In the Heart of the Crowd: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, KC and Tulsa

It’s been a tough six months or so for many Bruce Springsteen fans. First came the Ticketmaster dynamic pricing debacle that no one ever adequately addressed (and left empty seats to be filled with last-minute cut-rate ticket sales in Tulsa). Then Sirius Radio’s Live from E Street Nation talk show went on hiatus. Just at the beginning of the tour, Springsteen’s 43-year-old fanzine, Backstreets, closed shop. For me certainly, a weight hung over the show.

To Springsteen’s credit, he focused on what he did best and achieved far more than I could have imagined. For that reason, I feel it's important to mention the context, just as its important to let the review stand separate, the show celebrated on its own merits. DA

KC, Photo by Sarah Kathryn Funck

 “The first thing to remember about Bruce Springsteen is that he’s a musician.” –Dave Marsh, Monmouth University talk, 2005

 Though I thought his music perfectly fit the oil roads, sections, smelter skyline, and main drag of my hometown, I’ve never lived in Springsteen country. Aside from that handful of hits in the middle eighties, his 50-year career did not have eastern Kansas and Oklahoma as a base. A 16-year gap between Kansas City stops (1984 to 2000), two Oklahoma concerts in the 70s and only two more four decades later about sum up the relationship.

 So, I was lucky to get to see two nights of this tour with loved ones and family—first in my present home of Kansas City, second in the city next to where I grew up, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Though I’ve been going to these shows for 42 years now, I have never seen two so early in a tour (stops 8 & 9), and I’ve never had a close second show experience quite match the first.

 What wound up happening was much more powerful than I could have expected. And that’s ironic because most of what made it so moving was the company I kept, my family in KC and a longtime road buddy meeting family with me in Tulsa. But I think the surprise (and it probably shouldn’t have been one) was how much that companionship fit the show’s purpose and meaning.

The Castiles, Springsteen front left, George Theiss top center

 

Before “Last Man Standing,” the one moment in the show the normally talkative Springsteen chose to stop and tell a story, he recalled his 2018 death bed visit to the leader and only other surviving member of his first band, George Theiss. He used that memory to underscore the carpe diem of the “Prove It All Nights,” “Because the Nights,” and “Badlands,” all those songs at the core of what Pete Townshend once called the “triumph” in Springsteen’s tales of desperation and long chances.

 “Last Man” itself makes the concert’s central confession and pledge. He called on a “flock of angels” to “lift him somehow.” And where else would he seek deliverance? “Somewhere deep into the heart of the crowd.”

So far, this new show stays focused on that ephemeral crowd, the souls gathered in the room, in many ways repeatedly reinforced by the emphasis on the band. His use of the Miami Horns may show it best. From a “Kitty’s Back” built for improvisation to a rousing “Johnny 99” that even formed a bit of a second line this Fat Tuesday, Springsteen repeatedly threw the focus to Ed Manion on baritone sax (and a good deal of tenor in Kansas City when Jake Clemons was out with COVID), Ozzie Melendez on trombone, Curt Ramm and Barry Danielian on trumpet.

 But everyone had their moments—Soozie Tyrell laid into fiddle, particularly thrilling on that “99” and “Darlington County” in Tulsa. The Disciple of Soul’s percussionist Anthony Almonte played supple and quick to push for mightier and mightier responses from Max Weinberg. Singers Curtis King, Michelle Moore, Ada Dyer, and Lisa Lowell filled out the sound with shining punches of soul fire. The core of the old band (and both Steve Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren in particular up front) vamping, clowning, cavorting, and taking memorable turns in the spotlight.

 In that bridge before the final refrain of “Backstreets,” where Springsteen has often lingered to sketch stories, this time he touched his broken heart and said, “I’m gonna carry it right here,” repeating “right here,” and tapping his breast softly until that final piece of the pledge, “until the end.”

