Music for changing seasons

The weather at this season -- spring if you are in the northern hemisphere, autumn in the southern part of the world -- often casts things in changing light and circumstance. Snow one day, wild flowers the next. A soft rain followed by a wild wind. A quiet night filled with stars set off by a cloudy sunrise. To go along with these changing seasons, take a listen to these two recordings

On Paradiso, Barry Walsh’s music unfolds as a narrative without words, postcards and journeys and reflections of a man steeped equally in classical and Americana music, within that mix finding his own language and voice.
There’s North Platte, a spare and atmospheric piece in which Walsh’s piano leads a journey through that landscape of high desert and high plains. Gretchen’s Theme is a moody thoughtful piece named in honor of Walsh’s wife, songwriter Gretchen Peters. Peters herself tuns up in a piece that Walsh had in mind to flip their usual musical roles on tour around. The result is Seven Weeks, with Peters playing melody on piano and Walsh weaving in and around her melody lines playing guitar. Another collaborative piece is a sort of instrumental call and response by Barry, on piano, and his son Brennan on guitar, on Youth and Age, which they wrote together. Marathon Motor Works, named for a shuttered Nashville automotive factory near where Walsh lives, finds him sharing musical ideas with award winning Dobro player Rob Ickes. There are two imaginings of a short pieces by composer Erik Satie, long one of Walsh favorites among classical musicians, as well.

Guest musicians and classical covers both form integral parts of Walsh’s’ vision here, and though they do, it his vision, his sure and creative hand on the keyboard and fretboard and in compositions and arrangement, which guide the work. Put it on and let those things guide your reflections in this time of changing light and shadow.

Dan Trueman loves the Hardanger fiddle, a Nordic fiddle style you’ve met before if you’ve walked the music road here for a while. Brittany Haas loves old time and bluegrass fiddle, which she usually plays on a five string instrument, rather than the more often heard four string kind. They got to talking about what might happen if they put these two interests together. Things were more adventurous than that might at first seem, because of differing tuning and playing styles in the instruments and the music -- that made it all the more challenging for the two.

CrissCross is what they came up with, a collection of original music that puts the grit and edginess of old time fiddle into lively conversation with the haunting and sometimes ethereal Nordic sound of the Hardanger fiddle. There are tunes you could dance to, and tunes you'll want as companions for reflection, a sense of place, a sense of travel, and on occasion, a sense of humour too. Collaborators on this journey include Haas’s Crooked Still band mate, bassist Corey DiMario, guitarist Jordan Tice, and cellist Natalie Haas. Standout tracks include Weaving a Fancy Dress, Monica's Walk, and Seven Nine Eleven. All the fourteen cuts are well worth repeated listening, though: just put it on and let it Haas and Trueman take you on unexpected journeys.




you may also wish to see
Crooked Still: Still Crooked
Barry Walsh : The Crossing
Gretchen Peters: Northern Lights

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Gretchen Peters: One to the Heart, One to the Head

One To The Heart, One To The Head


The west is a landscape of transformation and mystery, a place where, if you’re there, your background is transformed, and if you return to the home place, you arrive changed. This is as true, I’ve found, whether the west in question turns out to be the highlands of Scotland, the western counties of Ireland, the Rockies and the Sangre de Cristos and the Llano Estacado of the United States, or the high plains and the northern Rockies of Alberta.

Mystery and transformation are stock in trade in the work of songwriters Gretchen Peters and Tom Russell, so it’s all the more interesting that when they got together for an album of songs about the west, only one -- Russell’s song Guadalupe-- is an original by either of them. Barry Walsh, whose keyboard work illuminates many of the tracks, contributes a fine original track too, and all the rest are covers.

Covers of songs by writers who really know their west it turns out, and know it from differing yet intersecting perspectives. The story opens with Walsh’s reflective instrumental, North Platte. It moves forward with the intriguing triad of Mary McCaslin’s Prairie in the Sky, Bob Dylan’s Billy 4, and Ian Tyson’s Blue Mountains of Mexico. Stephanie Davis’ contemplative song Wolves, about the loneliness and resignation that living in the west sometimes requires, is another outstanding cut. Actually they all are, from Russell's mystic and shadowed tale of pain and longing in Guadalupe, the tinge of bar room wisdom in Sweet and Shiny Eyes, to Rosalie Sorrels My Last Go Round, which could be said to look at the same story as Guadalupe from another place along the journey.

Peters lived in Colorado for some time, and Russell has lived in far west Texas. They each hold the perspective of an artist grounded in American west, along with the perspective of artists who have traveled the world. It’s a project filled with imagination and integrity, which comes through clearly in the song choice, in Peters’ lead singing, and in the collaboration with the musicians who work with her. It’s a collection of songs which will linger with you well after the playing is done, and one to which you’ll want to return.





you may also want to see

Gretchen Peters: Northern Lights

Dakota Lullaby: Albert & Gage

Ian Tyson: Yellowhead to Yellowstone

Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh’s recording of Gerry O Beirne’s song Western Highway is one view of the idea of the west from an Irish perspective that’s worth checking out.

