Tag Archives: singer-songwriters

May21

Bruce Springsteen Performs “We Take Care Of Our Own”

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Bruce Springsteen Performs “We Take Care Of Our Own”

Here’s a clip of New Jersey resident, American icon, and universally acknowledged rock ‘n roll Boss, Bruce Springsteen. It’s the video for his recent single “We Take Care Of Our Own” as taken from this year’s Wrecking Ball  album, his seventeenth release.

It’s difficult to talk about Springsteen without mentioning his unique role in the history of rock music, post-1960s. He emerged during a time of great social and economic upheaval in the United States; the energy crisis due to political turmoil in the Middle-East, the Watergate scandal, and America’s defeated withdrawal from Vietnam happened concurrently with the releases of his first three albums, including his breakthrough 1975 album Born To Run, give or take a few months on either side.

This was a time when the illusions of a nation were being shattered one by one after a post-war economic honeymoon. It is upon this spirit of disillusion that Springsteen found his voice as an artist, and proved to be the voice that represented so many others at the time. In part, this is the reason he appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1975; he was a voice for his times.

So now in 2012, where has Springsteen’s voice taken him on “We Take Care Of Our Own”, Wrecking Ball, and for us as his audience along with him? Read the rest of this entry →

May14

David Ward Sings “The Arrival”

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David Ward Sings “The Arrival”

Listen to this track by Vancouverite musician, songwriter, singer, guitarist, blogger, indie-promoter, concert series organizer … whew, David Ward. It’s “The Arrival”, the opening track to his most recent EP Departures, a segment in a trilogy of EPs that make up The Arrival album.

Each segment of the trilogy traces the patterns of hellos, goodbyes, and quests for growth and meaning in between that we experience through out our lives, and “what can be considered both the beginning and end of a journey in the first installation of The Arrival”.

Besides the Jeff Buckley references, the thing that struck me about this song was the themes I hear in it of constantly being on the move, trying to slow down enough to make connections, and the difficult balance between these two forces that pull us in seemingly opposite directions. This is a rich field to harvest for the songwriter. And in this case, the razor-keen slide playing, and keening vocals don’t hurt either.

Ward is something of a moving target himself, intensely involved in band promotion; his own, as well as others either directly or indirectly. He’s done this through blogging to a musician’s audience on how to promote music and musical careers using Internet tools, as well as organizing shows through the Wachu Concert Series, which promotes local talent here in Vancouver.

He’s also been involved in a myriad of other artistic pursuits as a jobbing musician, including as a part of the R&B/funk band The Phonix, with whom he sings and plays guitar. This doesn’t cover the usual writing/touring/recording schedule that he also undertakes as a solo artist, of course. Ward is still following the traditional musician’s calling, even if the tools and channels of that calling have grown more new-fangled.

David Ward is launching the three-part EP collection  May 18 at Vancouver’s Rickshaw Theatre, to which I’ve been invited (looking forward to the show!). The show will also feature a DJ set from Bear Mountain, and a set from Gavin Youngash from Star Captains. David takes to the stage at 9pm, backed by a seven-piece band.

Learn more at the David Ward website, where you can also read his blog!

Enjoy!

May8

James Struthers Sings “You, Me, and Optimus Prime”

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James Struthers Sings “You, Me, and Optimus Prime”

Here’s a clip of up-and-coming singer-songwriter from Winnipeg, James Struthers. It’s the single “You, Me, and Optimus Prime”, a song about childhood innocence, and about how to keep childhood wonder in your life.

Even if this tune is an effervescent pop song about the treasures of childhood, the shadow of getting older is lurking just by association.  Yet, the “heaviness of being” situation that we’re all in, being creatures in time as we are, doesn’t drag down the music. It certainly doesn’t affect how much fun the video is, featuring a very playful Optimus Prime as James’ co-star.

The video was created with the help of LA-based Funk Factory Films. The production team, Nathan, Trevor and Morgan Funk, all contemporaries of James’, understood the cultural and generational reference points that underscore the song. The result was this video, something of a childhood fantasy that is absurd, in a good way. James explains the approach himself here: Read the rest of this entry →

Apr30

Joe Jackson Sings “Home Town” (1999 live version)

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Joe Jackson Sings “Home Town” (1999 live version)

Listen to this track by spiky new wave piano man and skillful pop composer Joe Jackson. It’s “Home Town”, a track originally taken from his 1986 album Big World, with this version recorded live in New York City in 1999 and featured on the album Live in New York: Summer In the City.

