DAVID FRANCEY
Late Edition
Laker 1009

www.davidfrancey.com
 

After nine celebrated albums of carefully-crafted balladry, the novel fact that Scottish-Canadian songwriter David Francey released his first album in 1999 at age 45 has worn off, and he has become more of a cherished and familiar old friend whose latest thoughts you look forward to hearing. Just so, in this album David shares his reactions to recent news, some world news but mostly personal news. And, to make the conversation even more intimate and immediate, these plainspoken songs are recorded live “off the studio floor,” as performed together by David and Kieran Kane (banjo, guitar), Fats Kaplin (fiddle, mandolin), Richard Bennett (guitar, bouzouki) and Lucas Kane (drums). The result is engaging, poetic, and often exhilarating.

Although the songs are inspired by the day’s news, they are not topical songs. David meditates on news itself, including how transitory news can be (“Yesterday’s News”) and how television news is sometimes gathered by “pretty jackals who smell the blood” and delivered by “a pretty face that talks” (“Pretty Jackals”). He sings of the touring musician’s lonely hotel room (“Blue Heart of Texas”), lost love (“Long Brown Hair”), and isolation (“High Wall”). He ties together a Kurosawa movie, the Afghan war, and the mortgage crisis (“I Live in Fear”). And, he ends with a prayer-like song of thanks for love (“Gratitude”). These are deeply personal songs, but they are personal in the engaging and candid way that you welcome from a cherished friend.

— Scott Sheldon