Clare Burson -- Silver and Ash

CLARE BURSON
Silver and Ash
Rounder Records
clareburson.wordpress.com

(This review is from the November 29, 2010 issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.)

Clare Burson addresses her grandmother in “The Only Way,” the first of 10 original songs on Silver and Ash. “Someone said you left there just in time,” she sings. It was, quite literally, just in time when Burson’s grandmother escaped Nazi Germany for the United States on the morning of Kristallnacht in 1938.

With a grant from Six Points Fellowship, an organization that supports artists exploring Jewish themes in their work, the New York-based singer-songwriter wrote these folk-like songs by imagining her grandmother’s life in Germany during the trying years preceding the Holocaust.

Most of the songs are impressionistic with few explicit references. It’s almost like each song offers an interpretation of a faded photograph (in fact, there are several faded photos included in the CD booklet). Images of a small baby pervade one song while another offers sketches of people in – seemingly sudden – transit. In “Everything’s Gone,” Burson remembers her great-grandparents – soon to be lost in the Holocaust – through the eyes of her grandmother about to “take the last train from the last train station.”

Burson spent time in Europe researching these songs and addresses her grandmother again in “Magpies,” the album’s poignant finale, as if it’s a letter from Germany. “Sometimes I think of how life must have been for you here, what life could have been for you here.”

--Mike Regenstreif

Steel Rail rides again; Bill Garrett & Sue Lothrop

Steel Rail concerts have been too few and too far between in the years since guitarist and songwriter Dave Clarke left Montreal for the milder climes of Victoria, BC. Soon, though, Dave will be back in Steel Rail action with bass player and singer Ellen Shizgal and singer-guitarist Todd Gorr for concerts in Lennoxville and Montreal. They’re promising some new songs and lots of the old favourites in their patented folk-meets-bluegrass style.

The concerts are both double bills with the most excellent duo of Bill Garrett & Sue Lothrop.

The Lennoxville concert is Friday November  26, 8:00 pm, at the Church Street Cafe, 6 Church Street in Lennoxville. Call 819-875-5696.

The Montreal concert, part of the Wintergreen Concert Series, is Saturday November 27, 8:00 pm, at Club Lambi, 4465 St. Laurent in Montreal. Call 514-524-9225.

Here are my Montreal Gazette reviews of the most recent CDs by Steel Rail and Bill Garrett & Sue Lothrop.

STEEL RAIL
River Song
Crossties

This third album by Steel Rail, rooted almost equally in country, bluegrass and folk music, is their best effort yet. The trio’s ensemble sound features vocalist and rhythm guitarist Tod Gorr, who has one of the most naturally country voices this side of George Jones, lead guitarist Dave Clarke, one of the most fluid acoustic pickers in the country, and bassist Ellen Shizgal, who provides the band’s heartbeat, some gorgeous harmonies and two lead vocals. Steel Rail’s secret weapon, though, is the fine craftsmanship of their songwriting. Songs of love and loss mix with pieces that nostalgically recall Belmont Park or that conjure images of the sailor’s church in Old Montreal, the Quebec countryside, beautiful prairie skies and the tough streets of downtown Winnipeg. ****

BILL GARRETT & SUE LOTHROP
Red Shoes
Borealis

On their duo debut, veteran Montreal singer-guitarists Bill Garrett and Sue Lothrop have crafted a fine blend of country, Cajun and folk-rooted material. One of the most affecting songs is the beautiful title track written about Lothrop’s mother at the end of her life. Another is "That’s How the Summer Slips Away," a poetic and wistful piece written by Lucinda Chodan and Dave Clarke. Two topical songs, Shelley Posen’s "No More Fish," and Terry Tufts’s "Never No More," provide moving commentary on contemporary issues, while "Leaving Louisiana," Rodney Crowell’s Cajun stomper, is the album’s most exciting tune. Garrett and Lothrop share the lead and harmony vocals and are well served by a supporting cast that includes Clarke and Tufts, fiddler Don Reed and clarinetist Vern Dorge. ****

--Mike Regenstreif

Ottawa Bluesfest partners with Ottawa Folk Festival

The Ottawa Citizen has a front page story today reporting that the Ottawa Folk Festival has been bailed out and taken over by the Ottawa Bluesfest.

