Come Fly With Me Behind-the-Scene

In Hollywood, not too long ago, movie director Zack Snyder was putting together the soundtrack for his cinematic take on the Alan Moore-penned comic series “Watchmen”.

One particularly noteworthy scene played out to the sound of Allison Crowe’s much-loved recording of “Hallelujah” – the Leonard Cohen classic that’s been expressed in most ways imaginable. (This artistic association ultimately led to the director flying Crowe across the continent to cameo in his reboot of the Superman movie series, "Man of Steel".)

Considering the "Watchmen" scene was meant to be awkward and ironic, Snyder drew another breath and concluded Crowe’s performance was “too beautiful”, “too romantic” and “too sexy” for the film – replacing her version with Cohen’s original.

Allan Showalter, the ever-mysterious-and-curious eminence grise behind “Cohencentric: Leonard Cohen Considered" revisits that movie moment as only he can:

http://cohencentric.com/2015/08/13/leonard-cohens-hallelujah-mood-music-for-watchmen-superheroic-sex-scene

Fun Universe Brings Allison Crowe’s Music Home this Holiday Season

How does one of the world’s great musical voices, and most independent artists on the planet, land amidst a face-off between man and Superman in an Hollywood blockbuster?

“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.”

The film-maker, along with his stellar cast and crew, deliver insights into the production of this epic science fiction adventure, in “Journey of Discovery”, a just-released special feature of MoS in Blu-ray edition.

“(Zack) keeps trying to get me into movies and it’s amazing,” responds Crowe in the feature. “I first kinda met Zack over the internet about songs online... I think about four or five years ago the first one would have been the ‘Watchmen’ and he was looking to do ‘Hallelujah’. And then the second one we were looking at another song for ‘Sucker Punch’ and so now we have Johnny Cash’s ‘Ring of Fire’ and the altercation ensues…”

Allison Crowe with Zack Snyder on "Man of Steel" set - photo courtesy Clay Enos / Warner Bros.

The movie itself reveals how all the pieces fit – and it’s an exhilarating ride and humbling experience for the Canadian singer-songwriter. And it’s all inspiring.

“In an entertainment world that increasingly genuflects at the altar of instant fame, Crowe seems an anomaly, building her career slowly and carefully,” commented Times Colonist newspaper scribe Adrian Chamberlain some years back. Fine-tuned at the keyboard in arts reportage, (and an r’n’b combo), the writer noted how the “Nanaimo songbird seems uninterested in celebrity and its trappings”.

The universe is ever-expanding for the now Corner Brook, Newfoundland-based, Vancouver Island-born, Crowe, still her goals and values are constant. "Soulful. Alive. Joyous. Grievous. Real, true, music is what I want to make," she’s said. More than a dozen years along the road less-traveled, she succeeds like no one else.

From attending the red-carpet premiere and festivities of “Man of Steel” this Summer, she traveled from New York City to Cow Head, NL to musically direct the hit stage show “Newfoundland Vinyl”, a production of Theatre Newfoundland and Labrador at the Gros Morne Theatre Festival. Her LP/album of the same name, joins her latest, “Heavy Graces” among 2013’s best new releases. Crowe’s third album out this year, “Songbook”, is an oeuvre-spanning 22-song compilation.

People everywhere can enjoy the music – and folks in Allison Crowe’s hometowns can join in “Tidings”, a celebration of music for the season and all-time, happening:

Nov. 30 – Arts and Culture Centre, Corner Brook, NL

Dec. 7 – Fairfield United Church, Victoria, BC – to aid Artemis Place and HepCBC

Dec. 12 – Real Food, Old City Quarter, Nanaimo, BC – Community Sing-along to aid Haven Society

Dec. 14 – St. Andrew’s United Church, Nanaimo, BC – with guests: Chelsea Peckett; Daniel Knapp; Melissa Kahan; Taylor Johnstone; Raymond Salgado; & Josh Holloway - to aid Woodlands Secondary Band and Basketball

Concert and community sing-along details coming soon.

Profound Pole-arity

After originally placing Allison Crowe's "Tidings" version of "Hallelujah" in his movie, "Watchmen", in 2009 Hollywood director Zack Snyder decided Allison's take is "too beautiful", "too sexy" and "too romantic" to be paired with what's meant to be a ridiculous scene of love-making aboard an airborne Owl-Ship. We'll never know, of course, but, had Snyder carried out his original vision, Leonard Cohen may never have wished, however temporarily, for a moratorium on use of his song. Demand for feathers and latex, though, may have become such a strain on the natural world - that, in the end, the right course was likely followed.

That blazing union of spirituality and physicality which distinguishes Allison Crowe's performances of "Hallelujah" - and, really, her entire repertoire - and which made her recording deemed not a match for "Watchmen", is also what makes it so ideal for "The Pardon" movie trailer- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe9yC13crc0 - and its story and stars Jaime King and John Hawkes.