2010 Songwriter's Market: Where & How to Market Your Songs for an interview with Peters.

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Gretchen Peters: Northern Lights

Northern lights

The winter holdays, Advent, and Chrstmastide may incluse, among other things, wonder at the miracle of the incarnation, warm embraces from family, greetings from friends familiar and long lost, strangers becoming friends as they wait in lines, sing carols together, marvel at holiday lights and share laughter amid the hurry of the season, and moments, sought after or not, when the joys and sorrows of the season are framed in time spent alone. Gretchen Peters’ view of Christmas on her album Northern Lights arises from those moments of solitary contemplation. That sounds as though it’s a reflective set of music, and it is. What you might not expect from that description is that it is also an album filled with joy of the season, occasionally funny, always thoughtful, entirely musical, and filled with peace.

It will not surprise those who know Peters as the writer of mainstream country hits such as You Don’t Even Know Who I Am, Water Into Wine, and Independence Day, to learn that she knows that solitude, connection, and peace all require courage and faith, whatever the source of that faith and whatever the season.

Peters opens the album with Song for a Winter’s Night, a many faceted look at coping with being alone and missing someone at the holiday season, from Canadian writer Gordon Lightfoot. This moves into The Coventry Carol, a traditional song based on a lullabye, which connects with the ideas in Peters own December Child, a mother’s thoughts looking forward from the manger and back to that moment of Christ as a baby child.

Connecting these two through the sequence on the recording is the Appalachian carol I Wonder As I Wander, which in Peters’ take moves from question to affirmation. There’s a jazzy, funny melding of music from Vince Guaraldi (think Charlie Brown’s Christmas) and Angels We Have Heard on High, entirely in spirit of both songs.

In another inspired bit of sequencing, Waitin’ on Mary, also a song Peters has written, stands next to In the Bleak Midwinter. Waitin’ on Mary speaks of the Holy Family searching for rest and a home, and of people who still find no home and no welcome. “Far away on some dark hill, there are faithful waiting still, who have no hope but still believe...” Peters sings. Midwinter is a traditional song of learning how to give, how to worship, and how to find a place to do that.

You’ll find similar wisdom, and hope, and joy, in the other songs, including the title track, Northern Lights, which Peters also wrote, and Careful How You Go, written by Kim Richey and Will Kimbrough, both of which gracefully hold the essence of winter, wonder, solitude, and stillness. There's also Christmas Time Is Here, from Vince Guaraldi, and the bleoved carol Silent Night.

If you're reading this in October, or November, or even December, and thinking, this has been a hard year, I don’t want to think about the holidays yet -- yes, you do. This music is a good companion for your journey.

Peters is better known as a writer than as a singer (at least in the US -- audiences in the UK and Europe seem to have caught on to her ability as a performer), but she is a very fine one, and her clear soprano has never sounded better or more soulful than it does here. She produced the album along with Barry Walsh, who offers inspired work on piano, organ, and accordion. Suzy Bogguss and Matraca Berg sit in for quiet harmony vocals on Waitin’ on Mary, while David Henry, Doug Lancio, Dave Francis, and Will Kimbrough also join in on various tracks. Part of the proceeds from Northern Lights will be given to Room at the Inn, a Nashville based group which assists the homeless.

You may also want to see A track from Gretchen Peters' 2022 release The Show:Live from the UK is part of this story at Wandering Educators. Gretchen Peters : Burnt Toast & Offerings Barry Walsh : the crossing listening to Christmas

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now playing: barry walsh : the crossing

The Crossing


Barry Walsh has been making music professionally for more than thirty years. Most of that has been spent in Nashville recording studios. In recent years he’s been touring in support of singer and songwriter Gretchen Peters, and with Alex Chilton and the Box Tops. His past history includes backing up Roy Orbison and Jimmy Webb, and writing songs that Waylon Jennings and The Amazing Rhythm Aces, among others, have recorded.

Thanks in part to encouragement from Peters, Walsh has now gotten around to recording his first solo album, and it’s something none of those credits noted above would likely prepare you for. Original, mostly just Walsh and his piano, it’s music that draws on both Bach and folk, and remains true to the voice of this artist. Without the first word being said, Walsh speaks clearly and movingly of connection, discovery, love’s questions and love’s certainties, and the varied landscapes of thought and emotion. David Henry adds masterful cello on several tracks, including the opening title cut, and Mark Selby brings in guitar on Nigel’s Blues. The only cover is a twice imagined take on Erik Satie’s Je Te Vieux, a piece which Walsh presents as at once somber and seeing the possibility of joy. It fits in perfectly with the rest of the collection.


more about Gretchen Peters here