Spotlighting new releases from Forster; McEntire
Best known as a founding member and co-frontman with his fellow musician Grant McLennan of the legendary Australian rock band The Go-Betweens, Robert Forster has quietly carved out a solo career of his own as a singer and songwriter both in the 1990s and when the band called it quits for the final time back in the aughts following the death of McLennan. Forster’s solo run since that time has seen multiple albums of high-quality fare demonstrating the talent of a seasoned professional. His latest called The Candle And The Flame
is no exception and comes at a time when the 65-yearold was forced to confront a family health situation that plays heavily into the making of this latest album. It is in the Ear Bliss spotlight this week along with the new solo album from North Carolina-based artist H.C. McEntire called Every Acre.
Her third release for revered indie label Merge Records, the album features nine songs that explore the many acres of a life and the emotional and physical attachments we develop towards people and place. Let’s get to it.
Robert Forster
The Candle And The Flame Tapete Records
Seasoned artists on the music front are often obvious to the ears when you hear their work. Such is the case with Robert Forster and his new album The Candle And The Flame. Co-founder and long-time co-front man of the Australian band The Go-Betweens before the band ended in the early aughts, Forster has maintained a solo career since the early 1990s. The oft-times more strippeddown format of recording as a solo artist has afforded many an artist the ability to better bare themselves which Forster does to exquisite proportions on The Candle And The Flame. Personal trauma can often alter the path of a project and such was the case with this this new album. What began as the making of an record in the regular cycle of such work for a recording artist took on even greater consequence for Forster early in the summer of 2022 when his wife and musical companion for 32 years, Karin Bäumler, received a cancer diagnosis. Forster had already had most of the songs and music written for the album a year earlier. His wife’s diagnosis changed the trajectory of the standard creative process for Forster turning it into one of making music with family and friends with a need to find hope in the face of adversity. Beginning with the beautiful first single from the album called “She’s A Fighter,” Forster accomplishes this revised mission in spades on The Candle And The Flame, the making of which was anything but typical. Says Forster, “The recording sessions for the album were done sporadically over six months. Sometimes just one or two days a month. As that was all Karin’s strength and condition allowed her to do. So we had to record ‘live’, catching magical moments and going for ‘feel’. And that became the sound of the album.” Singing in his usual cool and assured voice, “feel” is all over the album’s nine songs from a song of love and devotion to his wife (“Tender Years”) to one of coming out of lockdown (“Go Free”) to the stunning “It’s Only Poison,” with each and every one displaying Forster’s uncanny gift for crafting one resplendent melody after another. Highly recommended. Visit www.tapeterecords.de.
H.C. McEntire Every Acre Merge Records
From the physical to the emotional strings that attach us to a time and place, the connotation of home can take on many meanings. For the North Carolina-based singer and songwriter H.C. McEntire, that feeling of attachment forms the foundation for the nine songs comprising her new album called Every Acre. The former frontperson and lead singer for the band Mount Moriah which released three albums between 2011 and 2016 before its end and her then moving to a role as a backing singer in the band of Angel Olsen, McEntire headed off in a solo direction beginning in 2018 with the album Lionheart. The recently released Every Acre is her third solo platter for revered indie Merge Records. On it, she applies her raw and soulful voice to a suite of songs nothing short of compelling. There is the soul-searching beauty of the peaceful and ruminative album opener called “New View” and the darkness and pain that engulfs the song “Rows of Clover.” Then there is the lead single from the album called “Dovetail” which speaks to the complexities of the female experience from joy to trauma and which McEntire says began as “a jangly, four-on-the-floor country demo I roughly recorded at home” before reworking it as a piano-driven ballad. Put simply, McEntire plays a heavy card on Every Acre with songs reflecting on her surroundings, both emotional and physical, with her earthy and oft-luminous voice at its core. Visit www. mergerecords.com.