And, I'd suggest, such passion is what also makes Allison's "Hallelujah" the chosen soundtrack for this aerial fitness display by Nicci Arriola at the Annual Winter Recital in Midvale, Utah - for this season dubbed the North Pole. Even if you, as am I, be not familiar with the form of dance and fitness witnessed here, by the second half of the song the language of the movement to the music is fluidly evident.

Allison Crowe’s Rock and Roll Recipe: The Magic’s in the Music

At the start of this millennium, Allison Crowe embarked from her Pacific Ocean home, Vancouver Island, to perform a pair of concerts in Seattle, Washington, at a “Worldwide Jammer Convergence” of Pearl Jam fans. There was no roadmap for her success.

Today, Crowe is an internationally-acclaimed and much-loved singer-songwriter. Readying for another season of touring, and creation of her eighth album/song collection, she’s navigating a life in music.

Ahead of the 20th century recording industry’s entry into the digital age, Allison Crowe emerges in a new DIY generation. Decades earlier, punk, and, resonantly, pop culture revolution in the 1960s, erupted. Then, institutionalized payola and greedy elements smothered music radio. “Company men”, as John Lennon labeled them, took over – on stage as well as in the boardroom.

Rock’s bold promise to squeeze your lemons was reconstituted in this new era - a branding pitch hot-blooded as ice-tea. In 2006, John Sebastian, jug-band music-maker, writer of classic songs for The Lovin’ Spoonful, tells The New York Times: "The 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'."

Rock and roll spirit, magnificent and wild as rebellion, lives on - vital tendrils reaching out through the casement. On Allison Crowe’s path, classical and jazz roots meet with teenage influences Ani DiFranco, PJ, Tori Amos and Counting Crows. Independents DiFranco, Loreena McKennitt and Janis Ian show there is a way – and it’s different for each.

Coursing freely, Crowe’s real “story” is her immense creativity – talents and gifts of writing and musicianship, (voice, piano and guitar), which she shares openly. Communicating emotion, crossing over language, sex, religion, race, age and other dividers, performing original compositions and as interpreter.

Forming Rubenesque Records Ltd. to market her recordings, since 2003 Allison Crowe has released a series of seven albums/CDs singularly remarkable in its diversity and quality of writing and performance – and delivered epiphanies amid concert fun and excitement. (Testifying are music writers the world over – find a sampling below and more @ http://www.allisoncrowe.com/pressquotes.html)

"Soulful. Alive. Joyous. Grievous. Real, true, music is what I want to make," Crowe says. Embracing the web, she and her audience have found each other - big-time.

On Last.fm, the world's largest online music catalogue and recommendation site, (where her song tracks enjoy over 100,000 listeners and nearing 700,000 plays), Allison Crowe’s been voted by some very discerning music-lovers into the "Singer-Songwriter of the Week" group's Hall of Fame – joining Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Townes van Zandt, Carole King, Neil Young, Van Morrison, other legends, and a handful of younger artists. Crowe, 29, is the only singer-songwriter under 30 selected – closest her age in this august company is Conor Oberst (32) and Sufjan Stevens (35).

On Jamendo, the planet’s premiere platform for free music and a community of Creative Commons music authors, Crowe’s original songs have been played over one million times by 200,000 regular listeners. On YouTube, the video site which serves as a top music discovery forum, Crowe’s music videos have over 10 million, (un-bought and un-rigged), listens/views. Add one-million-plus plays and downloads of original music from her own website, and the totality represents a musical connection achievable in pre-internet times only by gold-to-platinum-selling acts with label muscle flexing major financial support.

For Allison Crowe, wholly-independent, this exposure also translates into sales, as people still want physical CDs, and, so far, more than 500,000 paid downloads/streams (via iTunes – and such ‘etailers’ as CD Baby, Amazon, Emusic, among others, which serve their own music-buying bases).

Bicoastal Crowe calls Corner Brook, NL, and Nanaimo, BC, home. Outside her native land, Canada, she’s especially popular in the USA, Europe, and, increasingly, Australia, New Zealand and South America. Running her own operations, it’s an incremental process to physically traverse the globe and perform. Bonds initiated online strengthen in the flesh. It’s the stuff of legend.

A sensation in the Village Hall, Durness, Scottish Highlands, just a few years ago, Allison Crowe’s on a bill with Carol Ann Duffy, currently Britain’s Poet Laureate, and the Royal Academy of Music Players under the Master of the Queen's Music, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. Her set included Beatles' favourite “In My Life” - for members of the Lennon clan, local villagers, musicians and global celebrants come together for the "John Lennon Northern Lights Festival." Crowe’s latest European tour wrapped, this past October, in the birthplace of a nation, atop Germany’s fabled Harz Mountains. Medieval Quedlinburg, an UNESCO World Heritage Site, hosted Crowe who performed for an SRO crowd inside Blasiikirche, and an overflow audience circling outside the historic church.