Reading the article, I surmise that the folk festival will likely move from Britannia Park and have more commercially viable headliners. It remains to be seen what that means for the rest of the artistic direction, artistic legacy and traditions of the festival (or the staffing and volunteer continuity). I guess we'll see in the coming months.

Update (Saturday, November 13): With thanks to Brian Silcoff and his OFME e-mail list, here is the press release that was issued Thursday by the Ottawa Folk Festival. As Ottawa Folk Festival board member Bob LeDrew notes in his comment,  the new arrangement is a partnership rather than a takeover. It certainly would have been helpful for me -- as a member of both the media and the Ottawa Folk Festival community -- to have received the press release on Thursday; or, at the least, to have been able to find it on the Ottawa Folk Festival  or Ottawa Bluesfest websites, both of which I checked after the news broke in yesterday's Citizen.

Pictured: Mike Regenstreif and Ramblin' Jack Elliott at the 2010 Ottawa Folk Festival (August 14, 2010)

--Mike Regenstreif

Ron Hynes -- Stealing Genius

RON HYNES
Stealing Genius
Borealis Records
hynesite.org

Ron Hynes, the pride of St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, is, without question, one of Canada’s greatest singer-songwriters – a writer whose genius can be found in decades worth of great songs.

Ron calls his new album Stealing Genius because most of its songs are inspired by specific works written by several poets and novelists, mostly from Newfoundland along with one American. In some songs, Ron actually gives the inspiring writer a co-writing credit.

The album opens with “Blood and Bones,” a song inspired by What They Wanted, a novel about a family’s resettlement by Donna Morrissey. It’s a familiar story that Ron sings about: a family forced to leave their home for someplace new because the work is no longer there. In this case, presumably, it’s the local fishery that’s no longer viable as “the ocean died like late night embers in the stove.” Ron’s lyrics and his singing seem to combine poignancy with regret and a hint of anger.

Morrissey’s book, as well as Michael Crummy’s The Wreckage, inspired “My Father’s Ghost,” a song that is both a remembrance from long ago of discovering a father’s death and a brilliantly drawn contemporary portrait of a lonely life in sea coast village.

In “House,” inspired by Stan Dragland’s Stormy Weather: Foursomes, Ron sings about an old house as the shell for the lost love that no longer lives within its walls.

“I Love You More Than God” and “Love and Hunger” are two stunning love songs based on poems by Des Walsh and which are reminiscent of the great romantic poets.

One of my favourite songs in the set is "30 For 60," inspired by a poem by Al Pittman, that's a powerful portrait of a man, no longer young, damning his regrets.

One song that takes its inspiration from an American book is “Judgement,” a song based on Ron Hansen’s The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. Ron sings from the perspective of Ford trying to rationalize his act.

As a singer, Ron knows exactly how to communicate the essence of the songs to his listeners and the arrangements, featuring such musicians as Paul Mills (who also produced the album), Alec Fraser, Tom Leighton and Burke Carroll, frame the songs almost perfectly.

Stealing Genius represents the finest set of original songwriting to be released in Canada this year.

--Mike Regenstreif

Lucy Wainwright Roche -- Lucy

LUCY WAINWRIGHT ROCHE
Lucy
Lucy Wainwright Roche
lucywainwrightroche.com

Being the daughter, niece, and half-sister of a bunch of accomplished singer-songwriters, Lucy Wainwright Roche probably had a lot to prove when she decided to give up her teaching career and go into the family business. After all, her parents are Suzzy Roche of the Roches and Loudon Wainwright III. Her aunts are Maggie and Terre Roche, also of the Roches, and Sloan Wainwright, and her half-siblings are Rufus and Martha Wainwright. That’s an awful lot of familial talent to live up to. Well, first on a couple of eight-song EPs, and now on Lucy, her first full-length release, Lucy has more than proven herself worthy of a seat at a Wainwright and/or Roche family round-robin session.

