A Time for Tidings: Allison Crowe w. Celine Sawchuk

Canada's amazing Allison Crowe (vocals, piano & guitar), Vancouver Island-born, Newfoundland-nested singer-songwriter, pairs with exquisite cellist/vocalist Celine Sawchuk, born in Germany's Black Forest and now home on Salt Spring Island, BC to bring “Tidings” – music for the season & all-time. 

"A Time for Tidings", cabaret-style live from the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, stirs together traditional Christmas and holiday evergreens with year-round musical treats from English, French and German repertoire. It's an organic blend of rock, jazz, folk, roots and soul to reflect and refresh all our emotions.

Uniting a range of rich cultural traditions, Allison Crowe with Céline Sawchuk deliver real wonderment, solace and joy.

"Allison Crowe's voice is as much a manifestation of Christmas spirit today as Bing Crosby's was in 1942. It's as warm as an open fire; as gorgeous as snow-frosted evergreens; as tender as that hug you give your mother on Christmas day" – The Pique

"Be prepared to be amazed" – ChristmasReviews

Music recorded and engineered by Leif Henderson at "The Cultch". Thanks, as well, to Audio Archivist John MacMillan.

Album Art: Alick Tsui Photography + Mind Palace Design

Merry Christmas! Frohe Weihnachten! Joyeux Noel! Buon Natale!

           Best o' the season to you and yours!!

Traditional Christmas carols "Tochter Zion" and "Stille Nacht (Silent Night)" warm a Winter's day-or-night. Allison Crowe, Canada’s bi-coastal musical marvel, with Céline Sawchuk, vocalist/cellist from Germany’s Black Forest, bring us “Tidings” – European-style.

 

I Might featuring Céline Sawchuk

Cellist/vocalist Céline Sawchuk comes from the mythic Black Forest of Germany. Out of the lush thickets of the Schwarzwald to the cool streets of Berlin, Céline strives to bring “a little bit of my home” to the world music stage. Singing “I Might” – an atmospheric song from the duo of Oliver Koletzki & Fran (Franziska Lauter) – she’s joined here by Allison Crowe on piano and Dave Baird on bass.

This launches a suite of songs – and Act 2 of “Welcome to Us”. Visual accompaniment is from the cinema masterpiece “Ménilmontant”. (The full suite – I Might / Back to Black / Shifts of Light / Tones in Transition / I Am the Air / Lisa's Song – is @ https://vimeo.com/261671693 )

Allison Crowe and Band find clothier

’twas another favourite band from a northern town that lyricized love – and fun – cannae be bought with money.

Musing on such fab notions, this birthday of Allison Crowe, it must be noted, then, that Allison and bandmates Céline Sawchuk, Sarah White, Dave Baird & Keelan Purchase form a priceless combo.

Witness some of their concerted hijinks – giving rise to the group term known as “a reel of Keelans” (akin to a flock of seagulls, a pod of dolphins etc.) – and contributing to Allison’s recent post-tour declaration:

I'm exhausted - but it's the good kind of exhausted. Not the kind that's like "I'm never doing that again. Ever." , but rather the kind that comes from working like crazy on something you felt you were maybe supposed to do, but was really a giant leap in to a pit of OH DEAR GOD THIS IS CRAZY of sorts, with a group of people that rocked their butts off with enthusiasm and love the whole damn time. Not without fear. The kind of fight or flight that it turns out is exhilarating rather than debilitating. When you get off the ride at the fair and scream "LET'S DO IT AGAIN" until you're hoarse and your body can't take it anymore. So - Celine - thank you for your passion and music and images and designs and being my gym and knitting buddy, Dave - thank you for your precision and timing and hilariousness and birding and commitment - Sarah thank you for your mando and music and level-headedness and perspective with humour, and Keelan - for jumping in this crazy clown car with us and bringing your instruments and jokes and huge dramatic presence and subtlety and also thank you for your clothes. I love you guys. LET'S DO IT AGAIN.

Verses - Allison Crowe and Band Live!

Celebrating the birthday of Allison Crowe, a great artist of our lifetime, with this newest of recordings –  “Verses”.

Musicians Allison Crowe (vocals, piano, guitar, fiddle, bodhran), Céline Sawchuk (cello, vocals), Sarah White (mandolin, guitar, vocals), Dave Baird (bass, vocals) & Keelan Purchase (accordion, 12-string guitar, bodhran, harmonica, vocals) recently banded together on the lovely isle of Newfoundland for sessions and shows.

