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Review of 'Don't Forget About It" by Douglas Sloan
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Friday, March 13, 2009
Review of 'Don't Forget About It" by Douglas Sloan of Metronome Magazine ...Friday, March 13, 2009
Review of 'Don't Forget About It" by Douglas Sloan of Metronome Magazine
Category: Music
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Erinn Brown has a voice that most people only dream of and she really knows how to use it. Soulful, sweet and powerful, Brown flaunts her talents on this sexy offering Don't Forget About It. Enlisting a camp of Boston musicians that include Pete MacLean, Michael Miksis, Jeff Buckridge, Ken Clark, Henley Douglas, Jr, Steve Peabody, Lisa Marie, Julie Dougherty, Brian Maes, Dennis Babin, Will Pirone, Marty Rowen, Masashi Nakamura and "Walnut da Lyrical Geni," Brown and company step on the gas pedal and never look back. Reminiscent of Susan Tedeschi and the great, Bonnie Raitt, Erinn Brown sings song that makes your heart quiver. Don't miss this talented gal when she performs in your town!
- Douglas Sloan, Metronome Magazine
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June,2008: from Steve Morse
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"Sultry funk 'n' soul from an underrated singer who knows about the intricacies of the heart. T... "Sultry funk 'n' soul from an underrated singer who knows about the intricacies of the heart. The music stings and heals at the same time.
Erinn Brown has some old-school influences -- Memphis soul, especially -- but she presents them with a contemporary spin. Songs burst forward with her engagingly elastic voice, aided by warm elements of Hammond B-3 organ and horn flourishes. Her new album has some great songs such as the clever "Love is a Peace of the World,'' the Bonnie Raitt-evoking ballad "Time to Waste,'' and hugely cathartic "Dig Out the Pain,'' which tells you that this lady has been around the block. Amid the rootsy, experience-laden tracks is even an acid-jazz reprise of a song heard earlier called "And in the End,'' where she notes that "everybody is trying to win their own game.'' She wins her own here.''
-- STEVE MORSE, longtime Boston Globe correspondent
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Retro-review: Road Signs To The Sun
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by Bill Copeland
July 2007
It has been eight years since Erinn Brown released her debut CD Road ...by Bill Copeland
July 2007
It has been eight years since Erinn Brown released her debut CD Road Signs To The Sun. Distracted by personal matters that cropped up during preparations for her release party, Brown never had a chance for what my British grandfather used to call, "a proper go at it."
Looking back at this CD in 2007 with the objectivity of hindsight, Road Signs proves to be a remarkable, if overlooked, gem in a sea of Boston music scene releases.
A collection of eight original heart-felt songs and two covers that breathe new life into music by Joni Mitchell and John Prine, Road Signs forces us to think about what might have been. If only this singer-songwriter, who resembles a cross between Nora Jones and Cindy Crawford, got the proper record company backing.
On this release, Brown wasted no time, jumping into emotive musical timbres. In opener "Choir Of The Birds," each chorus received a lithe, stealthy, bounce from her pleasant vocal melody. A gentle approach stirs the emotions in this tune about family memories. That same gentle hand also pushes the tune forward without ever becoming heavy handed. Brown, proving herself a natural songbird, wraps her voice around verse and chorus, performing seamless vocal gymnastics without pretension.
Her jaunty organ and Rhodes piano-based "I Can’t Stick Around" rolled along with confidence. An affirmation of a woman’s newfound self-confidence, Brown sang about the need to move lovingly beyond a pleasant but temporary relationship. The instruments here are cleverly arranged, giving this mid-tempo blues-rocker enough snap, crackle, and pop to keep tugging at my ears.
"Towards The Sun" is another Brown song about moving on, a song as moving as it is engaging. The timeless metaphor of sunlight as love from another to help one’s growth gets a fresh twist when Brown extends the metaphor into needing new soil to plant her roots. Employing unique songwriting patterns, the songstress expresses emotional tension with unexpected twists in rhythms and melodies. With ranging vocal ability, Brown keeps setting the bar higher and with an Olympian poll vault, and propels herself over each time, hitting all the right notes and dodging all the expected pitfalls.