Although her songs have their own distinctiveness, Lucy reminds me more of her mother’s music than her father’s. The melodies, the sometimes quirky lyrics, the way she harmonizes – sometimes with herself, or with back-up vocalists like her father, or the Roches, or the Indigo Girls, or Girlyman – have a similar kind of appeal to the Roches. Take “Once In,” the lead-off song, for example. The lines seem to be disjointed, but they come together as images of time on the road leading back to home. The travelling life, represented by the blurry, lonely, highway scene depicted on the CD cover, is a recurring theme in many of Lucy’s songs.

My favourite songs in the set include “Accident and Emergency,” an observational piece about a night spent in a British hospital’s emergency room, and “Statesville,” which uses images of a torn down high school in that North Carolina town, and the hanging of Tom Dula – immortalized in the folksong “Tom Dooley,” which happened in Statesville in 1868 – as metaphors for a broken relationship.

After 10 of her own songs, Lucy ends the album with a pair of interesting covers. With Paul Simon’s “America,” featuring the patented Roches harmonies, Lucy beautifully captures the same kind of innocence, alienation and anomie that Simon and Garfunkel brought to their recording more 40 years ago. Then, with Elliot Smith’s “Say Yes,” Lucy and duet partner Ira Glass, express the seemingly contradictory thoughts of someone who’s broken up, but apparently still linked in love, with his ex-girlfriend.

--Mike Regenstreif

Lynn Miles -- Fall for Beauty

LYNN MILES
Fall for Beauty
True North
lynnmilesmusic.com

As I’ve said before, Ottawa’s Lynn Miles has long been one of my favourite confessional singer-songwriters. This past August, Lynn was one of several artists I hosted in a round-robin set at the Ottawa Folk Festival and I got to preview several of the10 new songs she’s recorded on Fall for Beauty, a collection that ranks with her best work.

It’s often been said that the definition of a good country song is “three chords and the truth,” and that’s something that Lynn, as a veteran singer-songwriter knows well. In her country-flavoured song of that name, Lynn lets us know that three chords and the truth is still what she is looking for as an artistic statement and, indeed, these songs hit that mark time and again in various shades and combinations of contemporary folk, country and mature pop music.

The most powerful song in the collection is also – in terms of the production – the quietest. “Love Doesn’t Hurt,” is an astute, analytical piece about domestic or relationship abuse that draws definitive lines in the sand about what needs to be recognized as unacceptable in a relationship. I think Lynn was right to leave this track to just voice and guitar – nothing else was needed.

Also quite powerful is “Little Bird,” a song she sings compassionately and with understanding to someone who seems to battling with personal demons.

Another highlight is “Fearless Heart,” a wish list song set to a bright, up tempo arrangement and hooky melody that sets out a whole bunch simple desires and one big one, a fearless heart. She shows us that fearless heart in the following song, “I Will,” in which she declares her determination not to be laid low by the kind of setbacks that life throws in our path.

The album ends with the optimistic “Time to Let the Sun,” a sweeping, string-laden piece that recalls era when the likes of Yip Harburg, Harold Arlen and George and Ira Gershwin were creating the Great American Songbook.

Lynn launches Fall for Beauty with concerts Saturday, November 6, 3:00 pm and 8:00 pm, at the Mayfair Theatre in Ottawa (613-730-3403) and Wednesday, November 10, 8:00 pm at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto (416-205-5555).

