Category: CD Review

It was the late 90’s, around the time of his first album Industrial Lullaby,  that I first heard Stephen Fearing. He was on TV,  TVO’s In Studio if memory serves me correctly. His playing was virtually classical, with two and three separate lines of music weaving across his finger picked guitar. Yet unlike any classical player I had ever seen, he was singing as well as playing this complex music. I’ve been a fan since.

The Best of Stephen Fearing

I saw him live once, in one of the most amazing shows I have ever been to. It was in a music store in Fearing’s hometown of Guelph. Expensive hand-made acoustic guitars lined the wall of Folkway Music, adding ambiance and sympathetic harmony while Fearing played acoustically and un-amplified for about 50 lucky fans. It was one of those deeply poetic moments when art reaches down and touches you deeply. A fabulous performance that left everybody feeling overawed.

Fearings problem has always been in his recorded output. Put simply, additional instrumentation, added harmonies and basic production mean that his virtuosic guitar playing gets either simplified or lost, his percussive right hand technique disappears for a drummer, always it seems, to the songs detriment. Buy the live CD would be my advice, not a studio one.

Putting his recent Best of CD, The Man Who Married Music: The Best of Stephen Fearing on the stereo, it was a pleasure to hear the bulk of the music was stripped down to it’s basic elements the way a Stephen Fearing song should. Sure, some of the music is overly produced and subsequently uninteresting. And yes, Fearing’s habit of lyrically reaching unnecessarily for profundity and depth is on full display. But that does not mean this is not a very good CD.

I always wonder how a guy like Fearing chooses songs for a best of CD. If your Dan Hill or Bruce Cockburn it’s easy enough, you pick the songs that get, or got, radio airplay. But what if you rarely get radio time? Pick your favourites? The ones the fans tell you they love? Flip a coin? Either way, Fearing chose reasonably well, and the amount of paired down songs that made the collection tell you that Fearing understands his strengths as well as anyone.

The dichotomy between the two types of songs, heavily acoustic and heavily produced, is no more apparent than the collection’s second song, Yellow Jacket. The verses are stripped back, that right hand percussion and delicate finger-picking over a strongly melodic vocal line. At the chorus, however, in comes orchestration and extra vocals, and a nice song begins to fall down. It’s not enough to ruin the song, but it hurts the effort.

Under no circumstances should it be said that all tracks with band are not good, as someone throwing the CD on and playing from the beginning will quickly find out. The opening track, Home, is a mid tempo, almost poppy piece, crossing between Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young in a song that could easily get heavy radio rotation. And it is, for all my complaints about what makes a good Stephen Fearing song, a very listenable piece.

But the collections strengths are in it’s simple numbers: The Bells of Morning, played live; The Longest Road, also live; the marvellous guitar solo in Dog on a Chain/ James Melody. All predominately acoustic, all exceptional songs.

The highlight of the album is the very pretty title track The Man Who Married Music: a deeply sweet almost apologetic song to his wife, filled out wonderfully with banjo, Dobro guitar, mandolin and haunting background vocals, The Man Who Married Music is a testament to Fearing’s songwriting and an example of how production can benefit his songs. All the added instrumentation complements his wonderful guitar work, layering a finely honed song from the pen of a craftsman.

If your looking to pick up some quality Canadian music, but unsure what to get, grab Stephen Fearing’s The Man Who Married Music: The Best of Stephen Fearing, a solid collection of the best from one of Canada’s most respected music men.

1. Home
2. Yellow Jacket
3. The Finest Kind
4. Beguiling Eyes
5. The Bells of Morning
6. Turn Out The Lights
7. Expectations
8. That’s How I Walk
9. The Longest Road
10. Welfare Wednesday
11. Anything You Want
12. Dog on a Chain/ James Melody
13. The Man Who Married Music
14. The Big East West
15. No Dress Rehearsal

Available from True North Records

I’ve never been comfortable with Jeff Healey’s recorded opus. Anyone who seen Healey live will attest that he was a superior guitar player who had with chops and musicianship. His records (or rather CD’s) always seemed restrained and insufficient, as if the record company was calling all the shots on it (they probably were).

Jeff Healey’s final studio recording, the posthumously released Mess of Blues, is an example of how good Jeff Healey was when he was in his element, playing electric blues, R&B and standard rock and roll. Healey is an exceptional guitar player and a very soulful, under-rated singer and Mess of Blues lets him showcase both.