After bringing a fresh vibe to John Prine’s well traveled bar band cliche "Angel From Montgomery," Brown tackles the emotional challenge of "I’m Not One To Just Give Up," a poignant and personal reflection of a roller coaster relationship that left two tattered souls tip-toeing around in each other in a time of mutual, frustrated need. Although the relationship was confusing, musical sense is made of the trauma, with cello bringing in mournful tones, and criss-crossing rhythms underscoring the whirling experience Brown had written of. Brown’s vocal pulls the emotions out of each verse and hand delivers them.
Giving the listener a pause from her ordeals, Brown eases into her song of courage and hope, "Don’t Run Away." Up-tempo and more electric guitar driven than the rest of the album, Brown travels into a faster vocal lane without ever stopping to catch her breath. "Don’t Run Away" is also a noteworthy examination of courage and self-discovery: "And I noticed when she laughed/Her courage was real/That’s the same satisfaction/That I wanna feel."
My personal favorite is "Foghorn." Written by Brown during her days in Marblehead, when on every quiet night she could hear a distant foghorn, the song reflects a struggle to survive. A lighthouse, its foghorn, and the ocean, become metaphors that the songwriter crafted into a image-laden tale closer to poetry than lyric: "He holds his heartache behind the bars of his mind/Swimmin’ in a tangled net of regret/He thinks that he really tried."
There’s a lot going on in "Foghorn." The opening verse lulls us into a false sense of security, as its warm full sound implies a feeling of affection. On the last word in verse one, Brown, with sudden shift in vocal tone, spins the song into a darker, edgier world. Her swift spins on one word often remind me of an amusement park scary house ride. The electric cart carries me past through swinging doors and rides a few feet before abruptly turning into a row of frightening displays. Bringing her listeners right where she wants them like that is the gift of a true performer.
"Don’t Want What You Can’t Have," written mostly by her collaborator John Donelan, finds her once again wrapping her voice around her band’s jaunty rhythms, suggesting a jazz vocal background. With enough peaks and valleys for a run ride, Brown’s mellifluous alto rides these highways, giving her verses that silky sound only a special singer can.
The saddest song on the album, "Boston SnowTime,’ finds Brown reminiscing about a warm moment in a failed relationship. A change in seasons reminds her it is getting closer to a month of pleasant memories, and the feelings casts over her brings in a flood of other memories. A moody cello and gentle tinkling on a Rhodes make the perfect contrast to Brown’s warm and affectionate vocal. While the music stirs the sadder feelings, Brown, with canny vocal inflection, plays the role of respectful narrator, looking back without bitterness or hurt.
Brown closes out her disc with Joni Mitchell‘s ode to letting someone go. "Urge For Going," in Brown’s hands, meets the first requirement of a new twist - a slow rock beat. Brown is not afraid to show her influences, having the courage to invite comparisons to a singer with one of the most beautiful voices in modern recorded music. Listeners can also trace Brown’s influences and see where she has taken them.
Brown was not flying solo on Road Signs Her long time collaborator, John Donelan, aside from playing electric guitar, arranged the cello melodies and contributed to the songwriting on two numbers. Bass player Mike Rivard (Club D’elf), 12-string player Dan Drayer, Hammond organ and Rhodes piano player Dave Limina, drummer Larry Finn, and cellist Daniel Rowe provided Brown the best possible wall of sound.
There is much to enjoy on "Road Signs To The Sun." The voice is beautiful. The musicianship is exceptional. The songwriting is respectable. Brown missed a grand opportunity for self-promotion when she released this album in April 1999. Her music career was unavoidably halted by circumstances beyond her control. Yet, there remains an opportunity for people to explore the music she created at a time when her creative growth was at a high level of inspiration. One can only look forward to the album Brown is currently working on.