--Mike Regenstreif

Bob Dylan -- The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964

BOB DYLAN
The Bootleg Series, Vol. 9 – The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964
Columbia/Legacy
bobdylan.com

Like countless other songwriters signed to Tin Pan Alley publishing houses over the years, Bob Dylan – between 1962 and 1964 – knocked off quickie solo demos of many of his songs so that they could be pitched to various recording artists. And when song publishers Leeds Music – briefly – and Witmark signed the young songwriter to publishing deals, they surely had no idea that he was on the verge of smashing the Tin Pan Alley model that the music business had thrived on for decades ushering in the era of the singer-songwriter.

Dylan was all of 20 years old when he recorded his first LP – Bob Dylan – in late 1961 (it was released in '62). Although that album only included two of Dylan’s own songs, the songs had already begun pouring out of him at a pace seemingly unrivalled since Woody Guthrie’s most prolific period in the 1940s and he began cutting these demos in January 1962.

And it wasn’t just the sheer number of songs that he produced in this period that was astounding – it was the already-mature quality of the writing, its constant evolution and its wide variety. Here was a kid between the ages of 20 and 23 producing topical songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “Masters of War,” and “Ballad of Hollis Brown”; love songs ranging from “Tomorrow is a Long Time,” to “Farewell,” “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” “Girl from the North Country” and “Boots of Spanish Leather.”

There are comic songs, philosophical pieces, folk-based ballads, and, in “Mr. Tambourine Man,” the second-to-last of these demos presented completely and in chronological order, a great big hint at how Dylan would soon redefine the possibilities inherent in a contemporary song.

These publishing demos – which are Dylan solo, mostly playing guitar, or guitar and harmonica, or occasionally piano – were not recorded for commercial release so there are some that include coughs, abrupt endings and forgotten lyrics. The recording quality varies from track to track and few of the versions here are superior to the officially recorded and released versions. But, still, every performance is worth listening to for clues to the development of the most essential of all 20th century songwriters. One track that is particularly noteworthy for its unique approach is the version of “Mr. Tambourine Man,” the earliest he ever recorded, which Dylan plays on the piano, giving it a very different feel than his guitar-based versions of the classic. (For what it’s worth, I think the definitive version of “Mr. Tambourine Man,” is the nine-minute performance on Live 1966, The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4.)

And, what makes this collection essential are 15 songs that Dylan has never before released on albums or earlier volumes of The Bootleg Series. Some of the 15 I know from other artists like Dave Van Ronk, who recorded a Dixieland version of “All Over You” with the Red Onion Jazz Band, or Judy Collins, who sang “Farewell,” based on “The Leaving of Liverpool,” so beautifully on Judy Collins #3, or Odetta, who did “Long Ago, Far Away” on her whole album of Dylan songs. But, there are some, like the Guthrie-esque songs “Gypsy Lou” and “Ain’t Gonna Grieve,” the latter surely based on Woody’s “Sally Don’t You Grieve,” that I’ve never heard before by Dylan or anyone else.

--Mike Regenstreif

Rosemary Phelan -- What Sings in the Blood

ROSEMARY PHELAN
What Sings in the Blood
Mighty Wren
rosemaryphelan.com

If I’m not mistaken, Toronto-based singer-songwriter and community nurse Rosemary Phelan had already finished recording What Sings in the Blood, a lovely set of haunting songs, and was already scheduled to launch the album this Wednesday (October 27) with a concert at Hugh’s Room in Toronto before she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in July.

With her cancer battle, some of these songs – no doubt influenced by her years as a community nurse – seem almost prophetic as she poetically wrestles with human mortality. “Oh you never do know if tomorrow will come,” she sings in “Redwing,” the first song on the album and “Red sky at night, gold light at dawn/Will still burn bright when we are gone,” she sings in “We Never Cry.” In “Overwhelmed,” Rosemary seems to be reflecting the ongoing struggle between life and death faced by someone dealing with serious illness.

Not all of the songs call for reinterpretation in light of Rosemary’s cancer battle. “Three Wishes” is a peace song that longs for a world in which prayers for peace are no longer necessary; “Hymn for the Innocent,” which touches on many themes ranging from the innocence of childbirth to the sacrifices of war, almost seems like a Stephen Foster song from 150 years ago; and “Red Dress,” is a mature love song borne of life’s everyday struggles (and is one of several songs on the CD in which the colour red figures in one way or another).