 Aside from the lack of talk—one song after another, relentlessly plunging ahead—the show was also noteworthy for another absence—its lack of songs focused on anything overtly political. The politics are always there of course, in the hearts of the kids of “No Surrender,” in the belief in “The Promised Land,” in the “more than all this” of “Johnny 99.” The most all-encompassing political commentary might just have been that moment in “Wrecking Ball,” when he repeats “hard times come, and hard times go” over and over again before calling on that crane to tear it all down.

 This moment, tellingly, was followed by “The Rising.”

Before he used to sing “Straight Time” on The Ghost of Tom Joad tour, Bruce would ponder what we do when all the tricks that got us where we are, when all the tools that used to work, don’t seem to work anymore; in fact they seem to make things worse. With this new tour, Bruce Springsteen has obviously laid some tools aside, but he’s stuck close to the ones which keep the crowd feeling “high and hard and loud,” strong, not so much spectators as participants. 

When Springsteen closed both shows, he sang of feeling “split at the seams.” In 2023, for reasons ranging from COVID to opioids to state-sanctioned murder and the threat of World War III, every person in that room knew that feeling. As the man sings in the song, we need each other by our sides, and for these three (and six) hours and some days after, I certainly felt less alone.

Thanks to Ben Bielski, Cody Alan McCormick, Farrell Hoy Jenab, Josh McGraw, and Sarah Kathryn Funck!

KC, photo by Sarah Kathryn Funck

Folk Alliance, Day 4: Yearning Hearts Carried Home: Janice Jo Lee, The Pairs, Eljuri, Missy Raines, Talibah Safiya, Emma Langford, and Women of Note

 

Janice Jo Lee

On the last night of Folk Alliance, Janice Jo Lee opened her set with a spoken word piece that asked, “What Is Folk.” The piece opened the doors to all manner of ways people share and build upon their spiritual yearnings, providing an axis to suit all the colors and flavors of the performances that would make up the evening. 

With a keyboardist the crew recruited from Minneapolis, fellow Toronto vocalist Camila Diaz-Varela and dancer Sam Yoon, Lee kicked out any purist notions regarding framework and built a set that repeatedly answered the question with self affirmation (“Crumpled Heart Unfolding”), dreams of hope in the midst of worldwide turmoil (“Swim Forever”), and a call to find one’s role in the midst of community--both that around you and that handed down from those who came before (“Ancestor Song”). That last is the title track for the new album constructed around this work, and folks like me who can’t wait to hear it can contribute here: https://janicejolee.ca/

The Pairs

Before her, on that same Toronto stage, the five-piece band, the Pairs (named after two sets of twins who grew up together, three of them the frontwomen) turned out an endearing and remarkably powerful set. Renee and Noelle Coughlin lived up to the promise of sister harmonies, bright, close, and shining in every direction. Flanked by the twins, Hillary Watson anchored the sound with her own bold, close vocals. 

The set repeatedly disarmed listeners with Renee calling, “Are you ready to get weird?” before launching one song’s impromptu stomp dance choreography and Noelle’s repeated jokes about her nerves, particularly funny when she exclaimed, “Oh, we have time for two more songs,” before nervously (touchingly, hilariously) carrying on her banter as she plucked notes and fumbled with her pegs. “This isn’t normally a bit,” she said, “tuning my guitar.” Renee showed her own comic timing when they asked the crowd if anyone had ever been to therapy, and she added, “If not, you should probably go…like…tomorrow.” The set hit an emotional crescendo with the aching “When Will We Find Our Way” followed by another new song, “High Hopes” You can hear that beautiful pair here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjPCCvFb0kY

and here, with an opportunity to contribute to their new album’s crowdfunding: https://thepairsmusic.com/album-pre-order

Eljuri

Ecuador-born, New York-raised Eljuri (Cecelia Villar Eljuri) pushed the limits of Folk Alliance in one direction, playing a Latin rock set easily imaginable at the large South American venues she’s used to playing. She struggled a bit for the crowd response she deserved in a banquet room tucked into a back corner of the conference, but her set was impressive—her guitar sharp and explosive, drummer Alex Alexander and bassist Winston Roye effortlessly moving from relatively laid-back reggae rhythms to funk to merengue. The trio underscored the heart of the conference with her new song, "Salva La Tierra (Save the Earth)”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q50THkWV1Bw