Links:
www.erinnbrown.com
www.myspace.com/erinnbbrown
Sonicbids.com/ErinnBrown
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Erinn Brown Band (Summer '07)
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The Noise Live Review; September (Unedited version; courtesy Abdullah Zimmerman)
The Erinn Brown...The Noise Live Review; September (Unedited version; courtesy Abdullah Zimmerman)
The Erinn Brown Band
The Pickled Onion, Beverly MA, 7-14-07
By Abdullah Zimmerman
If you can picture Joni Mitchell fronting a rock band on rhythm guitar, then you’ll have a good idea of what Erinn Brown is like in concert. Brown kicked, clawed, and scratched her way through meaningful originals and served up some tasty arrangements of classic rock songs.
Decked out in a form-fitting outfit, Brown’s leggy, vibrant presence threw out a lot of sex appeal. She never flaunted, pranced, or strutted. She didn’t need to. Her immense talent and energy made her an obvious object of desire for the male crowd there. Hootin’ and hollerin’ punctuated moments between songs. Personally, I’d write she is the foxiest mama I’ve seen since I moved to Boston from the Middle East two years ago.
Brown’s band featured Jeff Buckridge on guitar, Dave Walker on bass, and Steve Peabody on drums. Peabody had to miss part of the first set because somebody sideswiped his van, requiring him to fill out an accident report. Still, the Brown-Buckridge-Walker triumvirate created a thick wall of sound and drew much applause from this Saturday night crowd at The Pickled Onion in Beverly last July 14.
Once Peabody rejoined his band mates Brown introduced him to the audience, saying “we are so happy to have Steve on drums tonight.” She then lead her band through three sets, playing mostly original numbers from her 1999 CD Road Signs To The Sun as well as several from her upcoming CD “Peace Of The World.”
The rhythm section created a smacking groove for her new tune “Eye For An Eye” and they also hand delivered a stripped down approach to her older number “I Can’t Stick Around.” From there, muscular interplay between Brown’s rhythm and Buckridge’s lead developed a murkier but fresher version.
“Cool Summer Rain,” another new one, came off as a slow, torch number with Brown showing off her golden, one-in-a-million, powerhouse vocal that’s been her trademark since studying voice at Berklee College of Music. Buckridge also pulled a lot of emotion out of this piece, his high pitched emotive style making it sound like his guitar was crying out.
Brown’s “Love Is A Peace Of The World” began with a thick guitar sound created by her and Buckridge playing in sweet unison. She started with a whispery vocal to jump-start the dynamics and slowly revved up the song into an aggressive fast lane. Mr. Walker went off on a beautiful, bluesy flight of fancy on his four strings.
A slow, subtle piece “Time To Waste“ came to life with Walker‘s big, bad boy bass expanding the sound with his heavy low end. This gave the guitars a wide path to travel over and yet Brown’s ever present voice carried over it. Buckridge’s solo nailed the melody to the groove with his tasteful precision. Buckridge, an all-American red-haired, fresh freckle-face boy, tall and husky, had a large presence amidst his band mates and an even larger presence among them musically. He plays regularly with The Boston Horns, and his professional modesty shined through even while whipping out incredibly good solos, bridges, chords, and licks.
Brown’s new social conscience piece “And In The End” discussed fat cats in high rises, lonely alcoholics, Rodney King, national leaders, and international tensions, all with a very palpable, danceable beat that had Pickled Onion patrons on the floor grooving to its swaying beat.
Another of her oldies, “Toward The Sun,” played out as a slow dance song, with Brown’s smoky West Virginian accent again turning out more torchy texture. Buckridge added some tasty flourishes and Walker’s confident bass recreated dollops of texture.
Tireless to the end, Ms. Brown and her band were still playing when the lights came back up. Many patrons wanted to talk to band members after the show. There was a buzz of excitement in the air, as if the whole crowd knew they were witnessing something historic unfold. Music labels will likely be competing with each other to sign her. www.erinnbrown.com (Abdullah Zimmerman)
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Erinn Brown raises voice at Capt.'s
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Pirone: Erinn Brown raises voice at Capt.'s
By Will Pirone/ Salem Sounds
Friday, February 17, 2006...Pirone: Erinn Brown raises voice at Capt.'s
By Will Pirone/ Salem Sounds
Friday, February 17, 2006
Erinn Brown first came to Salem a decade ago when her group, "Hunter's Moon," played at the old
Rockmore Drydock restaurant on Pickering Wharf. After frequent engagements and a live album by the group recorded at that location, she decided to settle here.