Rosemary’s singing is compellingly lovely throughout the album. Her voice, sincere lyrics, folk-inflected melodies and tasteful arrangements draw the listener right into the songs. Kudos, too, to such supporting musicians and singers as co-producer Jason LaPrade, David Francey, Jon Brooks, banjo player Chris Coole and multi-instrumentalist/singer Ian Tamblyn whose tasteful contributions help make this CD a success.

With Rosemary now undergoing chemotherapy, the Hugh’s Room CD launch has been turned into a benefit concert featuring Jon Brooks, Annabelle Chvostek, Chris Coole, Spencer Lewis, David Newland, Evalyn Parry, Elizabeth Shepherd, Tannis Slimmon, Ian Tamblyn, Adam Warner and Katherine Wheatley singing her songs. The host will be Andy Frank of Roots Music Canada.

BTW, I like the roots and branches motif of the cover drawing.

--Mike Regenstreif

Mavis Staples -- You Are Not Alone

MAVIS STAPLES
You Are Not Alone
Anti-
mavisstaples.com

Now over 70, and 60 years after she started singing with her family band, the Staple Singers, Mavis Staples remains a tour-de-force of gospel music (and blues, too.)

Her last couple of albums, We’ll Never Turn Back and Live: Hope at the Hideout, revisited the civil rights era that the Staples Singers provided much of the soundtrack to and she showed how vital and contemporary those songs remain. On You Are Not Alone, she breathes new life into some of the traditional and Pops Staples-composed spirituals that she was singing with the Staples Singers, mixing them with some equally formidable contemporary songs suggested by producer Jeff Tweedy (of Wilco).

Among the gospel highlights are an infectious revival tent version of Reverend Gary Davis’ “I Belong to the Band,” that could get anyone up out of their seats, an a cappella rendition of “Wonderful Saviour,” that has Mavis leading the harmony singers in call-and-response, and an arrangement of “In Christ There Is No East or West” built around Mavis’ lead vocals and Tweedy’s acoustic guitar playing. Speaking as a non-Christian, I can say one needn’t be a believer to believe in the power of Mavis’ singing or to appreciate the honest conviction that seems to be evident in every word she sings.

Highlights among the more contemporary songs include a powerful version of John Fogerty’s “Wrote a Song for Everyone,” a compassionate take on Tweedy’s “You Are Not Alone,” and slow, blues ballad rendition of Randy Newman’s “Losing You.”

There’s a whole of soul on this CD.

--Mike Regenstreif

Justin Townes Earle -- Harlem River Blues

JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE
Harlem River Blues
Bloodshot Records
justintownesearle.com

Justin Townes Earle is Steve Earle’s son and his middle name honours Townes Van Zandt. In the course of three albums, now, he’s more than lived up to the Earle and Townes names as a promising singer-songwriter well-versed in folk, honky tonk and rockabilly styles. His first album, 2008’s The Good Life was a formidable debut and his second, last year’s Midnight at the Movies, was even better. Harlem River Blues, his third in three years, cements his reputation as one of today’s finest young artists.

After living most of his young life in Nashville, Earle moved to New York City and many of the songs on Harlem River Blues, beginning with the title track that opens the CD, seem inspired by the city. In “Harlem River Blues,” Earle’s first-person character is on his way to drown himself in the Harlem River. It’s a surprisingly manic song for such a depressive subject. Other NYC-referenced songs include “One More Night in Brooklyn,” a love song with an R&B groove, and “Workin’ for the MTA,” an infectious modern-day folksong about working in train tunnels – in this case the tunnels of the New York City subway system.

“Wanderin’,” with its familiar themes of footloose travelling is another modern-day folksong. The spirit of Woody Guthrie – who spent some of his most productive years in New York City – can be felt in “Workin’ for the MTA” and “Wanderin’.”