Starting with a couple of live tracks, I’m Tore Down and How Blue Can You Get showcase Healey the guitar-man rocking these two blues numbers. Later Mess of Blues has a fun side and it emerges at song #4 with Jambalaya. Healey plays this fun old gin joint jukebox standard with a fine pickin’ grin and a blues-mans flair.

The albums risk is a cover of The Band’s The Weight. A song that would be easy to butcher, Healey shows his artistry by delivering an enjoyable performance of a seminal rock song. The other classic rock song he covers is Neil Young’s Like a Hurricane, the best version of this song I’ve heard.

From the title track, Mess of Blues to Shake, Rattle & Roll, Healey delivers some classic music without missing a step. He displays virtuosity and style and covers some great songs from the rock ‘n roll/ blues play list.

If your taste runs like old rock ‘n roll and electric blues then Jeff Healey’s Mess of Blues is a CD you should get.

Moxy is an relatively obscure name in Canadian music, but they needn’t be. They once verged on greatness and, at a time just before an explosion of Canadian rock on the landscape, they produced a pair of great rock and roll albums. Moxy and Moxy II (known as the black and red albums respectively) were solid guitar rock albums that may be better than anything produced in the hard rock genre in Canada before or since.

Moxy II, released in 1976, contained nine tracks, a number of which belong on any album. The opening song ‘Cause There’s Another was probably the groups biggest hit, and a great song. It starts off in a very hard rock style, but quickly slips into acoustic guitar with melodic lead line combination that would have made April Wine proud, although it may be more reminiscent of Teenage Head’s Something On My Mind (or rather, Teenage Heads… would be reminiscent of ‘Cause There’s Another).

There’s an old saw in golf, “hit for show, putt for dough”. A similar statement can be made in guitar - left hand for show, right for dough. The left hand is what people notice, the one that moves around and gets the credit, but any good guitarist can tell you, the musicality comes from the right hand. Sound, tone and rhythm are all products of the right. Listening to the acoustic guitar in ‘Cause There’s Another, there’s some amazing stuff going on. Moxy have eschewed a basic little rhythm over something much more complex and interesting. It is musicality of the kind that moves the song from good to great, and sets the tone for a wonderful album.

Second song Take it or Leave it is solid 70’s funk that predates Wild Cherry’s Play that Funky Music and David Bowie’s Fame, both of which sound as though they borrow from this. Take it or Leave it is, to my ear, however, superior to both those songs. Kids, this is what we danced to in the 70’s and it was great dancing music.

While the albums best two songs are the first two, the rest of the album is good, very good. Through the Storm is very heavy and hard rock in the Spinal Tap vein; One More Heartbreak an up tempo rocker; Change In My Life a solid ballad laced with appregiating guitars and thick sound (Moxy was a two Les Paul band).

Lead singer Buzz Shearman would self destruct after this album, and would be replaced by Mike Reno, then known as Mike Renowski, now known as “the chubby guy who used to sing for Loverboy.” They would never recapture being this good, and it’s too bad: the Canadian rock and roll scene would explode within a couple of years, and if Moxy had held it together there’s no reason to believe they wouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as Rush, Triumph or Loverboy. A great band who never attained that greatness - too bad.

Bachman Cummings new CD, Jukebox, hit the stores yesterday morning. The CD is a collection of older material, “a new album of old songs,” songs that Messrs Bachman and Cummings would have heard on the jukeboxes in their youth. This is the music these two legends began their career playing, and the album pays homage to the songs they loved.

The concern when producing such an album is to pick the right songs, the songs that work best for your voice and band. Rush did an excellent job of this in their 2005 collection Feedback. It is also where Jukebox falls down.

Opening track , The Equals Baby Come Back, starts promising enough, with Bachman establishing a solid groove. Unfortunately, and inexplicably, Bachman also takes vocal duties. It is a weak effort, that Cummings almost certainly could have done much better. The song needed it.

Who do You Love fares better. Bachman’s vocals are better suited, drummer Sean Fitzsimons takes the classic Bo Diddley rhythm to new heights, and the insertion of Bo Diddley and Don’t Fade Away into the song is effective and fun.

Here’s a quote from the liner notes:

To go through the Beatles songs and try to find one that hasn’t been done and done adn done by eveybody was really hard.

Be that as it may, some songs stay Undone for a reason, and based on this jazzed up arrangement I’m Happy Just to dance With You, is one of them.

