My goal for 2013 is to learn to
play the guitar. I guess having a full
time job, trying to publish one novel, write a second and continue the CD
Odyssey just wasn’t enough to occupy my time.
As of this moment, I can’t even read sheet music, so I’ve got a ways to
go, but I’ve at least shopped for a guitar (and learned that finding the
selection for left handed guitars sadly wanting) and will soon have one of my
very own, which seems a logical first step.
This next album has the kind of
music I’d like to be able to play, and inspires me to stick to it until I can.
Disc 475 is…Riverside
Year of Release: 1990
What’s up with the Cover? It is a Giant Head Cover. Luka Bloom hasn’t mastered the Giant Head
Cover as well as experts like Gordon Lightfoot, however. This one is blurry and Luka looks distracted,
with a slight edge of creepy.
How I Came To Know It: As I noted when I reviewed my other Luka Bloom album
(way back at Disc 21), I once helped get Canadian folk icon Mae Moore out
of a lineup at a bar where I was a regular.
She and her friend joined me and my pals for a drink, and before she
moved on with her evening, she did me a solid in return by recommending Luka
Bloom to me. Thanks, Mae!
How It Stacks Up: I only have two Luka Bloom albums, and of the two
“Riverside” is hands down my favourite.
Rating: 4 stars
This is
another album from the days when I was wholly enamoured with folk music (I’m
still enamoured but now I have many other genres I share my love with). I’ve had “Riverside” since 1992 and it has
never gone long outside of the rotation in my CD player.
One
reason for this is Bloom’s guitar playing.
It isn’t like these songs are complicated musically, but Bloom is able to
combine energetic Indigo Girl-like strumming with beautiful classical picking
in a way that makes both better. When I
hear these songs I imagine myself playing them once I finally get my musical
act together. It is unlikely I’ll ever
play them as well, but hey – that’s what the CD is for.
While
the opening track, “Delirious” is a
little too frenetic and unfocused for my tastes, Bloom quickly settles down
with “Dreams in America” a six minute
mood piece that showcases his mournful and deeply evocative singing voice. The song conveys that displaced energy that
comes when you’re exploring a new land (Bloom is from Ireland, and “Riverside”
is the beginning of his North American experience).
His more
upbeat songs like “Over the Moon” and
“An Irishman in Chinatown” are fun
and lively, but I find Bloom at his best at a slower tempo where he can wring
more emotion out of both his guitar and his voice.
The two
best songs in this regard are “Hudson
Lady” and “The Man is Alive.”
“Hudson Lady” is a love song about a woman
who is clearly stolen Bloom’s heart, although in this case that ‘woman’ is the
Hudson River. While comparing a river to
a lover may be an old and oft-used theme, Bloom nails it. The gentle strumming of his guitar, as he
opens with:
“Though I want you badly
I can get uneasy.”
Is sung so
confidentially and quietly, it’s like he’s lying on a pillow looking across at
his lover, feeling awkward and exposed in the morning light. Damn, maybe it is about a woman. Frankly I don’t want it clarified either way;
I like the uncertainty of the subject, so artfully coupled with the certainty
of the relationship.
“The Man is Alive” is a song about a man
sharing his childhood experiences with someone and realizing how deeply they were
both affected by their respective fathers, each of whom died when they were
young (I think).
My
relationship to the song has changed its meaning over the years. Initially it made me think of Mae Moore,
because she had recommended the album, and at the time I associated her with
the Canadian west coast (ironically, she is actually from Manitoba, so scratch
that theory). That said the song does
feature Vancouver mountainsides, so at least that part is accurate.
Later it
made me think of my own father, who died of alcoholism in 1994. With lines like:
“The man is alive
It’s taken me so long to see
The man is alive and breathing
The man is alive in me.”
It
served as a reminder to not share his fate.
Sometimes part of our influence from our parents is as much about
expressing how we are unlike them, as how we are similar. Whether we cling to or reject their
influences, they influence us just the same.
And most
recently it’s made me think of my stepfather, who is currently suffering from
dementia. My stepfather taught me that
men can be gentle and still be men. He
is a soft spoken man who opened his heart up to a woman and two children as
easily as some people say hello. We had
a lot of great and fun years together, and so it is strange that it has taken
me so long to see that the song relates more to him than anyone. Given his situation, it also rings all the
more tragic as I watch him fade away from himself slowly and inexorably. The song reminds me that he’ll always be
alive in me – at least on my better days.
Back to
the music (this is a music blog after all, not a diary) which is consistent
throughout. Irish jigs on songs like “You Couldn’t Have Come at a Better Time”
pair surprisingly well alongside introspective numbers like “Gone to Pablo” with the consistency
throughout being Bloom’s beautiful voice and careful folk playing.
One song
in particular, “The Hill of Allen,” has
a special place in my heart. It is an
instrumental, and the final song on the album.
As I noted when I reviewed Clannad’s “Past Present” at Disc 469, I
used to suffer from some pretty bad insomnia and “The Hill of Allen” with its rolling rhythm and fading guitar was
like a replacement for the sound of the ocean after I moved into the city. I’d turn out all the lights in my basement
suite in Oak Bay, fast forward the album to the end, and then climb into bed and
drift off. For an album with as much
energy as “Riverside” it is the perfect fade out regardless of whether you hit
the sack afterward or otherwise.
This
album may be uneven in places, and for most people it is probably a three star
effort at best, but because it has such a special importance for me, and
because it can still get me feeling thoughtful (and even a little maudlin)
twenty years later, I’m giving it a solid four out of five.
Best tracks: Dreams in America, Gone to Pablo, The Man Is Alive,
Hudson Lady, The Hill of Allen
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