Brown came to Massachusetts from West Virginia after her first year of college, hoping to attend the Berklee School of Music. She was soon accepted and graduated with a degree in professional music, with a performance and song-writing concentration.
Like many musicians, Brown came from a musical family, and cannot remember when she wasn't singing. Her mother says that she sang on the way home from the hospital.
As a child she sang at the dinner table between bites of food. She played clarinet and saxophone in high school, and sang at local events with her two sisters.
Most area musicians have a day job and play music on weekends and in the evenings. After a few years of following this route, Brown decided to focus full-time on her musical career and, as she says, "chose the path of poverty." She now teaches piano, guitar, voice and music theory, spending her remaining time as a singer and songwriter.
Brown is a familiar figure on the local music scene. Her recently disbanded group, "Move Over," played regularly at Dodge Street. She has been a frequent open-mike host and featured performer at In A Pig's Eye. I saw her during Haunted Happenings, performing on the outdoor stage at the Essex Street Mall.
It is only appropriate that I caught up with her this weekend at Capt.'s Waterfront Grill, the site of the former Rockmore Drydock, where her musical life in Salem began. The interior has been recently and tastefully redone. The restaurant is in a beautiful setting, with views of Derby Wharf, the "Friendship" and the harbor.
This was a solo engagement. Brown accompanied herself on guitar, playing rhythm behind her vocals, and picking melodic lines during the instrumental breaks. She sometimes works with Michael Kehn on bass. If another guitarist is present, she often will play the conga drum.
But this is all about the voice as an instrument. Her voice is never trapped in her chest or throat. It is projected through her mouth and nasal cavities where complex resonance is produced. The resulting timbre is very smooth and soft in the lower register. She uses the microphone, rather than her lungs, to amplify this sometimes breathy delivery.
Her pitch is precise and even, generally ending with a slight vibrato or waiver that abruptly resolves on key. She ascends from her natural alto to her upper register with ease. In this range she has a variety of vocal effects. Always just short of a cry, a wail, an occasional growl, and then she quickly returns to the lower register.
Her phrasing and cadence are usually steady, although at times she will let the melodic possibilities overtake the meaning of the words, breaking up the lyric in unexpected ways. She will frequently vary the vocal dynamic while syncopating the beat, then, just as abruptly, return to the main thrust of the song.
This is as close as you can get to scat and still be articulate. It is jazz masquerading as pop; the blues hiding in ballads.
During the last set on a recent evening, a member of the audience requested a song she had done in the first set. She apologized for repeating the song, then produced a completely different interpretation. She explained to me she had done this for the benefit of those who had stayed through all three sets.
Her original material is artistic in both lyrics and music. Themes of love, rejection, anticipation, and ambivalence are embellished with vivid imagery, believable detail and memorable narrative. This range of emotions allows variety in pace and tempo among the individual songs and across the performance as a whole.
She rarely uses a set list, allowing the musical flow to direct the selection of material. This sometimes leaves spaces in the set. The interpretive nature of her delivery causes the quality to vary from show to show. But then, it varies on a scale from excellent to outstanding.
The set generally consists of equal shares of original songs and covers. About half of the original material is from her CD "Road Signs to the Sun." The rest are more recent compositions for the album she is currently working on. New compositions and covers are regularly introduced and keep the act from getting stale.
As I listened to her weekend sets, I was visited by a recurring thought: Why is someone with this much talent and training playing in small rooms with local bands? Perhaps her next CD will change all that. Until then, catch her while you can.
Capt'.s Waterfront Grill & Club is at 94 Wharf Street on Pickering Wharf. For information, call 978-741-0555, or visit www.capts.com online. Brown's Web site is www.erinnbrown.com.
supersonic
Love Is A Peace Of The World
