Portugal Embraces the Music of Allison Crowe

July 1st we celebrate Canada here – still we are part of the main, a global, cultural, community, and this week, Allison Crowe’s licensed her music for play in stores and market-places throughout continental Europe’s western-most country, the republic of Portugal. Her songs will be heard daily across the Algarve’s beautiful coast, the archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, in the open air of Lisbon’s artful street galleries, riding the slopes and falls of the country’s lush interior, its mountainous northern region, mingling in the mystery and magic of coastal Alentejo. Up and down the Iberian Peninsula this sound we know and love will ring out.

Why Portugal? There’s a full palette of joys and emotions to be discovered in the art of Allison Crowe. In certain of her songs, too, there is ‘saudade’ – that quality described as “a bitter-sweet, existential yearning and hopefulness towards something over which one has no control”. The “unassailable determinism which compels the resigned yearning of saudade” is the soul of Portugal’s Fado music.

Here, now is Allison Crowe and Band with the sounds of “Silence”:

Timeless + Transcendent: Allison Crowe and Band on Tour and Record

Like Bob Dylan at Newport, like Bruce Springsteen at The Bottom Line, Allison Crowe and Band electrified musically on tour in Europe this past month. Here’s the group’s final bow – on stage in Brussels after the second or third encore of the night: l – r - Sarah White (mandolin, guitar, vocals); Céline Greb aka Lin Lin (cello, vocals); Dave Baird (bass); and Allison Crowe (vocals, piano, guitar, fiddle, bodhran).



This closing concert of the first leg of of the “Heirs + Grievances” tour happens in a place where love and life carry on following recent tragedy. Allison Crowe’s performance of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” blew past the soundboard’s limits, allowing artist and audience to continue a capella while the audio equipment was reset.

The power of music to transcend was evident throughout the group’s month-long tour of Germany, Slovenia, Italy, England and Belgium.

Waking now in Canada, the debut album of Allison Crowe and Band is named 'CD of the Week' by Tom Harrison, dean of western Canada’s rock music writers.

“In the past,” notes Harrison, “Crowe has devoted herself to trad folk, contemporary rock, Christmas songs and music of Leonard Cohen, all of which have merged into these two discs to create a portrait of an idealist — with the addition of her between-songs talk on the live recording revealing a bubbly personality.”

Full review @:

http://www.theprovince.com/entertainment/garage+spirit+west+leaves+high+note/11860460/story.html

You All Haunt Me - Allison Crowe and Band

"You All Haunt Me" opens the debut album from Allison Crowe and Band: "Introducing / Heirs + Grievances".

More on this new double-album of music - and the band's concert tour - coming soon.

http://music.allisoncrowe.com  +  http://allisoncrowe.com

#fiddle #bodhran #guitar #piano

This is actually a more accurate representation of what my day looks like today Hahaha ;)

Allison Crowe @ https://www.instagram.com/allison_crowe

#fiddle #guitar #bodhrán #piano #music #tour #europeantour

Allison Crowe Drives to New Lands: “Heavy Graces” Tour on Deck

She comes from a land of ice and snow. Some years more-so than others. And, like such phenomena, Allison Crowe’s preternatural talent, and her peerless body of music, is marked by a pure, crystalline, uniqueness.

"How can someone so small and young have such a big voice and write such heavy duty songs?,” legendary West-coast Canada musician and publisher Barry Newman found himself wondering upon discovering a teen-aged Crowe on a Vancouver Island stage in the year 2000. For a cover feature in Cosmic Debris, (the magazine he founded), Newman observed: “The inflections in her piano stylings were so mature too... there was a blues edge in there."

"The first thing you notice about Allison Crowe is her voice. Rich and dark, it seems to come from a place most singers can only dream of accessing. Then there are the songs. Filled with raw passion and accompanied by eloquent piano playing," notes Clodagh O'Connell, (The Courier, Rolling Stone+), in a maiden review of Crowe’s voyage to new lands.

Cultural critic for The Times Colonist newspaper in Victoria, BC, Adrian Chamberlain, also caught the artist in her early concert rounds: “(Listening to) Crowe is akin to sipping the richest of brandies.” The writer, himself a funk soul musician, explained: “Crowe's singing is tremendously powerful; almost operatic. When she digs into a sustained note, as she so often does, the voice is huge, rounded, with a dark timbre.”

