 | | Reviews | | |  BLUE TAPESTRY
Live
Fat Cat Records FATCD011
Take some source material of the highest order, add two top-class singer/songwriters and three musicians with impeccable pedigrees. Take it on tour, record each gig digitally and what do you get? Blue Tapestry Live. Brainchild of Chris While and Julie Matthews, the clue's in the band/tour title …
No bells yet? Take a look at these tracks: Free Man In Paris, Little Green, Case Of You, In France They Kiss On Main Street; It's Too Late, Will You Love Me Tomorrow, I Feel The Earth Move, Tapestry … You got it. Chris and Julie pay tribute to Joni Mitchell and Carole King, the artists who gave them the "spark, inspiration and passion" (sleeve quote) to walk the talk in the first place.
And a totally gobsmacking tribute it is too. Imagine quality music so faithful that you're whizzed blissfully back to the era of the original songs, yet so original that it goes way beyond any mere copycat rendering. Imagine versions of Mitchell's Coyote and Raised On Robbery where While's fluid, fabulous voice just eats up those complex vocal pyrotechnics with pure joy and ease while Maartin Allcock's fretless bass picks up Jaco Pastorius' legacy running and Pete Zorn's sax storms the ramparts. Imagine Matthews, a woman with a symbiotic relationship with her piano, pouring such heart and soul into King's über-ballads that the air quivers with her driven, achingly poignant vocals. Imagine a total sound, underpinned by drummer Neil Marshall being Russ Kunkel, John Guerin, Bobbye Hall etc all rolled into one, that makes you wish you'd been there every night of the tour. Imagine … no, forget the imagining. It might just be apparent by now that I'm a big fan of all four women involved here, so go buy this CD and join the club!
Mel McClellan - January 2003
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Folk & Acoustic
