Musical Short Takes: Dan Bern, Eilen Jewell, Justin Earle, The Pollies

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Put Dan Bern in the category of singer songwriters for whom maturity has done a world of good. Bern's music falls into a seam that's somewhere between Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen by way of Billy Bragg. In the past, his love of irony has crossed the line that separates humor and egoism, but lately his voice, instrumentation, and lyrics have dialed back the snark. This has made him more accessible and his wry commentary more incisive. He is now on tour with a recent album, Hoody (www.danbern.comwww.danbern.com) that also features his recent drift toward a more country rock feel. Check out "Lifeline," a classic piece of honky tonk: "They say I've been carousing too much/Drinking like a sailor and smoking like a Dutch…."

            Bern's current tour only has a few Northeast stops: Northampton's Parlor Room on October 11, The Winery in New York City on October 14, and Club Passim in Cambridge, MA on October18. 

Eilen Jewell is also on the road with a recent record, Sundown Over Ghost Town (Signature Sounds). Jewell hails from Idaho, but she couldn't escape comparisons to Kentuckian Loretta Lynn even if she didn't do a lot of Lynn covers. You get that same mix of honky tonk, Western swing, and controlled twang. With Jewell, even her sweet songs are tinged with a little melancholy. Sundown Over Ghost Town is classic Jewell with a few small detours like "Rio Grande," whose Mexicana flair evokes a splash of Linda Ronstadt. One of the great joys of listening to Jewell is checking out of well she works with her band. The Lynn comparisons not withstanding, the guitar arrangements make you wonder if you're listening to country folk or surf music. But, heck, I'd love this new album even if it were only for a line in "Needle in Thread" where she describes her Idaho hometown as "one horse shy of a one-horse town."  I grew 2,300 miles east of her, but I know exactly what she means.

            You can sample Eilen Jewell here. 

Justin Townes Earle has a recent record titled Absent Fathers (Vagrant Records), which is intended as the companion piece to his 2014 Single Mothers and is available as double album in some formats (including LP). Earle knows whereof he speaks on both issues. He is the son of country music bad boy Steve Earle and his third (of seven!) wives, who raised Justin. Justin has had his own battles with drug addiction but seems to have gotten his life back on track. For those who don't know his music, his voice is a smoother counterpart to his old man's girt and gravel and, these days at least, he's more of an acoustic blues singer than country folk. In fact, "Farther From Me" is reminiscent of Van Morrison unplugged.

           Click here for some Justin Townes Earle track. s

Is there such a category as hard soft rock? If so, let me nominate The Pollies as an exemplar of it. They've just (as in days ago) released their second record, Not Here (Single Lock Records). They hail from Alabama and I've no idea where the band name comes from, so excuse me if I make an inappropriate Hollies remark because they do indeed sport some Hollies-like harmonies, though the band with which they most compare is My Morning Jacket. The album's theme is loss—usually lost love, though it opens with "Jackson," a paean to Jimmie Lee Jackson who, in 1965 was the Michael Brown of his day: an unarmed black man murdered by an Alabama state trooper. (His death sparked the famed Selma to Montgomery march.) Most of the rest of the CD is softer in content and, occasionally, in tone and mood. The Pollies are the kind of ensemble that prefers to knock you off your pins with a soft feather—as they do on quiet songs such as "Threw It Away" or "My Darling"–but can also amp up the pace when necessary. Check out "Lost," which simultaneously swells and rocks but with controlled aggression. Like I said, hard soft rock. 

            PS: On some websites the CD name is listed as Lost, but methinks that's wrong!

Rob Weir

Forgotten Films: Rosewater Reveals the True nature of Iran's Government

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ROSEWATER (2014)

Written and directed by Jon Stewart

Open Roads Films, 103 minutes, R (language, violence, suggestiveness)

* * * *

A lot of my liberal friends ask me why I oppose Obama's treaty with Iran. I tell them that Iran is a theocratic dictatorship that deserves global ostracism, not its stamp of legitimacy. But don't take my word for it; ask Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari, who spent 118 days of torture, abuse, and deprivation in Iranian jails. Lucky for him he was a foreign national and a Newsweek correspondent, or he would have simply disappeared.

