From the Salmon

I love Paste magazine. It’s worth a subscription for the compilation CDs alone, but their content is usually well written and thoughtful. Usually. When the last issue arrived, I found myself disagreeing vehemently with one of their reviews.

Two issues ago, Paste took the time to highlight Redbird, a contemporary singer/songwriter “supergroup” made up of Peter Mulvey, Kris Delmhorst, Jeffrey Foucault and David “Goody” Goodrich, multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire. Like Cry, Cry, Cry before them, Redbird recorded a self-titled CD of beloved cover songs, which they released back in 2003.

For whatever reason, Paste then decided to devote column inches in the following issue to slam Redbird’s two-year-old album (under their “New Music” category, no less), giving it 1.5 stars and calling it a “rootsy vanity project likely to inspire a backlash against the very songs it honors.”

Ouch.

Look, any album is a vanity project. Why pick on this one?

Maybe it’s that, unlike Cry, Cry, Cry’s more polished arrangements, Redbird’s disc has the feel of a laid-back jam session. And for good reason. It was a laid-back jam session. Each song was recorded around a single microphone in Foucault’s living room with no mixing or overdubs. For me, the casual camaraderie of the “live” sound is part of the charm of this disc.

I would venture to guess that the Paste reviewer has never had the chance to see any of these these musicians live, certainly not when sharing the same stage, as they did tonight at Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse. He has never witnessed how they can win over an audience with their good-natured banter and the outright delight they exhibit when playing together. He doesn’t know that behind the music he slanders as “over-earnest” are four friends with goofy grins, exuberently enjoying every note.

Tonight, the foursome gleefully plowed their way through a wide swath of Americana, from Billie to Willie, Hoagy to Smokey, J. Cougar to J. Cale and L. Reed, throwing in a few songs of their own for good measure. They played 23 songs, only 5 of which were from their album. For the rest, we had front row seats to another laid-back living room jam.

How loose was it?

“Let’s play that ‘Water, Water’ song,” Kris called to Goody from across the stage.
G: “Have we played that before?”
K: “Once, I think. Let’s give it a shot. It’s in D.”
G: “Do you remember what I did last time?”
K: “No, but it was great.”
G: “OK, start it up and I’ll figure out something.”

So he did. And the song was marvelous. And Kris had a growing glowing grin on her face as Goody’s improvisations added unexpected layers to her song.

It was like that all night long.

Let me tell you just how “over-earnest” these folkies are....

One of the songs they played was David Goodrich’s riveting instrumental version of the Velvet Underground’s “Jesus.” Sounds like a song ripe for “earnesty,” right?

Well, at a quiet moment in the middle of the song, the young girl behind me let out a loud snort, sending her little sister into a giggling fit. Any self-important musician might have faltered or scowled or at least registered a little disapproval. Instead, the microphone caught Goody muttering appreciatively, “That’s perfect!” He spent the rest of the song shooting smirks toward the sisters and laughing about as hard as they were. When the song got back to a similar spot, he even gestured to the girls, hoping to cue another snort. As the still-beautiful music came to a quiet conclusion, he motioned to the girls to take a bow of their own, not to make them feel bad, but to honor them for becoming part of the fun — a piece of the unexpected joy that can happen when you’re just messing around with friends.

So, Mr. Paste Reviewer, you can go “grabbing spastically for the originals just to get Redbird’s versions out of [your] head.” Have fun with that. As for me, I’d kick back in a living room with this crew any night of the week.