Whenever I hear a cover, whether a CD’s worth or a single song, I’m looking for the band to own the song. Jimmy McCracklin’s The Walk, is the first song on Jukebox that Bachman Cummings own. Not coincidentally, it’s the first Cummings vocal vehicle. This version could be an original Burton Cummings song, which is what I’m looking for. The boys capture a great groove, and Cummings sings the song note perfect. Great rock and roll.

The same applies to Cliff Richard’s Don’t Talk to Him. A great rockabilly piece that, again, could be a Cummings original. In the liner notes Cummings writes that this is a tough song to sing and he was sweating it, but he did a great job, and it’s a great piece.

The Shadows were Cliff Richards back up band, but they also had a string of instrumental hits on their own, and became highly influential in guitarist circles. Thankfully, their bad surf movie guitar songs went out of style 45 years ago. Sadly, Bachman resurrects “Man of Mystery” thus showing this style as worthy of going out of style.

Fats Domino’s Ain’t That just Like A Woman on the other hand sounds fresh and great. Cummings boogie-woogie piano and vocals make this sound fresh and new. And kudos to Bachman quoting Glenn Miller’s Chatanooga Choo-Choo in his short solo.

If they were worried about using an overdone Beatles song, Chuck Berry’s Little Queenie is a curious choice, considering how often it’s been done, and better. Both Bob Seger and REO Speedwagon have live versions of this song that are great, giving new energy and life to Chuck Berry’s classic boogie/blues playing. This version goes back to the Chuck Berry version, and suffers from a lack of that power and energy that others have found there.

Sam Cooke’s Good Times is a great song that suffers, this time from Cummings vocal performance. Some songs just don’t suit some singers, this is one that Cummings should have left off this album for that reason. Nicely done, just doesn’t work here.

The surprise of the album is probably the downright punkish/Wild Thing version of Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone, with Randy Bachman’s best vocal performance of the album and a Neil Youngish solo.

John Fred and the Playboys’ Judy in Diguise (With Glasses), is a classic R&B tune that here sounds great. Huey “Piano” Smith’s Boogie Woogie Don’t You Just Know It, is one of those 50’s childish style tings, like Charlie Brown or See You Later Alligator. It sounds OK, but it should have stayed in the50’s.

Georgie Fame’s Yeh, Yeh is just a good old Rock and Roll song as is Edwin Starr’s Agent Double-O Soul. Both songs sound good and are carried well.

The Box Tops’ classic The Letter is given a BTO style rock up and works very well, as should be expected when Randy Bachman BTO’s a song. IN fact, BTO demoed this song in 1971 , and released itin 1993 Anthology CD, and this version sounds more like BTO than the early BTO version did. Kudos again to drummer Sean Fitzsimons who gave some Robbie Bachman like tom-tom work to drive this song forward.

What a collection of 50’s and 60’s rock and roll songs would be without some Elvis, I don’t know and fortunately, I don’t have to find out quite yet. Ain’t That loving You Baby is the kind of thing you expect on a tribute album by some guys who profess deep love for the music their doing - a song they sound like their having real fun playing. You can almost hear the swing in Burton Cummings hips, and Bachman gives some great rockabilly licks throughout. This is a real treat, sounding honestly like Elvis while giving a fresh modern sound.

The CD finishes with a cover of a song written by some guys called Bachman and Cummings. American Woman 2007 isn’t really new, as this re-working was done for their last tour, and can be heard on the last years DVD “First Time Around.” As well there is an acoustic version of the same arrangement floating around. None the less, this is a good work up of the song, it sounds great on Bachman’s 57 Les Paul and it is interesting and new without hurting the original song. A great finish to a very good CD.

Overall, some performances here lacked, and some song choices where suspect, but this is a good CD. If you are a fan of Bachman Cummings, or of the old rock and roll, you probably want it.

4 out of 5

Feist is a Canadian singer/songwriter with roots in both the east coast and the west, and the 2005 new artist of the year Juno winner. Her new album, The Reminder, is her third studio album, and first since the Juno winning Let it Die, was released yesterday. Recorded in a 200 year old Parisian manor, The Reminder has been called a “beautifully whimsical collection of luxuriant pop about love.” So many adjectives, how did they miss eclectic?