Bahari's Then They Came for Me is harrowing reading and if you don't want to read it, check out Jon Stewart's directorial debut film based upon Bahari's memoir. It is shot in documentary-meets-biography style. We watch as happy-go-lucky Bahari (Gael Garcia Bernal) lands in Tehran and visits his mother, then proceeds to do what good journalists do: seek out sources. He was in Tehran to report upon the protests surrounding the 2009 election-one blatantly stolen from the opposition so that brutal Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—the Persian Putin--could stay in power and do the mullahs' bidding. Bahari reported on the rumors, filmed the crackdown, and interviewed dissidents—the stuff journalists do. For this he was jailed as a spy and Zionist tool. We watch the effort to breakdown Bahari for propaganda purposes, mostly by an interrogator unsuccessfully playing the "good cop" role before turning Bahari over to the rough treatment boys. The first inquisitor is the film's titular Rosewater (Kim Bodnia); Bahari is always blindfolded and comes to identify his tormentor by scent long before he sees his face.

The prison scenes are predictably horrifying, especially in conveying a sense of isolation, as Bahari spent most of his time in solitary confinement. But Stewart throws in two twists—Bahari's imagined conversations with his father, who was imprisoned by the Shah; and with his sister, who ran afoul of Khomeini. The second twist is subtler and ultimately more powerful: Bahari's realization that his captors are both fascinated by the West and are as frightened by him as he is of them. That revelation was ultimately Bahari's soul- and mind-saving grace.

Stewart knows his way around the camera and uses light and angles effectively to build drama and set moods. The only self-reverential nod to The Daily Show is a brief segment in which Bahari agrees to a satirical interview with Jason Jones. Need I tell you that Iran's masters are not noted for their sense of humor? Stewart wisely abandons his TV rant style for a detached one that makes the Iranian government appear more ridiculous (and dangerous) than any contrived script could have done. Stewart's only slip-up lies in odd casting. Garcia Bernal is a fine actor capable of chameleon performances and he does his best in Rosewater. Still, Bernal is Mexican and aren't we decades past the days in which we don't "see" when someone is in ethnic drag? Good as Bernal was, there are numerous Iranian actors who would have been more appropriate choices (Ramin Korimloo, Asghar Farhadi, Shabab Hosseini…).

I'm at a loss to understand why this film bombed at the box office: just $3.1 million in receipts on a budget of over $5 million. Maybe Americans only want Jon Stewart to be funny, or maybe the bleak subject put them off. Or maybe they swallowed the same Kool-Aid that Obama drank. Iran's reaction to this film was to denounce Stewart as a Zionist CIA agent. Isn't that what they said about Bahari? The Shah… Khomeini… the mullahs… The more things change, the more they stay the same. Good on Jon Stewart for exposing the reality beneath the turbans.

  

If You Don't Vote for Bernie, You're on Your Own!

A Tale of Three Americas

I had a recent argument with a friend over politics. Don't worry—we're still friends. We both support Bernie Sanders–you know, that awful socialist who'd make all Americans share toothbrushes if elected. At least that's what people who don't know the difference between a socialist and a coconut would have you believe.

The debate was over what each of us will do if Bernie doesn't get the nomination and my friend insisted that I will go into the voting booth and put an X beside Hillary Clinton's name. I'll do it, he insisted, because the current crop of Republicans is so intrinsically crazy that a vote for Hillary would be the only way to fight the possibility of a GOP president. I agree that today's GOP is to the right of Mussolini. (Hey, even Mussolini cared about his nation's train system!) I think "crazy" might be too mild; "evil" is a better handle. What does it tell you when evangelicals endorse Donald Trump? It tells me that their pious rhetoric on morality is the biggest sham since Piltdown Man. It tells me they worship a god named Mammon, not one named Jehovah.

But I still won't vote for Hillary; I will write in "Bernard Sanders" on the ballot. I'm just not going to carry anyone else's cross any more. If women vote for the GOP, who am I to tell them they shouldn't sleep with the enemy? If Christians want to commit acts of blasphemy, it's not my job to save them from fiery perdition. And if working Americans once again vote against their self-interest, I'll be done explaining to them that their bosses are not their friends. But I'll try one last time.

Here's what I tell anyone who wants to know why it's Bernie or nobody for me. I've seen enough of America to say this: If you want to know what the economy would look like under Donald Trump, go to Atlantic City. If you want to know what it would look like under Hillary Clinton, visit a Wal-Mart.  I'm for Bernie because one of my favorite places in the world is Burlington, Vermont–a place whose transformation under a Sanders mayoralty I witnessed with my own eyes.

