MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: GEORGE MEANWELL - THE EASY STRAIGHT

Here's the difference between this and a standard singer-songwriter album:  All the rich instrumentation behind isn't just plunked-on strings and such, added to sweeten or heighten the mood.  Instead, it's integral to the songs, as much a part of the numbers as the lyrics or melody.  It's also subtle, enjoyable, unique, with just a few select sounds.  That's because Meanwell is also a classical musician, and a former member of the esteemed Quartetto Gelato.  And, it's all played live, together, one take.

Meanwell gathered a small group of friends and favourite players to collaborate on these ten songs.  There's Anna Atkinson on violin and accordion, Eric St-Laurent on guitar, Michael McCLennan playing bass, Ian Harper handling reeds, Graham Hargrove doing percussion, and Meanwell covering guitar, banjo, cello, concertina, and lead vocals.  The idea was to find the ultimate way to capture a performance, and it was decided it would be done live, in a fine-sounding space, recording both audio and video.  So we get the songs on CD and DVD, as they happened.  The musicians were up for the task.  Each number has its own flavour, whether it's the casual jazz of Song Of Innocence, with its sweet clarinet, from an innocent time, or the folk country of Waiting, St-Laurent whipping out a great acoustic solo.  It doesn't serve is a haunting blues, where slide guitar, bass, cello and violin weave around each other.

He's quite a cat, really.  This is a guy who can tread the boards with the Quartetto for ten years, create his own music for the Stratford Theatre stage, but also work in the folk world, and write poetic but universal lyrics, which are easy to relate to.  There's no confusion or conflict between highbrow or common styles here, it's all one, one for all listeners.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: DAVID BOWIE - THE NEXT DAY

Well, it ain't Tin Machine.  Yay!  And it doesn't resemble the last run of Bowie albums from ten and more years back, forgettable efforts with names such as Heathen, Reality and Outside.  And despite its reference on the clever cover, it's not the return of "Heroes" either.  Nope, if I was going to pick an era this album feels in synch with, I'd go with Lodger and Scary Monsters.  And that to me, is very very welcome.

After several listens now, I'm thrilled with this Bowie.  It's a rock album, a guitar album, featuring compact songs, interesting lyrics and great, classic Bowie vocals.  He hasn't lost a step, and this has to count as a terrific comeback, certainly much more than I expected.  There are some great anthems, and memorable choruses, and every tune crackles with energy.  There's so much guitar, it seems like Bowie has been itching to make exciting, powerful music again.  Leads rip through each number, mostly by Gerry Leonard and old hand Earl Slick, with that old Bowie signature, heavy on the effects pedals and non-standard sounds and notes, harkening back to the days of Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew contributions.

He's also walking the fine line between popular and experimental, certainly leaning towards the melodic, but still with enough edge to satisfy those who want Bowie to be progressive.  It's not the mass-appeal of the early 80's Let's Dance and Blue Jean days, and won't see him back on radio playlists, but that's good too.  That was too clean.  This is artistic, top to bottom.

Fans of the really old stuff will get a kick out of two stand-out cuts.  Valentine's Day could be an out-take from Aladdin Sane, with its sha-la-la backing vocals, twangy guitar, lyrics about scrawny hands and icy hearts, and the man sounding like, yup, Ziggy.  You Feel So Lonely You Could Die, one of the few slower tempos, has the big drama of a Diamond Dogs number, with Bowie now in his lower, impassioned voice, piano and strings and soul singers behind him, doomsday lyrics such as "buildings crammed with people/landscape filled with wrath".  It's funny, I was willing to let Bowie go gracefully into his retirement.  He'd done enough great music.  Now I want more, and quickly.  And please, oh please, tour.  This album would sound great live.

STOMPIN' TOM AND THE ECMA'S

I'm off to the East Coast Music Week with the news of the passing of Dr. Stompin' Tom Connors.  No doubt it will be the main conversation of the weekend, and many a glass will be raised in his name.  East Coast musicians love Connors, and not just because he's from here.  It's because of his attitude, and his fierce spirit.  His connection with the country's small towns and working people made him a legend.  He wrote about real people, and real places, the way most people live.

