2 posts tagged “paris”

Our world’s deepening love affair with Allison Crowe takes a Gallic turn tonight as the Canadian singer-songwriter embraces the Fazioli piano and her audience inside Paris’ L’Archipel theatre. From ‘La Ville-lumière’, Crowe tours to Prague, Frankfurt, and Vienna - celebrating the release of her sixth album, “Little Light”.

“Quelle voix magnifique,tout l'album est merveilleux, c'est un enchantement,” says a reviewer on Jamendo, the pioneering Creative Commons music platform. Adds another, “Quelle douceur une voix venu d'un autre monde...”

“I would chew my arm off to sing like Allison,” says West Virginia, Mountain Stage-loving music blogger Muruch. “Though I guess that would make it difficult to shred a piano like she does, which seems to be half the fun” - referencing, respectively, “Hold Back” ~ http://www.allisoncrowe.com/07HoldBackAllisonCrowe128.mp3 and “the fervent, mesmeric, piano-hammering extended version of ‘Disease’ ” ~ http://www.allisoncrowe.com/03DiseaseAllisonCrowe128.mp3 both songs on Crowe’s newest CD.

“She is reminiscent of some of the great women vocalists who shaped rock music in the late '60s and early '70s. Allison's emotional delivery is unique in today's music," is how music industry veteran, and manager to Bif Naked, Peter Karroll’s earlier framed it.

A majestic voice and talent such as graced the stages of rock’s golden era, with advancing recorded and live performances Allison Crowe’s singularity is increasingly manifest. As a singer, songwriter, interpreter and entertainer she combines elements of artistry in ways distinct in generations of popular music.

"Ever wonder what it would have been like to listen to a gifted singer/songwriter from Saskatchewan in a small, intimate hall before she became Joni Mitchell? Don't fret. There's no need to turn back the clock. Check out Allison Crowe," advises The Record’s Robert Reid.

“I believe that Allison Crowe is the only living person - with the possible exception of Glen Hansard - that can pour their whole being into any cover and make it sound like an entirely new song,” notes Muruch.

Alongside her art, Allison Crowe’s direction in dealing with the business of music is to, also, take the path less travelled. She cites Righteous Babe Ani DiFranco and Quinlan Road’s Loreena McKennitt as inspirations in the 2003 launch of her own record label, Rubenesque Records Ltd. Considering Crowe’s verdant grassroots success, journalist Jennifer Carswell asks in a current Paris Voice feature: “Is she out to change the face of independent contemporary music, infusing it with new meaning… ?”

Her mission is purely musical. Still, anything remains possible for a creator, recently described by Ross Hocker, longtime public broadcaster with WGTE/NPR, as “not in the least corrupted.”

Word on Allison Crowe’s upcoming European and North American concert dates is forthcoming.

Here, now, be description of the new album, “Little Light”:

Created from Newfoundland to British Columbia, the newest singer-songwriter collection from Allison Crowe opens with a rustically shimmering version of "Northern Lights" - a song Allison performed 'specially for the John Lennon Northern Lights Festival in Durness, Scotland. "Angels" is recorded live by Scott Littlejohn at St. Andrew's United Church, Christmas-time, in Allison's birthplace, Nanaimo, Canada. She's backed here by bassist Dave Baird and percussionist Laurent Boucher. "Disease", a song of social commentary, has, through years of live performance, become epic -  channeling Beethoven, grunge and more. Here 't'is captured in its raging glory by Larry Anschell (on International Women's Day 2008, the same night celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Anschell's Turtle Recording Studios. Larry "Turtle" Anschell, Engineer and Producer, with Brad Graham Co-Engineer). Title track "Little Light" is among a set of guitar songs that reveal a different sort of Allison Crowe's writerly reflections in music. "Happy People", like such earlier songs as Crowe's own, "Skeletons and Spirits", seduces with a bright melody coating more acid observations. Strong and gentle poetics of "Hold Back" warm us by a fire kindled in the '70s by Joni Mitchell. "Choose to Be" bridges the piano sound of Allison's "This Little Bird" songs with her new tunes. Bob Dylan's ramblin' shoes lead to a less restless farewell, as the album closes with "Wedding Song" - Crowe's sweetest, rootsiest, love song to date.