Missy Raines and Allegheny

Introducing her band Allegheny, Missy Raines noted fiddler Ellie Hakanson was having a case of laryngitis, but “you can still hear her because that’s how you do.” Indeed, the band seemed unstoppable with breakneck interplay between Hakanson’s fiddle, Tristan Scroggins’ mandolin, Ben Garnett’s guitar, and newest member Eli Gilbert’s banjo. As with the voiceless Hakanson joke, their set was peppered with humor, Scroggins at one point introducing a ballad as, “Not as dark as most bluegrass; nobody dies, but it’s still plenty passive-aggressive.” 

Still, the peak moment in their set was about as bleak as it gets, Raines testifying to the devastation of her native West Virginia by the opioid crisis before singing, “Who Needs a Mine,” it’s lyrics, “Who needs a mine to kill us dead/When a little pill works fine instead.” 

More on this song here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1124940681418788

More on Missy Raines: https://www.missyraines.com/

Madam Fraankie and Talibah Safiya

Up in the Memphis Room’s private showcase, Talibah Safiya arrived with a quiet radiance. While her guitarist tuned up, she looked out around the packed room and smiled, her voice soft and genuine, she said how nice it was to see all these new faces.

She began with a propulsive piece about weathering the hard edges of reality, “Up and Down,” her voice soaring and plunging with the refrain. She then sang the sultry “Middle of the Night” and lingered in the seemingly doomed relationship of “Like Water,” before calling the lover out with “Imagine that Mutherfuckers.” “Ten Toes Down” closed the set with a call for honest self-interrogation and commitment. All through this set, Safiya’s guitarist Madame Fraankie kept her head down, delivering soulful, poignant arpeggios, a riff here and there, perfectly matching the precision of Safiya’s eloquence.

Talibah Safiya: https://www.talibahsafiya.com/home-1

Emma Langford

Up in the Women of Note room, Irish singer Emma Langford’s bright eyes and smile lit the room when she looked up from concerned concentration over the set-up of her trio. Surely without knowing, she echoed Safiya. “It’s so good to be here in new spaces, playing new music for new faces,” she said.

She launched into an otherworldly performance of her new song “Abigail,” which she described as a sort of pagan prayer dedicated to the Irish goddess Gobnait. On her Bandcamp site, she explains, “it is written in the form of a love song in honour of someone who embodies all the values of the goddess: kindness, forgiveness, healing, generosity. It celebrates divine feminine energy….”

With carefully stepped support from Hannah Nic Gearailt’s keys, Langford’s beautiful voice began with a distinct focus on surefootedness. Then, her wordless crooning shifted to a series of shining, joyful cries met by warm woodwind accompaniment from Alec Brown (who otherwise played cello). The song modulated to what seemed as much like another plane of existence as a key change, carrying those in the small, tightly packed room with it.

You can hear the song on YouTube, but I strongly suggest picking up a copy here: https://emmalangfordmusic.bandcamp.com/track/abigail-tomhas-ghobnatan

Langford’s set was filled with warmth and beauty, as well as plenty of entertaining stories. She recalled a wonderfully “witchy” music school teacher who warned her that the world would “gobble you up and leave nothing but bones,” before singing a song just such an experience inspired, “Birdsong.” At one point, after explaining the context for a song called “You are Not Mine,” she explained that she had to add “(This Song Isn’t About You, You Lying Bolix)” to the title because someone claimed it was about him. 

A woman shouted from my left, “It’s the ‘Your So Vain’ of Limerick!” 

Without missing a beat, Langford grinned and said, “Yes, I’m the Limerick Carly Simon.”

Emma Langford: https://www.emmalangfordmusic.com/

Wonderful as Simon is, as humbly as Langford meant the joke, it seemed an understatement.