The original is a bright, effervescent pop song full of buoyant guitar. Yet, the song holds a certain world-weariness that the original version masks. Ordinarily, this is a welcome contrast.

But, as good as the original is, something entirely new came out of it when he rearranged it for a new musical context. When it came time to get together in the summer of 1999 to perform some of his tunes in a casual series of club dates “just for the hell of it”, the songs were reinterpreted for a trio; himself on piano and singing, backed up by stalwart sidemen Graham Maby on bass, and Gary Burke on drums.

Yet on this song, it’s all Jackson, a middle part of a suite of songs (“Be My Number Two” and “It’s Different For Girls” bookend it) played solo. Instead of the irony that can be picked up in the original, here the solo version reveals an entire country of emotions waiting for the listener underneath.

You might think that Jackson had removed his signature element of surprise to be found in his music up until this point by interpreting this song as a straight up ballad, rather than a poppy guiter driven tune that hides some melancholic undercurrents. But, you’d be wrong. Here’s why.

Read the rest of this entry →

Apr5

Kori Pop Debuts Video “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” From Songs For Little Bean

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Kori Pop Debuts Video “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” From Songs For Little Bean

Watch this video by Hamilton Ontario-based singer-songwriter, and filmmaker Kori Pop. It’s the entirely DIY video featuring her take on the children’s favourite “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” (with a “Mary Had a Little Lamb” coda),  a track off of her self-released album Songs For Little Bean.

The record is a collection of children’s songs and lullabies originally planned as a gift for friends, parents to Kori’s goddaughter. But, after Kori saw how well her goddaughter responded to the material, she decided that the rest of the music-listening public needed to hear the songs, too.

Before this, Kori Pop had kept herself pretty busy. After making her debut, From The Outskirts, Kori Pop involved herself in a number of projects which engaged the interpretive side of her skills as a singer, and musician. Cover versions of the B-52s’ “Love Shack”, Alanna Myles’ “Black Velvet”,  and The Beatles’ “Being For the Benefit Of Mr. Kite” , were all given the Kori Pop treatment.

In addition, she was involved in a show as one of four local performers in Hamilton lovingly titled Heavy Pedal. The show featured some major piano, with not a guitar or Marshall stack in sight. But this new record was something of a labour of love, with her voice multi-tracked to create a sort of choral children’s album of favourites, plus a couple of original compositions too.

I talked with Kori via email about this record, and about what it means to be an interpretive singer of familiar folk songs and pop songs, as well as being a writer of originals. Read the rest of this entry →

Apr2

Al Stewart Sings “Nostradamus”

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Al Stewart Sings “Nostradamus”

Al StewartListen to this track by Anglo-Scottish history buff and singer-songwriter Al Stewart. It’s “Nostradamus”, his 1973 song as taken from his fifth LP Past, Present, and Future, released first in Britain at the end of that year, and in the spring of 1974 in North America. The song reveals Stewart’s approach to songwriting in an era before his trans-Atlantic breakthrough Year of The Cat album in 1976.

Al Stewart had been developing his craft for a while by the time he wrote and recorded this tune, having been a fixture on the London Soho folk music scene in the mid-60s, and appearing at the first Glastonbury Festival in 1970. This record was the beginning of a time when he was finding his feet as a songwriter tackling character-driven songs in historical settings. In this one, we get a tour of historical references, as interpreted by one Nostradamus, an apothecary and seer of the 1500s in France who allegedly forsaw, among other events, the Napoleonic Wars, and the Rise of Nazi Germany.

But, whether or not there is any credence to Nostradamus’ visions, or more accurately how they have been interpreted in retrospect, the song concerns itself with a greater theme when it comes to history and how human beings perceive it.  Read the rest of this entry →

Mar26

Colin Blunstone Sings “Caroline Goodbye”

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Colin Blunstone Sings “Caroline Goodbye”

Listen to this track by former-Zombies frontman and light-as-air-voiced (I won’t use the word “breathy”) solo singer Colin Blunstone. It’s “Caroline Goodbye”, a single off of his first solo record One Year.

The record was released after a year out of the music business, when Blunstone did time in a straight job, working as an insurance clerk. After years of making cool records, most of which did nothing on the charts, the Zombies had broken up. This was just before they had success with their biggest hit, “Time of the Season”, recorded in 1967, but hitting big in North America nearly two years later.

By then, the band were no more. Rotten timing (of the season) was the Zombies’ curse.

But between 1970 and 1971, Blunstone went solo under his own name (after a period of releasing singles under a pseudonym), leaving his straight job behind, to record his first album. He had the help of his former colleagues in the Zombies (guitarist Chris White, and keyboardist Rod Argent) who wrote three tracks between them, and produced the album.

