BLUESMAN BRINGS A LITTLE SOUL TO HIS NEW CD
‘All that American music that comes from the south is connected,’ Browne says
Michael Jerome Browne is a bluesman through and through, but that didn’t stop him from digging into the vaults of soul music for his new album, That’s Where It’s At! Therein, he draws connecting lines between the genres with covers of songs by Al Green, Sam Cooke and Stevie Wonder, as well as Blind Willie Johnson, a couple of spirituals, and a handful of originals composed by his life partner and longtime collaborator Bee Markus. “(Soul) is a style of music I’ve listened to since my late teens,” said the Montreal native, who learned to play the blues at age 12. “I started with acoustic blues — all kinds of blues, really. “Then I discovered soul and Motown and I listened to it a lot for a number of years. To me, they’re connected but (I’m talking about) the bluesy kind of soul music, and the roots that go into Gospel, as well.” Browne used to perform in the streets as a one-man band, and the spirit of those days infuses That’s Where It’s At, much of which he plays solo on guitar, with occasional accompaniment from John McColgan on drums. Browne’s acoustic blues approach fits right in on Cooke’s gentle stomper Somebody Have Mercy. “It’s a 12-bar blues,” he explained, “but it’s got kind of a soul approach to it.” He takes more liberties with Greene’s Here I Am (Come and Take Me), giving the classic a stripped-down reworking that maintains the tune’s galvanizing drive. “I’ve done a few Al Green songs over the years,” Browne said. "The co-writer on this song is this guy Teenie Hodges, who was the guitar player in the Hi Records studio band. “He co-wrote Take Me to the River and Love and Happiness. He had a very old-school blues approach to some songs. You can hear that connection to old blues in those guitar parts.” And Browne digs up an overlooked gem from Wonder’s ’80s catalogue with Skeletons, highlighting the tune’s funky undertones. “That’s a song I actually learned a long time ago, when I was in a band doing political R&B songs,” Browne said. “It was written during the Reagan years, but I looked at the lyrics and so much of it is like what’s going on now.” Contributing guest vocals on the album are fellow bluesman Eric Bibb, Montreal singer-songwriter Roxanne Potvin, and Hamilton, Ontario, soul veteran Harrison Kennedy. Ultimately, That’s Where It’s At! is about bringing together styles of music that though divided by genre and having spread out in different directions, emerged from the same place. “All that American music that comes from the south is connected,” Browne said, “and blues is a big — some might say a central thing. Whether you’re going into old-time music, Cajun music, swing-jazz, into soul music, it’s all connected.” Speaking of disparate genres, it’s a long way from black metal to classically inspired piano meditations — or is it? With her second album under the name Flying Hórses, former metalhead Jade Bergeron crafts another soul-stirring, emotionally resonant song cycle that blurs the boundaries between neo-classical and post-rock. Her 2015 debut Tölt was recorded in Iceland with Sigur Rós producer Biggi Birgisson. The new album finds her working with a tellingly varied list of collaborators including Broken Social Scene/Do Make Say Think’s Charles Spearin, Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Efrim Menuck and piano rebel Chilly Gonzales. While Tölt emerged from the four years she spent living in Iceland after meeting Sigur Rós’s Jonsi and his partner Alex Somers at New York’s White Light Festival, Reverie is about both the heady time she spent there, and the comedown of her return to Canada. “It’s a heartbreak record for me, a very personal record,” said Bergeron, who grew up near Mirabel and Ste-Thérèse, lived in Montreal during her early 20s and now calls Ottawa home. “That said, I don’t want that to be the focus. I don’t want people to assume it’s a depressing, sad record. I want people to experience their own thing, and have their own journey with it. There are moments of hope, and a lot of pretty, light instrumentation. It’s not a massive, dark drone record.” The songs on Reverie are indeed tinged with great beauty, and an undercurrent of something graver. The word bittersweet comes to mind, as Bergeron’s music leads the listener into ever deeper states of interiority. The mostly single-word track titles trace the progression, she explained. “It starts with Asleep, Comfort and Absolution, then you get to Homebound. It begins all light, pretty and fantasy-like, then gets heavier and darker as reality sets in. “At the end of the record, there’s a big blow-up; and then the last track, Asleep, is like a silver lining — you can always wake up from a nightmare. “It’s super nerdy, but the last note, played on cello, fades into the first note of the first track, so it’s like one big loop, a whole dream thing.”