Songs of Life and Death

With, both, “Cover Me” and “Coverville”, a pair of the world’s premiere homes for lovers of cover songs, sending birthday wishes to Allison Crowe today, it’s an invitation to explore the artist’s body of interpretive work. All music can be found linked via the “ABC List” @ http://www.allisoncrowe.com/ABC.html 

A supreme interpreter and arranger of songs - traditional, Celtic, jazz, Broadway, hymns, carols and aires – Crowe’s famed for her renewal of popular songs – including those first penned by Canadian icons Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, and Atlantic coast treasures Gary O’Driscoll, Al Pittman / Ron Hynes, Wince Coles, Harry Hibbs+, alongside tunes from The Beatles, Pearl Jam, Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco,Counting Crows, Lovin’ Spoonful, Phil Ochs, Annie Lennox, Radiohead, Ronnie Shannon, Patty Griffin, Kris Kristofferson, the Rolling Stones and more.

In this rich and varied repertoire, each of Crowe’s singular performances is a favourite.

Having just come off the road with Allison Crowe and Band – during our travels we learned of Leonard Cohen’s passing. Tonight, his manager released these details:

“Leonard Cohen died during his sleep following a fall in the middle of the night on November 7th. The death was sudden, unexpected, and peaceful. He is survived by his children Adam and Lorca, and his three grandchildren Cassius (Adam’s son), and Viva and Lyon (Lorca’s daughter and son).” http://cohencentric.com/2016/11/16/statement-details-leonard-cohens-death-robert-kory-president-rk-management-manager-leonard-cohen

Allison Crowe, together with countless people all over our world, shares a special bond with the bard “born with the gift of a golden voice”. This relationship intertwines with the DNA of Leonard Cohen songs – among those in her repertoire is his universal “Hallelujah”. Of this, “Cover Me” founder and editor Ray Padgett opines:

“Born in British Columbia, Crowe has amassed a loyal following in Canada and Europe. The songwriter’s songwriter pure tones sound like a bell, no show-off acrobatics necessary. The amazing thing isn’t just that she performs the best version of Leonard Cohen‘s oft-covered ‘Hallelujah’ (sorry Jeff); the amazing thing is that she does so using the same solo piano style that everyone else does. There’s nothing particularly creative about it; her voice is just that good! So throw all those other ‘sensitive’ covers. This one’s the keeper.”

The blog 'anacronyms' says:“Crowe's version is a living thing, a meditation and a celebration and a benediction."

Thank you, sincerely, L. Cohen. We have the music.

Hallelujah Considered

Allison Crowe’s singular interpretation of “Hallelujah” was first released on record in 2003. The Leonard Cohen classic has been covered hundreds of times since – by country acts, pop idols, crooners, swooners and more. Allison’s rare, visceral, artistry remains timeless and, today, “Cohencentric: Leonard Cohen Considered” places in its firmament this iconic video - one of the world's most-loved versions of the song (filmed live-in-the-studio of Canada’s Turtle Recording):

http://cohencentric.com/2015/04/08/video-allison-crowe-performs-hallelujah-by-leonard-cohen

Hallelujah - Allison Crowe performs Leonard Cohen from Allison Crowe on Vimeo.

Creep

Fourth in the feast of imagination that is Allison Crowe’s “16 Songs” Video Album is a cultural dish centuries in the making.

Since the Middle Ages there are reports of the Welsh having a fondness for toasted cheese. The first recipes for “Welsh Rarebit” (or “Rabbit”) appear in the 1700s – and, this, (as well as an English Rabbit, an Irish and a Scotch Rabbit), hopped to the New World with the colonists.

To Scottish immigrants in Woodstock, Upper Canada, in the year of the country’s Confederation, 1867, was born Zenas W. McCay. Then, again, the artist, who would grow up known by his middle name, Winsor, may have entered this world a few years later, and south of the border – in Spring Lake, Michigan. Whatever the ingredients of his origin he found his way to revolutionize comics+ with his pioneering techniques, and, especially his creation, “Little Nemo in Slumberland”.

