CD Review by Bob Mckillop

 

Consider all the wonderful melodies that already exist in the world.  John Schindler has somehow managed to find some new ones that pluck those strings connecting my ears directly to my heart. 

In the songs on his new CD, “Two-Step Man”, John has constructed beautiful melodies around many things:  Old cars, old coats, street dances, north woods cabins, his grandmother’s car, dark-eyed girls, and walks along a river.   His creative word play and inventive rhymes, and his wonderful Burl Ives / Willy Nelson vocals, bring these tunes into the real world.   His classical influenced nylon string guitar style gives them the depth and introspection and weight that they deserve.

The title track is an upbeat, Cajun-infused Buffet-like theme song for simple guys in a complex world.   It’s got beer bottle philosophies and musings on the loneliness in a middle-aged single guy’s life, but it’s full of humor and optimism.

“I’m a two-step man

Playin’ in a two-step band

Livin’ in a twelve-step world

Looking for a two-step girl”

John plays a couple of nice guitar lines under the lyrics, embellished by Claude Galinsky’s  plucky mandolin.  Joyce Anderson’s fiddle and viola are wonderful on this track.  She plays along with herself in two well-orchestrated parts.  The instrumental break is particularly tasty, with a call-and-answer arrangement between Anderson’s  string lines that celebrates the beauty of this melody.  I can hear an un-credited concertina (or keyboard trickery?) in the background that adds another level of texture.

“Laughing Alice” is a delightful tribute to some wonderful lady in John’s life (or imagination) who brought joy to a north woods log home through her laughter. 

“And her skills were quite bewitchin’

Makin’ pancakes in the kitchen

While the boys were all out fishin’

Way up in the great north woods

She would tease you and cajole you

And she’d never, never scold you

If you were sad then she would hold you

Up in the great north woods”

Galinsky’s mandolin is skillfully and delicately sprinkled through background of this track.  Anderson’s fiddle and viola dance around John’s vocal melody and carry the weight during the instrumental break.  John’s guitar is the quiet foundation for the track. It has the feel a folky French Canadian ballad.

“What do I Need Beside Your Love” is a tender love song, with a great lyrical and melodic hook that rises in register and brings your emotions right along for the ride.  Johns sings about how his worldly possessions are few and tattered, but he has all he needs in his woman.

“I got a kiss from a dark-eyed girl

Tell me what in the world

Is a kiss from a girl

Tell me what do I need beside your love”

John accompanies his fine guitar work with some nice keyboard highlights, including some ghostly organ in the background.  He also tries some backing vocal harmonies to great effect.  This is a very nice song.

I’ve seen John perform his tune “Don’t Fit In” live, on two occasions.  Both audiences were deeply affected by this exploration of the price that people pay for being different.  His recorded version is just as powerful.

“Yonder come Miss Betty

From my old home town

She’s always willin’ and ready

And prepared to spread her love around

That was OK until she took the man with the colored skin

Now she don’t fit in”

In addition to the afore-mentioned Joyce Anderson and Claude Galinsky, Steve Sadler contributes lap steel and electric guitar.  I loved his work on “Back Home in America”, the dusky, affectionate, yet irreverent tribute to life in our country, and on “Middle of the Midwest”, which describes the arc of a life that strays from home to pursue baseball and fame.  His artful, distorted wails and burns in “Hold On Tight” add to the contented mood of this tune.

John produced, recorded, and mixed this album himself at Wissler Studios in Jaffrey, NH. and he did a great job.  The vocals are wonderfully present.  There is no virtuosity in John’s keyboard parts, but they are very nicely arranged and performed, and are precisely where they need to be in the mix.  The subtlety in his use of mandolin and electric and lap steel guitar indicate how much this man understands and loves music.  The arrangement and the mix for the violin and viola parts make those pieces shine.   The cover art is beautiful, and I especially love the site gag on the back panel.

John Schindler is a man who loves the world for what it is, but is not afraid to smile and chuckle at what needs to change.  Sometimes he just shakes his head when it’s really not so funny, but his humor and good nature is always present.  A quiet competence with a nylon string guitar, a gentle, textured voice, and an instinctual feel for arrangement: all of these things help to showcase his artfully crafted songs on this record.  You can buy the CD at CD Baby.

John plays in Maine occasionally, and his gig schedule is at Musi-Cal.