Langford’s set was followed by Aoife Scott’s usual song-trading at midnight with the four women of note for the day. It’s a key ritual of Folk Alliance I’ve written about before that started as an event back in Dublin, the Temple Bar Tradfest, a weeklong January festival that takes place in various landmark buildings around the city, recently taking place at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Saturday’s Women of Note began with Scott singing “Liverpool Love” for an aunt who constantly gives to others without doing for herself. The great Clare Sands, who I wrote about in more detail last summer, followed that with a song to St. Brigid of Kildare, who she noted was somewhat absurdly the only woman saint of Ireland.  

Clare Sands and Aoife Scott

Carrying forward this tribute to women, Kitty McFarlane, a singer-songwriter from Sommerset County in South West England, sang of the Mediterranean women who make this rare, golden fabric from fibers made by a particular clam. She explained that she was fascinated with textiles, the women in her family going back several generations working with fabric. Her full-throated vocals shone with a delicacy that suited her pledge to “spin salt water into sun.” That song, "Sea Silk," is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBRaQwGcMCs

Kitty McFarlane: https://www.kittymacfarlane.com/

“Wow,” Jean Rohe said after the other three finished. She said she didn’t know how to follow all this ethereal beauty. But, then, she stood and delivered an extraordinary song that tied her own abortion to her father’s death. Though she joked that, being from New York, she only knew how to sing about herself, that song, “Animal,” perfectly complemented what came before, her description of work in a garden a powerful metaphor for the tough choices we are forced to make in life. The song is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSfyP5zbQmc 

More about Jean Rohe: https://jeanrohe.com/

 

Jean Rohe

On their second round, Scott sang a cover of Damien Dempsey’s “Colony,” a passionate protest song calling out the "Christian" powers that forcibly rob indigenous people of their homes, their freedom, their dignity, their livelihood, and lives. Scott introduced the song explaining that Dempsey taught her to try to find a way to sing in her true Dublin accent. The mix of her traditional style and its contrast with her more colloquial spoken word made her extraordinarily gripping.

You can hear Dempsey’s original here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0igMlr0tmXo

And here is Scott singing it from a few years back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DQOq-lYZMg

When Scott would sing, Sands added some impromptu fiddle support to Andy Meany’s guitar. (As I've mentioned before, Meaney backs Scott's sets.) This time, Rohe, also began to add some counterpoint with her own guitar. These snatches of improvisation hinted at what was yet to come.

McFarlane finished up with “Glass Eel,” a song that ties the migration of eels across the Atlantic to the plight of refugees facing arbitrary and inhumane borders. 

Kitty McFarlane and Clare Sands

At that point, Rohe realized she was due at another showcase, and she had to leave. 

Sands agreed to fill in, and though the plan was made with whispers, it took seconds for the women who would perform the final two sets of the evening--the Henry Girls and Karan Casey—to pile into the front of the room, the Henry Girls pulling a harp and accordion out of their cases and ready in seconds. Scott pulled out a hand drum.

Meaney decided to let the women have this and sat back in the crowd. Together, these seven women, and most of the room, erupted into a triumphant performance of Sands’ “Awe Na Mna (Praise the Women).” Exuberant voices filled the room and one another's hearts. It was a perfect moment to carry us home, in the moment and well into the days ahead. 

More on Clare Sands: https://claresands.com/

More on Aoife Scott: https://www.aoifescott.com/

Folk Alliance Day 3, Rakish, Charm of Finches, and Aoife Scott

Andy Meaney and Aoife Scott

My usual Folk Alliance running partner Mike Warren couldn’t be here this year, and he is sorely missed. He has what seems an encyclopedic memory for music he’s encountered (especially that he loves), and his presence at the conference inevitably leads me to see many remarkable acts I wouldn’t have found on my own. With my much narrower bandwidth, I occasionally find something he hasn’t heard too. We come together like Folk Alliance itself, a dizzying spiral of intersecting communities falling for one another’s passions. All of this is to say, when Mike told me he hated to miss the act Rakish, 40% of a wonderful band his nephew was in, (Pumpkin Bread), I knew I had to go. 

