Search - John Mccutcheon :: John McCutcheon's Four Seasons: Springsongs

John McCutcheon created a four-disc seasonal cycle of songs that celebrate and ruminate on the meaning of each season, the joys, the disappointments, and loads of little details that often pass us by in our yearly trek around the sun. On Springsongs, McCutcheon delivers a mature set of songs (some cowritten with the brilliant folk songwriter Si Kahn) with a musically rich lineup of backing musicians that well serve the moods, magic, and maddening expectations that spring promises every year. Naturally there are fun tunes about "April Fool," "Spring Cleaning," and even "Going to the Prom." But it's songs like "Snow in April," a jazzy, quasimelancholy number that ironically celebrates winter's last act when it should be out of here, and "I Hope I Make It," a baseball reminiscence about youth and giving everything "your best," that really connect. Like Pete Seeger, and at times even Bruce Springsteen, McCutcheon can put the most prosaic details of a season, desire, hope, and harmony and other emotions and ideas into succinct and memorable reflections that transcend time and place. --Martin Keller