Bonnie Dobson
Take Me For A Walk In The Morning Dew
Hornbeam 003

www.hornbeamrecordings.com
 

I had not heard anything new by Bonnie Dobson in decades. So learning of Take Me For A Walk In The Morning Dew was a most pleasant jolt. Bonnie, I have learned, has lived in England since the ’70s. She has hooked up with the Hornbeam label which has also released new albums by Tom Paley and Spider John Koerner. Take Me For A Walk In The Morning Dew is no acoustic album. Bonnie has a crisp, assured band backing her on most tracks, and she sounds totally comfortable with them.

The generous 15-song program has ten Dobson originals and five traditional songs she’s sung as long as she’s been singing. “Peter Amberley,” a ballad of life in a Canadian logging camp was a standard of Bonnie’s earliest days, here with her band lovelier than ever. She offers “Dink’s Song” solo a capella and it is chilling. Bonnie first learned “Born In The Country” from Judy Roderick while they were Greenwich Village roomies, and she cut it for her 1965 For The Love Of Him album. Here she revisits it in a more upbeat, rocking arrangement. The instrumental “Sandy Boys” of 19th century origin gives the band a showcase. “V’La L’Bon Vent” is a French Canadian favorite. Three of the originals here are new versions from her eponymous 1969 album: “I Got Stung,” “Rainy Windows” and “Winter’s Going” which here extends to over seven minutes again giving the band room to stretch.

The title song “Morning Dew” was Bonnie’s first and her most famous song. She wrote in in 1961 after seeing the post-apocalyptic On The Beach, and she gives it a stirring, dramatic reading here.
The other six appear to be recent Dobson compositions. “Southern Bound,” “Living On Plastic,” “Come On Dancing” and “Mean and Evil” are all smart and spunky and all displaying more forceful vocals than I recall Bonnie ever doing. Exhilarating stuff! “Who Are These Men?” and “JB’s Song” are a pair of more somber tracks that conclude the set. “Who Are These Men?” is drawn from a TV interview with parents of a young man killed by a sniper. “JB’s Song” is an elegy for a friend who died way too young.

Take Me For A Walk In The Morning Dew is a triumph. Bonnie Dobson is singing better than ever and with total commitment! She sounds glorious. What a thrill to renew a musical acquaintance with a voice I have loved for decades. The notes say she has begun performing again, noting that a personal invitation from Robert Plant to join him at a late 2012 concert opened the gates after a decades long hiatus. Hope she comes Stateside!

— Michael Tearson