CD Review
by Ceci Gilson
It seems Ithaca, NY-based Joe Crookston can hardly set a foot wrong these days. Several of his songs have made it into the final smackdowns of some of the more prestigious national songwriting competitions; John Lennon, Mountain Stage, Great American Song Contest, Performing Songwriter, etc. The audience at the 2007 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival named him one of the Top 3 “Most Wanted” Emerging Artists. This honor landed him a spot on the 2008 Falcon Ridge Preview Tour, commencing this spring.
The title song from his 2005 release, “Fall Down as the Rain,” took me back to the sound of some of Tom Rush’s best work circa 1970 – rich, laid back, and super-melodic. His new disc, Able, Baker, Charlie & Dog features eloquently finger-picked guitar and great arrangements utilizing accordion, piano, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, etc.
Crookston has a wonderfully supple and highly personable voice. He puts across light-hearted songs with spirit and charisma. On the flip side, he delivers heart-breaking lyrics with sensitivity and poignancy. He manages to take the horridly over-played pop hit “The Logical Song” (Supertramp) and give it some some life with great acoustic guitar and fresh vocal phrasing.
In 2006, Joe won a Rockefeller Foundation grant to travel around the Finger Lakes area of New York, interviewing local residents, collecting stories and writing songs based on his experiences. The project was inspired by Woody Guthrie’s work in 1941, collecting stories and writing songs in Washington state on a federal grant. Four of the songs appear on Able, Baker, Charlie & Dog.
The disc has an almost vaudevillian feel to it - it’s highly entertaining and chockfull of variety. There’s something new at every turn; character sketches, stories, stomps, a churchy ballad, some madcap piano, a rousing sing-along concerning a drunken rooster, and another about sports involving rutabagas (you heard me right). You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll have some fun. Definitely worth the price of admission!
“John Jones” comes from the Finger Lakes collection. An escaped slave lands in Elmira, NY, where he longs for his mother whom he had to leave behind. Judy Hyman of the Horseflies lends some spare beautiful fiddle playing that underscores the poignancy of the situation.
Crookston’s cover of Dan Fogelberg’s “Wandering Shepherd” easily rivals the original. The vocal harmonies of Joe and Jen Middaugh are beautifully supported by the melodic interplay of Crookston’s guitar and Pat Wictor’s slide guitar.
The rollicking “Red Rooster in the Mash Pile” gives us the very fine image of a Prohibition-era rooster drunk on fermented mash (“The boys are making whiskey and the rooster’s drinking too”), crowing til all hours of the night and sleeping through his wake-up call. It’s likely you’ll catch yourself singing this one in the aisles of Hannaford’s….
Another song from the Finger Lakes collection, “Blue Tattoo” finds an Auschwitz survivor trying to answer her young daughter’s curious questions about the war and their life before coming to America. Crookston’s gift for stepping into another person’s skin and telling their story comes through here. In a recent interview on the Me & Thee Coffeehouse blog, he calls himself a “social archeologist” who “unearths the stories buried beneath the clutter of the daily modern world.” He dips into the pasts of everyday people and finds some amazing stories of unsung heroes and forgotten outsiders.
Joe Crookston’s star is rising. Versatile songwriting, excellent musicianship and a charismatic stage presence should earn him a permanent place on the national folk scene. We hope to see him in Maine soon! Catch him in concert – the Falcon Ridge Spring Preview Concert will announce their May dates soon. Joe plays the Falcon Ridge Festival again this year in Hillsdale, NY July 24 – 27, 2008. More info available at www.joecrookston.com.
Ceci Gilson
ccgilson@gwi.net
