Eko ranger VI: greatest miss during holiday

While spending about three weeks in glorious Brazil, I think I discovered what musicians probably miss most when on holiday. It must be not having your instrument around whenever you feel like playing. The few occasions I did have a six-string under my thumb this holiday some small magic happened.

I have written before about my favourite instrument (see the blog on hardware: Toys for boys.) My Eko Ranger VI is from the late Sixties, and not in the kind of conditions that you want to carry it around when you are on holidays. I mean, Eko's Ranger model sure was build to last, to be carried around by hippies or any other musical nomads, but mine has reached that age that it loves to be played on, and not to travel too much. So I never take it with me when I am away, but always have these moments that I think I should have. Wether it is the people I am with asking for a tune, or it could be myself who wants to get the mind focussed, I grasp in thin air and get a little frustrated for not being able to play a song or two.
Luckily, and often to my pleasant surprise, you enter a household and there it is: in the corner of the room, a guitar! It is the one you don't have to ask for if you can play a little; that's what it is there for in the first place!! (Actually to complete this picture; it does happen that you find a guitar that is there just for the looks. People who have guitars on their walls just to look at, I do not consider music lovers, just non-melodic no-knows and show-offs.) The first time this happened these last few weeks was at a friends' house. I hadn't seen her in like three years, and had really no intention to play, just to socialize. But when she, and her husband, were in other areas of the house, I couldn't help myself. I took the guitar, assessed that it probably hadn't been tuned in, like, ages, but strung a few chords anyway. Just a quick song, an own composition with no lyrics (yet). It was so funny to get the reaction from my friends in the other rooms. They recognized the vibration not coming from boxes, but from an actual instrument, and were thrilled for having live music filling ambiance.

me and Peco, the Gibson is just for show.

The second time I played was visiting other friends. The man of the house plays and sings in a band called Midnight Express, mostly covers from what I could tell. The crowd was a little larger, the children a little louder, but still I played a few songs with rusty fingers and dito vocal cords. Then the host played a nice version of Hotel California, and handed the guitar back over to me. I didn't know what to play next, but I saw a capo laying around, and remembered I was using it back home to cover the song Tree by the River by Iron and Wine. I hadn't yet mastered the lyrics, but I knew it was fun to play anyway. When I strummed the first chords, I saw a few heads starting to hum along, looking at each other with a look like: could this be that song? And it was, I travelled 12.000 km to find out that Iron and Wine, not the most exportable artist to a country like Brazil, had actually landed on the personal playlists of these lady friends. Well, you might think: so what, it is a great song, and since when do Brazilians dislike good music? Still, for me it was that moment of recognition, and the realization that music really transcends boundaries. Now that I think of it, I remember playing a Johnny Cash song 15 years ago at what might be considered an awkard place for a country song: a desolate hermit's cabin somewhere along the Brazilian shore. After I finished 'Delia' the skinny guy smiled, shook his dreadlocks and raised his thumb; we were mates from that moment onwards...

Casparcritique: Iron & Wine - Ghost on Ghost

In the summer of  2011 I spent a week in Austin, Texas, when a good friend of mine got married over there. In such a wonderful town as Austin, which breaths music, and bicycles, I felt really at home. One night I got lucky when I managed to get the last ticket to the anual show Iron & Wine plays to the benefit of the Midwife Alliance of North America. In the old, but beautyful, Paramount Theater Iron & Wine gave me the shivers; amazing what one man and a guitar, plus a couple of great songs, can do!

Now, Samuel Beam, the man behind the alias Iron & Wine, has made a new CD called Ghost on Ghost. Already, the first track makes clear that this CD is much more than just the one guitar. Though the song starts with a typical Iron & Wine acoustic guitar lick, soon drums, organ, strings, brass, and back ground singing enter the stage, making it a big sound, but still wrapped around Sam's great, warm voice. The second song got a rich production as well, whereby the background vocals get more space to lift the song to a more no-nonsense happy tune. Big difference in that respect is the rhythm: the second song is straightforward four measure to the bar, the first I haven't been able to decipher the couning yet :-).
After a somehow less interesting track, the fourth song Low Light Buddy of Mine starts with a nice groovy drum beat, which, accompanied by bass and an occasional organ, carries the soulful lyrics to the end. It leaves enough space for a nice saxophone solo in the middle. As Iron & Wine sings about how he and she love each other, and the fruit trees carry new fruit, you realize, this is one happy camper! Also the next song, called Grace for Saints and Ramblers has got this up-beat happy soul in it.
I got this feeling that the CD actually digs a little deeper with track number 6. Grass Widows is in a groovy 3/4 measure, minimally produced at first, giving Sam all space to use his great voice. Later on, brass and background vocals give the song more power, while the electronic piano solo hints at the jazzier sound we encounter later on. But this sense of deepening gets stronger with the next song The Singers and the Endless Song, when the funky drum takes us trough an account of everything Sam Beam wants to tell his audience in songs: the music nevers lastst too long.
So far, so good, CasparSongs heard a few great songs, also great production work. Still I have been waiting a little bit for a song that gives me the same shivers as I experienced live. Could track number 9, called Winter Prayers do this? For the first time on the CD, we get the feeling that Sam's voice has been put on the forefront. Nicely accompanied by some clever background vocals, the text tells you about tracks in the snow, being left alone, and the question why did he follow her there. This is just great, emotionally heartfelt, rightly balanced between music, lyrics, and productional choices.
There is one more of those outstanding songs on the album, though because of a different reason. Track 11 is called Lover's Revolution. It starts out with a mild brass sound, slowly unrolling, faster and faster, towards a jazzy song, right in the tradition of Van Morrison at his best. His song The Way young Lovers Do, can be sung almost literally to this Iron & Wine song. The title of the track suggests some link between the two songs, though I haven't found it yet, apart from the pure musical. But hey, this is not a disqualification! It is compliment! I am not sure if it is Sam Beam's own work, or of his co-producer Brian Deck, but I liked a lot the way jazzy grooves were used on the album.

At a few moments, this fifth album by Iron & Wine manages to get hold of CasparSongs' emotions, who had goose bumps on his arms when he heard Winter Prayers. At the same time, a few songs were not that interesting, making the whole album seem like laid back, as the Dutch website 3voor12.nl called it. That is not what I associate Iron & Wine with. Sam's best work keeps the listener very much attentive to what's happening. So, on the whole, as an album, I'll give it 3 stars. But I am pretty sure that if he can do live with this album, what he did live in Austin, Sam Beam's star will rise at great heights, no question about it. On a personal note: Sam Beam is one of the best singer-songwriters at the moment. He will produce the perfect, five star album, no doubt about it.