Donald Trump Prosperity

Donald Trump is a modern-day pirate, has the fashion sense to go with it, and economic theories rooted in the pirate ethos of raid and plunder. Stroll down Atlantic City's splintering Boardwalk and you'll see what happens when pirates sail away. Atlantic City's heyday was over before Trump arrived, but he proved you can get blood out of a turnip. Trump once owned three of Atlantic City's casinos; all of them have since been sold or closed. He took advantage of bankruptcy laws four times to stiff creditors, which means only the corporate entities lost money—not Trump personally. But you know what, even if he had lost some change, let's consider how The Donald makes his money: real estate and gambling. Both are high-risk ventures, but Trump seldom puts his own chips on the table. He develops, sells, and lets the buyers worry over whether they'll make back their investment. He arrives in places like Atlantic City—as godawful a burg as you'll ever want to be–lays on the bling and sells dreams of riches. Did you ever know of a poor man walking into a casino and exiting a millionaire? Casino operators are classic bottom-feeders selling fantasies dollar-by-dollar to those with little left to lose, but manage to do so anyhow. Don't take my word for it—go to the Casino State—sorry New Jersey–and report back on how casinos have revitalized Atlantic City, Camden, Pleasantville, and other Garden State locales. This is what Trumpeconomics looks like, folks.

Hillarynomics: Protest Outside of Bentonville HQ

Hillary Clinton was on the Wal-Mart board of directors for six years (1985-92) and would have been there longer if Bill hadn't charmed his way into the White House. Here's what she's said to date about efforts to unionize Wal-Mart: nada. There's no need to regale you with anti-Wal-Mart screeds; if you don't know the high cost of low prices by now you're simply not paying attention. But I will say that Bill & Hill made up the most powerful conservative presidency since Calvin Coolidge. Need a list? Here it is: NAFTA, Defense of Marriage Act, fast-track free trade deals, deregulation of the communications industry, the military's DADT policy, tightening welfare eligibility, spending cuts, repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the pardon of Marc Rich, relaxation of regulations at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac…. Ronald Reagan couldn't have dreamed of such things! Can we just stop with the nonsense that Hillary would be a progressive force? Her economic vision is that of Chinese goods being sold to low-wage workers by low-wage workers. She's a pirate as well–just one whose baubles are made of plastic instead of gold. A Hillary presidency would look more like Maggie Thatcher's reign than the liberal regimes of Helen Clark, Johanna Sigurdardottir, or Julia Gillard.*

Burlington's vibrant Marketplace

This brings me to Bernie Sanders—that left-winger so many people fear. The one who took over a decaying city (Burlington) in 1981, put city services out to competitive bid, balanced the books, inspired the redevelopment of the city's waterfront, marshaled the completion of the city's vibrant downtown retail center, encouraged the development of the arts, negotiated with city workers as equals, brought minor league baseball to the city, prevented the conversion of working-class homes into luxury condos, and created a Community Economic Development Office. Under Sanders, millions of new dollars flowed into Burlington coffers. Some of this might have happened on its own, but Bernie was the catalyst. I was there; I watched Burlington go from seedy to trendy. Above all, I saw Bernie Sanders practice citizen-based democracy—not the politics of the one percent.

That's why he has my vote no matter how the primaries sugar off. If he's not on the ballot, I'll write in his name because, frankly, if it's the GOP versus Hillary, I will have lost all hope. At least I can have a clean conscience.  

* Helen Clark headed New Zealand's government from 1985-92; Sigurdardottir Iceland's from 2009-13; and Gillard Australia from 2010-13.  

Little Paris Bookshop is a Book Lover's Book

THE LITTLE PARIS BOOKSHOP: A NOVEL (2015)

Nina George

Crown, 400 pages, 978-0553418774

* * * * *

This is a book for lovers of all kinds, especially book lovers. Where better to set a book about a bookseller than along the banks of the Seine, whose Left Bank is lined with book stalls? The Seine is also home to a number of barges tethered to the shore and connected to the utilities grid. Author Nina George takes us to a special place: a riverside barge that is home to Jean Perdu, who also operates a bookshop and dispensary of non-prescription pharmaceutical supplies. Perdu—French for lost—fancies himself a “literary apothecary” who can take the measure of a person, discern what ails the soul, and prescribe a book that will cure it–and not necessarily a classic either. Perdu loves books so much that he doesn’t discriminate between a medieval medical text, a pulp romance, a Harry Potter novel, or a tome that is fodder for the literary canon. But can Perdu find his own way and heal himself?

