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by Seth Rogovoy
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., July 18, 1996 -- There'll be some serious pickin' on Sunday, July 21, in the barn at Bucksteep Manor in the town of Washington, where guitarists Anson Olds of Monterey and Jim Henry of Belchertown will share the bill as part of the new Stone Chapel Concert Series. Also on tap to perform is special guest Rick Tiven, the legendary fiddle player from South Egremont who runs the Old Egremont Club, the focal point of South County's thriving, roots- music scene.
Olds is an award-winning flatpicker, folksinger and yodeler, a multi- instrumentalist whose repertoire consists primarily of traditional folk songs and original tunes written in a traditional style. He was the host of the monthly "Northeast Folk Festival" on WAMC.
On "Jacksonville" (Signature Sounds), his new collection of original tunes, Jim Henry variously turns his attention to family, love, the weather and the American landscape, in pop-folk songs steeped in rootsy arrangements. "It's Only Business" is the imagined self- justification of a sleazy businessman; "Summer Blues" vividly captures the misery of those hazy, hot and humid July days in New England; "Baby's Coming Home" expresses a prospective father's anxiety-tinged excitement without sentimentality, and is probably the only popular song ever to contain the word "meconium."
Henry is one of the growing number of western Massachusetts-based singer-songwriters drawing national attention, and his "Home To Me" could well become the theme song of the new Pioneer Valley school of songwriters.
Olds, Henry and Tiven are all virtuoso instrumentalists, so odds are that at some point during the afternoon things are going to devolve into an extraordinary picking fest. For more information call (413) 623-5438 or E-mail darkmoon@vgernet.net.
If her CD "Bait & Ammo" is any indication, Northampton's Ellen Cross heralds some sort of amazing new fusion. The singer-songwriter combines the fiery outspokenness and volatility of Ani DiFranco, the gorgeously sophisticated melodicism of The Story and the thundering sensuality of Tori Amos, mixes it with her own sensibility, intelligence, and serious guitar-playing. The result is one of the most powerful, original folk-rock sounds to be heard in a long time. Originally from Boston, where she garnered a "Best of Boston" award from Boston Magazine in 1992 and where she was a finalist in Boston's Acoustic Underground competition in 1995, Cross performs at the Book Mill in Montague on Sunday, July 21, at 8, along with the equally talented Lynn Saner.
A small crowd was treated to a free concert by Modern Jazz Quartet founder John Lewis at the Lenox Town Hall last Saturday, as part of the BBC's weekend of live broadcasts from Tanglewood. Performing with just a trio seemed to free Lewis from the somewhat fussy restraints of the MJQ, and -- aided by a dynamic rhythm section -- the pianist swung hard through a selection of standards and other tunes....
The Sammy Kaye Orchestra kicks off the "Salute to the Big Bands" portion of the National Music Center's summer season on Wednesday, July 24, at 8. In the only substantive mention of Kaye in his landmark volume, "The Swing Era," contemporary American composer and historian Gunther Schuller -- who was associated with the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood for over 20 years and was President of the New England Conservatory of Music from 1967 to 1977 -- includes Kaye's group among the "countless mediocre dance bands" that "plagiarized and trivialized the musical innovations and styles of the leading black musicians, reducing the content to a banal, lowest common- denominator of accessibility." Hmmmm.....
Speaking of Kenny Rogers, his concert at the NMC last Saturday night was marred by technical difficulties, including ticketing snafus, wayward lighting cues and a basic inability to manage the crowd in and out of the hall. These problems plus a long delay lent the evening an overall sense of amateurishness which no venue charging $40 per ticket can justify....
At last week's Lollapalooza '96 stop in Pownal, Vt., Chris Cornell, lead singer for Soundgarden -- the only band to have played Lollapalooza's mainstage more than once -- called the Green Mountain Race Track "one of the coolest places we've ever played." Cool!....
Late in the day at Lollapalooza, hours after they played their set on the Second Stage, the members of the English group Cornershop were racing around in the press tent collecting water bottles for use in a water fight backstage. So much for trashing hotel rooms -- is this what passes for wild and crazy rock-star behavior in the mid- '90s?....
We forgot to mention in last week's review of Ed Kohn's excellent new family tape, "The Greens," that WAMC's Steve Charney is using at least six of Kohn's songs on his radio program, "Knock on Wood." The critically-acclaimed, national children's act Trout Fishing In America is playing Kohn's song "Six," which will also be featured in the next issue of Pass It On!, the magazine of the Children's Music Network....
Add wife Jessi Colter to the Waylon Jennings bill at the Green Mountain Race Track on August 9....
[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on July 18, 1996. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1996. All rights reserved.]
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