Anne Hills
Tracks
Hand and Heart Music

www.annehills.com
 

Singer-songwriter-folksinger Anne Hills played a pivotal role in Chicago’s folk music scene of the late-1970s and ’80s. Moving to the Windy City in 1976, she recorded for her own label (Hogeye Music), which later became part of Flying Fish Records and then Rounder. In addition, she sang in a trio with Tom Paxton and Bob Gibson (Best of Friends, Appleseeds), and collaborated with multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Cindy Mangsen. Their duo became a trio (with Priscilla Herdman) and a quartet (with Michael Smith and Mangsen’s husband, Steve Gillette). Now residing in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Hills continues to find inspiration in tradition.

On Anne’s latest album, Tracks, she turns her attention to the glory days of railroading. Eight original songs mix with a yuletide/Civil Rights tune written with drummer/percussionist Peter Erskine (“Pullman Porter Christmas”), a jovial vaudeville-era ditty (“The Train to Morrow”) and covers of songs by Michael Smith (“The Ballad of Dan Mooney”), Steve Goodman (“City of New Orleans”), and David Massengill (“Rider on an Orphan Train”). A train whistle (pulled by Ed Ellis), kicking off the opening tune (“San Luis Valley Song”), opens to a thirteen-song journey that spotlights a cast of iconic characters. There is the rapid-tongued old-timer (“I Rode ‘Em All Man”), the train robbers (“The Ballad of Dan Mooney”), and the woman whose dream to find a better life in the city results in “a knife against her throat” and her lips “bitten raw” (“Maria Took the Train to Town”). Producer Don Richmond (who sings harmony and plays a variety of instruments) adds subtle touches to Hills’ multi-octave singing, and guitar and banjo playing. Jimmy Stadler’s piano playing enhances “Like a Train.” Matt Salazar plays trombone (and Peggy Ellis sings) on “City of New Orleans,” a tune that Hills has included in her repertoire since she was seventeen. Acclaimed jazz drummer Peter Erskine (who Hills first played with, along with Chris Brubeck, when they were students at Michigan’s Interlochen Arts Academy in the early-1970s) adds gently applied rhythms to five tunes.

Hills marks the passing of the locomotive era with the closing tune, “Fallen Flag” – “A Rio Grande car, I’ve been abandoned in a field – memories around me where I rest.” Tracks peeks at those memories.

— Craig Harris