That's what Atlantic Canadian's musicians, or at least the greater part of them, do and do well.  All that he wrote and did was with great respect, and love of the people and the places.  He was a role model for generations of musicians.

Tom's East Coast roots are well-documented, especially in his two fine autobiographies, which I heartily recommend.  Let's recap the highlights, though.  He was born in Saint John, N.B., and spent the first nine years of his life in the city, growing up hard in the streets, with his unwed, teenage mother.  Eventually he was placed with a family in Skinner's Pond, P.E.I., and later hit the road as a teenager, hitch-hiking and learning to play music.  While he lived elsewhere, he returned to the Maritimes for his first hit, Bud The Spud in 1970.  After that, almost every album included a song about one place or another in Atlantic Canada, and although he lived the majority of his life in Ontario, he'd always be thought of as a Maritimer.

It was St. Thomas University in Fredericton that gave him his first honorary degree, which was a source of great pride for him.  He even named his next album Dr. Stompin' Tom, Eh?  And when the East Coast Music Association bestowed a lifetime achievement award on him in 1993, he turned the tables on the board of directors.  He asked that instead, they create a new award, and give it out each year to the unsung heroes in the local music world.  The champion of the underdog wanted to see those people recognized.  To this day, the Association gives out the Stompin' Tom Award yearly, to a deserving person from each Atlantic province.

You'll read and hear lots praise for Connors in the next few days from every corner of the country.  I can tell you about the teacher in Yellowknife who plays her kids a recording of Tom's Name The Capitols, so they will sing along and learn the capitol city of each province and territory.  You'll hear the stories about him packing the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto in the late 60's, his boot pounding the stompin' board so hard you could smell burnt sawdust in the air. People around your office will be singing the theme song for P.E.I. Tourism, "For information on vacations, phone the land of fun, 8-double-zero, five-six-five, seven-four-two-one."  The East Coast Music Awards has stated that there will be a tribute at the Awards show, and the Industry brunch event.  And I'm looking forward to the late-night hotel room parties, where I guarantee you the musicians will be jamming to Big Joe Mufferaw, The Hockey Song, Ketchup Song, Sudbury Saturday Night, Tillsonburg, Moon-Man Newfie, The Bug Song and of course, Bud The Spud.  Why?  'Cause he's from Prince Edward Island.  And New Brunswick.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: RYAN COOK - WRESTLING WITH DEMONS

Nova Scotia's real country performer, Cook defiantly makes music that sticks to the tried-and-true sounds of the masters.  Whether it's fiddle and mandolin music, honky tonk, or true-life weepers, there's no attempt to rock it up with high-tech production and corporate sounds.  If there's a different sound here, it's a cool addition, like the clarinet solos that sit smoothly in I'll Love You To The End Of The World.  One of the badges of legitimacy here is the band, which features that East Coast giant of the strings, J.P. Cormier, and the last two living members of fellow Bluenoser Hank Snow's band, Kayton Roberts and Roger Carroll.

Where Cook is modern is in the lyrics.  Here's a guy that can put wrestler/actor Andre The Giant into one song, and write an entire number about cyber-stalking called Facebook Waltz.  He can write a mean love song, with Silver Medal Blues about finishing second place in romance.  He also has a comedy flare, which comes out in several songs, sometimes in satire.  Lulu Lemon is about the yoga pants trend, with a few too many double entendre's and even an auto-tuned vocal section, mocking that trend.  More successful is Children Of The Corn, which takes on genetically-modified food rather brilliantly.  I can't imagine George Jones doing that, but that's the irony of country music these days, the classic stuff is now enjoyed by the exact opposite of the stereotypical redneck.

Humour aside, there are several numbers here that are perfectly straight and true, including the lovely Like Old Guitars, a touching ballad.  Will You Take Me Back To Tulsa? pretty much describes the problem of being true to country these days, as our hero admits playing country music won't pay the bills, while the patrons of the bar shout out requests to him for Rascal Flatts songs.  The trouble is, the song sounds like a hit single to me.  At least, in an alternate, fair universe.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: RACHEL ZEFFIRA - THE DESERTERS

A Canadian who has been living abroad for several years, Zeffira calls London home, and has worked from Italy as well.  She became known a couple of years ago in the group Cat's Eyes, and here she continues the mix of classical and pop from that disc in her first solo outing.