For a flock of creators who live, literally, all over the map it’s a rare chance to slow the world a bit. “We had time to experiment, and think more about the larger picture musically,” says bassist & birder Dave. “It’s only the beginning. It’s just the first we’ve had opportunity to work the music out without much time restraint. It was fun, relaxed, and productive.”

Melding into one sound and performance experience the rawest of folk roots and the richest of arena rock –  that barely begins to describe the originality and freshness of the quintet’s music and personality.

Debuting at Corner Brook, NL’s Rotary Arts Centre, RAC Theatre Co-ordinator Brad Randell observes, “The performance was absolutely magical.”

Rolling across the rock to St. John’s and a concert night at LSPU Hall, magic’s afoot once more with Allison Crowe and Band – and, this time, serendipitously, artifacts remain to be shared in addition to golden memories of artists and audience+.

Alick Tsui, the truly remarkable SJ-based photographer, was able to attend Act 1 (the band’s NL concerts formed around one set in which Allison played guitar or fiddle, and, post-intermission, a second set of songs founded on Allison’s piano tunes) – and Alick captured some iconic images of Allison, Céline, Sarah, Dave & Keelan.

Fortune’s present audio-wise, and Allison’s SD (memory) card is filled with tracks to be mined.

First up – this original song tagged with some trad.

Happy Birthday to cellist+ Céline!

Happy Birthday, Céline! Alles Gute zum Geburtstag! Today we celebrate the birthday of Céline Sawchuk (née Greb), cellist and vocalist in Allison Crowe and Band – and the graphic designer of band posters, album art and more. Originally from the Black Forest of Germany, Céline now is home on Canada’s Salt Spring Island. 

As Allison and the group ready songs for their next album and concerts, here’s the sound of Céline’s strings and voice united with Alley and co. on “You All Haunt Me” from their “Heirs+Grievances” double-disc debut: http://music.allisoncrowe.com/track/you-all-haunt-me-3

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

Allison Crowe and Band - Live on Tour

On Easter Sunday 2016 the “Heirs + Grievances” Tour of Allison Crowe and Band hopped into Radio Koper in Slovenia as part of a visit hatched by the country’s brilliant arts patron and cultural liaison Milka Smid-O’Reilly. The quartet chatted with radio host Drago Mislej aka Mef and musician/translator Matej Krajnc (of popular Maribo-based group Sužnji Sendvičev) and performed four songs live-on-air before RK’s in-studio audience.

Canada’s Allison Crowe uniquely inhabits the world of song – continually adding breadth and depth to a richly peerless repertoire for piano, vocals, guitar, fiddle and bodhran. Crowe’s “supernaturally agile and exquisite voice”, (as it's distilled by Muruch), is mated ideally with her sublime international touring band: Céline Greb aka Lin Lin (cello, vocals); Sarah White (mandolin, guitar, vocals); and Dave Baird (bass). The group’s gorgeously thrilling hybrid of Canadiana, Celtic, jazz, roots, folk, soul and original rock bridges vital originals with fresh interpretations of classics by such artists as Leonard Cohen and Annie Lennox.

The freshness and range of musical ideas and expression heard in each performance attests to the sagacity of Allan Showalter, eminence grise of “Cohencentric: Leonard Cohen Considered” blog, in his observation: “Once you've heard one Allison Crowe song, You've heard one Allison Crowe song.”

Here's a traditional song, "Tarry Trousers", out of TNL's "Newfoundland Vinyl" hit show, with Allison, Sarah and Céline harmonizing Catch four songs from Allison Crowe and Band, (plus a preceding full set by Matej Krajnc & Sužnji Sendvičev), on the RK Easter show – “OKROG OSMIH z MEFOM - MATEJ KRAJNC in SUŽNJI SENDVIČEV ter ALLISON CROWE & BAND” @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BatEQS_t7lU : “V Studiu Hendrix Radia KOPER je Drago Mislej - MEF v njegovi nedeljski oddaji, 27. marca 2016, gostil Mateja KRAJNCA in Sužnje Sendvičev ter kanadsko pevko Allison CROWE z njeno skupino.” Hvala!!

Heirs + Grievances Tournee

These are the concert dates for my 'Heirs and Grievances' tour with the band. Let me know if you can make it to any of these! :) can't wait to see you all!