 Fiddler and banjo player Maura Shawn Scanlin and guitarist Connor Hearn make up the act, a duo that seems to delight in smashing boundaries between musical genres. To do so, though they may explain that one song “Bilateral Craziness” (an autocorrect mistake that Scanlin decided to keep) has no time signature, and “Courante” is a piece by Debussy, they repeatedly work their way back to swinging spirals of sound just next door,  if not in fact, their beloved Irish or Scottish reels. 

 They trade vocals and feed off each other’s banter. Last night they noted it was Bandcamp Friday, which meant it was the one-year anniversary of their first self-titled EP, while also encouraging us all to take advantage of the day’s deals and buy all our favorite Folk Alliance music before midnight (so the artists can receive 100% of their profits from each sale). They also joked about their influences—Connor Hearn, an English major, wrote the first song they played inspired by James Joyce. The classically trained Scanlin introduces a piece by Robert de Visee noting, “We like to justify our degrees.” 

 And such good-natured self-deprecation is part and parcel with their down-to-Earth charm. Scanlin soon turned and introduced “No Such Thing as Luck” as a number “for the Star Wars fans!” But the humor only helped bridge the music’s wide range of emotions. A “Scottish” instrumental Scanlin said wasn’t really Scottish (because she wrote it) offered a plaintive note to bring tears to the eyes, for a minute. Shining eyes seemed to be everywhere as heads all around the room began to nod and bob, once again, as they had done throughout the set (yes, even to the one without the time signature). 

Rakish playing “Courante/The Sunny Hills of Beara/The North Star” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uraqJj6DlV8

“Do you all know the TV show 6 Feet Under?” Ivy Windred-Womes of the Melbourne sister act Charm of Finches asked the room to scattered applause and murmurs of approval. The sisters nodded and agreed that they love the show, explaining that the song they were about to play, the title track to their most recent album, Wonderful Oblivion, is inspired by the show. 

 

Then, with a dry, sly comic timing that recurred throughout the set, Ivy added, “Also, our dad is an undertaker.” They launched into the song. Not to say that explained anything, but, boy, it solidified the poignant distinction of these two haunted young women in bright blue and pink bell dresses, singing brilliant, vertigo-inducing meditations on the fragile nature of our existence. 

 The song titles told their own story—“Concentrate on Breathing” followed by “Canyon” (a song about being thrown into that space), “Clean Cut,” “The Bridge,” “Gravity,” and, finally, “Wonderful Oblivion.” The sounds range from the sharp crunch of “Clean Cut” to a variety of ethereal textures provided by a mix of keys, violin, and tambourine coloring the air around the notes from Mabel’s acoustic guitar. 

 Mabel offered a quiet deliberative quality that played as a comedic counterpoint to sister Ivy’s quick jabs. Mabel recalled a recent four-month tour through Europe that had been…she hesitated…” great fun but a long time.” 

Immediately, Ivy’s eyes cut across her keyboards to her sister, “a long time with the one person.” 

They both laughed at that one. 

But Mabel could then turn around and add an earnest thoughtfulness to the banter. She told a story from years before, recalling a group of young people they encountered on the road to the Woodford Folk Festival. They were gathered at a bridge where a friend of theirs had recently fallen and died. “It was sad,” Mabel said, adding that they could relate to these other kids because they too had lost a friend, far too young, in a similar way. This was, of course, the set up to the song, “The Bridge,” which seemed a love letter to their long-lost friend. It was a lump-of-the-throat moment in a set filled with enough quiet beauty, pain, fear, and wonder to have listeners gripping their seats. 

Charm of Finches’ video for “Canyon” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG-1SZE72Vw

Dublin’s Aoife Scott and her partner, guitarist Andy Meaney placed the perfect final touches on such an emotional evening. Scott began by telling the story behind her 2020 song “Sweet October.” In that terrible pandemic spring, they’d written the song dreaming of a time when they could go to the coast again. The unassuming gentle melody and Scott’s wistful vocal provided a kind of climax to the evening, everyone well aware of how lucky we were to be together again. 

