By Bob McKillop

At left: Jud Caswell

“Blackberry Time” is the newly released album of original tunes by Brunswick, Maine singer/songwriter Jud Caswell, and it is a lesson in the craft and process of award-winning songwriting.  That would be my approach to reviewing this CD, except that listening to it is just too enjoyable an experience to be characterized in such an analytic manner.

One of the reasons that I enjoyed this CD so much is the variety in the music.  Jud lays out his albums like buffet dinners, and provides a tasty helping from each of the major musical food groups.  The lead track, “For Sale” sounds like Jud picked up a Texas town and dropped it in the middle of Aroostock County.  “Peace and Quiet” (co-written with Amy Speace) is a spooky, melodic depiction of the tense, temporary, twisted truces that separate the violence in the middle-east, and an insightful metaphor for the same coping mechanisms in a relationship.  “The Men Behind The Bushes” has a sinister, bluesy, slide guitar groove, and is Jud’s clever, searing indictment of the power brokers pulling the strings behind the scenes of the Bush administration.  Just as we are absorbing the tone and mood of one powerful musical and lyrical style, Jud takes us to a completely different place and keeps the experience fresh and interesting.

What is truly impressive is Jud’s ability to pull off all of these styles with a consistently high degree of musicianship, songwriting skill, and production quality.  Every one of these tunes is sung and performed well, recorded with technical skill, and produced with an uncanny feel for instrumentation and arrangement.  Jud credits Amy Speace and Alfred Lund with help with the mix down, and Neil Eckstein of Fox Run Studios mastered the album.  But Jud produced the tunes himself, and his love for the songs and for the performance, and his care for the listener’s experience, comes through vividly.

There are some nice contributing performances here – Drums by Craig Record; backing vocals from Karen Mal, Amy Speace, and Marsey Caswell; Pat Wictor’s slide guitar adds much texture to many of these songs, and Andy Rice does a nice job with the upright bass; I especially liked the subtle pedal tones on “The Raven in the Apple Tree”.

That song won Jud the coveted Boston Folk Festival Songwriting Contest in 2006.  It’s my favorite on this album;  a young family is drawn back to its ancestral homeland by the relentless pull of heritage and tradition and blood lines.  They ask a raven why they are bound to the land in this way, and Jud transforms the bird’s familiar cry into the only possible answer to all such questions – “because, because, because”.  The closing metaphor that puts the graves of fallen apples in the shadows of their cradles brings the concept full circle.  This is sophisticated, deeply thoughtful songwriting.

The title track, “Blackberry Time”, is another award-winning tune; it brought Jud a win at the Grassy Hill Kerrville Newfolk Competition in Texas.  This tune is about nature teaching us a lesson; there are wonderful experiences in the world, and when its time to enjoy them, you’d better get to it, because you can’t make them last.  If you don’t catch them when they are ripe, they’ll go by, and you’ll miss your chance. 

“… Be thankful for the sweet

Because you know that it don’t keep

You just eat what you can eat and move along…”

There are one or two songs on this disc that, as a songwriter, I might characterize as Pat Pattison-style deep-dive sensory pearl exercises;  “write a song about what you think, see, feel, taste, and smell while scrambling around on your belly in a crawl space under a house”.  These don’t exhibit a lot of plot or deep meaning, but even here, Jud shines as a painter of mental images, and his melodies, rhythmic patterns, chord structures, and especially, his vocals and musicianship, bring these tunes up into the range of the rest of the album.

I loved Jud’s last CD, “Lost and Found”; this new release takes him to the next level.  He’s just an enormously talented lyricist, composer, performer, and producer.  He’s got the complete set of tools that a performing songwriter needs to succeed.  It’s only a matter of time before he’s discovered by the rest of the world;  you should discover him now.

The best and most enjoyable way to get Jud’s new CD “Blackberry Time” is to go listen to him at a live show and buy it directly from him.  Otherwise, all of his CDs are available at CD Baby; for digital downloads, go to iTunes, MSN Music, Napster, Rhapsody, or Sony Connect.  Some tunes are also available for dowload from his website at http://www.judcaswell.com .