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

Heirs + Grievances Tour - Europe dates Spring 2016

24 March – concert – Mampf – Frankfurt, Germany

26 March – concert – Palazzo Manzioli – Izola, Slovenia

29 March – concert – Teatro del Sale – Florence, Italy

01 April – concert – Grüner Salon – Berlin, Germany

06 April – concert – Peterskirche – Vaihingen an der Zen, Germany - w. special guests Maskenball

08 April – concert – Stummsche Reithalle – Neunkirchen, Germany

10 April – concert – Alte Turnhalle Grünbach, Engelsbrand, Germany - w. special guests – Mr. Knebel’s musicians – Joint Venture

12 April – concert – Birdland – Hamburg, Germany

16 April – concert – St. Mary in the Castle – Hastings, England

19 April – concert – Racines – Brussels, Belgium

          #music #newalbum #tour #ontheroad #band #europeantour

"Introducing" label proof

And a little preview of the CD label for 'Introducing' (the live companion to Heirs and Grievances) designed by Celine Greb (aka Lin Lin)! Sooon...


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

Happy Birthday, Allison Crowe - November 16

Happy birthday to one of music's immortals - Allison Louise Crowe - born November 16, 1981.

Allison Crowe with Band: Revolution on its Way

Allison Crowe, the amazing Nanaimo, Vancouver Island-born musician, home in Newfoundland for a decade now, is here in British Columbia this month to resume the launch of a new band and creative phase.

In the record-melting heat of this Summer, Crowe (vocals, piano, guitar, bodhran, fiddle) and bandmates Billie Woods (guitar, vox), Celine Greb (cello, vox) and Dave Baird (bass) performed their first shows. The group’s hybrid of Canadiana, Celtic, jazz, roots, folk, soul and original rock is next on-stage: October 23 in Sidney’s Charlie White Theatre; October 30 at Nanaimo’s Port Theatre; and November 13 at Vancouver’s St. James Hall. (NB “Tidings”, Allison Crowe’s Christmastime concert series, resumes next year in BC.)

Rehearsal today! Woot!               Allison Crowe foto

Between concert dates the band is in sessions at Turtle studios in White Rock, BC with engineer/producer Larry Anschell (Pearl Jam, Bif Naked, Sarah McLachlan). Several of Allison Crowe’s 15 album releases, including the classics “Tidings” and “Live at Wood Hall”, have been captured by Anschell and his audio team.

Capping more than a decade of primarily solo touring and recording, Crowe has three releases coming this season.

"Muruch.com Presents: Allison Crowe”, out this week via Bandcamp, is a 21-song anthology and playlist curated by one of the first, and now longest-running, legal-mp3 music websites. The West Virginia-based culture blog gathers its personal favourites from her recorded repertoire explaining: “Canadian singer-songwriter Allison Crowe has long been Muruch’s musical mascot, so it seemed fitting to celebrate her music along with Muruch.com’s 15th anniversary.”

 October 20, 2015 brings the release of “Newfoundland Vinyl 3” (on Bandcamp, iTunes et al), newest in the acclaimed series of albums refreshing folk, traditional, and popular music of Canada’s Atlantic coast. Waltzes, parlour songs, rousing tunes of land and sea emerge from Crowe’s role as Musical Director with Theatre Newfoundland and Labrador’s hit show, “Newfoundland Vinyl”, at the annual Gros Morne Theatre Festival.

Allison Crowe’s bond with the TNL family, and the region’s wonderful musicians and actors, provides inspiration as well for “Souling (Bonus Tracks Edition)” out this October 27 (worldwide through all major digital outlets). Expanding upon 2014’s singular all-acappella collection of sacred and traditional Christmas carols she performs – acappella and with choral-focus – select songs of heart and hearth from the popular songbook.

Concert, recording, and other Allison Crowe news is found on the artist’s original website @ http://allisoncrowe.com soon to merge with a band site currently @ http://www.allisoncrowe.com/wordpress

Crayon and Ink - Allison Crowe Band - 30.06.2015 bootleg

"Crayon and Ink” – the first-ever public performance by Allison Crowe's new band! Thanks to Leslie Colly of Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada - enjoy this concert bootleg from the sold-out show at All Saints by-the Sea, SSI.

