Reviews

Kate Rusby, Underneath the Stars.

English folk songstress Kate Rusby may never make an album better than her acclaimed 1997 debut, Hourglass. Then again, she may never make an album worse than Hourglass. Each of her subsequent albums have included the elements that made that album so fresh and exciting when it was released: traditional English and Celtic songs arranged with minimal yet strikingly inventive accompaniment sung by what BBC Radio 2 lauded as one of the 20th century's Top Ten folk voices. Underneath the Stars, Rusby's fifth solo album, is more of the same and features the same all-star cast: producer John McCusker on fiddle, cittern, mandolin, whistles, banjo, and even ukulele; Rusby and Ian Carr on guitars; Andy Cutting on accordion; and Michael McGoldrick on flute and whistle, along with a few unusual guests, like Väsen's Olov Johansson on nyckelharpa, on the lovely "Bring Me a Boat," and a brass quintet on two songs. But to complain that Rusby is not progressing or experimenting is to miss the point, like complaining that a great French chef doesn't try her hand at barbecue or dim sum. Changes and progress are subtle: the interplay between Rusby and Carr's guitars and McCusker's cittern is increasingly telepathic, and it's getting harder and harder to tell the traditional songs from Rusby's own, with the exception of the dreamy, ambiguous lyric of the delightful title track that ends the CD: "Underneath the stars you met me / Underneath the stars you left me / I wonder if the stars regret me / I'm sure they'd like me if they only met me / They come and go of their own free will / Go gently." (Compass, www.compassrecords.com)

—Scott Nygaard

Bart Davenport, Game Preserve.

Having already explored his neo-mod, garage-rock, and blue-eyed soul sides in two San Francisco Bay Area bands, the Loved Ones and the Kinetics, pop singer-songwriter Bart Davenport delves deeper into his record collection on Game Preserve. Opening with an original acoustic guitar-and-vocal bossa nova ("Sweetest Game") obviously indebted to Jobim and Gilberto, he fashions his second solo CD as a virtual refuge of classic '60s and '70s styles. "The Saviors" sounds like an outtake from Love's Forever Changes; "Euphoria or Everyone on Earth Is So Beautiful, Even You" has an R&B/pub-rock bounce worthy of Van Morrison's His Band and the Street Choir or Brinsley Schwarz' Nervous on the Road. Keeping his acoustic six- and 12-string guitars prominent in the ever-shifting mix, Davenport enlists a variety of northern California pals (members of Cake, Call and Response, Dave Gleason's Wasted Days, the Moore Brothers, and others) to achieve uncanny approximations of Crosby, Stills, and Nash and early post-Garfunkel Paul Simon, with smatterings of other obvious and obscure references (the Carpenters? Harry Nilsson? America? the acoustic Beatles, Led Zeppelin, or Supertramp?) that ultimately charm and delight as much as they tantalize and taunt. (Antenna Farm, www.antennafarmrecords.com)

—Derk Richardson

Lucy Kaplansky, The Red Thread.

On her fifth CD, Lucy Kaplansky sings about the ties that bind us as families, citizens, and human beings. The recording was inspired by Kaplansky's marriage to fellow wordsmith Rick Litvin and their recent adoption of a baby girl. But the best songs on the record are the ones that move outside the nuclear family and explore the longer threads that connect us to society. More than two years after the fall of the World Trade Center, Kaplansky's moving song about September 11, "Land of the Living," still brings tears. Her attachment to New York City is palpable and inspires vivid images, such as this one in "Brooklyn Train": "Down below on iron veins / Rolling waves of subway trains." One of the best covers on the record is the late Dave Carter's waltz-time "Cowboy Singer," in which a jaded old performer is redeemed by the hope and innocence of a young protégé. The CD boasts a great band—producer Ben Wittman on drums; Duke Levine and Jon Herington on acoustic and electric guitars, mandolin, steel guitar, and mandola; Zev Katz on baritone guitar and bass–backing Kaplansky's throaty alto singing and delicate fingerstyle guitar. (Red House, www.redhouserecords.com)

—Simone Solondz

The Flatlanders, Wheels of Fortune.

With their second album in three years, the Flatlanders are quickly becoming more a band than a legend. In 2002, Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Butch Hancock returned to writing and recording as a unit for the first time in 30 years. Now Again was a watershed, but Wheels of Fortune feels even stronger, more organic, more lived-in. The best of the new songs are smart and funny (Hancock's absurdly wise "Baby Do You Love Me Still?") and smoothly road-worn (Ely's hard-driving "Back to My Old Molehill"). The old songs, written ten to 20 years ago but never recorded by the trio, have taken on new lives with new lead singers. Gilmore brings his wistfulness to Hancock's "Wheels of Fortune," Hancock a weightiness to Gilmore's "Deep Eddy Blues," and Ely a restlessness to Gilmore's "Go to Sleep Alone." All three take turns on guitar and keep the settings lively. Playing behind them with perfect sympathy, acoustic and electric guitarists Rob Gjersoe and Mitch Watkins stay close to the heart of these songs, banging out roadhouse rhythms on the honky-tonkers and light, chiming chords on the heartbreakers, helping the Flatlanders grow into a real band. (New West, www.newwestrecords.com)

—Kenny Berkowitz

Mary Flower, Ragtime Gal.