The amazing sound crossed the main. Before long UK music maven Dave Henderson, (MOJO, Q and Kerrang!+), was tipping MOJO mag’s audience to this siren from o’er the sea: "Once famously described as possessing a style akin to 'Elton John meets Edith Piaf', the Canadian singer-songwriter Allison Crowe is renowned for her ability to blend control and melodrama."

Moving deeper into this century, the musician’s voice is ever more complex – striking on its own and, most frequently, accompanied by 88 hammers of the gods in the hands of a virtuoso. "You really have to see Allison Crowe live. The way she splits those notes, it's like light through a prism - all the colours of a song," says Canadian radio and television veteran Rick Dennis.

Eight years back, Crowe migrated from her island birth-place of Nanaimo, BC, on the Pacific Ocean, to Corner Brook, nestled on another lovely isle, Newfoundland – near the Viking Trail on Atlantic shores. Acoustic guitar, fiddle and tin-whistle now figure alongside voice and piano in her musical palette – creating rock, folk, jazz, roots, country, Celtic and more thrills. Her newest recording, (released globally April 28), is an addictive variant of a centuries-old song of the seacoast, “Tarry Trousers”.

“Weirdly typical” is how BC dean of Canuck rock writers, Tom Harrison, describes a new album from Allison Crowe – and that legend is key to any map of her course. She presents bi-coastal “Tidings” concerts each Christmas season in her homeland. These past two years Crowe’s focused on: recording (four acclaimed albums – “Tidings Concert”, “Newfoundland Vinyl”, “Heavy Graces”, and “Songbook”); dance (performing songs of Leonard Cohen on-stage with Canada’s brilliant Royal Winnipeg Ballet); theatre (musically directing Theatre Newfoundland and Labrador’s rollicking hit show, “Newfoundland Vinyl”); and film projects - one recording riveting in the trailer for a major indie motion picture (“The Pardon”), and cameoing, pretty much as herself, in “Man of Steel”- a #1 box-office Superman movie among the decade’s biggest Hollywood blockbusters.

Steering well clear of the corporate record industry’s shallows, Crowe’s integrity is as steadfast as her sound is remarkable – a double-helix of traits akin to the DNA of previous generations’ mavericks. “I’m a big Johnny Cash fan. And I’m a big Allison Crowe fan. So the combination to me seemed like an awesome opportunity if we could make it happen,” explains “Man of Steel” Director Zack Snyder. “Allison and I had talked about trying to get some of her music in one of my movies whenever we could – and I thought, well, if I just put her in the film then there’s no way that it won’t work. So, that’s where you get Allison from.”

Allison Crowe's "Heavy Graces" Tour reaches Europe this May  

For her next act, Allison Crowe returns to the international concert stage this May – with eight concerts upcoming in Europe: Bernau (03.05); Frankfurt (07.05); Freiburg (11.05); Neunkirchen (13.05); Inning (15.05); Florence (17.05); Münster (20.05); and Potsdam (22.05). The opening concert on this “Heavy Graces” tour quickly sold out – Ausverkaft! Full event calendar @ http://allisoncrowe.com/tour.html

For most of these dates, Crowe’s joined by special guest artist, and super-simpatico tour partner, Billie Woods http://www.facebook.com/billiewoodsmusic  Woods’ distinctive vocal and nylon-string guitar style is rooted in Canada's Pacific Northwest and infused with the warmth and vitality of cultural rhythms of Brazil. From home-base on Salt Spring Island, BC, in “Canada’s banana belt”, she’s blended a life of passions - principally music and photography.

Crowe’s Road/Stage manager, Axel Dollheiser, hails from Bavaria and Salt Spring. popTrip Entertainment, (currently moving headquarters from Berlin, Germany to Toronto, Canada), is booking agent.

Toronto-based author and visual artist Lorette C. Luzajic concludes: “Not everyone can bring down the divine, not everyone can be vast and mythological or bring the gifts of the gods into a winter’s night. But Allison Crowe channels the spirit each and every time."