It’s a season of record-breaking heat on Canada’s Pacific coast - with temperatures around 30 degrees Celsius on some dates. In this crucible Allison Crowe’s formed a band.

Allison (vocals, piano, guitar, bodhran) is joined by: guitarist-vocalist Billie Woods (born in Humboldt, Saskatchewan and home most of her life on Salt Spring); cellist-vocalist Celine Greb (originally from Pforzheim, in Germany’s Black Forest, and settling now in Canada); & upright/acoustic + electric bassist Dave Baird (dual-Canadian/UK citizen – w. grandparents from Scotland and parents from England and Malaysia).

Four Summers in a row, Allison’s been Musical Director of “Newfoundland Vinyl” - an hit show produced by Theatre Newfoundland and Labrador at the Gros Morne Theatre Festival (and conceived by TNL’s Artistic Director, Jeff Pitcher).

Making the most of a three-week hiatus in her Atlantic shores schedule this year, Allison, home in lovely Corner Brook, NL for a decade, flew to her beautiful birth-province of British Columbia for June/July 2015 sessions with the transnational/international combo.

The group debuted with a trio of radiant concerts on Salt Spring Island (with set decoration and catering by Lou Ellis of Coco Loco and her bonita brujas!), Pender Island, and Ladysmith, Vancouver Island.

Future dates include Deer Lake, NL-born Sarah White, a fellow Corner Brooker & TNLer, in the musical complement - harmonizing, and playing one of her many instruments: guitar, mandolin, guitar-banjo, tenor ukulele and bouzouki.

Concert news - and plenty more excitement - on its way.

Disease

An all-time great rock song and performance kicks off “16 Songs”. Here’s Allison Crowe live-in-concert – captured by Turtle Recording’s Larry Anschell (Engineer and Producer) and Brad Graham (Co-Engineer). 

Lyrical and social themes “as we replace marble with plastic” mesh visually with “Dreams That Money Can Buy” – the avant garde cinematic creation of German surrealist, Dadaist+ Hans Richter and collaborators. "The Girl with the Prefabricated Heart", the second of DTMCB’s seven dream sequences, is shaped by the rich vision of French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker, Fernand Léger. This experimental feature film received the Award for the Best Original Contribution to the Progress of Cinematography at the 1947 Venice Film Festival.

"Power-house intense" says an European reviewer, “"the energy of ‘Disease' can easily provide electricity to a small country for a decade."

Writing in Süddeutsche Zeitung, a major German daily newspaper, journalist Peter Baier sets the stage (in this translation): “From the outset the Canadian songwriter wins the favor of the audience and increases the expectations with her coloratural laugh. Allison Crowe plays the piano with a strong grip. Its sound fits perfectly to her slightly-smoky, expressive, in short: Great voice. Sometimes her playing recalls the keyboard-capers of Konstantin Wecker and then there are moments to bring to mind Modest Mussorgsky’s „Pictures at an Exhibition“.

(And in the original text: Bereits mit ihren ersten Ansagen gewinnt die kanadische Songwriterin mit eigenem Label die Gunst des Publikums, lässt mit ihrem Koloratur-Lachen die Erwartung auf Weiteres ansteigen. Mit kräftigem Zugriff spielt Allison Crowe das Klavier, zu dessen Klang ihre leicht rauchige, ausducksstarke, kurz: große Stimme hervorragend passt. Manchmal erinnert ihr Spiel an die Tasten-Eskapaden eines Konstantin Wecker, dann wieder gibt es Momente, die an den Stil von Modest Mussorgsky's „Bilder einer Ausstellung“ denken lassen.)

“Amazing composition,” says another in the musician’s broadly international audience, “there is so much intellect in the music writing of Allison Crowe, which you don’t see anywhere these days, not from the new artists nor the established ones.”

It’s an intellect revealed in part via inspired musical choices and its energetic expression is visceral in nature. Energy flows from the performer on-stage to engulf concert-goers as well. Spontaneous eruptions - stomping feet, clapping hands, rhythmically pulsing bodies – accompany this song (a recent bootleg video from Jazzhaus Freiburg further testifies to this rocking reality).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6t4Gk15IB4

#1 of 16 Songs

        

"Lisa's Song" - Live Series

Allison Crowe at Jazzhaus Freiburg - performing "Lisa's Song".

 

Maintaining hope and persevering in the face of great loss and sorrow - fittingly, here's a version live on Mother's Day.

