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 September 2006 Back to Table of Contents Back to Archives Main Page Section: Arts & Letters Savoy Faire By Wendell Wild
When the California soft-rock formula ran its course in the mid-80s, Ronstadt started casting about for other projects, embarking on a series of musical field trips including forays into Mexican and Spanish music, children’s lullabies, Gilbert and Sullivan, and several albums of standards with the arranger Nelson Riddle. Among these projects was a collaboration with the Cajun singer and writer Ann Savoy (pronounced sav-wa) as part of the 2002 Grammy-nominated album Evangeline Made: A Tribute to Cajun Music, out of which developed their new full-length album, Adieu False Heart. Recorded mostly in Louisiana shortly after Hurricane Katrina, Adieu False Heart is a collection of traditional and contemporary Cajun music, bluegrass, and ballads by the likes of Richard Thompson and Julie Miller. With a band that includes some of the luminaries of Cajun music — Joel Savoy and Chas Justus on guitars, Sam Bush on Mandolin, Kevin Wilmer on fiddle — the album is full of the simultaneously spare but sophisticated arrangements that bespeak the tangled origins of the music’s culture. It’s music haunted by the inevitability of death and loss, the specter of a world gone wrong. But Adieu False Heart is unmistakably Ronstadt and Savoy’s album, and throughout this album the two singers succeed in evoking a kind of reverence for that which is, or will soon be, no more. Nothing on Adieu False Heart better exemplifies the sense of the temporary than Arthur Smith’s gorgeous title song. Like a number of songs on the album, it’s built around alternating lead vocals — Savoy’s smoky alto against Ronstadt’s crystalline soprano — sung in this case over a delicate finger-plucked guitar and bass accompaniment that drops away in the final verse to showcase an impossibly lovely accapella duet. Another highpoint, Julie Miller’s heart-rending “I Can’t Get Over You” — featuring the composer’s husband and recording partner Buddy Miller on guitar — starts off with Ronstadt’s mournful solo lead while Savoy’s close harmony, Dirk Powell’s accordion, and Wilmer’s fiddle fill in, procession-like behind her, just off the beat, never quite catching up. The two Richard Thompson selections, “King of Bohemia” and “Burn’s Supper,” actually manage to capture Thompson’s elusive blend of dark irony and poignance, no small feat, while the French-sung “Marie Mouri” with it’s raucous fiddle, the only uptempo song on the album, shows how intimately Cajun, bluegrass, and Appalachian music are connected. In fact, it’s one of the revelations of Adieu False Heart, that the difference between the genre’s of indigenous American music is far less important than what they have in common. And given this, even the lovely acoustic version of the Left Banke’s 60s hit “Walk Away Renee,” which closes the album, somehow seems of a piece. Given its timing, one can’t help feel the tragedy of Katrina hanging over this music, and the case has been made that it’s actually what the album is about. And, in a sense, how could it miss? But it doesn’t take Katrina to give these songs their deeply melancholy power. Sadness is built into Cajun music the way its frequent stand-in, sentimentality, is too often built into pop music. The trick for a singer is to be able to communicate the difference, something Ronstadt for a long time was unable to do. On Adieu False Heart, that seems to have changed. With Savoy as her guide, she at last sounds like the singer the music needs. Not exactly a barrel of laughs however, and one can’t help coming away from the album more than a little forlorn. In other words, about as happy as it makes sense to be. back to top back to table of contents Current Issue | About Forever Young | Where to Find | Advertise | Our Advertisers | Community Calendar | Contest | Clubs | Contact Us | Archives | Home |
