By Bob McKillop

Brad Powell’s tribute album to John Denver is a séance.   Powell’s enchanting guitar music, and his well-crafted arrangements, bring the spirit of this great songwriter, performer, and activist into the room vividly.  The vision of John Denver that we see, however, is transmuted by the deep meaning and personal attachment that Powell obviously feels for Denver and his work.

Brad Powell is a talented and highly trained California guitarist and composer who calls himself “The Candlelight Guitarist”, and for good reason.  His music is perfect for situations in which candlelight figures prominently.  Quiet meditation, romance, intellectual stimulation – the soft, pure tones of his Spanish and classic instrumental style open up your heart and render it more receptive to the spiritual messages that these pursuits engender.

He has put this talent to good use in this retrospective of John Denver’s considerable catalog of songs.  Denver and his music are a major influence for Powell, and he produced this album to coincide with the ten year anniversary of Denver’s untimely death in 1997.

John Denver was a great lyricist, but for me, Denver is all about melody.  In a time when it seemed as if there were no more great melodies left, Denver was able to consistently surprise and delight us with his turn of musical phrase.  John Denver wrote songs in which the melodies were the medium through which the lyrics became memorable.  Would any of us remember the words to “Poems, Prayers, and Promises” if not for that great melody?

Brad Powell brings those melodies back to us;  technically, he is an expert guitarist; great tone and a masterful sense of rhythm and timing.   He infuses these familiar tunes with his own interpretation of their meaning for him as an individual, and for all of us who appreciate John Denver’s music.

There are 15 tracks on this album, all of them John Denver hits, except three very nice originals by Brad Powell. 

My favorite cut is “Calypso”, Denver’s tribute to Jacques-Yves Cousteau and the crew of the research vessel of that name.  Powell’s guitar captures the spirit of adventure, the sense of old-world informality mixed with a sense of mission, that characterized the Cousteau mystique.  The gentle, affable accordion tracks by Frank Marocco (who performed with Denver in Los Angeles) and the mandolin highlights by Kenny Blackwell, help set the wonderful, optimistic mood of joy in one’s work, and in helping the world understand itself a little bit better.

Denver wrote “Annie’s Song” for his first wife, Annie Martell.  Powell’s rendition is faithful to the sense of awe and surprise in the power of deeply felt love that Denver wrote into the lyrics and the melody of this great tune.  A wonderfully sonorous cello solo on the melody, by Caryl Paisner (another John Denver collaborator), completes this great arrangement.

This must have been a ponderous project for Brad Powell.  These are careful, thoughtful arrangements, with a variety of instrumentation and talent, recorded in several locations across the continent.  The resulting challenges for the recording, mixing, and mastering engineers impact the quality of the production in a few instances, but not in a way that interfered with my enjoyment of the CD.

At least ten other musicians contributed to this record, most of them highly regarded and experienced session musicians.  Several of them recorded or performed with John Denver in various tours or events.  It is obvious that Powell worked hard to find these people and bring them together, in order to weave as much of the spirit and legacy of John Denver as possible into this record.

We John Denver fans tend to connect each of his songs with significant periods or events in our lives to which they seem to have some special meaning.   If you are among us, I would highly recommend that you purchase this disc (http://www.candlelightguitarist.com/).  The music will bring you back to all those moments in your life when Denver seemed to have written a song just for you.  Brad Powell’s guitar work frames these songs perfectly: Evocative of the remembered moment, but seasoned with the wisdom gained in the interim.