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by Seth Rogovoy
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., June 30, 1996 -- Bernice Lewis has a theory that until a creative artist works through a specific issue, he or she just keeps creating the same thing over and over again. In the case of a songwriter like Lewis, that means that each new song is the same as the last one, "except it has different words and different chords," said Lewis while visiting recently with a friend in her new hometown.
Lewis points to the songs on her wonderful new album, "Isle of Spirit," as an example. "I've really been struggling with more spiritual issues than just boy-meets-girl stuff," she said. "That's been a bigger theme in my life, moreso since the last album, `Open Lines and Signals,' which was really more about women's issues and marriage issues. This one has more songs about how I can connect with a bigger picture."
Lewis will debut many of the new and different songs from her new album, as well as some old favorites, at a CD release concert at her old home at the Pleasant Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Lenox on Sunday at 7. Other musicians will be on hand to help Lewis celebrate her new release, including Janet Feld, Dave Crossland and Erica Wheeler, all of whom contributed to the album, as well as the album's producer, Pittsfield native Adam Rothberg. In addition, the Ladies Auxiliary Ukelele Orchestra, featuring Lewis, Amy Rose and Cathy Schane-Lydon, will warm up the crowd in their only scheduled appearance of 1996.
Lewis's album, which will receive national distribution from Blue Bhikku Records in Tucson, Ariz., was a Berkshire effort from top to bottom. In addition to Rothberg, who lives in Northampton and is also a member of the Big Waagh Scratch Band, as well as the producer of Dar Williams's sensational debut, "The Honesty Room," the CD boasts Berkshire musicians including Alice and Greg Spatz, Vince Jr.and Tom Jawbone of Big Waagh.
The album was recorded by Greg Steele at his Derek Studios in Dalton, which Lewis said allowed her to sleep at home during the recording process while drawing upon the burgeoning pool of musical talent in Northampton. "The reality these days is if you've graduated from Boston or New York you get to move to Northampton," she said.
Getting Rothberg and Steele together was a fortuitous move, also. Rothberg is about to start his third project at the studio, and now that word has gotten out about the place, other acts from the Pioneer Valley, including Salamander Crossing, produced by Brooks Williams, are making the trek to Dalton.
"Greg gets a really good sound, and he and Adam make an excellent team," said Lewis.
The album also has a few songs that boast Berkshire connections. "Bridges That Hold," said Lewis, was inspired by some footbridges that her husband, Scott, built at Pleasant Valley when they lived there.
"I was walking around in the winter thinking what beautiful works of art they are, and knowing how muchwork it had taken him and the people he had worked with at the sanctuary, how much thought had gone into them," said Lewis, a native of eastern Massachusetts.
The resulting song, like many on the album, draws a greater lesson about the nature of spiritual struggle through simply observed detail: "Take the time to build a strong foundation....See the strength in space and separation."
The title track, said Lewis, was inspired by places like Kripalu in Lenox and the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, N.Y., spiritual growth centers where she spends time teaching and performing. The term "Isle of Spirit" itself came from a dream that a friend had about a place by that name where lost arts such as yoga, Tai Chi and drumming, are taught.
"When The Rivers Had No Names" is a Native American-style hymn, backed only by wind tubes, bamboo flute and didgeridoo, sung from the point of view of an ancient tree. And "Moses And Me" is a Bruce Hornsby-ish, folk- pop anthem about the search for transcendence in a promised land.
Lewis hasn't totally forsaken songs about worldly matters on her new album, nor has she turned her back on the musical novelties that have always been fans' favorites. "All The Time In the World" revisits life on the domestic front, and "Red Cowboy Boots" is a sexy, sassy, honky-tonk romp.
But at the album's center is a dark, ominous ballad, "Ways To Survive," whose major-to-minor motif betrays the naive optimism and apprehension of the young narrator cataloging her situation on the eve of being "deported" by the Nazis. It's an ambitious topic for a four-minute pop song, but Lewis successfully pulls it off through empathy and drama that lacks sentimentality.
The last year has been a hectic one for Lewis. In addition to moving to Williamstown and recording her new album, she has performed all around the country, including such places as Nebraska, Kansas, California, Texas, Arizona, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
After a brief trip to the southwest in mid-July, she will return to the area for a performance in the songwriter's showcase at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in Hillsdale, N.Y., on July 26-28. She will be in residence at Omega, where she is on the faculty and holds the position of "campus bard," for most of August and September, before she hits the road again for Chicago, the Southeast and Nashville.
[This article first appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on June 30, 1996. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1996. All rights reserved.]
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