“Live at the Café 68″ is York singer-songwriter Heather Findlay’s second release since leaving as lead singer of Mostly Autumn in 2010. Recorded before an intimate audience of just thirty people, it’s a stripped-down acoustic album featuring fellow singer-songwriter Chris Johnson on guitar and vocals.
It’s explicitly billed as a duo rather than a Heather Findlay solo project, and includes as many Chris Johnson-penned songs as it does Heather’s, drawn both from Chris’ time in Mostly Autumn and from a couple of his myriad other projects.
The album captures the atmosphere of the evening with a lot of between songs banter and the audience very prominent in the mix. If anything, the audience is perhaps a little too prominent, in that it reminds those of us who weren’t able to be there what we missed.
Opener “Phoenix” is the sole song taken from Heather’s début solo EP, with Heather singing the instrumental parts in the intro. It works so well in simplified acoustic form it feels as if that was the way the song was originally intended to be performed.
Without the power and energy of a full band, there’s nowhere for anyone to hide, and the whole thing stands on the quality of the songs and the performance. Heather has always been a class act as a vocalist, hitting that sweet spot balancing precision with emotional depth, whether it’s fronting the full-blown wall of sound of Mostly Autumn, or the more mellow and delicate acoustic vibes of Odin Dragonfly. The feel here is much closer to the latter. Chris Johnson also deserves a lot of credit for his guitar playing, adding far more richness and depth than you often get from a single acoustic guitar. It’s also interesting hearing Heather using wordless vocals to replace instrumental parts, such as the original clarinet line on “Blue Light”.
Apart from a cover of Gillian Welch’s “Dear Someone”, which is perhaps the weakest song on the entire album, the rest of the set is made up of reworkings of older songs from Heather’s and Chris’ respective songbooks. There are a couple of Mostly Autumn standards in “Caught in a Fold” and “Evergreen”, the latter working especially well acoustically. “Gaze”, a song originally hidden away on the bonus disk of Mostly Autumn’s “Heart Full of Sky” is sublime, as is the Odin Dragonfly number “Magpie”. The latter is a great example of Chris’ subtle but effective guitar playing, effortlessly combining the flute and guitar lines of the original into a single guitar part.
Although the focus is on Heather’s vocals with Chris Johnson adding harmonies, he does get to sing lead on a couple of songs, one being the jaunty “Out of Season”, originally by his band The Evernauts. The other, the dark and intense take on “The Dogs” from Chris’s project Halo Blind (née Parade) is one of the highlights, performed as a duet with Heather taking the lines originally sung by Anne-Marie Helder on the record, and ending with a few bars of Heather’s own “Red Dust”.
The Mostly Autumn number “Silver Glass” closes the album. The original version from “Heart Full of Sky” had been a piano-led number with Chris Johnson singing lead. Transposed from piano to guitar, and with Heather taking on the lead vocal, it turns into a spine-tingling performance that makes you wonder why Heather never sung lead on the original. Not that there’s anything wrong with Chris’ original vocal, but hearing Heather sing it lifts the song to another level.
Although I was unable to be there for the recording, people I’ve spoken to tell me it was a quite remarkable experience, and his record manages to capture a lot of that magic. There’s certainly something of the chill-out vibe of Odin Dragonfly’s “Offerings” on display here, and I think it’s fair to say that if you liked that album, you’ll probably like this. But there’s also a far greater emphasis here on Heather’s and Chris’ talents as songwriters, both with keen ears for very strong and memorable melodies.
“Live at the Café 68″ will be available for order from www.heatherfindlay.net from November 14th
Should you last paragraph read although I was unable to be there?
Oops. Corrected that!
Another album I’ve been playing a lot since the start of the year, as I tend to do with these quality acoustic albums. Ideal for late night listening. Very much a Heather & Chris album rather than Heather plus a sideman. My favourite Heather album (vocally) is the OD album and after seeing Chris open up for with a solo acoustic set for Panic Room a couple of years, I knew to expect something a bit special. Chris is a man of many musical talents, a real class act, but its as an acoustic guitarist that he’s at his best for me.
The only song that hasn’t grabbed me is Dear Someone. A bit too old time for my ears! An otherwise very strong collection of songs ideal for re-working and good choice of material (look at the back catalogue to choose from). I do prefer this arrangement of Phoenix to the full band version, and must give a mention to the rocked up Magpie. Probably the song of the album for me and pleased it made the cut. Heather sounded in fantastic form on the night, and I particularly enjoyed Chris’ playing on Caught In A Fold and the previously mentioned Magpie.
I do hope that Heather and Chris will decide to make the rest of the show available at some point in the future for those of us who weren’t lucky enough to be able to be there on the night. In the meantime, roll on the full band live album.
Interesting what you say about “Phoenix” there – The acoustic version really loses nothing. Same is true of “Cellophane”, which I’ve heard live several times (should have been on the album in place of “Dear Someone”?). I’ve even heard an impressive live acoustic take on “Red Dust” when Chris almost strums that acoustic to death Now you know why it’s got a hole it it!
Heather’s gone very quiet about the electric live album. I’m hoping it’s still going to appear, and the rumours that it’s been shelved are groundless. Might be that she wants to release a new studio record first, and and is holding the live one back for later.