Some words about Allison Crowe from around the world @ http://www.allisoncrowe.com/pressquotes.html 

Tonight Will Be Fine

Combining heart, soul and vision - in words, music and images - Allan Showalter, the much-loved Leonard Cohen+ blogger, presents this video:


Tonight Will Be Fine (Leonard Cohen) - Allison... by rimbaud22ca

Allison Crowe performs Leonard Cohen's song, "Tonight Will Be Fine", accompanied by images from the fabulous and free-spirited photog Billie Woods, a painting by Vienna's boki.b and pics of posters by dedicated German concert promoter "Andreas" - and North American rock poster legend Bob Masse.

And, there be a related DrHGuy blog post as well @ http://drhguy.com/2013/04/03/ten-women-singing-leonard-cohen-songs

Tonight Will Be Fine

Allison Crowe covers Leonard Cohen's "Tonight Will Be Fine". Plus, an impressionistic ride through a trio of European countries...

Spiral's "work of art" greets Record Store Day - April 17, 2010

Allison Crowe's newest album, "Spiral", gets physical, physical, this month - with its CD release on April 17. The album was released digitally on March 17, St. Patrick's Day.

There was an abundance of gold, silver and bronze in February, when Canada hosted the Olympics. Since then, printers have been sourcing a supply of the special metallic dyes needed for the album cover art of "Spiral".

This process happily enables Crowe's newest CD release to coincide with international Record Store Day. "Spiral" is now available at Fascinating Rhythm, in Nanaimo, B.C. - one of the five favourite record stores 'cross Canada for Stuart McLean, raconteur extraordinaire, host of CBC Radio's "The Vinyl Cafe." "Spiral" will soon be in Lobelia's Lair in Nanaimo, Lyle's Place in Victoria, Zulu Records in Vancouver, BC, and, on Canada's Atlantic coast, fred's records on Duckworth Street in St. John's, Newfoundland - and more.

" 'Spiral' is a true work of art," writes Jeff Taylor, video-game programmer and multi-blogger from Canada. "The album is amazing, and will certainly be a top contender for album of the year."

"Spiral" is the seventh album/CD release from Allison Crowe. "This is an astonishingly gifted artist working in a class by herself," says Tom Mureika, writer for All Music Guide and other North American-based culture sites. ParisVoice, English language journal for folks who call home the city of Piaf and Charles Aznavour, says: "expressing emotion is where Allison Crowe excels. Whether covering other artists... or performing her own songs... each track becomes alive and palpable."

On April 17th, Spiral greets Record Store Day. That same day Allison Crowe flies to Europe to launch a series of concerts in Aachen, Paris, Frankfurt and Berlin.

Up-Beat not Beat-Up

Here's a wrap-up our discussion of the recent "international incident". Then it's only rock and roll... and I like it.
 
Should you be in the neighbourhood of London, England - tomorrow night, enjoy Cabaret Without Borders. It happens on Wednesday, June 3, 2009 - 6:00pm - 9:25pm at The Rochelle School, Arnold Circus, London E2 7ES This is a night of music and poetry organized by Manifesto Club, the folks who launched the Visiting Artists and Academics Petition. 
 
Copy of motion lodged with Scottish Parliament;

S3M-04279 Rob Gibson (Highlands and Islands) (Scottish National Party): Overseas Performers Don't Deserve Terrorist Treatment — That the Parliament notes with grave concern the ramifications of the Home Office’s new immigration controls on non-EU artists who require a sponsor to allow them to enter the United Kingdom, as highlighted by the treatment of Canadian singer Allison Crowe and several band members who were held for 11 hours in Gatwick Airport before being barred from entering the UK to tour and visit friends in the north west Highlands; considers that Ms Crowe was treated as little better than a terrorist after enduring an 11-hour ordeal where she was locked up, questioned, had her fingerprints taken, her passport stamped “barred from entry” and was then deported; contends that this is no way to treat a legitimate and repeat visitor to the UK; urges the Home Office to rethink this draconian policy before it harms cultural links to Scotland and the wider UK; notes that Ms Crowe is allowed to perform in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic and will do so; furthermore notes the German authorities’ reported reaction to the situation that they were horrified at the British treatment and that Allison would be welcomed to perform in Germany, and asserts that visitors to Scotland during the Year of Homecoming deserve a civilised and warm welcome.


