Customer Reviews

Ten Year Night

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I first heard Lucy on the Cry Cry Cry album with Dar Williams and Richard Shindell. When I saw Cry Cry Cry in concert Lucy played "Ten Year Night" and I knew that I had to have her CD. Her music is inspiring and fun to listen to. It makes me happy and I never tire of listening to her albums. After I bought "Ten Year Night" I also bought her other two albums... all three of them are marvelous. I told my roommates about her while I was home in Vermont for summer vacation and they went out and bought her CDs too. If you love Dar and Richard and the Nields, you will LOVE Lucy Kaplansky.

I purchase between 35 and 50 CDs a year. This latest offering from Lucy is the best total collection of songs I have heard this year. Rarely does an album go 10 for 10 on the quality of its contents. Ten Year Night does this. The first couple times through, I thought I knew which tracks would be my favorites, and which might get the forward button pushed occasionally. But after listening more, I have found that even the tracks that were initially too slow for me, have spread their sweetness all over me. Too bad this fantastic example of emotion, music and style is not widely known. Kaplansky would surely receive the Grammy for Album of the Year. On the other hand, being one in a smaller fanbase keeps the intimacy with the artist that much better.

I consider myself a singer-songwriter/new folk fan (I love Shawn Colvin, much of Dar Williams' stuff, Sarah McLachlan, Mary Chapin-Carpenter,Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer) and I'd heard good things about her (not to mention the Colvin connection was enticing) so I borrowed this disc from my library.

I'll echo what some others have said in that most of the ones I enjoyed best seemed to be the most spare, least produced offerings.

HIGHLIGHTS:
"Promise Me" is a 'missing you from the road' song and while the sentiment isn't new, it's heartfelt ("I'm counting the white lines/the measures of road time/They're broken in pieces/like my heart today") and sounds very nice with the John Gorka harmony. It's a keeper. "Just You Tonight" is simplicity itself: Larry Campbell's acoustic, Zev Katz's bass, and Lucy. The only studio "trick" is Jennifer Kimball's lovely harmony. The song is bewitching. The vulnerability in "A Child's Hands" (where Lucy realizes that the fears of youth still linger within) make it a fine effort, too.

LOW SPOTS:
"Turn the Lights Back On" sounds like it wants to be the anthem for women in passionless relationships, but the overly wordy third verse doesn't fit the meter and makes the tune stumble. "For Once in Your Life" also strains to be a "deep" hymn to those carrying emotional baggage they can't drop but the tune seems oddly upbeat and Lucy's voice too lilting for the heavy subject. It just doesn't work for me.

BOTTOM LINE:
Kaplansky does have a fine voice, if not particularly distinctive. The songs here are nice, but in the end only some of them were genuine "wows" for me. A good one if you're a diehard folkie/singer-songwriter only person, but those whose musical interests scatter across the board might not find this sufficiently fantastic to choose this over another act.

Lucy is one of many excellent folk-country singer-songwriters to emerge on the American music scene in the nineties. In a crowded market, Lucy does not get the same level of recognition accorded to Lucinda Williams or Mary Chapin-Carpenter but Lucy is just as good as those two.

This classic album is a wonderful example of Lucy's skills as both singer and songwriter. It opens with the title track, about the tenth anniversary of a relationship. End of the day is about people led a contented but modest lifestyle before chasing the money, only to discover that they were better off materially but less satisfied with life. One good reason is about a woman asking her partner to choose between her and the bottle, knowing that he'd choose the bottle. Five in the morning is a song about a woman who leaves home while everybody is asleep, hoping to find a better life. Promise me is about being on the road and unable to establish a relationship. The remaining songs explore various aspects of love - the joys and the problems.

If you enjoy contemporary folk-country music, do not overlook Lucy Kaplansky. This was my first album of her music but it certainly won't be the last.

I added this disk to my Christmas list based only on a review in Red House Records. Lucky gamble. I highly recommend this album to anyone who enjoys good song writing, great lyrics, and excellent vocals.

At times this CD falls into the same trap as many other acoustic folk artists--what is it about going into the studio that makes them add all the extras? Lucy's haunting voice and guitar are all that's necessary to make passionate, beautiful music. Maybe I'm expecting too much by wanting her to reproduce the intimate, palpable energy of a live concert on a CD.

