hissyfit: Toronto Tim Says: Have A Listen

Saturday 3 December 2011

Toronto Tim Says: Have A Listen - Bruce Cockburn

Every so often I'll be turning these pages over to my mate Tim Patrick from Toronto (seen left with his beloved Myrna). Tim loves his cultural life and seems happy to wander through its backroads with any obliging enthusiast. I must warn you; this man could chat for Canada; his emails often keep me sated from breakfast to bed (now there's a line). He seems to have reigned himself in somewhat for this focussed piece on Bruce Cockburn but I'm sure that once he's settled in to his chair he'll wax long and lyrical, a good thing.
Brace yourselves folks: here comes Tim...

Toronto Tim Says: Have A Listen - Bruce Cockburn

I've been listening to singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn (a fellow Canadian) for over 40 years, since I was a young teen, and I guess cliche as it may sound, his music has been the soundtrack to my life. I can't say that he has always been my favorite artist, as I've been rather musically promiscuous over the years... more of an unassuming musical companion on the journey.

From the late 60's guileless, hippy folk of "Going To The Country", through the 70's explorations of reggae, jazz, and various forms of world music often with spiritual wanderings, most notably, the catchy "Wondering Where The Lions Are". Then a radical departure in the 80's with vitriolic, politically motivated rock like "If I Had A Rocket Launcher", the raging "They Call It Democracy" and the memorable "Lovers In A Dangerous Time". However, those tracks were often balanced with quieter, pretty moments.
The 90's found his music turning inward to American folk and blues, working with T-Bone Burnett, Booker T Jones, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, Ani DiFranco and many others for a couple of solid, excellent albums "Nothing But A Burning Light", "Dart To The Heart" then "Charity Of Night"... and a few of my personal favorite tunes, "Child of The Wind", "Closer To The Light" and "Pacing The Cage". The ensuing years have been a eclectic stew of genres and instrumental excursions. As always, some successful others less so, but always nuggets to be found. May be running out of gas, but hell he's 66 years old!
I've just realized that I've seen Bruce in concert 5 or 6 times, more than any other artist, and each one was a remarkable experience. Not that Springsteen (the 'other' Bruce) vibe, but a warm connection with a small, fiercely loyal audience that truly appreciates a National Canadian treasure. Wonderful sense of humor as well... Often ends encores with Python's cheery "Always Look On The Bright Side Of life", or one of his own dark and witty self-penned ditties about the numerous ways of... getting killed. Something I failed to mention is his masterful musicianship... one of the best guitarists around. He has a unique, intricate finger-picking method that is a joy to behold, and greatly admired by other players.

Bruce Cockburn is an uncompromising individualist who has never been one to cater to anyone's expectations. He is simply who he is: a compassionate, introspective, opinionated, shy, pacifistic, gun-loving, horse-riding, restless, skeptical, spiritual mystic who enjoys worldly vices; a complex bundle of contradictions, and the creator of some of the most thoughtful, challenging and lovely music I've ever heard.
Enough of my mumbling...
The music speaks for itself.
Have A Listen!

"SUNSET IS AN ANGEL WEEPING

HOLDING OUT A BLOODY SWORD

NO MATTER HOW I SQUINT I CANNOT

MAKE OUT WHAT IT'S POINTING TOWARD

SOMETIMES YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'VE LIVED TOO LONG

DAYS DRIP SLOWLY ON THE PAGE

YOU CATCH YOURSELF

PACING THE CAGE

SOMETIMES THE BEST MAP WILL NOT GUIDE YOU

YOU CAN'T SEE WHAT'S ROUND THE BEND

SOMETIMES THE ROAD LEADS THROUGH DARK PLACES

SOMETIMES THE DARKNESS IS YOUR FRIEND

TODAY THESE EYES SCAN BLEACHED OUT LAND

FOR THE COMING OF THE OUTBOUND STAGE

PACING THE CAGE"

