Now Playing on Festival Radio
Sunday, November 21, 2004
Kasey Chambers, Redbird and more
Kasey Chambers will be this week's (Novermber 21-28) featured artist of the week on the Online Folk Festival.
I was lucky enough to see Jeffrey Foucault and Devon Sproule in concert Friday night in a small hall normally used as a community foodbank/resource center. Both were excellent, particularly Foucault, who has an excellent command of the acoustic guitar, writes excellent songs, and a voice designed for acoustic blues. Anyone with the chutzpah to cover Bob Dylan ("Buckets of Rain"), Greg Brown ("Downtown") and Billy Bragg ("Between the Wars") is all right with me.
I also picked up the Redbird CD at the concert and am thoroughly impressed. Redbird, a side project of Foucault, Kris Delmhorst, and Peter Mulvey, with sideman David Goodrich, has produced a really fine acoustic alt-country CD that you will be hearing a lot of on the Online Folk Festival. It's mostly covers, but they choose to cover fine, but not the most well-known songs from a wide variety of great artists, including Dylan, Greg Brown, Tom Waits,REM, Willie Nelson. Plus, their originals fit in pretty well. In chatting with Foucault afterwards, he mentioned that it will be receiving wide release soon.
Speaking of covers, Laurie MacAllister has produced a well-selected and well-performed collection of covers titled The Things I Choose to Do produced by Cliff Eberhardt. The production is top notch, and Laurie MacAllister has a really fine voice. Highlights include a bluegrass flavored version of "Coal Tattoo" and a cover of Lynn Miles' "Nobody's Angel".
Rig the Jig's latest, Passing Through, gives the Irish touch to soem classic American and Canadian tunes, including tunes by Leonard Cohen (the title track), Johnny Cash, John Prine, and Steve Goodman, showing once again how contemporary country/folk evolved from the music of Scotch/Irish immigrants . The highlight for me is "Barley and Grape Rag", which starts as an old-time barrelhouse piano tune - until the uillean pipes kick in.
I mentioned earlier that I would post a review of the Great Big Sea Great Big DVD and CD when I got the chance, so here it is. The concert on the DVD and CD is from 2002, and therefore it does not reflect the band's most recent tour featuring music from Something Beautiful, their most recent studio CD. It also covers most of the same territory, at least for the live CD, as their live album Road Rage, from 2000. Since the band recorded the Ottawa concert for posterity, they've added a drummer and original bassist Darrell Power has been replaced by Murray Foster, formerly of Moxy Fruvous. All that being said, the DVD was fun to watch - the crowdn was pumped and the band was on, except for a brief moment where Alan Doyle forgets the words to one of the songs and they have to start a tune over again. It's also nice to have all the videos (through the Sea of No Cares CD) collected in one place, since American audiences have not seen them. It's a great introduction to the band for the uninitiated, and an excellent snapshot of where the band was a couple years ago.
Also added: Carbon Leaf - Indian Summer; Natalia Zukerman - On a Clear Day; The Bog Wanderers - Here's to You.
I was lucky enough to see Jeffrey Foucault and Devon Sproule in concert Friday night in a small hall normally used as a community foodbank/resource center. Both were excellent, particularly Foucault, who has an excellent command of the acoustic guitar, writes excellent songs, and a voice designed for acoustic blues. Anyone with the chutzpah to cover Bob Dylan ("Buckets of Rain"), Greg Brown ("Downtown") and Billy Bragg ("Between the Wars") is all right with me.
I also picked up the Redbird CD at the concert and am thoroughly impressed. Redbird, a side project of Foucault, Kris Delmhorst, and Peter Mulvey, with sideman David Goodrich, has produced a really fine acoustic alt-country CD that you will be hearing a lot of on the Online Folk Festival. It's mostly covers, but they choose to cover fine, but not the most well-known songs from a wide variety of great artists, including Dylan, Greg Brown, Tom Waits,REM, Willie Nelson. Plus, their originals fit in pretty well. In chatting with Foucault afterwards, he mentioned that it will be receiving wide release soon.
Speaking of covers, Laurie MacAllister has produced a well-selected and well-performed collection of covers titled The Things I Choose to Do produced by Cliff Eberhardt. The production is top notch, and Laurie MacAllister has a really fine voice. Highlights include a bluegrass flavored version of "Coal Tattoo" and a cover of Lynn Miles' "Nobody's Angel".
Rig the Jig's latest, Passing Through, gives the Irish touch to soem classic American and Canadian tunes, including tunes by Leonard Cohen (the title track), Johnny Cash, John Prine, and Steve Goodman, showing once again how contemporary country/folk evolved from the music of Scotch/Irish immigrants . The highlight for me is "Barley and Grape Rag", which starts as an old-time barrelhouse piano tune - until the uillean pipes kick in.
I mentioned earlier that I would post a review of the Great Big Sea Great Big DVD and CD when I got the chance, so here it is. The concert on the DVD and CD is from 2002, and therefore it does not reflect the band's most recent tour featuring music from Something Beautiful, their most recent studio CD. It also covers most of the same territory, at least for the live CD, as their live album Road Rage, from 2000. Since the band recorded the Ottawa concert for posterity, they've added a drummer and original bassist Darrell Power has been replaced by Murray Foster, formerly of Moxy Fruvous. All that being said, the DVD was fun to watch - the crowdn was pumped and the band was on, except for a brief moment where Alan Doyle forgets the words to one of the songs and they have to start a tune over again. It's also nice to have all the videos (through the Sea of No Cares CD) collected in one place, since American audiences have not seen them. It's a great introduction to the band for the uninitiated, and an excellent snapshot of where the band was a couple years ago.
Also added: Carbon Leaf - Indian Summer; Natalia Zukerman - On a Clear Day; The Bog Wanderers - Here's to You.