Except, it isn't that awful Three Tenors or whatever, doing operatic versions of Tin Pan Alley songs in tuxedos.  Zeffira is breaking interesting new ground.  Classically trained, she also comes from the indie alternative world.  Her compositions are pop songs that she's decided to put strings on.  Instead, they've been arranged for orchestral players right from the start, with no rock instruments to be heard, no acoustic guitars, and any percussion is part of the score, not for time-keeping.  Each song is vocal, she has intriguing, mysterious stories to tell, and the melodies are quite modern and edgy.  Her voice has a bit of a choir soloist sound to it, but it's coming from a foggy place, a dream scape.  There's no mistaking this for anything but 21st century music.

The song are beautiful, and surprisingly edgy.  Zeffira understands the layers of ambiance that mean as much to the sound as the instruments, and has a few tricks of her own, too.  I like that church organ that takes up a groove in one song.  I can't say I've heard anyone quite like her, and if she can lead others to more orchestration, lead on.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: JAY AYMAR - OVERTIME

Poor old folk music.  The definition is getting blurred beyond distinction these days.  Any kid with an acoustic thinks they are folk, and if you put a banjo up there, and an attempt at an old-time accent, it doesn't matter that they are just singing pop songs, it gets called folk.  I liked how the Canadian rock writer Nick Jennings summed up Mumford & Sons after the Grammy's:  Coldplay with mandolins.

So, it gives me great pleasure to say this is a folk record.  Aymar is a hard-touring, no frills performer, have acoustic guitar, will come to your town guy.  He's been here, he's been there, he's been everywhere.  In fact, the title track of the disc, Overtime, is his version of This Land Is Your Land, a shaggy dog story of his touring life, starting in Newfoundland and ending in B.C.  He's played them all.  And of course, that alone inspires a bunch of songs, whether they are reflecting on the state of things he's witnessed, or stories he's picked up from the road.  And, being a talker, he gets to sit and chat with folks (as in Folk), and find out what they're thinking. 

There's a mix of classic themes here, from the rural tragedy of That Old Ravine (mom died in the creek), to Three Love Stories, a Prine-esque look at three later-in-life couples who get together for a little mature romance.  In the grandest tradition of folk, there's political commentary as well. Your Precious War has the reality of life for the soldier when they return home, while King Of The World is sung in the voice of Bush Junior.  Producer David Baxter keeps things simple, with the basic accompaniment letting the lyrics tell the story in each number.  See, that's folk, in my view, music from the people, to make you dance a bit and make you think too.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: JUSTIN RUTLEDGE - VALLEYHEART

Our saintly-voiced smoothie, Rutledge presents another thing of beauty.  Nobody evokes a mood better than him, up close to the microphone and sending glorious signals our way.  Amen America, the lead track, has the pure acoustic soul of a song off of Neil Young's Harvest, guitar and piano and quiet, the gentle drums, even the mournful harmonica.  That's a great start, but he's a lot more than a Neil fan.  Rutledge's great strength is to keep the songs subdued.  That doesn't mean there aren't some big moments; every once and awhile a twanged-up, raunchy guitar will drop in (courtesy David Baxter, or Burke Carroll's pedal steel will shine through.  On Out Of The Woods, the great band builds to moments of sublime tension.

The words are stirring, too.  Kapuskasing Coffee, well, right there, that has a fine ring to it in the title, and the opening line of "Sometimes I find that I get too sentimental when I think of you" is a killer opening.  Then when he hits us with "Sometimes it helps to play some heavy heavy metal" as the cure, it's such at odds with the delicate tune we're hearing, it's a brilliant touch.

Now is a fine time to bring up another strength on the album.  There's already one terrific singer here, but it's doubly grand when Carina Round joins in on harmonies.  She's featured on Kapuskasing Coffee and most of the other tracks, the perfect compliment to Rutledge, with a voice similar to Sarah McLachlan.  Then add in the rhythm section of Bazil Donovan (Blue Rodeo) and Blake Manning (The Heartbroken), keys from Steve O'Connor (Jim Cuddy Band), and Kendel Carson's fiddle, and a Doug Paisley guitar solo, wow, everything, everybody sounds great on this rich disc.