Having said all that, I would still recommend adding this CD to your collection. The title track is an interesting love song--romantic and unpretentious. "For Once In Your Life" is a powerful song about her complicated relationship with her mother--a song that has brought me to tears both in concert, and (unexpectedly) at the kitchen table while having dinner. "Turn the Lights Back On" and "End of the Day" are two of the songs that fall victim to over-production, but are well worth listening to as they get to the heart of broken relationships.

It's hard to describe the texture of Lucy's voice. It carries an edge to it but still somehow denotes vulnerability. I first heard her album "Flesh and Bone" while standing in a gift shop in the little town of Ely, near the entrance to the Boundary Waters Wilderness in Northern Minnesota. From the moment I heard her sing, I was impressed. Her other album, "The Tide" is equally as musical and well-crafted. "Ten Year Night" proves that Ms. Kaplansky has a lot of wonderful songs left to put to pen. Don't miss this album. And don't miss Lucy when she's in your town. Her concerts are on par with Dar Williams, her female partner in "Cry, Cry, Cry" with Richard Shindell.

I first became familiar with her on Flesh and Bone, which quickly became one of my favorites. I bought Ten Year Night unheard and wasn't that impressed at first - I thought that she was better doing other writers' material. After listening a few more times, the songs started to click with me. I often listen to CDs commuting on the train into NYC, while reading. This is one CD that makes me stop reading; I just listen.

One of the many memorable phrases in this album is the phrase from the song "Ten Year Night" which says: "Open your eyes, and look at me." Buy this album, and open your soul and ears and listen to Lucy Kaplansky's blend of folk, country, rhythm and blues.. There is not a song on this album that you will want to skip with the fast forward button--it is that good. I saw her live in Monterey sing several songs from this album. She is incredibly sensuous on stage. Her sensuousness is evident in this album as well. After hearing this album, you will wish she was singing the lyrics to you personally. It should win a grammy.

The stunning, supple instrument that is Lucy Kaplansky's voice has long been an open secret in folk circles. Fortunately‹and justly‹Lucy's voice now carries well beyond the confines of that world's in-crowd. On Ten Year Night, her singular singing is even richer, more confident, entirely engaged in the business (and pleasure) of finding the emotional center of a song. To listen to Lucy sing is to gain a clear purchase on what real singing means. After hearing this record, you'll find it hard, if not impossible, to think of a more moving and perfect contemporary singing voice. Despite the fact that Lucy has now released three records containing her own songs (often written in collaboration with Rick Litvin), her voice has often been praised at the expense of due consideration for the writing. Ten Year Night will change all that. The songs on this record are remarkable, various and beautifully made. A telling indication of the level here is the fact that Lucy's cover of Steve Earle's "Somewhere Out There" is far from the best song on the album. The writing ranges far, from the compellingly elliptical "In a Child's Hands" (which sounds as if an inspired Crazy Horse, complete with swooping slide-work and a rhythm section working out with palpable intensity, is backing her up) to the poignant, fresh take on finding love in the title track with its visual clarity and perfect phrasing. Perhaps the most intriguing track is the dark and haunted "One Good Reason," a portrait of a life that's unravelled in a vacuum of resignation that has become for the protagonist a dessicating inevitability ("There's a line I've crossed somewhere/ I left the best of me back there"). The spare and evocative guitar work of Duke Levine and Larry Campbell, complemented by Ben Wittman's subtle production and understated drumming, conjures up the kind of sound you might associate with Daniel Lanois if this song weren't too good on its own to invite comparisons. "Five in the Morning," with its toothsome hook and thoroughly contemporary use of traditional folk/country instrumentation (the mandolin, violin and mandola offer a stunning blend of old sounds put to new uses), would make this song, if the world were a fair and just place, a breakthrough hit on the order of "Working on a Mystery" or "Sunny Came Home"‹Lucy's work places her in the company of major artists like McLachlan and Colvin. And lest old fans worry that Lucy's left her folk past behind, the simple, ravishing waltz, "Promise Me," will allay their fears. With just her voice and a guitar, as in "For Once in Your Life," Lucy can draw you in with deep emotional force and make you crave the sound of that fetching voice with little around it. That's what contemporary folk‹all the stringencies and purist babble aside‹is really about. Ten Year Night is clearly one of the year's most accomplished albums. It is the record of an artist with extraordinary gifts coming into her own with a force and clarity that makes her work not merely pleasurable or memorable, but essential.