James Keelaghan: October 2022 Artist of the Month

 

JAMES KEELAGHAN

Second Hand

Borealis # 276

 

 

 

Like most artists, the Covid lock-down kept Canadian troubadour James Keelaghan closer to home. He used his time to connect more deeply with his kids and managed to make his way into Montreal to record Second-Hand. The title does triple duty. James poses on the cover with an instrument that you might think is “used,” as it has enough wear to be a Willie Nelson upgrade. It’s a sort of visual pun, though, as it’s really a Larkin he has played since 1984. “Second Hand” is also the ironic title track, and evocative of “My Skies” from an eponymous 1993 album. I call it ironic because–as in “My Skies”–Keelaghan actually wants listeners to experience the world first-hand. “Second-Hand,” though, is shot through with deeper, more personal yearnings.  

 

Keelaghan has long been a quintessential folk artist who keeps audiences spellbound with story songs, alluring melodies, and a baritone voice that is, at once, sweet and robust. He generally prefers to keep things simple and doesn’t resort to sonic trickery, but he took full advantage of the Borealis studio on Second-Hand, not to mention the talents of his longtime pal, David Woodhead. Woodhead wields his bass like a lead guitar on “GatheringStorm.” It’s a song that will resonate with all of us who long ago left our hometowns and experience decidedly mixed feelings when we pay visits to changed landscapes. Instead of a sugarcoated nostalgia trip, Keelaghan offers a ledger of benefits, losses, and values that endure. That’s quite a feat in three minutes and twenty seconds.

 

There are other unexpected treats. He kicks off the record with the hopeful “Walk On,” but serves it as if it’s a cousin of the famed jazz/blues standard “St. James Infirmary.” Later there is a fine cover of Jesse Winchester’s “Eulalie.” Keelaghan croons his way through the “Gave It All Away,” a wistful song of loss with a lovely melody. You might detect some stylings evocative of Old Blue Eyes, which is probably not coincidental from a guy who once gave his dog the name Sinatra. Still another surprise is “La Cattiva Strada–The Road to Ruin,” his translation from the Italian of a 1975 song of those who made bad choices and seek redemption.

 

Longtime fans–and I’ve been one since his Larkin was shiny and new–will find plenty of “classic” Keelaghan. He personifies his native province on “Alberta” to the degree that one could easily wonder if his is a mash note to Western Canada or a lover. And what would a Keelaghan album be without a bit of righteous anger? “Just a Letter” has a waltzing wrapper, but the song takes up the cause of a friend who was sexually assaulted when she was younger and now suffers the yearly indignity of a request for her feelings on his parole request. There is no parole for the doomed man in “Before the Morning Sun,” a powerful tale of a man who takes his view of justice into his own hands and offers no apologies for it.

 

In all, there are ten splendid offerings and the album ends with the gorgeous “The Benefits of Surrender.” After an opening riff evocative of that of his famed weepie “Jenny Bryce,” he settles into a confessional of his need to let go of self-constructed exteriors: I’ve been building walls instead of hanging windows/Hunkered down and hidden, I’ve been living in limbo.

 

By my reckoning this is the first Keelaghan collection of new material in 13 years. I sincerely hope he was working on still more songs during the lockdown. I don’t want to wait so long for the next installment.

 

Rob Weir