LIVE SHOTS:
Lots to see and hear on the live music front in and around the Ocean State over the next week or so and here are some highlights. On Friday evening, the URI Center for Humanities a special program called “Go in the Wilderness: Black Spirituals and the Natural Environment” featuring a concert by acclaimed Providence-based folk artist Jake Blount. The performance is free and will take place at the URI Fine Arts Center in Kingston at 8 pm. Pump House Music Works in Peace Dale (164 Kingstown Road) features jazz from the Steve DeConti Quartet on Friday evening.
Billy Veader & No Agenda rock the Pump House on Saturday night before the weekend closes with the monthly open mic session on Sunday evening. Don’t forget every Monday night is the Uke jam at the Pump House while Tuesdays are Ole Time jam night and Wednesdays are Lounge night hosted by Matt Fraza. Courthouse Center for the Arts in West Kingston presents Tom DiMenna singing the songs of Gordon Lightfoot on Friday night and Ozzy Osbourne tribute act
Blizzard of Ozz the following evening with each show starting at 8 pm. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young tribute act Trinity is at the Courthouse on March 4. Coming up at The Greenwich Odeum in East Greenwich is children’s recording artist Laurie Berkner with a matinee performance on March 4 at 3 pm,
Roomful of Blues on March 10, and the legendary Marvis Staples on March 11. In Jamestown, The Teledynes are sure to turn up the burners at The Narragansett Café on Friday night. Steve Smith & The Nakeds will likely do the same on Saturday night at The Ganny before the singer
Michelle Wilson and friends close the weekend with a 1 pm show on Sunday afternoon. Mark the calendars for March 4 when Mark Cutler & The Men of Great Courage grace stage at The Ocean Mist in Matunuck.
The Naticks play an acoustic set at the Charlestown Rathskeller on Friday night. In Westerly at the Knickerbocker Music Center (35 Railroad Ave), the Alexus Lee Band perform on Friday night. The Duke Robillard Band is at The Knick on Saturday evening before Lucas Neil closes the weekend with a free taproom show on Sunday night. Acclaimed acoustic duo Watchhouse, formerly known as Mandolin Orange, come to The United Theatre in downtown Westerly next Thursday night. The Wood Brothers are at The United on March 6. To the North, it
is the classic sounds of Credence Clear Water Revival with Robert Black and the talented Sweet Hitch-Hiker Band at Chan’s Restaurant in Woonsocket on Friday night. Blues guitar legend Joe Louis Walker is in the house of eggrolls and blues on Saturday night. The Stadium Theatre in Woonsocket presents Tapestry: The Carole King Songbook featuring vocalist Suzanne O. Davis on Friday evening. On Saturday night, the musical legacy of the band Chicago is on the menu with tribute act Brass Transit. The Blackstone River Theatre in Cumberland presents a special Sunday afternoon show featuring multi-instrumentalists Cathy
Clasper-Torch and Shelley Katsh with Torrin Ryan and
Amy Law opening the performance which begins at 3 pm. The Met Café in Pawtucket presents a terrific twin bill on Saturday night featuring blues rockers GA-20 with the talented singer Kendra Morris opening. Askew on Chestnut Street presents The Wolff Sisters with special guest Mary-Elaine Jenkins on Friday evening. The
Stone Soup Coffee House at Music Mansion in Providence presents the Atwater Donnelly Band with Cathy Clasper-Torch & Erin Lobb Mason on Saturday evening. In the East Bay in Bristol, the
Stone Church Coffee House features Kevin Doyle’s
Roscommon Soles on Saturday night while the Newport Live music series resumes on Friday evening with a performance by the Teddy Thompson at the Lafarge Arts Center in Newport at 7:30 pm. Finally, The Narrows Center for the Arts in Fall River presents acclaimed singer and songwriter Sunny War on Saturday night and the Robert Cray Band on Tuesday night.
(Dan Ferguson is a freelance music writer and host of The Boudin Barndance, broadcast Thursday nights from 6 – 9 pm on WRIU-FM 90.3.)