This review is written by Dai Woosnam, daigress@hotmail.com, 6/05
Lisa (or L.D. as she is known to everyone) is an American
living in Georgia. She has a voice redolent of Linda Ronstadt at the
height of her powers. Of course, what I should start by saying is that
Lisa Deaton sounds like….well, Lisa Deaton. But we don’t, do we? It is
natural to try and pinpoint a voice in the vast spectrum of voices and
try and explain its exact colour.
When it comes to Steve Hicks, I can save my breath to cool my porridge.
No point in trying to find parallels here: this bloke seems almost a
dazzling "one-off"! Since playing this CD, I have discovered that this
guitarist and luthier has a considerable and growing reputation in and
around the Leicester UK area where he is based.
This is very much a 50/50 album. Both rightly share equal billing. L.D.
chooses "Standards" from the Tradition repertoire, and these are
interspersed with instrumentals. Hicks uses a dazzling and bewildering
variety of guitar tunings, which at first you might think is a
guitarist simply showing off his virtuosity, until you test the pudding
by eating it. I have never heard more effective guitar accompaniment.
He provides a veritable magic carpet to make the voice and the words
really take wing and glide high above the commonplace. This is shown to
great effect in Stephen Foster’s Hard Times, the standout track. Surely
the chewing gum must have lost its flavour for me with this song?
Hasn’t it been done to death now, and the Law of Diminishing Returns
set in? Before hearing this, I might have said "yes", but not after.
The sheer wit and imagination of his guitar, bathes the song in what I
can only term as an aural sepia glow and helps make L.D.’s
pitch-perfect voice deliver those timeless words with that much extra
authority.
But I mustn’t underrate the singer’s contribution: some wonderful
breath control at the end of "He Moved Through The Fair", well….it took
my breath away, anyway! Tom Ryan’s banjo featured strongly on another
Foster classic Oh Susannah, and made one wonder why he only featured on
two tracks. But not for long: one realises that Steve Hicks’s own solo
accompaniment is so complete, that there is a danger that any
instrumental addition to it adulterates the heady brew, rather than
adds to it.
This CD will stay in my collection and not face the fate of many of the
previous CDs and books I have reviewed, viz be (unwanted?) birthday and
Christmas presents for my relatives. I reckon that must constitute
praise indeed.
The CD is obtainable in the UK from Steve at 62 Beechfield Avenue,
Birstall, Leicester. LE4 4DA. The price this way is £11.99
including p.&.p. In the USA from Lisa Deaton: enquiries through ldsings@alltel.net
Dai Woosnam
Grimsby, England.
daigress@hotmail.com
Copyright © 1998-2008 Kevin & Maxine’s Celtic & Folk Music CD Reviews. All rights reserved.
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