![]() ![]() Classics borrowed from tradition, Nanci Griffith, Leonard Cohen and Bruce Springsteen feel like gifts, to Kaplansky and to us. ![]() Kaplansky’s new “Everyday Street” album, her first in six years, brings into sound the insightful writing we’ve come to expect from her solo albums and collaborations with the trio Cry Cry Cry bandmates Shawn Colvin and Richard Shindell sing on the album, Duke Levine plays all over it. $22, $25 $12.50), it’s the songs with Ariana Gillis (Saturday 8 p.m. $16 advance, $18 door, $9 students and children. Top area indie/folk/pop duo The Sea The Sea sings tonight at Caffe Lena (47 Phila St., Saratoga Springs). At The Egg on Sunday, he plays tunes from “Spring Carousel,” and we really need some warm hopeful tunes. Pianist/guitarist George Winston came up at the dawn of New Age instrumentals, an accident of timing that obscured the rural folkie depth of his playing. Godfrey Townsend) in noisy British Invasion blues-rock. Saturday, original member Jim McCarty leads the Yardbirds (proving ground of guitar greats Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton more recently Johnny A and now 51 Jazz singer Cyrille Aimee takes over Friday, singing Sondheim songs and other jazz classics. Tonight they play The Egg (Empire State Plaza, Albany). ![]() 51 EGG-ING MUSIC ONĭonnybrook Fair (Kevin McKrell, David McDonnell and Jeff Strange) reunited recently, recalling their ’80s heyday as Irish music top dogs here. They dazzled at The Egg, opening for Richard Thompson last November and are back to do it again. “Sisters of Slide” - bluesy slide guitarists Rory Block and Cindy Cashdollar - play Friday at Cohoes Music Hall (58 Remsen St.). He said, “I always thought that was fantastic.”Īt McGeary’s in the music community’s recent farewell, “There weren’t many tears last week,” Eck said, “because people were celebrating who she was and keeping to themselves.” He framed the event in his mother’s words (which he later found in a Carter Family song): “Bring me the flowers while I live.”Ĭaroline MotherJudge Isachsen brought us the flowers while she lived.Įck said, “She was a beautiful soul, and she still is.” She would take people aside and give them pointers about how to present themselves onstage and work on their songs.” She would take everybody who came in (from novices to working musicians trying out new tunes) and build them up to be the best they could be. “She was MotherJudge (a term borrowed from brothel lore), but she was also a mother hen - with an edge.” Eck said, “She was very demanding, wanting people to be their best. “She ran that for 20 years,” said Eck of BDOME. “Her greatest contribution to the music scene was the Best Damn Open Mic Ever,” said Eck, tracing it from Godfrey’s to the Larkin, the Lark Tavern (its longest-tenured venue), then McGeary’s, where friends gathered March 3 to celebrate her. “The coolest was Tawasentha Park, when she first got the gig and found out the pay was $50 a musician,” said Nover. Percussionist and frequent concertgoer Steve Nover played several times with MotherJudge. In my first exposure to her powerful low voice and high-flying musical vision, I had no doubt she was the boss, with a clear vision and a firm but light touch. She led the Siren Sisters and the Urban Holiness Society, the eclectic and powerful combo I saw her steer like a taxi, a sailing ship, at the old Music Haven stage. “Some of them were lies, but they were definitely moving.”Ī strong personality, MotherJudge “was certainly our guiding light in Wood,” said Eck. When Eck listened recently to a Wood show recorded at Caffe Lena, he recalled, “The beautiful things she had to say about us were so moving.” He said. They chose MotherJudge to introduce the songs. “With four songwriters we joked we were like the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young of Albany, and argued about who got to be who,” said Eck. He first admired her “ … sort of Phoebe Snow sound … but I knew it was much more than that by the end of the song.” In 2001, they formed a working band called Wood with Mitch Elrod (MotherJudge’s longtime duo partner, including on the recent “Cold Warrior” album) and Albie von Schaaf. He could have presented a concert-length appreciation for the singer-songwriter, leader of many bands, operator of the Best Damn Open Mic Ever and two recording studios, and volunteer coordinator of area festivals - as he did to me over the phone Sunday while he drove to Caffe Lena to see Sierra Hull.Įck recalled first hearing MotherJudge in an open mic at QE2 (now the Fuze Box) in 1987. Eck told the strangers in his box why he might lose it during the show, losing it briefly as he warned them. ![]()
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