Along with New York City, there also seems to be some pretty obvious Memphis influences on this record. “Move Over Mama” is a rockabilly tune driven by a slap-happy bassist that sounds like it could have been recorded at Sun Records in 1958, and “Christchurch Woman” sounds like it could have been recorded in a soul session a decade later. And I’ve already mentioned the R&B groove on “One More Night in Brooklyn.”

There is so much promise in this young artist. Unfortunately, it seems that he’s also got Steve’s and Townes’ predilections for self-destructive behaviour. He recently entered rehab to deal with addiction issues – here’s hoping that, like his dad, he’s successful in getting control of his demons.

--Mike Regenstreif

Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band -- Legacy

PETER ROWAN BLUEGRASS BAND
Legacy
Compass Records
peter-rowan.com

Peter Rowan left Massachusetts in 1964 to play guitar and sing with Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys – the legacy band in bluegrass music. After serving his three-year apprenticeship with the father of bluegrass music, he’s gone on to make all kinds of music from Tex-Mex to folk, from reggae to rock ‘n’ roll, with frequent returns to make some of the best bluegrass albums north of Kentucky.

Legacy, featuring an all-star set of musicians is surely the finest album of traditional, by-the-rules bluegrass music I’ve heard this year. Peter’s songwriting is first-rate, his singing has remained virtually unparalleled over many decades, and he’s surrounded himself with a dream band with the great Jody Stecher, one of our finest folk artists, on mandolin, Keith Little on banjos and Paul Knight on bass. All three add superb harmonies and Jody and Keith each take a lead vocal. There’s is also a great Jody Stecher instrumental track that includes Tim O’Brien sitting in on fiddle.

The other guests on the album are Del McCoury and Ricky Skaggs who join Peter for some close gospel harmonies on “God’s Own Child,” and singer Gillian Welch and guitarist David Rawlings who add something special to the quasi-gospel “So Good.”

Among the other highlights are “The Family Demon,” sung from the perspective of a young boy determined to not be defeated by his violently abusive father, “Jailer, Jailer,” a somewhat oblique song that seems to suggest that the psychological bonds one enforces on himself can be stronger than the steel bars of a jail cell, and “Across the Rolling Hills,” which seems to combine Eastern and Western spiritualism. Spiritualism, in some form or another, seems to be the pervasive theme of much of this album.

--Mike Regenstreif

OCFF Conference

I had a most excellent time at the annual conference of the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals (OCFF) this past weekend in Ottawa. I attended some interesting panels and meetings – including State of the Folk Nation, at which a recent PhD in ethnomusicology was totally unconvincing in his theories about what folk music is – and heard a lot of great music from both young performers I was experiencing for the first time and veteran artists I’ve been listening to for decades. It was also a wonderful opportunity to see some old friends and make some new ones.
It was an honour for me to be one of the conference’s mentors. As a mentor, I spent time working with several promising artists whose paths in folk music I look forward to following in the years to come.

Congratulations to Paul Mills, OCFF’s retiring president and Executive Director Peter MacDonald, along with the other board members, staff, and volunteers, for a superbly-organized event.

Speaking of old friends, I was very happy to see William (Grit) Laskin receive the Estelle Klein Award. Named for the visionary artistic director of the Mariposa Folk Festival in the 1960s and ‘70s, the award is the OCFF’s annual recognition of lifetime achievement and Grit is a most-worthy recipient.

Andy Frank of Roots Music Canada did an excellent job of putting together this video tribute to Grit on the occasion of his receiving the Estelle Klein Award.



--Mike Regenstreif

Billy Novick -- Music from The Great Gatsby; Ernie Hawkins -- Whinin' Boy

BILLY NOVICK’S BLUE SYNCOPATORS
Music from The Great Gatsby
Billy Novick
billynovick.com


Clarinet and sax player Billy Novick has been one of my favourite musicians since I first heard him playing with David Bromberg in the mid-1970s. A few years later, I got to know him and to hear him a lot when the small booking agency I operated for several years in the late-‘70s represented Billy’s duo with master finger-style guitarist Guy Van Duser. Thirty years later, as evidenced on this CD, Billy is still making exceptional music.

