Search - Kate Mcgarrigle & Anna :: Kate & Anna Mcgarrigle

Folk Music From The Northern Branch

Alfred Johnson | boston, ma | 07/24/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Over the past period this writer has reviewed the music of Loudon Wainwright III, the late Utah Phillips, his very much alive old friend Rosalie Sorrels and now the McGarrigle Sisters, Kate and Anna, (including, when appropriate, their family and kin musical entourage). What joins this reviewer and this gathering of folk giants together is one person and one place, Lena and Café Lena's coffeehouse in Saratoga, New York. That place was (and today continues to be on a lesser scale) the Mecca in upstate New York for the gathering of much folk talent, folk wisdom and just plain whimsy, including the talents of most of those mentioned above.



I know Saratoga and its environs well and if New York City's Greenwich Village and Cambridge's Harvard Square are better known in the 1960s folk revival geography that locale can serve as the folk crowd's summer watering hole (and refuge from life's storms all year round). From the descriptions of the café `s lifestyle and of the off-beat personality of Lena, as presented in a PBS documentary about her and the place many years ago, it also was a veritable experiment in ad hoc communal living). Thus, I know the names and work of the McGarrigles well. For those not so fortunate, and to bring the younger crowd up to date, Kate McGarrigle is Rufus Wainwright's mother (and Loudon Wainwright, of course, is his father). That will tell much about Rufus' pedigree.



But back to Kate and Anna. Of course they came out of Canada, like compatriots Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, and placed their stamp on a late portion of the folk revival, particularly with their beautiful harmonies, their great instrumental versatility and their songwriting replete with many memory-induced songs from their old country (including some very nice traditional songs in French). Those memory songs, perhaps, are their trademark-covering and creating a certain kind of folk music that is very traditionally driven without being maudlin as many of the very early songs in the North American Songbook tended to be. And their lyrics and melodies backed by a wide range of instruments from the banjo to the fiddle blend very nicely together.



I will give one example, the one that caught my ear long ago before I knew much of Lena and Café Lena. The McGarrigle song "Talk To Me Of Mendocino" (out in Pacific California) is written in honor of Lena. Lena, as mentioned above, was very troubled in many ways, although something of a fairy godmother to the upstate New York folk scene. One single line of "Mendocino" captures Lena's turmoil very concisely- "never had the blues from whence I came, in New York State I got `em". That line in combination with the almost ethereal melody line that evokes the spray of the ocean gives just the right sense about the plight of that troubled lady. This is the kind of thoughtful presentation that dominates their working ethos. Listen up.



Most of the selections here were written by one or the other, or both sisters. A look at the liner notes (that also include the lyrics to each song, always a nice touch) indicates that, whether written by them or not, they are playing their full array of musical instruments on theses tracks (also nice). Sticks outs here are "Heart Like A Wheel, a song that Linda Ronstadt (and perhaps others) successfully covered, the above-mentioned "Talk To Me Of Mendocino", "Tell My Sister" and the poignant "Go Leave".











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