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Review of Boston Passim Concert
February 15th, 2008
by PT at Large Blog
February 25, 2008
Carrie Newcomer: The Geography of Light
Carrie Newcomer
Club Passim, Cambridge, MA, February 21, 2008
Gary Walters on Kurzweil electric piano
Carrie Newcomer’s singing voice is one of those “Beam me up, Scotty” instruments that seem to transport a listener into a state of grace. After the first few minutes of being sonically bathed by her honey rich alto, a listener’ sits back, almost involuntarily releases tension in the shoulders, and smiles. In the case of a recent night at the venerable Club Passim in Cambridge, MA an audience was about to hear 75 minutes of “the world according to Carrie”.
Newcomer is a perfect antidote to the noise all around us - unsettling world crises, economic recession, random acts of violence, and the chatter of talk radio. She writes like Norman Rockwell painted. Somewhere in Rockwell’s paintings and Newcomer’s music you can find universal truths sketched in small details of everyday life.
The axis of most of her songs is personal observation, what she calls ‘paying attention’ the world around her. Most of her songs shine a penlight beam on the goodness that exists around us and the struggle to do the right thing every day. Her songs are softly sweet, full of sentiment but far from sentimental. It takes confidence, talent and deeply rooted beliefs to put this stuff over.
From her shoulder length auburn hair that matches the amber waves of grain of her native Indiana, to the subjects of her songs, Newcomer is pure Americana, a singer from the heart land.
“Betty’s Diner”, the second song of her set, encapsulated the character of an entire town and Newcomer’s sensibilities as a songwriter. The song’s chorus shows an eye for detail that melds time, place, and the human condition, in which ‘despair and hope sit face to face.’
“…here we are all in one place/the wants and wounds of the human race
despair and hope sit face to face/when you come in from the cold
Let her fill your cup with something kind/eggs and toast like bread and wine…”
Club Passim was the second stop of a tour to promote “The Geography of Light,” her eleventh CD for Rounder Records. Her songs have been inspired by the poetry and stories she’s written, contacts with other writers, her Quaker faith. But just as often, they’re inspired by observing what’s right under her nose, giving the songs a ‘spinning straw into gold’ quality.
Geodes are commonplace sights around her southern Indiana home, bumpy gray stones on the outside, with gorgeous crystal formations in their centers.
“You cant always tell one from the other./And it’s best not to judge a book by its tattered cover.
I have found when I tried or looked deeper inside./What appears unadorned might be wondrously formed.
You cant always tell but sometimes you just know.”
Underlying the philosophic, reflective tone of the album is a sense of affirmation. “Leaves Don’t Drop, They Just Let Go/And make a place for seeds to grow, ” she sings on “Leaves Don’t Drop.”
For her, “There is a song at the center of things,” including her dreams, reading list, and personal experience.
“I’ve come to believe that mystery is as near as my front porch," Newcomer says when she introduces “There is a Tree”, and proclaims, “I’m the fool whose life’s been spent/Between what’s said and what is meant.”
When the set threatened to slide into sonorous monotony, Newcomer hauled out upbeat goofy songs like “Bowling Alley Baby” and “Email”. The songstress had all of us singing the “Don’t Hit Send” chorus and chuckling at Newcomer’s throw away line, “Merlot and email don’t mix well.”
“Why do I do this, I ask myself, “ she said before her last encore number. Her answer just might have the makings of a future song. “You get where you want to go but rarely where you thought you’d be.”