Billy was commissioned by the Washington Ballet to provide the score for their production, earlier this year, of The Great Gatsby, a ballet based on the classic novel of the 1920s by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Not having seen the ballet, I can say, without reservation, that the CD stands on its own as a great set of 1920s-era jazz, blues and ragtime that includes a bunch of period classics and some great in-the-tradition pieces composed by Billy.

Billy’s Boston-based band, the Blue Syncopators, are mostly playing in New Orleans Dixieland mode as they run through such numbers as James P. Johnson’s “Charleston,” W.C. Handy’s “Yellow Dog Blues,” Scott Joplin’s “Swipsey Cakewalk” and Louis Armstrong’s “Wild Man Blues.” The interplay between the various horns and the impeccable rhythm section is a constant delight.

Also delightful is the work of vocalists Louise Grasmere and Dane Vannater on several numbers. Whether it’s Grasmere’s humorous scatting on Billy’s “Dance of the Ashes” or sounding like a classic blues singer on “He May Be Your Man,” or Vannater singing poignantly on Irving Berlin’s “What’ll I Do,” or camping it up on “We Are All Going Calling on the Kaiser,” their singing is in the same league as the instrumentalists.

ERNIE HAWKINS
Whinin’ Boy
Corona Records
erniehawkins.com

Speaking of New Orleans Dixieland mode, Whinin’ Boy, the latest CD by Ernie Hawkins, who is primarily known for his Piedmont-style guitar playing, – he was a student of Reverend Gary Davis and remains one of the Rev’s greatest interpreters – blends Piedmont guitar playing with Dixieland arrangements featuring an equally fine set of musicians.

The album opens with Ernie’s guitar playing Jelly Roll Morton’s title track in an arrangement that, early on, is reminiscent of Dave Van Ronk’s great Morton interpretations. By the time he starts singing the first verse, the washboard is beefing up the rhythm, and by the time he gets to the second verse, the horns are sounding like Saturday night at Preservation Hall. (The album ends with an instrumental reprise of “Whinin’ Boy.”)

Whether doing faithful versions of New Orleans standards like “Basin Street Blues,” or adapting Davis’ “There is a Table in Heaven” to a Dixieland arrangement or vamping on Big Bill Broonzy’s “Shuffle Rag,” Ernie makes this music come alive.

Mixed in with the classic blues and jazz tunes are a couple of Ernie’s original instrumentals. On “The Southbound Sneak,” he matches his great blues fingerpicking to a great tuba-trombone-washboard accompaniment. Then, on “My Poodle Has Fleas,” a tune he’s recorded before, he switches to ukulele to trade licks with tuba player Roger Daly.

Both of these CDs are a reminder of how infectious Dixieland music can still be in the hands of creative and inventive musicians and arrangers.

--Mike Regenstreif

Ken Whiteley -- Another Day's Journey

KEN WHITELEY
Another Day’s Journey
Borealis
kenwhiteley.com

Ken Whiteley’s website notes that “his musical journey has taken him from jug band, folk and swing to blues, gospel and children's music.” With the exception of children’s music, Ken covers all of those grounds on Another Day’s Journey, which I think I can say without much reservation, is the finest solo album of his long career.

Of course, the term ‘solo’ is a bit of a misnomer as Ken, who sings and variously plays more than a dozen different instruments, works with cast of great collaborators – singers and instrumentalists – that changes, track to track, as the album unfolds on this journey through Ken's musical world.

The album begins with the title track, a joyous, uplifting song from the repertoire of the amazing Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers. Acoustic blues great Guy Davis, is Ken’s principal accomplice on this tune. Guy returns later in the CD to add his harmonies, harmonica and guitar playing to “Too Much Trouble,” a lovely, nostalgic original by Ken, and on a bluesy version of the traditional “Motherless Children.”