Later in the book Perdu will encounter a lovesick Italian chef named Cuneo, whose life is summed by the advice he dispenses: “Eat well, sleep well, make good friends, and have good sex.” None of that is happening for Perdu, who eats out tins, suffers from insomnia, is a loner, and hasn’t had sex in over 20 years though he’s only middle-aged. Jean’s curmudgeonly ways are shaken when he’s prevailed upon to donate a small table from the apartment he seldom uses to a furniture-poor new tenant: the equally lonely and easy-on-the-eyes Catherine. She finds an unopened letter in the table drawer that reveals the depths of Jean’s despair. I don’t want to give anything away so I’ll just say that it deals with the mystery of why the love of his life left him. One of the many joys of George’s novel is how literature and life collide. Her name is Manon, and if you know anything at all about French literature and film you will recognize  Manon as the name of the avenging protagonist in Marcel Pagnol's Jean de Florette saga, a work considered by many to embody the very soul of France.   

George's Manon is not an avenger, but she is certainly a woman of secrets, which George parsimoniously doles out. Call Manon Jean's muse. Or is she more of a Siren? That's precisely what Jean—note the first name—must figure out as he embarks upon an improbable voyage to Manon's native Provence. His spartan voyage to find himself parallels Huckleberry Finn lighting out for the Territory, with Jim replaced by a tag-along famous author, Max Jordan, whose affected quirkiness is his self-remedy for writer's block and disgust with celebrity. Along the way, the two pick up Cuneo–another lost soul. Will this be a healing journey, or the voyage of the damned? Will Manon's secrets be cooling waters (Manon des Sources) for Jean's parched soul, or a dry well? The Little Paris Bookshop begins as a quirky book about eccentricity and evolves into a story about love and grieving. Romance or tragedy?

Read mes amis.  As you read, you can enhance your pleasure by keeping a good literary reference work by your side You will detect references and homage to scores of writers: Pagnol, E.M. Forster, Douglas Adams, Herman Hesse, Franz Kafka, Catharine Millet, Muriel Barbery, Robert Musil, Anais Nin, and lots of others that were unfamiliar to me, including numerous German authors whose work hasn't been translated. George's novel has been called a work of "magical realism," though in my view such a label rests too narrowly upon Jean Perdu's uncanny literary apothecary talents. The book is certainly 'magical' in the spell it weaves upon readers, but I found it less a work of unexplained phenomena than one that probes the human heart with such surgical precision that we come to understand how ordinary people can be flung by love, longing, and circumstance into the extraordinary and sublime. It is, simply, beautifully written–the sort of book in which the reader vicariously experiences the tastes, smells, heartaches and hopes of its characters. In short, it's a triumph–truly one of the year's best. For emotional impact, it gets my vote for one of the best I've read this century.   Rob Weir

Postscript: Nina George is quite an interesting person in her own right: a German national who dropped out school and has worked as a caterer, journalist, crime writer, novelist, and non-fiction writer. She has written numerous books under her own name, plus several pseudonyms, including Anne West, the latter used for books on eroticism and sexuality. The Little Paris Bookshop is said to be semi-autobiographical. 

The Green Road: Irish Gloom Worth Exploring

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THE GREEN ROAD (2015)

Anne Enright

W.W.Norton, 304 pages, 978-0393248210

* * * *

Though I suspect they 'd happily give up the title, no nationality does gloom and world-weariness quite as well as the Irish. The English are often viewed as the champions at resignation and muddling through life, but it's really the Irish who rule that sad roost. I'm sure it has something to do with Catholicism. Read a novel about a dysfunctional Irish family like The Green Road, and you come away with the feeling that everyone would happily kill themselves—if only it weren't a mortal sin.

The Green Road is similar in style and content to Anne Tyler's A Spool of Blue Thread, but without its (usually misplaced) hope that things might get better. If everything I've written so far sounds like you wish to steer a million miles from this book, let me direct you back to it.  Former Man Booker Prize winner Anne Enright (The Gathering, 2007) is a skillful writer who knows how to uncoil a narrative. The Green Road, in fact, is a set of individual narratives that collectively tell the 35-year saga of the Madigan family. It opens in 1980 inside a house named Ardeevin in County Clare—a fictional place (probably just outside of Doolin) located near the Cliffs of Moher. Although paterfamilias Pat is present, Ardeevin's reigning queen is his wife Rosaleen. She tries her hardest to be imperious, but her brood—Constance, Dan, Emmet, and Hanna–give her fits, so she resorts to melodrama when things don't go her way—which is often.