With her immaculate guitar playing and warm contralto, Mary Flower finds the sweet spot between modern and rootsy in 12 tunes bred of back porches, parlors, street corners, juke joints, and country churches. The first track, "River of Joy," a full-band secular gospel song about facing a world of "great unrest," sets the tone. Then the jaunty, jug-bandy "Hobo's Hop," with its National steel, washboard, and sousaphone, uplifts our spirits in such a world. Indeed, whenever the "mood" gets too "indigo" (as in a gorgeous, slow spare treatment of that Ellington classic that features Mollie O'Brien's vocal harmonies and Dexter Payne's clarinet), Flower switches to the upbeat side of the tradition for some fingerpicking duets with Ross Martin ("Monon Blues") and Pat Donohue ("Arkansas Ramble"), more jug-band rags ("Ragtime Gal," "Maplewood"), and an apt piece of Depression-era advice ("Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams"). "Three Sisters Waltz," with its low-register baritone guitar, mandola, and John Magnie's accordion adding high harmonies, proves that even melancholy can be sweet. Flower digs deep into the tradition for Blind Willie Johnson's "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning," Mississippi John Hurt's "Monday Morning Blues," and "Dink's Song" to remind us of the timelessness of trouble in mind and the consolations of the blues. (Bluesette, www.maryflower.com)

—Russell Letson

The Great Uncles of the Revolution, Blow the House Down.

Winners of Canada's 2003 Juno Award for their Chicken Scratch CD (Roots/Traditional Group Album of the Year) and edging toward even greater prominence thanks to their appearance on Kelly Joe Phelps' Slingshot Professionals, slide guitarist Steve Dawson and violinist/mandolinist Jesse Zubot team with acoustic bassist Andrew Downing (doubling on pump organ) and trumpeter Kevin Turcotte as the Great Uncles of the Revolution. They inform their nine original compositions with the jaunty spirit of Raymond Scott/Carl Stalling cartoon music, the lively swing of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli, and the melodic wistfulness of early jazz pioneer Bix Beiderbecke. The unusual instrumental blend takes an even more eccentric turn when the quartet interprets Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, slipping the novelty noose by way of their beguiling interactions, subtle mood manipulations, and full exploitation of their instruments' smearing slide, snappy staccato, and bristling pizzicato potential. (Black Hen, www.blackhenmusic.com)

—Derk Richardson

Late Bloomers, Sneakin' in the Back Door.

This mellow recording from the New England acoustic duo Late Bloomers is made up of original songs and instrumentals interspersed with traditional pieces. The arrangements are simple and sweet, the picking focuses on tone rather than speed, and the recording is clean and intimate. Randy Browning and Brett Kinney met at the Berklee College of Music, where they both studied guitar. Browning also plays banjo on some of these duets, and the instrumental combination works well, especially on trad tunes like "Waiting for Nancy" and the Appalachian-sounding original "Grave Digger." Other high points include the traditional "Lowlands of Holland/Southwind" (based on a Martin Simpson arrangement) and "Rodeo Clown," a wistful original featuring Browning's dusky vocals and a radio-friendly chorus. (Late Bloomers, www.latebloomersmusic.com)

—Simone Solondz

Phil Roy, Issues and Options.

After 20 years as a tunesmith in LA, where his work was covered by such artists as Aaron Neville and Ray Charles, Phil Roy left the song-peddling grind for a career as a performing songwriter. A fine guitarist with a silken tenor voice and a knack for smart vocal phrasing, Roy's idiom is essentially pop, albeit heavily acoustic pop. On Issues and Options, Roy's second CD, fretmen Heitor Pereira and Ricardo Silveira musically articulate the struggles between hope and despair, loss and redemption, and other yin/yang forces that coexist in Roy's songs. "Melt" (co-written with Nicolas Cage and heard in the film Leaving Las Vegas) contrasts a doomed lover's resignation with wild flights of romanticism. In "Amazing," a dubious lover gets surprised by joy. Despite his long stretch toiling on Tin Pan Alley west, Roy has maintained a clear-eyed optimism, a trait that well serves a late-blooming but vital singer-songwriter. (Or, www.ormusic.com)

—Steve Boisson

Various artists, Flatpicking Favorites: Hot and Spicy.