1 comment:

Hissyfit4 December 2011 at 11:56
Thanks for this Tim.
First of many I hope...
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‘Jones’ is Trevor Jones; principle songwriter with the critically acclaimed duo Miracle Mile, where he works alongside collaborator, arranger and musical partner Marcus Cliffe. Together they have produced nine albums, the latest of which was 2012’s ‘In Cassidy’s Care’, rated ‘Album of the Month’ by HiFi News, with respected journalist Johnny Black noting that Miracle Mile were “far and away the most unfairly unsung musical wizards ever to emerge from this sceptered isle. Big on memorable tunes wrapped around honest-to-goodness emotionally involving lyrics.”

Trevor Jones has also previously produced four solo albums: ‘Hopeland’ (2009), ‘Keepers’, (2010), ‘To the Bone’ (2014) and ‘Happy Blue’ (2016). Co-produced again with Marcus Cliffe, ‘Carver’s Law is another triumph of intimacy.
Previous critical acclaim for Trevor Jones:

“Gorgeous, as ever. Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; gently beautiful and genuinely moving. You may cry.” The Sunday Times

“Masterpieces of subtlety and observation clothed in sumptuous, lush melodies.” R2

“Jones is in a class of one. Near-perfect explorations of the human heart. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me.” Americana UK

“Achingly tender.” Folk Radio UK

“Intellectually as well as emotionally engaging.” MOJO

"Meticulously orchestrated, careful and complex, this is canny songwriting leavened by bona fide humanity." Q

“Moves you to tears and refreshes the soul. Scintillating.” Maverick

"Gentle enchantment. The loveliest melodies you've ever heard.” Uncut

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised. Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving” The Times

Miracle Mile: A User's Guide by Johnny Black

Despite being based in a home studio in a rural backwater on the outskirts of West London, Miracle Mile chose to name themselves after a fictional gold rush main street half a world away where, according to adventure yarn spinner Jack London, ragged 49ers would blow their hard-won nuggets on booze and broads.
They apply a similarly unorthodox approach to their career in general. The band’s core duo of singer/guitarist Trevor Jones and multi-instrumentalist/arranger Marcus Cliffe have been relentless in their pursuit of the perfect song. Not the fastest, the gnarliest or the loudest, not even the most instantly commercial, but the song whose melody, lyrics, arrangement, performance and spirit might stand the test of time, giving pleasure to listeners not just for years but centuries.
They’d be the first to admit they haven’t yet found that perfect song and maybe never will, but I’d argue that their albums — the documentary evidence of that search — deserve a place alongside the best work of time-tested tunesmiths as elevated as Randy Newman, Elvis Costello or Tom Waits.

Marcus Cliffe wasn’t yet on board when the first album, Bicycle Thieves, arrived in 1997 but already it was evident that frontman Jones didn’t fit in with the prevailing mode. There was no rage, bitterness or self-loathing in his songs and nothing at all turned up to eleven. Instead, he offered meticulously orchestrated slices of ordinary human life, transforming the mundane into the marvellous with carefully crafted lyrics sincerely delivered. Even here, though, the hypnotic sample-based "Recycletwo" revealed a willingness to experiment that marked Jones out as more than just a pop craftsman in the vein of Crowded House or Aztec Camera.

What had started essentially as a recording project had become a five-piece live band by the time the follow-up, Candids, was released in 1998. Loaded with nagging guitar hooks and dynamic vocal interplay, it included one particularly affecting piece, "Small Ad," which featured just one line of lyric, the heart-rending couplet, "Baby’s shoes, never used." With those four words, Jones conjured up a yawning abyss of grief that other writers might struggle to evoke in an entire album.

