Cause of Joy and Light: Emma Langford at the Irish Center of Kansas City

From the auditorium stage of The Irish Center of Kansas City last Thursday, Emma Langford and crew served up a dizzying array of characters in story and song—a dear uncle who demanded a song days before his death (thereby inspiring both song and coda), a twelve-year-old Langford with vocal nodules maintaining silence so her older self could sing, climbing trees as characters born from the memories roaring through insomnia, and a suite of songs revolving around St. Abigail, a healer and a fighter who measures souls without judgment. Throughout, openess and compassion fueled the show.

Early in the set, the Limerick, Ireland native dedicated “Sailor’s Wife” to her mother, whom she’d promised (and forgotten) to tell when she landed in the U.S., a tour that took her on nightly dates from New York to St. Louis, Chicago, and Milwaukee the week of the KC stop. Langford cast herself as the title character at sea, and she would carry this tension forward with “All You Want,” a song from her 2017 debut about a family trying to understand the risky and seemingly directionless life of a professional musician.

The opening line of that song voices the wide gulf between the artist’s sense of self and that of the audience, speaking the inconceivable: “There is nothing stunning about me.” Of course any listener can personally relate to that perspective. But stunning is just the word when she dismisses her “voice like velvet” as it floats “to the floor.”

What Langford means by that, I don’t quite know, but I damn well know she means it. As achingly beautiful as her voice is, such perfection can be problematic. Her technical strength must be matched by all the warmth and conviction it can carry. Otherwise, the technique might ring cold, float right past us rather than connect. As far as I can tell, Langford always connects.

And with that connection, rooted (as is all connection) in vulnerability, comes a good deal of humor. Inviting the audience to sing along with “Tug ‘O War,” a blues about wrestling with demons, she suggested ways the audience might do so to the point of giddy hilarity, offering up three possibilities in terms of harmonizing “ooohs.” Hell, the show ended with “Goodbye Hawaii,” Langford performing what can only be described as mouth trumpet, as if she were soloing on a horn rather than humming away with (just barely) puffed cheeks.

Langford’s not the only one who is funny: her core band—Alec Brown on cello and woodwinds as well as Hannah Nic Gearailt on keys—hold their own. That night Brown was happy to hint that he was the man caught in the menage a trois suggested by her song, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” And Nic Gearailt seemed to be the instigator of an ongoing gag—a la Pee Wee Herman—which asked the crowd to go wild whenever anyone uttered the “secret word” cork. Since the St. Abigail songs (about five if I have the right count) were all set in County Cork, the word came up a lot even if Nic Gearailt hadn’t found extra opportunities to work it in. 

It's a fine trio.

The show disarmed in countless ways, including a gorgeous rendition of Paul William’s (by way of Kermit) “Rainbow Connection,” a song Langford said she and Nic Gearailt played during so many fallow moments that it made Brown’s “ears bleed.” And Langford started the second set, just her and Nic Gearailt, with Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” a song she explained was part of a project called Irish Women in Harmony and a fundraiser for the Aisling Project (a holistic after-school program for children https://www.aislingproject.ie/).

Joined onstage by Lawrence, Kansas’s Carswell & Hope, Langford and company reached numerous powerful crescendos, not least of which was the night’s performance of “Abigail,” an incredibly beautiful song I wrote about when I first saw Langford at Folk Alliance last year (https://takeemastheycome.blogspot.com/2023/02/folk-alliance-day-four-yearning-hearts.htm

Another highlight that night was the powerful “Birdsong,” rooted in a traditional Irish form of chant singing. You can see a clip of it, and get a feel for what she does, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5ZkH1a-t1w   

At Kansas City’s Irish Center, Langford recruited three young dancers to stomp their way through the rallying cry, the effect almost too beautiful and moving to take. 

And that’s Langford in a nutshell, or perhaps an acorn husk—almost too beautiful and moving to bear, but the “almost” there is key. Langford uses her music—wrestling with the dark nights of her own soul—to help the rest of us bear the heavy loads we carry and find ways to keep going. The stop in Kansas City last Thursday night was nothing less than a vision of multi-colored paths forward, delivering new heights and promising even more just around the next corner.

To order "Abigail": https://emmalangfordmusic.bandcamp.com/track/abigail-tomhas-ghobnatan

For all things Langford: https://www.emmalangfordmusic.com/

Thank you Mike Warren and Ben Bielski.

Also, thank you to the Irish Center of Kansas City, who provided this Birdsong video: Birdsong in KC