Blunstone’s return with his debut is widely recognized as his best effort as a solo artist. And this song reflected something of a new career phase for Colin Blunstone. Read the rest of this entry →

Mar1

Randy Newman Sings “Sail Away”

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Randy Newman Sings “Sail Away”

Listen to this track by former songwriter-for-hire , current sought-after soundtrack composer, and musical satirist Randy Newman. It’s his 1972 song “Sail Away” as taken from the album of the same name, Sail Away.

Although known in more recent years mostly for his Grammy-winning soundtracks to children’s films like Toy Story and Monsters, Inc., Newman stands as one of America’s greatest satirists on record. And this is certainly one of the best examples of this sphere of his work; a pitch from a slaver to a potential slave.

Newman had made a name for himself primarily as a West coast Brill Building-style songwriter from the early 1960s, penning songs for acts like The Fleetwoods, The O’Jays, Cilla Black, Gene Pitney, and Harper’s Bizarre, among others. He’d also work as a sessioner with other notables including Van Dyke Parks, and Leon Russell, working with his friend and long-time collaborator Lenny Waronker.

But, later he’d branch out more as a performer in his own right, an area he’d only dabbled in during his songwriting years creating tunes for other acts. By the end of the ’60s and early ’70s, audiences were ready for a singer with a unique voice such as Newman’s. And they were ready for their pop music to contain more than one layer of meaning, too.

And that’s certainly what they got here, a tale as told by an unreliable narrator (a Newman specialty). But, in addition to the story of a wondrous land of opportunity, with a life of toil and cruelty hiding behind it, there are other layers to be found in this song besides. Read the rest of this entry →

Feb23

Happy Birthday, George Harrison: 10 Cover Versions

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Happy Birthday, George Harrison: 10 Cover Versions

George Harrison had always been seen as the kid brother to his bandmates John Lennon and Paul McCartney. But, that would change.

Although it took him a while, George soon became as good a songwriter as his partners in The Beatles had become, and did so largely on his own steam. Yet, that was the kind of artist he’d always been, focusing his ear for melody early on in his solos, which were meticulously and very patiently wrought, as much as they were inventive, and later to be applied to some of the most celebrated songs in rock history.

Yet, by the mid-to-late 1960s, he’d pen some of the most enduring songs of that group’s catalog as a songwriter. This would be a skill he’d take with him into his solo career as well.

So, in celebration of that skill, and of the birth of George Harrison which is coming up this Saturday, February 25, 2012 (he would have been 69!), here are ten distinguished covers of Harrison’s songs that span his most fertile period. In that time, he mastered acoustic folk styled tunes, sumptuous psychedelia, Indian traditional music, and of course straight ahead guitar pop too. As such, the artists who covered his songs are varied across the stylistic spectrum as well, from pop crooners, to soul men, to blues players, to singer-songwriters.

Take a listen! Read the rest of this entry →

Feb13

Cat Stevens Sings “The Boy With The Moon & Star On His Head”

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Cat Stevens Sings “The Boy With The Moon & Star On His Head”

Cat Stevens in 1976 (Photo:William McElligott)

Listen to this song by former ’60s British pop pin-up turned ’70s bearded folky hit-maker Cat Stevens.  It’s “The Boy With The Moon & Star On His Head” a spiritual parable positioned as a traditional English folk song. The tune is taken from 1972′s Catch Bull At Four album, his follow-up to the immense Teaser & the Firecat record. Because of the momentum created by that previous release, Catch Bull At Four was his best-selling record.

Cat Stevens had enjoyed some success previous even to his celebrated early ’70s albums as a pop star. He’d changed his name from Steven Georgiou to Cat Stevens in the ’60s, enjoying some success with respectably charting songs in the UK,  like “Matthew & Son”, “I’m Gonna Get Me A Gun”, and “I Love My Dog”.

He also would score some success as a songwriter of material for other people, including “The First Cut Is The Deepest”, a hit initially for P.P Arnold, and then for others down the decades (Sheryl Crow, Rod Stewart). Yet, it would be in the next decade where he’d forge his musical path, with a sort of baroque-flavoured folk style infused with a sense of the spiritual.

This tune is certainly one of those, starting off with a scene of  ’60s free-love, and eventually turning to a less carnal, and more mystically informed theme of spiritual wisdom, with a prescription for love and connectedness as a pay-off.

In some ways this wasn’t just a song, but it was Stevens’ story as an artist, too. But, how?

Read the rest of this entry →