Jones quickly realised that live performance was not his forte and retired to the womb of the studio for 1999’s third album, Slow Fade, which also saw the birth of the partnership that would lift Miracle Mile higher still above the norm. Marcus Cliffe, in demand as a player for Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Daniel Lanois, Mark Knopfler and others, was drafted in on upright bass.
Immediately the music took a more intimate turn, with Jones exploring the little things that illuminate the big things. Almost every song offers up at least one unforgettable line, like "I'd rather be ashes than dust" in "Everybody Loved You," or the concept of filling the void left by his loss of faith "with despair and metalware" in "Starwatching."
Slow Fade was further enhanced by the delicately filigreed swirls and swoops of England’s finest steel guitar maestro, B.J. Cole, whose style sat so well with Jones and Cliffe that he has become virtually a full-time member of the band.

And then, out of nowhere, catastrophe struck. Trevor Jones’ beloved sister died in tragic circumstances. It’s typical of the man that, rather than wallowing in his grief as he had every right to do, he dealt with his loss in the quiet, honest dignity of "Sister Song," the achingly lovely tribute that concludes the fourth album, Alaska. It can’t have been coincidence that the album, despite its meltingly beautiful musical landscape, was named for one of the coldest places on earth.

By the time of Stories We Could Tell in 2004, Miracle Mile were drawing critical plaudits in every significant British magazine and newspaper, along with comparisons to such pop pluperfectionists as Prefab Sprout and the Blue Nile. Critics were noting that Miracle Mile was fast becoming a repository of timelessly romantic music fueled by the same shamelessly emotional human concerns that inspired the great standards. More than this, it was being noticed that while most bands go into decline after two or three albums, Miracle Mile were getting better, perhaps because they’d avoided the trap of trying to be contemporary, and had no need to be more outrageous than the competition, largely because they didn’t see music as a competitor sport.

The sixth album, Glow, showed up in 2005 and found Jones and Cliffe further expanding their musical palette mixing Celtic folksiness with slow, semi-industrial percussion on the inspirational "An Average Sadness," blending Badalamenti guitars with Bacharach horns on "What Kate Did Next," and opening "Strange Sympathy" with a beautifully synthesised string orchestration before letting the song melt seamlessly into a laid-back country-rock rumination on the gap between aspiration and acquisition. Glow was also their most lavishly packaged disc, gorgeously presented at no small cost to themselves.

Album No. 7, Limbo, offered fifteen songs overflowing with sensitively wrought melodies and heart-fluttering lyricism. If it’s not a contradiction in terms, Limbo was even more quietly passionate than usual, deliciously understated and, at times, devastatingly tear-jerking.

‘Cassidy’s Care’ followed in 2012 and received similar critical acclaim.
Miracle Mile may just be too concerned with timeless quality for their own short-term commercial good. They’ll never sink a fang into the jugular when they can plant a whisper of a kiss on that sensitive spot at the nape of the neck and set off a tiny ripple that will, in the fullness of time, explode in the heart. I, for one, wouldn’t want it any other way.
Johnny Black

“Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; Marcus Cliffe anchors it in the sweetest pop. Gorgeous as ever. You may cry.”
Sunday Times

"Gentle enchantment. The loveliest melodies you've ever heard."
UNCUT

“Gorgeous melodies, hooks galore, intelligent lyrics that demand and repay careful listening, beautifully produced instrumentation, and an overall effect that combines poignancy and joy in equal measure. Music and words come together in a state as close to perfection as makes no difference, and leaves you with a delicious ache that makes you hug yourself with the sheer overwhelming joy of hearing such wonderful music. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me."
Americana UK

“A little oasis illuminated by musical creativity, glimpsed like a lovely mirage. Intelligent tunefulness that doesn’t kowtow to passing trends has always been as rare as fish fingernails, but it’s here.” Mojo

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised” The Times

“Moves you to tears and refreshes the soul. Scintillating.”
Maverick

“A tender sadness. Songs that have universal resonance.”
Netrhythms

"Trevor Jones has produced a gorgeous pop album that few will hear — unless there’s justice in the world.’ The Wall Street Journal

“Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving”
The Sunday Times