Kim and Reggie Harris – whose music and infectious personalities never fail to inspire – and sacred steel master Chuck Campbell join Ken for three songs including the inspirational “Butterfly,” and the poignant “No Answer,” both co-written by Ken and Reggie, and “I Want to Live So God Can Use Me,” an on-your-feet gospel number.

I’ve been on a listening to a lot of jug band music lately and two juggy tracks here are duets with Maria Muldaur, a central figure in the jug band revival of the 1960s and in its latest revival over the past few years. “Language of Love” and “Mike and Mary” are both recent Ken Whiteley originals that sound like they could have been recorded by the Memphis Jug Band in 1927, the Jim Kweskin Jug Band in 1965, or the Original Sloth Band in 1975.

Newfoundland swing guitarist Duane Andrews joins Ken for two other highlights on the album: Ken’s own “Old Wind Blow,” which also features some excellent harmonica work by Ken’s brother, Chris Whiteley, and “I Want To Be Happy,” an old swing tune that was a staple in the repertoire of the late, great Jackie Washington.

Ken Whiteley performs in Montreal on a split bill with Lake of Stew on Saturday, December 11, 8:00 pm, at Petit Campus. Click here for info.

--Mike Regenstreif

Joan Baez in Kitchener, Montreal and Ottawa this week

Ottawa is folk music central this coming weekend as it hosts the annual Ontario Council of Folk Festivals  (OCFF) conference. I’m going to step out of the conference for a couple of hours on Saturday evening for the Joan Baez concert, five blocks away at the National Arts Centre.

Half a century after a still-teenaged Joan took the 1959 Newport Folk Festival by storm, she remains a great performer. The last time I saw her perform – 2003 in Burlington, Vermont – Joan was remarkable.

According to Joan’s website, her band includes three great acoustic musicians: John Doyle, the great Celtic guitarist; Dirk Powell, an incredible multi-instrumentalist who’s one of the most innovative of today’s old-time and Cajun musicians (I’ve hosted folk festival workshops a couple of times with Dirk, see the photo in the post below, and he is truly amazing – when Linda Ronstadt was a guest on Folk Roots/Folk Branches, she raved about Dirk’s playing on the Zozo Sisters CD she’d just released with Ann Savoy); and virtuoso bassist Todd Phillips, whose work, 30 years ago, with the original David Grisman Quintet redefined the possibilities in acoustic music.

Addendum (October 13): As noted, the above information about who is in Joan's band was found on her official website. However, I'm now given to understand that Dirk Powell will be the only musician with her. -MR

Joan’s three Canadian dates this week are:

Wednesday, October 16 – Centre in the Square, Kitchener, Ontario
Friday, October 15 – St. Denis Theatre, Montreal, Quebec
Saturday, October 16 – National Arts Centre, Ottawa, Ontario.

Here’s a CD review I wrote for the September 4, 2008 issue of the Montreal Gazette.

JOAN BAEZ
Day After Tomorrow
Razor & Tie

Almost 50 years into her recording career, Joan Baez teams with producer Steve Earle and a select group of acoustic musicians for one of her strongest albums in three decades. Although these songs – by such writers as Earle, Eliza Gilkyson, Tom Waits and Diana Jones – are all of recent vintage, each has a timeless quality to it. Waits’s title track, for example, written from the perspective of a soldier returning home, dates from the current Iraqi War. But it could have come from any other war time. The most beautiful song is Gilkyson’s "Rose of Sharon," an adaptation of the biblical "Song of Solomon." Baez’s voice, though lower than it was in her youth, is a remarkable instrument still capable of great beauty and power.

-Mike Regenstreif

Pictured: Joan Baez and Mike Regenstreif backstage at the Flynn Theatre, Burlington, VT. (October 12, 2003)

--Mike Regenstreif