Scottish MPs Condemn Treatment of Allison Crowe Band: European Tour Rocks On

Allison Crowe and her Canadian bandmates, (guitarist Billie Woods and percussionist Laurent Boucher, reunited with their British-passport-carrying bassist Dave Baird), have now performed two sensational concerts in Germany - in the cities of Aachen and Munich. Following a national holiday weekend the tour carries on now to Frankfurt, Berlin, Prague and Vienna.

In the UK, where the Canadian musicians were barred from entry last month, national debate over new anti-terrorist/illegal immigration laws that target artists and academics visiting from non-EU countries continues to build. Concern is reflected in coverage from the northern tip of the British Isles, via such journals as The Northern Times and The Aberdeen Press & Journal, to the southern region, and such London-based newspapers as The Telegraph and The Observer/Guardian.

In a motion in Parliament that has gained cross-party support, Scottish National Party MSP Rob Gibson condemns the physical treatment of Crowe and her bandmates, and calls on the Home Office to rethink its approach “before it harms cultural links to Scotland and the wider UK”. Gibson's motion “asserts that visitors to Scotland during the Year of Homecoming deserve a civilised and warm welcome.”
 
The Scotsman reports that: "John Thurso, the Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, added: 'The rule itself is an affront to the great British tradition of welcoming overseas artists and another example of this government's unyielding zeal for mindless regulation.” Thurso told Scotland's national newspaper: "Security is important, but throwing international performers into a lock-up and being rude to them should be no part of it."

On the English front, the issue was among the most discussed in this weekend's Observer/Guardian newspaper, in the wake of Henry Porter's column titled “Britain is not radical enough. That is why we're in trouble”, in which Porter says:

“We fondly think of ourselves as hospitable and open to new influences. But on the evidence of new laws that ban artists, musicians and academics from visiting Britain without certificates of sponsorship, we are not. When a Newfoundland-based singer Allison Crowe and two of her band members, Billie Woods and Laurent Boucher, arrived at Gatwick to tour Britain they were arrested, held in cells, photographed and fingerprinted and had their passports stamped 'Barred from Entry' before being returned to Canada. This shocking and disgraceful treatment - designed to exclude illegal immigrants and terrorists - seems fundamentally unBritish. The English National Opera and Southbank have both had problems bringing in foreign performers because of the stringent requirement for non-EU citizens to provide biometrics and photographs and submit to controls over their day-to-day activity while here.

Is this Britain? If so, the rational half of our brain has been overwhelmed by 'suspicion and parochialism', in the words of the staunchly sensible Manifesto Club, which has started a petition against the laws brought in by immigration minister Phil Woolas.”

The Visiting Artists and Academics Petition ~ was launched earlier this year by the UK civil liberties group, the Manifesto Club, with the endorsement of: renowned sculptor Antony Gormley; director of the National Portrait Gallery, Sandy Nairne; the artistic director of the Royal National Theatre Nicholas Hytner and dozens more concerned artists and educators.

Allison Crowe and her Canadian bandmates are simply among the most recent visitors to learn about the new rules. Others include Russian pianist, Grigory Sokolov, the world's greatest living classical pianist in the view of many critics, whose concerts have been cancelled after 18 years of him performing in the UK. Canadian journalist Leah McLaren recounts a 30 hour detention and deportation ordeal in her Globe and Mail column of May 16, 2009: "CRUEL BRITANNIA: God may save the Queen, but what about the rest of us?"

Our approach to music is very much grassroots, community-oriented. We've learned that many people in this segment of the UK's cultural industries were neither consulted nor informed of the "Certificate of Sponsorship" laws. Of those that were, there's a range of opinion.

If there is any silver lining to our experience, it's the hope that we can, in some small measure, contribute to there being greater awareness, even reform, and, at least, some greater measure of reason and good judgement applied in the application of any rules.

Canada, it's clear, is not immune to today's culture of fear and aggression which envelopes “security” issues. Nor is our American neighbour. Allison Crowe and her fellow musicians are not terrorists nor are they illegal immigrants. They love people, and make music for them. From hereon, reports will be, once again, about rock and roll – circling back to the wisdom of George Harrison: “I don't like to be political. I like to be polite.”