Mary ~ "Tidings Concert" (song 6)

Here's "Mary", a song Allison Crowe first heard on an episode of the "Sons of Anarchy" television drama - and which got her into Patty Griffin, the song's brilliant creator. Allison's friend, driver, and European tour manager, the legendary Axel Dollheiser, was Patty's driver in the 1990s and has been raving about her ever since - particularly the "Living With Ghosts" album. Things happen when and how they do - and, it's a confessional scene involving Gemma Teller (played by Katey Sagal) on SoA that brought this music into Allison's repertoire and "Tidings Concert".

I don't wanna pickle, I just wanna...

Musician Allison Crowe - ready for Halloween fun as Gemma Teller Morrow, the matriarch character portrayed by Katey Sagal in the television series "Sons of Anarchy".

Coincidentially, or not, biker mamas Katey and Alley have each recorded Leonard Cohen's "Bird on a Wire" - herewith, for your trick or treating pleasure:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT99PIa2H7U - Katey Sagal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ik8_WNTfz4 - Allison Crowe


Allison Teller Morrow - foto

Bird on a Wire - encore

Alighting in time for July 1 Canada Day and July 4 Independence Day celebrations is the newest recording from Allison Crowe - a cover of "Bird on the Wire".

This Leonard Cohen classic has been covered by Jennifer Warnes (on 1987’s “Famous Blue Raincoat” collection AKA “Jenny Sings Lenny”), as well as by Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, Joe Cocker, Bob Benvenuti, Katey Sagal (for the US tv program “Sons of Anarchy”), Tim Hardin, The Neville Brothers… in total, more than 140 recording artists since its release on Cohen’s 1969 album “Songs from a Room”.

Nearly a decade ago, Crowe's singular cover of another Leonard Cohen masterwork, "Hallelujah", had the rare distinction of twice being featured by UK trade Journal "Record of the Day" - before becoming a world-wide favourite. Now, her version of "Bird on a Wire" receives encore coverage from DrHGuy, AKA Allan Showalter, the erudite and entertaining blogger behind the web's go-to sites for "a pastiche of posts with song, dance, snappy chatter, and notes on prose, poesy, love, lust, life, & Leonard Cohen".

Allison Crowe pre-concert at Evangelische Osterkirche, Berlin, Germany - Billie Woods foto


Says the good Doctor:

"Allison Crowe's cover of Leonard Cohen's classic 'Bird On The Wire' is mournful and, true to the lyrics of the song, conscientiously abjures cheap conventional sentiment or ginning up the type of pseudo-consolation that relies on false promises of living happily ever after, e.g., that irreparable conflicts will somehow be resolved, emotional damages repaired, or the pain of personal loss alleviated. Yet, Crowe's voice and phrasing convey such empathy and intimacy that solace and succor are nonetheless granted through grace."

It's a great cover of a great song."

This holiday week Allison Crowe is busy rehearsing the cast of "Newfoundland Vinyl". She's Music Director of this play - a rollicking ride through popular music's coming of age in Canada's most eastern province, the island of Newfoundland. Written and directed by Jeff Pitcher, the show debuts at the Gros Morne Theatre Festival this July 13.

Bird on a Wire

Allison Crowe sings to be free. Herewith, Leonard Cohen's "Bird on the Wire".

Free to Fly

It's four in the afternoon and not raining. Not in Baltimore. Not in Cleveland where the world's first rock concert happened - sixty years ago this weekend.

In 2006, the wonderful songwriter and jug-band-Jedi, John Sebastian, told The New York Times: "The (record) industry has been in the corporate noose for so long, it doesn't even have a leg jiggle left. There's no one left saying, 'Wait, we want to make art'."

Keith Richards' tranfusion at a Swiss clinic is urban legend. The new cultural blood that's coursing through our digital world is ready to become truly legendary. A force :)

It's a fantastic voyage from the "Moondog Coronation Ball" to now.

Among this week's way-stations, we hear from the newest blogger to enter ourstream: THW - the UK music blog of The Human Wreckage - very kindly features Allison today, and says: "In a nutshell; Allison Crowe is what is missing from the music industry. She has a strong mind, follows her heart and just oozes talent." With Allison blazing her own path, and such pioneers as Ani DiFranco and Janis Ian showing what's possible, making music stronger than the corporate establishment, these are the best of times for music-makers andmusic-lovers!

Sister THW blog - Forget the Freak You're Just Nature - presents Allison's captured-live-in-the-studio performance of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah".

And the buffet is laid out at Muruch - enriching blogger on music, literature and film, and a site familiar to fans of Allison Crowe. Muruch premieres a new recording of "Disease" - an exciting early listen to "Tidings Live" :)



Tough Mama. Katey Sagal and the Sons of Anarchy.

Allison Crowe, with Zimmy's "world of illusion" at her feet, is free to fly. "Free to possess truth in one soul and one body".