This sizzling CD of guitar duets is so riveting it should come with a warning: do not listen while driving. Sure to become the gold standard for flatpickers, who might be as intimidated as they are impressed, Flatpicking Favorites features 23 of the country's best pickers, many of them award winners, paired up by producer Dan Miller of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine. They use traditional standards as platforms for instrumental highwire acts, piling on variations and riffs with gymnastic abandon. Bryan Sutton and Brad Davis kick things off with "Wheel Hoss," alternating bass notes that sound like tremolo gone wild. Tim May and Cody Kilby similarly defy gravity in "Lonesome Fiddle Blues," and Jim Nunally and Acoustic Guitar magazine editor Scott Nygaard perform acrobatics in "Salt Creek" with a driving bass counterpoint that seems to chase the treble melody all over the fretboard. Bluegrass elements dominate, but the blues gets its due in Brad Davis and Cody Kilby's edgy rendition of "Gold Rush" and Mark Cosgrove and Scott Fore's version of "Cattle in the Cane." David Grier and Bryan Sutton round out the CD with the jazzy sophistication they bring to "Back Up and Push." The playing is masterful throughout, with breathtaking lushness and clarity of tone. (FGM, www.fgmrecords.com)

—Céline Keating

Josh Ritter, Hello Starling.

Josh Ritter recorded this CD within the stone walls of a converted dairy barn in rural France, a fitting environment for a young man who likes to channel the past. The tousle-haired troubadour pays homage to ancient muses on "Bone of Song," a sparsely picked meditation on the immortality of anonymous poetry and song. In contrast to his ethereal wordplay, which often blends the mythic with the mundane (a trait reminiscent of a certain older tousle-haired troubadour), Ritter's simple and direct fingerpicking arrangements are likely to be studied by aspiring singer-songwriters. In all, this is a fine follow-up to Ritter's acclaimed debut CD, Golden Age of Radio, with many gems among its 11 songs. The sweetly stirring "Bright Smile," which recalls early Donovan, the rollicking "Snow Is Gone," and the winsome "You Don't Make It Easy Babe" all sound like the work of a time traveler in search of the timeless. (Signature Sounds, www.signaturesounds.com)

—Steve Boisson

David Leisner, Le Romantique.

Andrés Segovia once told classical guitarist David Leisner that he found the music of Johann Kaspar Mertz to be "vulgar." Undeterred, Leisner has carried a torch for the long-neglected composer since the 1980s, and he now offers us Le Romantique, his second recording featuring Mertz' music. This disc shines with thoughtful musicianship and sensitive interpretations, and it's clear that Leisner truly loves this music—vulgar or not. The five short character pieces that start the program are well suited as hors d'oeuvres to the main course: Mertz' more substantial and perhaps best works—the "Elegy," the "Hungarian Fantasy," and the CD's title track. Interpreted with maturity and finesse, these pieces run the gamut of gesture and emotion. Leisner also revises and performs six of Mertz' transcriptions of Schubert Leider. Originally for voice and piano, these are well-played, quite convincing as solo guitar pieces, and offer additional insight into Mertz as an arranger. (Azica, www.azica.com)

—Patrick Francis

Carrie Newcomer, Betty's Diner: The Best of Carrie Newcomer.

With her sultry voice, literate songwriting chops, tireless social conscience, and stunning good looks, Indiana troubadour Carrie Newcomer would seem to be a can't-miss candidate for widespread acclaim. In reality, she's little known outside the indie folk-and-roots circle. That's everyone else's loss, and Betty's Diner—with 15 tracks culled from her eight Philo/Rounder albums supplemented by three new tunes–demonstrates why. A fluid fingerpicker and rock-steady acoustic rhythm guitarist, Newcomer operates comfortably across the genre swirl that encompasses country, folk, and roots-pop. But it's her rich, low-register alto and finely nuanced lyric portraits of everyday trials and transcendence that truly set her apart. Steeped in the level-headed compassion you'd expect from an artist who's also a deeply committed Quaker activist and prodigious fundraiser for numerous charitable causes, Newcomer's songs explore the spiritual essence of human relationships without lapsing into psycho-drivel. While sturdy folk-rockers such as "Toward the Horizon," "When It's Gone It's Gone," "Love Is Wide," and "I Should Have Known Better" (covered by Nickel Creek on their 2003 CD This Side) pack spunk to spare, resilient heartland grit fortifies softer reflective numbers like the title track and "The Gathering of Spirits," an uplifting mountain hymn that features Alison Krauss on harmony vocals. For all her willingness to engage life head-on, Newcomer also knows how to loosen up, as evidenced by "Bowling Baby," a previously unreleased tongue-in-cheek rouser. Overall, there's not a bad item on the menu. (Philo/Rounder, www.rounder.com)

—Mike Thomas

Excerpted from Acoustic Guitar magazine, May 2004, No. 137.

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