Search - Danny Schmidt :: Enjoying the Fall

Caught up in familiar

Judy Leemann | Chicago, Earth | 11/21/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This album has been played in our home more than any other in the last few weeks. We listen to the news on the radio because we want to know and when that is too much we listen to this album - not to forget or to distract, but rather to envelop ourselves in a trusted and familiar voice - a voice that continues to find beauty in friends and simple pleasures, a voice that can tremble with truth and still hold you secure. I find in this music what I want most these days - an integration of politics and beauty, of what needs mending (and fast!) with what is so right and just and sweet and all around us. I'm grateful for the companionship of this music and recommend it highly to anyone who craves justice brewed in rich soulful beauty."

Enjoying the Fall Over and Over and Over Again

Anne Coughlin | Charlottesville, Virginia United States | 11/21/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Enjoying the Fall is the best new CD, without exception, that I have heard in years. Come to think of it, this is one of the 4 or 5 best albums I own. It ranks right up there -- and, yes, this is amazing -- with some of Bob Dylan's best work. Some friends compare Danny Schmidt to Greg Brown, but Danny Schmidt's poetry is better and his tunes more haunting than Brown's. The lyrics on this CD are rich and fascinating; it is a volume of poetry as well as song, composed of images light and dark, laced with wit and irony and nuances to ponder again and again. Each tune is pretty long, a great treat in this day of sound crumbs, and each is wonderful, one right after the other. If you first listen to the CD in your car, you'll be sitting there long after you've reached your destination, powerless to punch the stop button until you've heard all of it straight through. The music gets inside your head and soul, it stays there, and you are better, way way better, for its presence."

Master of Contemporary Folk

J. Bridgham | Janesville, WI, USA | 12/08/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Where does one find good contemporary folk music in the 21st century? Try Danny Schmidt's "Live at the Prism Coffeehouse" and "Enjoying the Fall." Whether waxing philosophical in "Belief" and "Not Unlike Water" (Live...), or regional as in "Heaven" (Live...) and the celtic "McCreary's Pipes" (both albums), or simply playful in "Lucky" (Live...) or "Drunk at the Biltmore" (Fall...), Schmidt infuses all his songs with a good measure of poetry. Schmidt's mastery of his Taylor is ably supported by just the right instrumentation: Roland Colella's fiddle and Bill Cardine's dobro on "Drunk at the Biltmore," Paddy League's bodhran on "McCreary's Pipes," and Peter Markush's cello on "Not Unlike Water" complete the mood, as does Joia Wood's highly competent vocal harmony. Folk is alive and thriving in Charlottesville."