But Scott was just getting started. She talked frankly of trying to break with her family’s musical heritage, which she grew up perceiving as a hard life for very little pay. (Her mother, Francis Black, is a member of the Black family, a renowned Celtic group who inherited their trade from their own parents.) However, Scott found herself miserable in the corporate job she’d landed, losing her voice, and struggling with depression. 

One day, Meany wanted to play her a Bruce Cockburn song he’d just heard, “Wondering Where the Lions Are.” At first, she resisted, but the song almost magically began to lift her from her depression and restore her voice. Scott sang the Cockburn song, leading the room in call and response around the refrain. 

At the end of her set, Scott sang a song “The Growing Years” (written by Don Mescall) off her 2016 debut Carry the Day. The song told the story of a father’s death, and a child plagued by the unfairness of it all, fearful for what might happen next. Meaney’s propulsive guitar pushed Scott’s vocal to face down the pain and fear, asking “please, please, please,  please, please, tell me now, where’s the justice in this, there’s no justice in this world.”

The conviction in Scott’s vocals comes to a particularly fine point in that lyric, which makes sense. It was the fight for justice in the Cockburn song that restored Scott's voice. It's also her work with the singers she presents at Folk Alliance (and at Tradfest Temple Bar back home) as “Women of Note” that stands as one of the finest statements in pursuit of justice the conference makes each year. 

 Aoife Scott’s “The Growing Years” from her first album, Carry the Day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2llNDsNPZE

Websites:

Rakish— https://rakishmusic.bandcamp.com/album/rakish

Charm of Finches— https://charmoffinchesband.com/

Aoife Scott— https://www.aoifescott.com/

Folk Alliance Day 2, One Step Makes Many: Valerie June, Cary Morin Duo, Genevieve Racette, Iona Fyfe, and Joy Clark

 

Joy Clark and Tiffany Morris

Echoing Janis Ian’ sentiment from the day before, New Orleans singer-songwriter Joy Clark said, “I don’t know about you, but I always feel that I’m behind.” She used the comment to introduce her song “One Step in the Right Direction,” a beautiful meditation on perspective.

In the midst of one of many intricate guitar tapestries, Clark returned to a refrain that worked like a mantra-- “I know this road is not a race, so I keep going my own pace, until I find my place.”

 Fellow New Orleans musicians Tiffany Morris on bass and Bradley Bourgeois on drums complemented her search with solid, unobtrusive backing, both lockstep and free.

Joy Clark, singing “One Step in the Right Direction” solo a few months back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYfKov8XylQ

I found myself thinking about Valerie June’s keynote speech earlier in the day.

Valerie June Delivering the Keynote

June took us on a rough but necessary journey to find hope. She recalled leaving Memphis on icy roads the same day police murder victim Tyre Nichols was laid to rest and then ticked off the many threats we face—from a global climate crisis to technology that “hacks our mind and body,” and the “daily threat of nuclear war.” She called to mind the many disagreements that keep us pitted against each other, and asked, “What will these battles mean when we are all made equal by unfortunate circumstances?” 

She sang a cover of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” before focusing on reasons for some hard won hope.

Valerie June singing “What a Wonderful World” on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=265677271129168

Someone will post this talk soon, and I’ll repost it here.

Meanwhile, I want to emphasize the vision she offered.

June asked, “What if it’s as simple as starting where we are?”

And she meant, specifically, at that moment, Folk Alliance. June noted, after all, there’s “wizards and fairies everywhere,”  gesturing toward the packed darkness of the room. She added, “We begin with the revolutionary act of making art.”

June called for “a language of joy” to combat language that “elevates fears.” She pointed out that our entire money system is simply based upon our belief in it, so she wanted us to think about our potential  to shift such beliefs, to live without fear, to build “a more loving world.” She followed that with a performance of her song, “Astral Plane.”

