 |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
||
 |
 |
|
||
|
||||
 |
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
Jean Redpath Sings on MVMay 24, 2009 The poster literally stopped me in my tracks as I walked from my truck to the post office door: Jean Redpath would be singing at Katharine Cornell Theatre on May 23. Jean Redpath? Jean Redpath on Martha's Vineyard?? I saved $5 off the $25 ticket price by buying mine in advance. At the Scottish Bakehouse, of course. Which isn't particularly Scottish since Isabella White, founder and proprietor, died and the place was renovated, but the almond croissants and the double chocolate chip cookies are To Die For, and the current owners are in cahoots with grassrootsy musical and artistic endeavors, and besides -- where else do you buy a Jean Redpath ticket? Jean Redpath has to be the foremost Scottish singer of the age, interpreter, collector, historian, sage. Her repertoire is extensive -- I don't think I've ever heard a recording of hers that I wouldn't listen to again, and again. And her voice! Oh my. Rich, expressive, pure, true -- even if she weren't Scottish, I'd have to compare her voice to great whiskey, except that "whiskey-voiced" tends to suggest low and growly, which Jean Redpath isn't. Her voice is so distinctive and so wonderful that thinking on it, and hearing a few of her songs on WUMB and Pandora, gave me my only moment's pause: The woman has to be at least 70; what if her voice ain't what it used to be? Not to worry: her voice is all there, and so is she. She didn't even have to open with "Jock o' Hazeldene," a favorite song of mine, to make me glad I'd left dog and work behind to drive into town on Memorial Day weekend. (Watch Susanna stop dead in the intersection of Center and Franklin and back down Franklin to where the parking was good.) Jean Redpath is a great storyteller, and funny. After mentioning that last year in Scotland it rained for five months, she noted that the driest thing about the country is its wit. She proved the point several times, but it's pretty clear she can do broad, not to mention bawdy (brawdy?), when she wants to. How does one decide what to perform when one knows so many great songs, and they never go out of date? She said that her repertoire wasn't neatly organized in folders and filing cabinets; all the folders were scattered in a heap in the middle of the floor. She doesn't plan her program in advance but instead lets one thing lead to another. It works. Some highlights: A poem (I think) telling the story of Mary Hamilton prefacing the last verses of the song. A medley of lost-love songs linked by the chorus of "Plaisir d'Amour," which many in the packed house knew (including me) and sang along with (ditto). Redpath encouraged us at the beginning to sing along when we felt like it; don't be shy about your voice, she said, you're the only person who can sing the way you can. And she thought that people didn't become self-conscious about their singing on their own; someone had to tell them they weren't any good. Bingo. A story about how churchgoing Scots got around the Calvinist injunction against singing anything but hymns and anywhere but in church. How does one rehearse? The practice evolved of getting together on Friday night to practice Sunday's hymns, but with rewritten -- and often somewhat naughty -- lyrics. All my Jean Redpath recordings are on vinyl, which means I never play them, so I stepped up to the sales table at intermission. My first choice was easy: a CD including volumes 1 and 2 of the Robert Burns series that Jean did with Serge Hovey. I've got the first three LPs in the series, and "It Was A' for Our Rightful King" is one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful songs I've ever heard. The second choice was hard. With so many to choose from, the only possible guide was impulse. I chose Summer of My Dreams (1995) because it's got "Sweet Thames Flow Softly" on it. I love the song and can't wait to hear Redpath sing it. So how did Jean Redpath come to be singing on Martha's Vineyard on Memorial Day weekend? Turns out she came to MV in the early 1960s and sang, as a very young woman, at the Mooncusser! Paul (IIRC -- will check) Langmuir was among those who heard her and "decided to fall in love with her" (he said in his introduction). He subsequently produced a few gigs for her in Providence and elsewhere, and has been a friend ever since. So she was coming to visit him and his wife, and he mentioned this to the couple who produce an excellent occasional series of Celtic music concerts at Katharine Cornell. Just before I left the house (running late, of course), Gail Gilmore mentioned the concert on her Celtic Twilight program on WUMB. The station is featuring Bob Dylan this weekend, on the occasion of his 68th birthday, so Gilmore said that it wasn't widely known that Jean Redpath had hung out in Greenwich Village with Dylan, Baez, et al. This must have been around the same time that Redpath sang at the Mooncusser, at the beginning of what has turned out to be an extraordinary career.
|
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
Home - Writing - Editing - About Susanna - Bloggery - Articles - Poems - Contact Copyright ©
Susanna J. Sturgis. All rights reserved. |
||||