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Concert Review: “Roots & Wings,” (dba The Digital Folk Life. Org)
CONCERT REVIEW: Kate McDonnell/Siobhan Quinn at Vic’s Music Corner
How long have Vic & Reba Heyman been doing this kind of thing?
Well, here’s a hint.: Vic & Reba have been married 47 years….
Vic’s Music Corner has been running for seven-and-a-half years now, with O’Brien’s Pit Barbecue in Rockville, MD, their hosts for a while back, you could say. Given their shared taste, it’s no surprise that this year’s Concert Series features people like Sonia (remember Disappear Fear?), the Susquehanna Music & Arts Festival Kick Ass Women (Bet Williams and Jean Synodinos), and tonight (May 26, 2004), a lovely pairing of Siobhan Quinn and Kate McDonnell, in the corner stage of a restaurant that features steamed corn beef sandwiches and all kinds of domestic beer – plus the real Guinness? Alright…here we go!
Siobhan Quinn comes out of an eclectic musical background and a Scots-Irish family (well, yes, same thing, you say). But not everybody from Ireland has sung rock-n-roll, madrigals, art songs and traditional folk music along the way. Onstage first – I guess they tossed a coin or something – she opened with a startling a capella, “Lagan Love,” for all the world like Mary Black, and then went straight into Koko Taylor’s “I’m Cryin’,” accompanied expertly by her husband-to-be – who’s got pre-wedding jitters? – Mike Bowers (maybe a distant relative of Bryan, but he got the blonde genes). Kate stepped up to back her with harmonies on Siobhan’s own lament for a departed aunt in Jericho (England), went on into a note-perfect Sandy Denny, “Who Knows Where the time Goes,” and finished the opening set with a savage Janis Joplin, “(I’d be) The Richest One (if I had you….” Tight set, expert delivery, and those pipes, oh yeah. Artist’s call, any time.
Kate stepped up next, with her, whozit, John-Lennon-style guitar (other people call it “upside-down-and-backwards,” but ya gotta be left-handed, I guess), but mercy me, would you lookat that nimble finger pickin! - opening with her own “Hey Joe!” – no relation to Jimi’s – and then did a liberation call-and-response, “Go Down Moses,” before a lovesong to someone ‘way back home, dating from being almost caught in the Colorado conflagrations, “Fires.” A plaintive “Soft-Hearted Girl” followed, and she closed her set with “Tangerine Shirt,” one of those sultry blues about wearing your man’s shirt when he’s not around. You know. Whew. Time for a break.
After fifteen minutes visiting the café-style line, it was back for a round-robin, Kate and Siobhan – “Do I hafta sing after her?” (the lament of sisters in song), trading songs back and forth, stepping in as needed to fill in well-honed harmonies – it’s obviously not the first time these two have shared a mike.
Siobhan opened with a slow ballad, “Feels like Rain,” about Lake Ponchatrain – nice rhyme – so Kate decided to sing a little “song I wrote by Bob Dylan,” and went on into “North Country Fair,” making it “He once was a true love of mine,” but of course. Where do you go from there?
Siobhan took her time, with one of those stories about song-swaps at Folk Alliance, this one of “the saddest song I now,” each one grimmer the last, and wound out of it with a real wailer, “This Kind of Love,” once more showing off her chops. Sister Kate came back after that, grumbling, “Bummer, that one…” with Siobhan spacing the singing with a story about problems in getting bridesmaid’s dresses – anything but black – “But that’s the new pink, right?” – Kate reminiscing about those “wear-once colors” – “You know, “seafoam?” – before making a sudden turn to the left- I guess – with a song about this morning’s more-or-less headlines, noting she hoped this could be made somewhat less “relevant” by the current Administration, and torture and bombings, “Ah, Mercy!” Dang.
After the sustained applause you’d expect – what a song! – Siobhan took it higher, with her gospel delivery of the old Samson and Delilah story, “If I Had My Way (I would tear this building down.” So where do you go from there?
So Kate gave us all a lesson in how to yodelay-ee-ooh – “Just like Iris Dement, OK?” – and away we went into the apple-orchards-and Prozac country of Wenatchee, Washington (“halfway between Spokane and Seattle?”), with the yodeling crowd in stitches by the time she had finished mercilessly dissecting “Happy Valley,” a place where half the town was abusing kids and half was nodding happily out, all of them on the same psychiatrist’s universal prescriptions. (C’mon, you cannot make up shit like this, can you?)
Time for a lovesong. Remember Mike? Well, he sat there while Siobhan sang this one to him, “My True Companion,” and then slowly, line by line, began to harmonize along with her. Aw, man – you hadda be there!
This about left Kate with her closer, “Lemon Marmalade,” an incredibly sweet and seductive ballad from her forthcoming CD, which will be called Where the Mangoes Are – check her website, www.katemcdonnell.com), and then for Siobhan and Mike to close it down with her hushed and gentle setting of Robert Louis Stevenson’s lullaby, ”Escape at Bedtime,” from his Child’s Garden of Verses. If only Miss Catherine Mae could have been there….
So there you have it. Another fine concert, with two – make that three - expert musicians, from Vic’s Music Corner. Coming up: June 9, 2004: Garnet Rogers (they’re gonna sell that one out early, better get yore tickets fast!), with opening Megan Cary, an up-and-coming folk/rock/jazz stylist, and then June 23, “The Dreamsicles” (Tom Prasado-Rao and Cary Cooper – these guys solo, but together...? Sheesh). Well, if you want the full schedule for the full 2004 season (Is that really Kim Buchanan, August 11? Kim & Reggie Harris, August 25?) - just call Reba, or get directions at: www.victorheyman.com. They’re expecting you, as always, no problem. What did you think?
(Review Copyright by John McLaughlin, 5/27/2004)