Feist has one of those lovely soprano pop voices that works well in folksy acoustic artists. Fortunately, Feist doesn’t contain her talent in folksy acoustic music. The second song I Feel It All, lets you know that. After the slow, breezy, jazzy So Sorry, I Feel It All comes on hard with a solid acoustic pop song. The acoustic is then eschewed altogether for the funky, bassy My Moon, My Man.

It is, actually, the fourth song by the time we get an acoustic song, the truly lovely The Park. With birds chirping in the background (real birds, by my understanding) this is a pretty ballad:

Why would he come back through the park
You thought that you saw him, but no you did not
It’s not him coming across the sea to surprise you
Not him who would know where in London to find you

Sadness so real that it populates
The city and leaves you homeless again
Steam from a cup and snow on the path
The seasons have changed from the present to past

The past…
There’s hope to have
In the past…

Lovelily poetic, beautifully sung and a simple guitar plus a spartan arrangement. The Park is a wonderful piece of music.

Feist follows up The Park with a slower, keyboard based ballad, The Water. And so it goes, another song, another tempo, another style: Nina Simone’s Sea lion Woman has an African hand-clapping rhythm throughout; The lively, countried up, slide guitar based Past and Present; The Limit To Your Love, over arranged pop, lush, bold and gorgeous; The hit, 1234, pure pop wonderfully done.

Feist moves effortlessly through different styles and instrumentations handily each with confidence and skill. This is a lively, wonderful CD that should be on every music lovers list.

You can hear for yourself and sample before you buy at her myspace site: http://www.myspace.com/feist.

4 out of 5.

Snakes and Arrows is Rush’s eighteenth studio album, the first since 2002’s Vapour Trails, and the first work from Rush since the Excellent 2004 EP of cover songs, Feedback. With Feedback, Rush went back to the very beginning, recording songs they played in their cover band days. Snakes and Arrows, has stylistically stayed with the old days, sounding more like Rush of the early 80’s than anything of the near past.

The radio played Far Cry is the first single off the album, and is very traditional Rush sounding. Armour and Sword, the second piece, is wonderfully weaved around an acoustic verse, that reminisces of old Rush, but with a new flair. Workin’ Them Angels could almost belong to the Fly By Night album and The Larger Bowl returns Lifeson to the acoustic guitar

Acoustic guitars run throughout this album, giving it a warmth that other Rush efforts haven’t always had, and speaking of acoustics, Hope, Lifeson’s small acoustic piece is one of the albums true treats. The CD’s other instrumentals, The Main Monkey Business and Malignant Narcissism both are excellent and work well to meld the album together. This is Rush’s first multi-instrumental album.

Much has been made of Peart’s lyrics on this album being very faith oriented, an understandable investigation of Peart’s inner feelings on the issue considering much that has happened in his life the last ten years. However, the lyrics truly jump out at you, the examinations Peart is undergoing clearly defined and understood. There is little in the way of “Wonder what he means by that” in this album.

Overall this is an excellent Rush album, but still very much a Rush album. By that I mean if you are a die hard Rush fan, you have reason to rejoice. If you are not really a fan, this probably won’t convert you. And if, like myself, you can go either way with Rush, this is one of the better ones.

4.5 out of 5

Montreal’s Arcade Fire’s second CD, Neon Bible released to much fanfare and acclaim about three weeks ago, is every bit as good as the hype suggests. The follow up to 2004’s Funeral, Arcade Fire have produced a collection of songs varying in style and influence.

Influence, it’s the word you think of most when listening to Arcade Fire. Their work is dripping with influence, with Neon Bible offering hints of Bruce Springsteen, The Go-Go’s , The Band, U2, The Police, Fee Waybill and the Tubes as well as some 18th century church music sprinkled in.

These influences, however, aren’t in the form of rip-off or blatant attempts to sound like someone, more so flavours, like a chef sprinkling spices over a dish. A quick flavour of the Go-Go’s here, a guitar part that sounds like The Edge, a heart wrenching Rick Danko like vocal part. Hints, spices and flavours of others combine to create interesting music.

The songwriting is also mature and professional. No formula here, but clear storylined lyrics, music that drives the song forward and arrangements that solidify the whole into complete music.

Highlights include Keep The Car (U2 meets Eddie and the Cruisers, with mandolin), Intervention, Black Wave/Bad Vibration, with it’s very Go-Go’s beginning and the very Band like No Cars Go. That’s just teh tip of the iceburg, however. Neon Bible is a solid collection, from a band that hopefully, will have a lot to say in the future.