Highway Bouquet is Hudson Valley singer songwriter Susan Kane’s second CD.  A beautiful voice, a distinctive point of view, and a knack for memorable melodies make her more than just another musician to listen to.  Her songs draw on many strains of roots music, from folk to blues to country.  Produced again by Billy Masters, the new CD has two cover songs, and eight new originals.  Like her previous record, So Long, the songs range from spare acoustic arrangements to expansive full instrumentation productions, all in the Americana idiom.  The production aims to fully realize the aesthetic of each song, but the songs can also stand on their own performed solo, or with minimal accompaniment. Her songs often have a bittersweet theme, albeit intimate and warmly expressed.  The specifically autobiographical “Kesey” tells the story of a horse she owned for much of her adult life, and is a poignant musing on mortality.  The first track “Ring the Bells” is stirring and anthemic.  “Big Baby” winks at the inner child in all of us.  “My Father’s Tattoo” is completely fictitious, although inspired by real front page news.  There are many talented musicians contributing to the disc, including fiddler Lisa Gutkin from the Grammy-winning Klezmatics, and Marc Muller (Shania Twain, Steve Forbert).  The album is named for a line in one of the songs.  It’s slightly ambiguous, intentionally so, recalling the makeshift memorials one sees along roadways, and is echoed in the cover artwork, resin sculptures of flowers by New York artist Carson Fox. 

 

Born in New York and raised in various suburban locations by artistically inclined parents in New Jersey, she was drawn to music at an early age, but wandered away from her mother’s conservatory piano repertoire to the homespun vibes of acoustic folk and twangy country music.   The rise of Bob Dylan and the ubiquitous presence of folk music on top40 radio and pop music outlets of the time called to her.  “My mom is actually from Wheeling, West Virginia, home of WWVA and its famous Jamboree USA country music show.  She used to joke that I must have some hillbilly blood in me somewhere.”  Kane dropped the piano and picked up the guitar around sixth grade, promptly forming an all girl folk trio which performed for a couple of years.  Then she went solo and sang folky, protesty, singer songwriter stuff with some Beatles thrown in.  There was a college duo with a guy partner, who turned her on to the Grateful Dead.  “I immersed myself deeply in their work, which most people probably don’t realize are about half covers culled from just about every genre.”  After college, she played just for her own enjoyment, and got back into performing in the mid 1990s, logging time in the corporate world and raising a family with her attorney/writer husband.  She only started to write songs about 10 years ago.  She was in a rock band that started doing original material, and thought, “maybe I can do that too.”  When the band wound down, she found herself having coffee with local indie goddess Sloan Wainwright who said “Go to the folk world.”  And she hasn’t looked back.

 

Her debut CD of all original material, So Long, produced by acclaimed guitarist, arranger and producer Billy Masters, (Suzanne Vega, Cry Cry Cry, Richard Shindell) was released in fall 2004. The album showcased Kane's lyric driven songs about relationships, nature, with a few wry observations on various contemporary follies.  The tunes are memorable and timeless.  A tribute to the humble, blue beauty of roadside chicory is an audience and critical favorite, having won a number of songwriting awards.  So Long earned spins at over 100 radio stations nationwide. 

 

Susan has played at a wide variety of well-known venues and festivals in the Hudson Valley and metropolitan area, including the Towne Crier Café, the Peekskill Coffeehouse, the Bitter End and the Pleasantville Music Festival.  She has shared bills with such diverse artists as Pete Seeger, Dar Williams, Sloan Wainwright, Terence Martin and Girlyman.  With her warm, mellifluous voice, listeners are often reminded of other singers, but can't quite come up with a name. The voice has a distinctive quality that's hers alone. Although Mary Chapin Carpenter, Aimee Mann, Linda Ronstadt are sometimes recalled.  She is also active in the local music scene as current president of Tribes Hill, a Hudson Valley collective of independent musicians. 

 

No, she doesn’t regret not having started this sooner.  No point in that, she says.  Rather, she feels was actually “in training”---soaking up literature, poetry, movies, music, the raw material of songs.  It takes time to process one’s influences.  In the early 2000s she entered the local Westchester and New York singer songwriter and folk scene. 

“I was very inspired by Pete Seeger whom I first met at a nonprofit fundraiser.  He listened to a song I had just written, and was very complementary and encouraging.”  She gets her songwriting ideas from anything and everything--offbeat newspaper articles, odd turns of phrase, roadside flowers.  She is drawn to drawn to characters (and the consequences of character), stories and situations, and tries to express a particular message or feeling though the unique use of language. 

 

“I could just sit in my room and do this, but recording and going on stage forces me to try to perfect the songs.  The way listeners respond is the litmus test.  I never know myself.  Songs are sort of like your children, you’re really not supposed to have favorites.  When an audience is moved or entertained by what you do—it’s one of the most gratifying and humbling experiences one can have.  It’s something I could never take for granted.  It is an incredible privilege to be able to express oneself this way.”

 

DJ Catherine Michaels from Westchester’s WHUD FM has early praise for the CD.  “Highway Bouquet is an invitation to hit the road with Susan Kane--her voice the fuel, sweet momentum of the strings, the wheels. From the lead track Ring the Bells, this lyrical journey with Susan teaches us that even in the darkness of the past, hope blooms. Hallelujah!”