Filmmaker Michael Apted once commented, "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man." In The Green Road, this holds true across gender lines. We see Constance as a controlling child who grows up to be a mother of four who replicates Rosaleen's desire (and failure) to be in control all the time. Youngest daughter Hanna goes off to Dublin to be an actress, fails, suffers from post partum depression, and drinks too much, which means she competes with Rosaleen in the histrionics department. As a teen, Dan announces he wants to become a priest–though he has a sullen girlfriend named Isabelle with whom he's been sleeping. His priestly dreams go awry when he and Isabelle flee Ireland for New York City, where they land at the height of the AIDS crisis. That doesn't stop Dan from pretending he's straight while having it off with every young man attracted to his outward beauty. Emmet is the one who tries to save the world, eventually going off to Mali and burning through a few girlfriends because, as it turns out, he's too sullen and self-centered to be as altruistic as he fancies himself.  

As the complicates their lives the one constant is that only Constance—Does her name doom her?–maintains much contact with Rosaleen and all tend to see her as the root of whatever unresolved difficulty presents itself. Move the needle forward and it's 2005. The economic boom dubbed the Celtic Tiger is already beginning to display signs of being less a Bengal than a sickly domestic tabby, but Ardeevin is well located. Seventy-six-year-old Rosaleen is not only lonely, she's begun to suspect that the only one who ever "got" her was her silent husband and he's been in the grave for several years. Why not sell Ardeevin—after a final Christmas there with her children? Think that will go well?

Enright doesn't invite us to love the Madigans, though she gives character and a strong personality to each of them. Hers is the best kind of tragedy in that it doesn't play upon cheap sentimentality. Characters are realistic in that they have faults and are a mixed bag of traits. Is Dan just a clueless naïf or a manipulative sexual gourmand? Is Rosaleen a spurned woman, or one who reaped what she sowed? Are the Madigans a metaphor form the Irish Republic? You read; you decide.  

Rob Weir

The Slow West: Westerns Retold or a Pretty Mess?

THE SLOW WEST (2015)

Directed by John Maclean

See-Saw Films/A24

84 minutes, R (violence)

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Depending upon whom you ask, The Slow West is either an intriguing foreign take on American Westerns or an eye-catching mess. From where I sit, it's a bit of both. This Scottish/New Zealand film marks the directorial debut of John Maclean, who hitherto was famed for being part of Scotland's Beta Band, an innovative indie band ensemble compared to Radio Head that blended folk, electronica, and acid rock. Maclean may be used to mash ups, but it remains an open question as to whether this is a Tartan/Kiwi retelling of American legends, or an unintentional parody analogous to bad spaghetti Westerns.  

At just 84 minutes, the film is certainly worth a gamble if you're intrigued, but be warned: the title is both a play on the "Old" West and a statement that the pace will be languid with breaks of action, not vice versa. It opens in Scotland, where 15-year-old Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is trying to court Rose Ross (the luminous Caren Pistorious) and must dive under the bed when her protective father, John  (Rory McCann), arrives home early. As movie convention tells us, that's a terrible place to hide, but as John is giving young Jay a brogue-laden tongue-lashing, the local laird arrives to demand rent the Roses don't have. When he has the discourtesy to slap Rose, her father gives him a crofter's fatal heave-ho onto an inconveniently placed rock. This was capital offense stuff in 1869 Scotland; hence father and daughter go on the lamb—to America.

Move the clock forward one year and besotted Jay is making his way across the American West in search of Rose. Every bounty hunter in the region seems to know what Jay does not: that there's a trans-Atlantic $2,000 dead-or-alive bounty (about $37,000 in 2014 dollars) on John and Rose. It's an understatement to say that Jay, a 16-year-old romantic innocent, isn't terribly prepared to negotiate the lawless West.  Luckily he runs into Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender), who offers to be a pay-for-service guide. Silas is a classic Western loner of few words about whom the only thing we learn for certain is that he once traveled with a motley gang headed by Payne (Ben Mendelsohn). Is Silas a free spirit, a stubble-faced paternal do-gooder hidden behind a crusty exterior, or is he playing Jay like a cheap accordion so he can collect the bounty on the Rosses? The two make their way across the indeterminate West—we're never told exactly where we're supposed to be–against a backdrop of casual violence, desperation, hostile Natives, cutout bad guys, majestic backdrops, and capricious nature before secrets are revealed. All of these, of course, are also standard Western tropes, as is Maclean's blood-soaked denouement.