 

This song's originally released on Allison Crowe's EP "Lisa's Song + 6 Songs":

 

http://music.allisoncrowe.com/track/lisas-song 

"Running for Home" - Live Series

Allison Crowe's bootleg series from Europe includes this video of her concert performance of a song by fellow Canadians, the Matthew Good Band.

"Running for Home", performed by Crowe, solo and with her band, at the start of this century, returns to her repertoire in this Spring 2014 concert tournee.

 

The song's originally penned by Matt Good and Dave Genn for their group's 1999 album, "Beautiful Midnight". 

"Easy" Allison Crowe - Live Jazzhaus Freiburg

Allison Crowe's bootleg video series continues here with a celebratory nod to this weekend's opening of "Newfoundland Vinyl" - the hit Theatre Newfoundland and Labrador production at the Gros Morne Theatre Festival (staged in Canada's beautiful Gros Morne National Park).

Allison Crowe enjoys curating and arranging the music - mining a treasure trove of tunes from the

 region - songs that cover a full range of genres and emotions. And when she tours the world Crowe carries the sounds of home to her international audience.

 

On this concert night at Jazzhaus Freiburg in Germany - she performs a song penned by Terry Skinner that's first recorded by Canadian country great Eddie Eastman (in 1979).

 

Allison Crowe recorded it for her album "Newfoundland Vinyl": http://music.allisoncrowe.com/track/easy (released, naturally, on vinyl LP).

 

On its release last year, Gery Deugaw, the super-dedicated cultural archivist behind "GEST Songs of Newfoundland and Labrador" @ http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld - notes: "After all the years of travelling the Trans-Canada, Eddie Eastman was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Honour in 2010. Allison Crowe performs this song with the easy sound it needs to be successfully reprised in the 21st century."

"I want to live..."

Part of a series of bootleg videos - Allison Crowe live in Jazzhaus Freiburg.

The Canadian musician performs "Through These Heavy Graces" - the song which gives title to her most recent album: http://music.allisoncrowe.com/album/heavy-graces

Naming "Heavy Graces" one of the top albums of 2013, pioneering music blog Muruch says: "The original song lyrics on Heavy Graces seem to deal most often with regaining control of one's own life, venting anger at and breaking free from oppressive influences and starting fresh with integrity intact. Whether such fierce and independent themes were born from the death of a relationship or Allison's brief brush with Hollywood, it seems our favorite independent singer-songwriter is more determined than ever to forge her own path. I predict we'll be seeing Allison Crowe not once but twice on our best of the year list."

http://www.muruch.com/2013/10/allison-crowe-heavy-graces.html

Secrets Live

In this latest bootleg from her recent European concert tour, Allison Crowe, again, shows how and why she’s loved – and earns hearty plaudits - ‘round the globe.

"Canada's finest songwriter" says writer Stephen Thomas, co-founder of the UK’s Folkroom Records. "In a world of copycats and wannabes in the singer-songwriter field, Crowe is a true original and is playing in a league of her own," notes L.A.-based writer/producer and AMG journalist Tom Mureika.

Delivery of musical joy and genius today come via pathways distant from the corporate product and pop / rock ephemera of the establishment record industry.

Here at the storied Jazzhaus in Freiburg, Germany, Allison Crowe reveals her “Secrets”

Music Hath Charms

Allison Crowe rocks hard as any musician - and is just as moving when she gently delivers a reflective ballad such as "Hold Back" - first heard on her "Little Light" album - http://music.allisoncrowe.com/album/little-light

Here Crowe picks up her guitar and plays for a wonderful audience of music-lovers at Jazzhaus Freiburg - a Muttertag / Mother's Day show on the "Heavy Graces" 2014 European concert tour.

Skeletons and Spirits - Allison Crowe - Live Jazzhaus Freiburg

“Skeletons and Spirits” is performed here by Allison Crowe live in Jazzhaus Freiburg, Germany.

This original song, a favourite for other young musicians to cover, was first recorded for Allison’s “This Little Bird” album/CD: http://music.allisoncrowe.com/album/this-little-bird

It contains some of the Canadian singer-songwriter’s most deliciously fun lyrics, including:

“I'll pretend I'm a cloud
and my rain will surround you
And if you keep hurting me
I'll eventually drown you

And, yes I know
I'm a little bit off…”