Living in the shadows

Bert Jansch

With Disc 4’s previously unreleased content obviously intended to tempt people who already own the rest of this box (three of Jansch’s four 1990s albums), it’s newcomers who’ll feel they’re getting the better bargain. They’ll also kick themselves for not investigating sooner Jansch’s tart Scottish baritone singing and his ability to pluck to life on his acoustic guitar the melancholy melodies that he had no trouble finding or writing. “She Moved Through the Fair” has never sounded crisper (or sadder). “Sweet Talking Lady” even rocks.

Penny's farm

Jim Kweskin & Geoff Muldaur

The premise: Two alumni of the 1960s Northeast folk scene reunite (again) for a rambunctiously sprightly romp through their folk, blues, and Dixieland favorites. And, if you know as much about those genres as the aforementioned folk alumni do, there’s a good chance that their favorites are yours too. In other words, Kweskin and Muldaur offer little in the way of revelation. Still, they’ve chosen an interesting version of “The Cuckoo.” And the increasing similarity between Kweskin’s voice and Willie Nelson’s must surely count for something.

Trolling for dreams

John McCutcheon

One occupational hazard of specializing in both children’s music and traditional folk is that the sentimentalism of the former can bleed into attempts at composing material inspired by the latter. Indeed, many of McCutcheon’s latest musical character sketches could’ve been penned by Dan Fogelberg or Harry Chapin. There are, however, differences, the most obvious of which is the affection with which McCutcheon portrays folks who attend church and who study (and obey) the Bible. In “Waltz ’Round the Kitchen” he practically translates Norman Rockwell into song.

Chaim Tannenbaum

Chaim Tannenbaum

Best known for accompanying Loudon Wainwright III, Tannenbaum has also spent decades as a philosophy professor. And although “professorial folk” may be too stuffy a tag to hang on his anything-but-stuffy solo debut, he clearly knows what he’s professing: gospel, Harold Arlen, public-domain copyrights, and how to sing like Pete Seeger while still sounding like himself. “Brooklyn 1955,” meanwhile, is a baseball lover’s dream. And not only did Tannenbaum write it, but he also holds a 4.23 average score (out of 5) at ratemyteachers.com.

ENCORE

Prior to the release last November of her latest album Lodestar (Domino), the English folk singer Shirley Collins hadn’t recorded for over 30 years due to the dysphonia that robbed her of her voice after her second marriage ended. Now 81, she no longer sings with the enchanting soprano airiness that characterized her youthful way with a traditional ballad. Instead, she inhabits a grandmotherly alto range and comes on like the voice of experience.

Make that experience and dread. Accompanied only by acoustic, medieval-sounding instrumentation, her delivery of the penitential “Awake Awake”—particularly the lines “There’s never any man so stout, / nor man nor woman goes gay, / but death will rot your bones / and your flesh will melt away”—is positively chilling. It’s surpassed only by her delivery of Gibbons’ “The Silver Swan,” which begins, “The silver swan, who living had no note, / when death approached, unlocked her silent throat.” Autobiography doesn’t get more succinct, or more chilling, than that. —A.O.