Search - Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin :: Heart Songs: The Old Time Country Songs of Utah Phillips

	Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin Heart Songs: The Old Time Country Songs of Utah Phillips Genres: Country, Folk, Pop This record began in the dreams of master songmaker Utah Phillips. Kate and Jody were singing some special songs of his that no one had ever heard before. Sometimes dreams come true. The pure sound of Jody and Kate -- two ... more » « less
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CD Details

All Artists: Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin
Title: Heart Songs: The Old Time Country Songs of Utah Phillips
Members Wishing: 2
Total Copies: 0
Label: Rounder Records
Release Date: 2/2/2009
Genres: Country, Folk, Pop
Styles: Classic Country, Traditional Folk, Contemporary Folk, Singer-Songwriters
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPCs: 011661042421, 011661042421

Synopsis

Album Description

This record began in the dreams of master songmaker Utah Phillips. Kate and Jody were singing some special songs of his that no one had ever heard before. Sometimes dreams come true. The pure sound of Jody and Kate -- two voices, two guitars -- singing these stark and moving country songs is extraordinary. You're not likely to hear music more real that this. In the turn of Utah's phrases, in the dignity of Jody and Kate's singing, there is something uplifting, urging us to take a closer look at each precious humble life. --Alan Senauke, from his liner notes

CD Reviews

Though neither old-time nor country, a thing of beauty

Jerome Clark | Canby, Minnesota | 11/24/1998

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The "old-time country" in this CD's subtitle seems a tad odd. Bruce ("Utah") Phillips's songs are neither old-time nor country, if you define country, as most do, as Southern honkytonk music. They take their structure from traditional ballads and the agitprop anthems of such early twentieth-centry far-left labor organizers and versifiers as Joe Hill and Ralph Chaplin of the Industrial Workers of the World (of which Phillips is one of a handful of surviving members). If Phillips's politics are out of another era, if as performer/personality Phillips himself seems too often too much the mannered eccentric, in the end all that matters is that he is as gifted a folk-based songwriter as Woody Guthrie ever was, and on more than a few occasions he is even better. One cannot imagine more compelling interpreters of this material than Jody Stecher and Kate Brislin, whose high-lonesome harmonies are so perfect they'd put a tear in a dead man's eye. This sparely produced recording, rich with melancholic reflection and raw-boned story-telling, is a thing of heartbreaking beauty. The bone-chilling "Hood River, Roll on" alone justifies the CD's existence, and there is much more, besides. Only an overlong, pseudo-raga reworking of the often-recorded "Rock Salt and Nails" fails to hold up."