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by Seth Rogovoy
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., June 27, 1996 -- The cover of Greg Greenway's new CD, "Singing For the Landlord," (Eastern Front), portrays an anonymous brick wall, upon which is superimposed a photo of Greenway's face. All in all, it seems to suggest, the Boston-based singer/songwriter is just another brick in the wall.
"What unified this record was a sense of struggle, not only in my life, as in struggling to be heard, but in the lives of people I see strugging every day," said Greenway recently in a phone interview from his Boston apartment.
"That's why that brick wall is on the cover. That's the symbol of the city, that heavy presence. And I intentionally put my face on it to symbolize how our mass culture really blurs the individual."
Such symbols are strewn throughout the folk/pop-flavored, urban song-poems by Greenway, including the dozen excellent new compositions on Greenway's disk, many of which he will be performing this Sunday at 4 in the debut concert of the new Stone Chapel Concert Series at St. Andrew's Chapel on Washington Mountain Road, in front of Bucksteep Manor, in Washington. For more information call (413) 623-5438 or E-mail darkmoon@vgernet.net.
Many of Greenway's new songs are inspired by real-life events, be they drive-by shootings ("She's Just Gone"), the oppression of native Americans ("Ghost Dance"), the struggle for Irish nationalism ("Singing for the Landlord") or the end of apartheid in South Africa ("One Man, One Woman, One Vote"). Yet Greenway doesn't consider himself primarily a political writer.
"Any writer works from a point of view," said Greenway, who will also be appearing at this summer's Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in Hillsdale, N.Y., on July 26-28. "That's what makes your personality as a writer. Mine is just asking questions about the world around me. I don't sit down to intentionally write political songs; it's just so interwoven with how I see the world. I don't see how you could sing for a long time and not bring up what you see."
The album's greatest revelation, however, may be found on its least typical number, "Even The Sky," a classic, jazz-standard-type song, with delicately sympathetic piano accompaniment by Tom McClung, on which her evocative vocals suggest that Lewis may have found a whole new territory to explore: neo-Hoagy Carmichael.
In any case, Lewis will celebrate the whole shebang with an album release concert this Sunday, June 30, at 7 at the Pleasant Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Lenox, where she'll be joined by fellow musicians Erica Wheeler, Dave Crossland, Janet Feld and Adam Rothberg, the multi-instrumentalist and whiz-producer who manned the boards for this stellar effort. Also on tap for the evening is the only scheduled 1996 appearance by the Ladies Auxiliary Ukelele Orchestra, whose motto is, "What we lack in polish we make up for in cheesecake."
Fans of Cajun and zydeco music will want to two-step over to the Big Easy Bash at the Stepping Stone Ranch in Escoheag, R.I., this Saturday and Sunday. The festival features such top names as C.J. Chenier, Candye Kane, Nathan and the Zydeco Cha-Chas, Wayne Hancock and the Tailgators, in addition to camping, music and dance workshops and Cajun, Creole and Tex-Mex cuisine. Call (401) 351-6312 for more info....
Will someone please inform Ticketmaster Online that Pownal, Vt., isn't located in Massachusetts, within which they place the town -- and the state of Vermont -- on their home page on the World Wide Web....
[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on June 27, 1996. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1996. All rights reserved.]
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