Publicly, Dance Ensemble students at Lindenhurst High, New York, gambitsurya in Chennai, India, young folks ’round the world are singing and dancing to Allison’s music for their communities, for themselves. In the present semester, Christina, Polly, Jess, Jil, Tamanna, Shamima, Nilufa, and Sabina, high school and college students at disparate UK learning institutions have made Allison Crowe songs, “Skeletons and Spirits”, “This Little Bird”, and “Lisa’s Song”, course projects in Media and Video. In Hollywood, director Zack Snyder, (300, Watchmen, Sucker Punch), helming the reboot of the Superman movie series, tells ArtistDirect: "Right now, I've been trying to find a really good cover of 'Battle Hymn of the Republic.' I can't find one that I really like with all five verses, so that's a problem. I was going to call someone up like Allison Crowe and be like, 'Can you record a version of this?' That's how my brain works!”

Privately, families are paying their last earthly respects to loved ones accompanied by Crowe’s musical voice. Mothers are welcoming their newborns to this sound.

Allison Crowe’s Spring Show comes to: Fredericton, NB (April 29), to aid The Kidney Foundation of Canada’s “A Brush of Hope” campaign; Halifax, NS (April 30); and St. John’s, NL (May 7).

Music and more @ http://www.allisoncrowe.com



What people say about Allison Crowe:

"Una voce incredibile per una forza della natura." ~ Reset Radio (Italy)

"There are some voices that speak (or sing) for themselves. You know the ones. Voices where it doesn’t matter what they sing. Voices where it doesn’t really matter what instruments support them. Solomon Burke has such a voice. Jeff Buckley had it. Allison Crowe has it too." ~ Ray Padgett, Cover Me (USA)

"Canada's finest songwriter" ~ Stephen Thomas, We Write Lists (UK)

"Ever wonder what it would have been like to listen to a gifted singer/songwriter from Saskatchewan in a small, intimate hall before she became Joni Mitchell? Don't fret the missed opportunity. There's no need to turn back the clock. Check out Allison Crowe." ~ Robert Reid, The Record (Canada)

"Once famously described by the Vancouver Courier 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." ~ MOJO (UK)

"One of the best interpreters to come along since Joe Cocker" ~ Bob Bishop, Editor, Paris Voice (France)

"J'ai rarement été bouleversée à ce point par une voix féminine. Pure comme de la glace, puissante et même violente... qu'il est impossible de ne pas mettre son coeur en jeu en l'écoutant... faîtes place à une virtuose nom de Zeus!" ~ SplinterMuse (France)

"Ihre gestalteten Emotionen umfassen sowohl stürmische, dramatische Prozesse, Wut, Verzweiflung, aber auch spielerischen Übermut und einen unbändigen Lebenswillen. Im Kontext dazu stehen ihre zarten, hingebungsvollen Empfindungen, eine Lyrik, in denen sie die breit gefächerte Facette ihrer gesanglichen Begabung zum Klingen bringt." ~ Barbara Kirchner-Babinecz, Mitteldeutsche Zeitung (Germany)

"the most honest, heartfelt, and directly intimate concert in my entire life." ~ Ross Hocker, WGTE/NPR (USA)

Hail to the Haggis! - two videos to celebrate!!

On my two most recent visits to the village super-market, I noticed there was a pile of haggis in the meat cooler. This seemed unusual, but, considering how much touring Allison does, I am pretty accustomed to hearing multiple languages, and facing music, food and drink of any number of countries.

Still, I wondered, how and when did haggis become so popular here - on my little island in the Canadian Pacific Ocean?

Returning home, without any "meaty pudding" in my grocery bags, I tune into the CBC Radio program, "In the Key of Charles", and the show's marvellous host, Gregory Charles is devoting the entire two hours this Sunday night to Robbie Burns' poetry and song.

Och, aye!!

Happy Robbie Burns Day!!

Haggis, it's speculated, has its origins in the Scottish Highlands - as a ration for the drovers journeying down through the glens.

Allison has roots in that bonnie land, and, more recently, enjoys a mutual love with Scotland. It's fitting, then, I've made a couple of videos, while drinking Highland Park single malt, a scotch introduced to me by Allison and Billie Woods, who picked up a bottle in Kirkwall, when they adventured in the Orkney Islands last Fall.

Me and Bobby McGee - 't'is a fine start, especially as the vid contains images of the Scottish Highlands - alongside scenes from Germany:



And, here's Wedding Song:



Billie Woods took all the pics - on tour with Allison across Europe in 2008. Allison performs all the music. Larry Anschell recorded "Me and Bobby McGee" live, in Victoria, B.C., Canada. "Wedding Song", Allison recorded - from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island, Canada.

So, raise a glass, of whatever you choose.

Sláinte mhaith!!