Track Listing:
- Dear Companion
- River Song
- The Cruelty Of Barbary Ellen
- Do What You Gotta Do
- Riverhouse In Tinicum
- The Waltze Of The Tennis Players
- Maiden In The Moor Lay
- Sweet William And Fair Ellen.
- All I Ever Wanted
- Willie O'Winsbury
- Dear Companion
Wichita Recordings Ltd
Dear Companion
Meg Baird
The question of authenticity is a tricky one for some fans of roots music. Certain people want to know musicians are treating the material with the utmost respect and aren't straying too far from some imagined template. If I had been told Meg Baid was another re-discovered folkie from the 70's I would have been happy to have believed them. Treating traditional songs with all the reverence some believe they deserve. When i discovered her day job is as part of the Philadelphian psy-folksters Espers I was pleasantly surprised.
Meg's side project like many a solo album is her opportunity to indulge her passion for personal favourite songwriters and styles. If this is the case then she certainly is a multi-faceted character. This selection needn't necessarily work. Putting a Jimmy Webb song (Do What You Gotta Do) next to Dear Companion, an Appalachian oldie, then a celtic classic (Willie O'Winsbury) isn't an obvious choice. It all becomes a highly listenable coherent whole once its all been through the Baird filter though.
These recordings have a remarkable subtlety but are never fragile. Whereas Espers are prone to a good ol' meander Meg sticks to a tighter blueprint. Her own two strong songs hint at a more expansive side but still remain concise. When the title track returns in a lovelorn acapella version at the end we can hear that Meg's voice is anything but flighty. It's actually full of intrigue. It expresses curiosity and knowing in equal measures. Mid-Atlantic might be the best attempt to pin it down. There are shades of a Laural Canyon starlet fighting for space with a certain Britishness, say Ann Briggs for example.
Meg's main instrument of choice for accompaniment is the guitar and it is picked here in the time honoured tradition with clarity. There's a warmth to her playing that is interrupted twice in the course of the album. The melodic crackle of the dulcimer takes over for a two song interlude. It benefits from it's simplicity conjuring up images of a spontaneous campfire session.
You could file this next to a re-issued Karen Dalton CD or hold it up as a fine example of modern balladry. Either way it proves authenticity is best left to the heart and not the head.
Dave Kushar