DANA and SUSAN ROBINSON
Big Mystery
Threshold 0910
The newest CD from Dana and Susan Robinson is a homespun affair that’s what you’d get if you updated some Child Ballads, filtered them through the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina, and seasoned with amble doses of Jay and Molly Ungar, and occasional dashes of hooky pop. There are catchy old-time melodies, a cover of Lui Collins’s “Gone But Not Forgotten” that sounds even older, a bluegrass rendering of Leadbelly’s “Poor Howard,” and several gentle and sublime originals. Susan’s version of Bill Steele’s “Griselda’s Waltz,” a retelling of the Cinderella tale, is a surefire crowd-pleaser rendered in a style reminiscent of Sally Rogers. One of the many joys of this album is the imagery it evokes of places, be it the Zephyr Valley of Minnesota, the hills of North Carolina, or Scotland’s Isle of Mull. “Zephyr Wind” is as gentle as a soft breeze, the perfect frame for what begins as a love song to a hike and evolves into reflections on the lessons embedded in silence. You can envision a leisurely float down the Mississippi on “Delta Queen,” perhaps with John Hartford at the steamboat helm. And, though Vermont inspired the clever wordplay of the pop-like title track, anyone residing in a northern clime can relate to Dana’s take on the suddenness with which life unlocks after a long winter.Toss in some solid backup work from Asheville's Free Planet Radio, and you've got an unpretentious gem. --LV
Big Mystery
Threshold 0910
The newest CD from Dana and Susan Robinson is a homespun affair that’s what you’d get if you updated some Child Ballads, filtered them through the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina, and seasoned with amble doses of Jay and Molly Ungar, and occasional dashes of hooky pop. There are catchy old-time melodies, a cover of Lui Collins’s “Gone But Not Forgotten” that sounds even older, a bluegrass rendering of Leadbelly’s “Poor Howard,” and several gentle and sublime originals. Susan’s version of Bill Steele’s “Griselda’s Waltz,” a retelling of the Cinderella tale, is a surefire crowd-pleaser rendered in a style reminiscent of Sally Rogers. One of the many joys of this album is the imagery it evokes of places, be it the Zephyr Valley of Minnesota, the hills of North Carolina, or Scotland’s Isle of Mull. “Zephyr Wind” is as gentle as a soft breeze, the perfect frame for what begins as a love song to a hike and evolves into reflections on the lessons embedded in silence. You can envision a leisurely float down the Mississippi on “Delta Queen,” perhaps with John Hartford at the steamboat helm. And, though Vermont inspired the clever wordplay of the pop-like title track, anyone residing in a northern clime can relate to Dana’s take on the suddenness with which life unlocks after a long winter.Toss in some solid backup work from Asheville's Free Planet Radio, and you've got an unpretentious gem. --LV
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