Valerie June, “Astral Plane”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN35g4eLQgg

Her talk was a perfect complement to the introductory remarks by Cary Morin and his partner and life and music, Celeste Di Iorio. Morin has been working as an artist in residence to raise awareness, alongside the Friends of the Kaw, regarding our river system. Morin sang as the Kaw, part of this great river system that allowed us to settle here in the first place, continues to give us life and suffer our neglect. Asking on behalf of the river for our care, Morin sang, “You’re helping me help you.”

Cary Morin and Celeste Di Iorio

More about the Cary Morin duo here: https://carymorin.com/cary-morin-duo

I found myself thinking a lot about the ways people were working together throughout the day. At Genevieve Racette’s showcase, Folquebec's Gilles Garand thanked the army of volunteers that make Folk Alliance happen. As the set closed, Racette acknowledged she was, in fact, dating a volunteer and offered another word of thanks. 

I thought about all the people building off this music—the photographers, others like me scribbling notes in pads, club owners and festival owners making plans. As June had pointed out earlier, we all understand what it means to hustle for a job, but there’s something else going on here too--a collective energy and vision fed and inspired by the music.

The echoing sentiments in the artist's voices suggest how that energy moves full circle, inspiring the art. Racette’s pledge to try some new things this year, including playing a song she’d never played live in front of anyone before, particularly considering the song, reminds me again of Clark’s “One Step in the Right Direction."

Eleanore Pitre, Genevieve Racette, and Judith Little D

Racette sang a new song I would presume is called “Same Old Me,” a song about wanting to overcome one’s anxiety and what seem lifelong traps. Her entire set seemed more relaxed and powerful this year though I was seeing it on a much larger stage than before (in the Century C ballroom where June spoke earlier in the day). Racette included more banter, hilariously confessing, “I’m not really a go with the flow person. I’ll gladly go with the flow, but I need to know when does it start and when does it end, and, also, is there a snack?”

Though it was largely the same songs as last year, Racette seemed to have grown more self-assured. A quiet grandeur seemed to come naturally. Racette’s deeply touching vocals were bolstered by dark counterpoints from Eleanore Pitre (of the band Rosier) on guitar and Judith Little D on drums.

Genevieve Racette’s opener, “Hostage”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpnV9LpqftQ&list=OLAK5uy_mku9n0UQIwFHlb3lFhX4PMjew86xAS810

Similarly, Scottish singer Iona Fyfe seemed ready to take on any challenge that may come her way. Quick and funny, in her banter alone she managed to take on the American health care system, teach us about the Scots language, and declare her unabashed belief in Scottish self-determination. Before singing a cover of Taylor Swift’s “Love Story,” translated into Scots, Fyfe noted it’s a pain to try to sort the legal clearances between here and there, “so if anyone knows Tay Tay,” she said, holding an invisible phone to her ear.

Guitarist Adam Hendy lent solid acoustic backing to her bright clear vocals which shone, flexed, and punched as needed. She sang a song of the “Northern Lights of Old Aberdeen” although she noted the writer Mary Webb had never been there, and Fyfe had lived there for 17 years without seeing any sign of these things. She also sang of Lady Finella, who killed King Kenneth II of Scotland to avenge her son’s death. 

Iona Fyfe, “Lady Finella”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzsbJtg9gFE  

My evening really ended with Joy Clark’s set. She finished with the song, “Good Thing.” The refrain offered assured gratitude and hope: “You know we got a good thing/And a good thing is not so easy to find/Yeah, you know we got a good thing/Take my hand and it will be all right.”

In such moments, the more loving world in June's dream felt like a living reality.

Joy Clark’s video for “Good Thing”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc_ZL1djWOQ

 

 Websites:

Cary Morin Duo: https://carymorin.com/cary-morin-duo

Valerie June: https://valeriejune.com/

Genevieve Racette: https://genevieveracette.com/

Rosier: https://rosierband.com/

Iona Fyfe: https://ionafyfe.com/

Joy Clark: https://joyclark.bandcamp.com/