McCay by the late 1800s was illustrating posters to comic strips (he later toured, as well, drawing live on the vaudeville stage for appreciative audiences). Winsor McCay’s legacy – his enormous influence and inspiration’s given nods by Max Fleischer, Walt Disney, Federico Fellini, Maurice Sendak, Art Spiegelman and other greats in visual and pop arts.

In 1904 he launched the newspaper strip “Dream of the Rarebit Fiend”. This successful series ran until 1911 – and related the strange dreams of folks who’d eaten Welsh Rarebit before going to sleep. Between 1911 and 1921 Winsor self-financed and animated ten films - three of which fly on this theme.

          

An excerpt of McCay’s “Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend: The Pet” (1921) is on the menu here with Allison Crowe’s version of “Creep”, recorded live-in-concert with her first trio – the cooking rhythm section of Dave Baird on bass and Kevin Clevette on drums. The music’s captured by audio archivists Condor and John MacMillan at the Chilliwack Arts Centre, BC, Canada in 2003.

That’s a decade or so after the song, lyrics penned by Thom Yorke and music composed by Radiohead, was released by that band as its cracking debut. In turn, it’s 20 years before Radiohead’s giant international hit with “Creep” that a tune by musicians Albert Hammond and Mike Hazelwood delivered The Hollies to the toppermost of the poppermost with “The Air That I Breathe”. Radiohead and Hammond/Hazelwood agreed to co-songwriting credits on “Creep” – serving up delicious melody and a rare bit of shared popular music history on the side.

#4 of 16 Songs

          

Coverville 809: The Eurythmics Cover Story

For lovers of Annie Lennox & Dave Stewart - Brian Ibbott, conductor of Coverville, delivers "The Eurythmics Cover Story". One hour of musical treats from The Rubinoos, Martha Wainwright, The Watson Twins and more... including Annie herself. Allison Crowe represents with "Why" - I believe it's the favourite version of "Spiral" producer and string arranger Kayla Schmah. Time to download and listen!

Do Look Back

Who Will Save Your Soul (Jewel)

As the release of “Spiral”, a new album from Allison Crowe, approaches, it’s fun to revisit where things began, with a pair of songs from among the earliest popular (i.e. not jazz or classical) songs and inspirations in Crowe’s repertoire.

Here’s Allison Crowe covering, live, a song that was a hit when she was 15 – "Who Will Save Your Soul”.

WWSYS is the lead off track on “Pieces of You”, the debut album of Utah-born, Alaska-raised, singer-songwriter Jewel (Kilcher). The POY album, (for which Jewel wrote songs alone, and together with wild-and-crazy Haligonian-at-birth Steve Poltz), has sold over 13 million copies worldwide. It’s an organic blend of songs recorded, (in the mid-’90s), live at the Innerchange coffeehouse in San Diego, and at Neil Young’s Broken Arrow Ranch studio in Woodside, California, sensitively produced by Ben Keith.

Jewel, via her “J-team”, has been kind to Allison Crowe, and especially supportive when Allison was first venturing out from her Canadian island to greet a larger world with her music.



Fade Away

Allison Crowe’s first public performance, at age 5 or 6, was singing the jazz-era hit “Ja-Da Ja-Da (Jing Jing Jing)”.
 

For the next decade, Crowe’s musical training hewed to jazz and classical, with Beethoven being a natural favourite. By her teenage years, this foundation enabled creative flight, further fuelled by such diverse influences as “The Little Mermaid”, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, and Chet Baker joining a new generation of bands, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Counting Crows, among them, and women in the spotlight – from Ani DiFranco, and Tori Amos, to Joan Osborne, Jewel, Sarah McLachlan and plenty more inspirations.

“Fade Away”, penned when she was 15, is the first song Allison Crowe wrote as a singer-songwriter.

On this recording, she’s accompanied by Larry Anschell, on electric guitar, Dave Baird on bass, and Kevin Clevette on drums. Recorded and produced by Anschell (Bif Naked, Sarah McLachlan, Pearl Jam), at his Turtle Recording studios in White Rock, B.C., Canada.



The photos of Allison accompanying these music vids are by the fabulous Billie Rocha-Woods