The interpretations on this collection are: "Time After Time" - originally a hit for that most unusual girl, Cyndi Lauper - Allison, a child of the '80s gives her impassioned take, live (Bastion City Mobile’s Scott LittleJohn recording this, the same night as "Angels"); "Running for Home", is a cover of the Matthew Good Band, and one of the songs Allison has performed since her teens; and, by way of the Righteous Babe, Ani DiFranco, comes Allison's vocal-guitar nod to the great peace-loving bard, Phil Ochs - "When I'm Gone". "Can't be singing louder than the guns when I'm gone, so I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here."

For a musician with talent and integrity these are the best of times.

Barriers between artist and audience that have existed for decades are now crumbled like the Berlin Wall. Allison Crowe is making the most of new freedoms. The much-loved singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is reaching millions globally via the internet as well as live touring.

At home in Nanaimo, British Columbia and Corner Brook, Newfoundland, (spanning the breadth of Canada - from Atlantic to Pacific shores), Indiecan Radio host Joe Chisholm comments that Allison Crowe is the “most Canadian Canadian I’ve ever met.”

Last night, Canuck bard Leonard Cohen is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A legendary poet, writer, songwriter, and musician, Cohen is enjoying ever-broader public appreciation - his music reaching a mainstream audience last week on American Idol (when a contestant, Jason Castro, performed a shortened rendition of “Hallelujah”.)

At the same time, Allison Crowe’s most popular performance of Cohen’s glorious modern standard, “Hallelujah”, has an audience of over one million on YouTube - placing her version of the song in the top handful, and, as one of the most ‘favorited’ videos of all time in Canada - in the company of Aretha Franklin’s “I Say a Little Prayer”, Janis Joplin’s “Try” (live at Woodstock), Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way”, Led Zeppelin’s “Over the Hills and Far Away”, and, among today’s acts, Michael Buble’s ‘official’ version of “Home”.

Known for singular interpretations of Cohen, Joni Mitchell, The Beatles and others, thanks also to cultural and techonological revolutions, Allison Crowe’s original songs, as well as finding their massive audience, are, themselves, being covered. A distinctive and vital songwriter, Crowe’s unique songbook finds her anthemic meditation on peace and war, “Whether I’m Wrong”, and her spiky kiss-off “Skeletons and Spirits”, being interpreted by such diverse performers as up-and-coming singer-songwriters in the Netherlands to a community choir in Valencia, California. “Disease”, a song of social commentary, is being contributed, in all its raging glory, to the cause of “Music Inspires Health”, an Atlanta, Georgia-based initiative that’s enlisted Crowe, alongside Dave Brubeck, Ari Hest and others, to address a range of health issues in a musical context.

During 2008, exciting live, Allison Crowe is slated to travel over 90,000 kilometres for concerts in her home-towns of Nanaimo and Corner Brook, as well as shows in New York City, Boston/Cambridge, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Paris, Liverpool, Vienna, Prague, and multiple dates in Scotland, Germany, Scandinavia and other locations.

This past weekend, Crowe joined a cavalcade of talent in White Rock, B.C. for a rocking celebration of the 20^th Anniversary of Larry Anschell’s Turtle Recording Studios - an SPCA-fundraiser. Upcoming concert dates this month include: March 15 at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons, B.C. - with special guest Skye Wallace; and, March 22 at ArtSpring Theatre, Salt Spring Island, B.C. - with musical guests Aaron Trory and Rachel Saunders (also in aid of the local SPCA). Details of these and all concerts and other Allison Crowe music news can be found @ http://www.allisoncrowe.com