It's surprising to see Fassbender amidst this cast of relative unknowns, though to their credit, most of them are very good. Pistorious (Rose) is especially strong in the limited role she plays. Her bearing alone suggests Jay might be on a foolish boy's errand; in the intervening year, Rose has transformed from a coquette into a confident young woman with weighty things upon her mind. The bigger question is whether the film works, or if it demonstrates little more than Maclean's fascination for Big Sky Country based upon an incomplete understanding of it.

Once again, both readings are possible. Maclean chose New Zealand's South Island (near Twizel) as a stand-in for the edge-of-the–Rockies West. It's not accurate: The Remarkables are more lush and green for a start, nor will you find a preponderance of lupine-filled riverbeds or walls of yellow gorse in the Rocky Mountain plains as one does in the Canterbury (NZ) Plain. Does that matter? Yes if you think a film about the West needs to pay John Ford-like reverence to the landscape. No; if you think Maclean's point is that humans are but pretty puny and fragile dots upon nature's pristine carpet of grandeur. We must also give Maclean credit for avoiding one hackneyed Western trope: the violence he shows is pointless, not redemptive or cleansing. (Note to Maclean: No one used Colt-45s in 1870, as it wasn't invented for another three years.)

This is an odd film in that it looks beautiful and is well acted, yet feels unrealized. It's been a bomb in US markets (under $230,000 in receipts) but you might want to give it a look. If you come away feeling as if it's just a glossier version of an early 1960s TV show, I'd not dispute you, but I'll gleefully watch gloss filmed in New Zealand.   Rob Weir

Archie Fisher's Mature, Bittersweet "Silent Song"

ARCHIE FISHER

A Silent Song

Red House 235

* * * *

On October 23, Scotland's Archie Fisher will celebrate his 76^th birthday. My goodness, where does the time go? Fisher has long been a lion of the Scottish folk scene. He hails from a musical Glasgow family, has been performing since 1960, and Fisher compositions such as "The FinalTrawl," "Witch of the West-Mer-Land," and "Dark-Eyed Molly" are such a part of the folk repertoire that many people think they are public domain songs. Fisher is also part of a generation of guitar players that includes John Renbourn, Bert Jansch, and Martin Carthy whose strong cadences mixed with light lyricism practically reinvented how acoustic melodies were played and sung. Fisher even hosted radio programs and folk clubs that revived flagging interest in Scottish music. The only thing he's not done a lot of is recording; Silent Song is just his 7^th solo venture. It's also just his 3^rd since 1976 and the first since 2008.(My personal favorite Archie Fisher song is "The Cullins of Home" from an earlier album.)

The album is aptly named. We can hear a little shake to his voice, though his buttery baritone hasn't soured. T'is a wise man who knows his limits, though, and Fisher doesn't even try to impress with vocal pyrotechnics; as the title suggests, this is a quiet and personal album—the kind one might play on a wintry day curled by the fire with cocoa in hand. In that spirit, Fisher opens with "Waltz Into Winter," which is simultaneously bright and fragile--akin to the delicacy of an early December icicle. The album's dozen songs are a collection of traditional tunes, covers, and originals, but each track has a timeless and personal feel. Personal favorites include his cover of John Jacob Niles' "Lass from the Low Country" in which Fisher's deep tones are echoed by Luna Skye's sonorous cello; his rendition of the classic Scottish poem "Bonnie Annie Laurie," which he learned from his father; and his take on Ian Davison's "A River Like You." (If you know anything about the Scots, a love song to a river is as natural as peat on the fire.) Perhaps best of all is Fisher's own "Lord of the May," with that staccato vocal/guitar mix mentioned earlier. I can foresee this one becoming the next Fisher composition to be mislabeled as a  "traditional" song. Ditto his "You Took the Day," a bittersweet address to those who've departed, complete with the unsettling thought, "I won't be far behind." It's hard not to get a bit choked up when he follows that one and rounds off the album with "The Parting Glass." Appropriately, nearly everyone thinks that's an ancient Irish song, but it was penned by American poet Judy Goodenough (1942-90). Fisher used to sing this one when he toured with Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy. Was that really 40 years ago?

Archie Fisher will appear with Garnet Rogers at the West Whately Chapel as the season finale of Watermelon Wednesdays. This one, though, will be on a Monday: October 5. Call ahead, though, as it's officially sold out.

Rob Weir