffith and Maura Kennedy.

I didn’t know Richard personally, but Mimi, who died of cancer in 2001, and I became friends in the 1980s and she made several trips to Montreal to play at the Golem, the folk club I ran back then. I think Mimi would have been very moved by Caroline’s tribute.

--Mike Regenstreif