Susan Kane is the real thing. The lower Hudson Valley-based singer-songwriter has just released her second album, Highway Bouquet, and it’s chock-full of great songs and great singing, all set off with a shimmering production job from multi-instrumentalist and Suzanne Vega side man Billy Masters (who called in ringers like Lisa Gutkin, Fred Gillen Jr., and Marc Muller to assist). Kane would have been comfortable in the “Mellow Mafia” of late-’70s Los Angeles, but her music has a stronger country edge and occasionally even leans into the alt.folk territory of her peers. Since Kane covers the Eric Kaz/Libby Titus chestnut “Love Has No Pride” on the album, one assumes she won’t mind the comparison to Linda Ronstadt. But, truth be told, Karla Bonoff—who wrote many of Ronstadt’s most enduring songs—is an even stronger touchstone. And that’s not a bad thing, especially when you combine Kane’s irresistible voice—you can live in it for days—with hooks as big as those on the lush, anthemic “Ring the Bells,” the witty “Big Baby,” and the intimate, acoustic “Tenderhearted.” Kane also covers “To Lay Me Down,” a lesser-known gem from Jerry Garcia’s first solo album, which will certainly pull in casual listeners from the Dead side of the tracks. Further proof of Kane’s Me Decade leanings is the fact that Highway Bouquet clocks in at a vinyl-friendly 41 minutes. If only other songwriters would take the hint and offer this kind of quality, rather than simple quantity.
Susan Kane: Press
Highway Bouquet has become a staple on my iPod. I just had to share a track with my listeners tonight. Congratulations on a solid album. (List posted to FOLKDJ)
Steve Clarke
Acoustic Planet (Thursdays 8 to 10 pm)
Erin Radio -- CHES 101.5 FM
October 2008
Each month I report to the chart below choosing the best 6 recordings received in the previous month. http://www.euroamericanachart.nl This month's best of are...
Doug Hoekstra
Blooming RosesRobin Dean Salmon
Come on homeSusan Kane
Highway BouquetJames Dunn
The Long Ride HomeCamille Bloom
Say Goodbye to PrettyPulco
I dreamt of cows E.P.Visit FLYINSHOES REVIEW at: http://trailerstarlounge.ning.com
I'm pleased to announce that you/your artist has received a spot in the Best of 2009 for Radio Crystal Blue!
The list of the top 100 artists is generated from the combined rank of quarterly airplay charts I create. The rankings were done based on frequency and consistency of airplay over the months, with bonus consideration given to those that I've worked with outside of radio, such as for bookings in NYC or simply seeing artists in person. Pending a press release with the announcement, I am putting the word out here for you to share.
The list of the top 100, plus other lists that include an update to my quarterly airplay charts and all-time ranking (covering 2003-2009) may be found at the chart section of www.radiocrystalblue.com
Congrats!
Dan Herman/Radio Crystal Blue
Thank you -- for a wonderful set of music. Your songs and your voice are wonderfully engaging, and Steve really adds a tasteful, remarkable depth and texture to your performance. I know I speak for FMSH and our audience when I say it was our pleasure and a privilege to have you perform for us.
I look forward to hearing you perform again in the future.
I invite anyone to translate this! My high school German is not up to it, nor are any of the various internet translators of much use (oh, those idioms!)
Der gute alte 'Highway' geht wohl als eine naheliegendsten Assoziationen im Americana-Umfeld durch. Sicherlich gibt's da auch noch die 'Front Porch', die Berge, die Wüste, die Scheune und was weiß ich nicht noch alles... Doch Susan Kane aus New Jersey hat sich für ihr zweites Album für den Highway entschieden und präsentiert auf ihrem "Highway Bouquet" einen - um im Bild zu bleiben - bunten Strauß an Melodien, Stimmungen und Gefühlen, die einen Großteil der Americana bzw. Roots-Music Facetten widerspiegeln. Einmal von Norden nach Süden, von Westen nach Osten. Und dies alles in knapp 40 Minuten.Natürlich ist es nicht einfach, sich in diesem Genre, wo Country, Folk, Blues-Elemente Hand in Hand gehen, von anderen bereits etablierten Künstlern abzuheben, markante Duftmarken zu setzen, womöglich zu überraschen oder gar zu verstören. Susan Kane agiert entlang ihres "Highway Bouquet" auf recht konventionelle Art und Weise, ist sich der Countrytraditionen durchaus bewusst und versucht erst gar nicht anderweitig aufzufallen als durch gediegene Qualität.
Im Grunde macht Ms. Kane nichts falsch, geizt nicht mit ihren Qualitäten, verfügt über eine warme, ausdrucksstarke Stimme, die für ihre oftmals im akustischen Setting darbebotenen Country-Ausflüge wie geschaffen scheint und selbst im etwas zupackenderen Opener Ring the bells, welches mit lässigem Bonnie Raitt/Jackson Browne-Flair liebäugelt, eine starke Figur abgibt. Stichwort Bonnie Raitt: Neben ihren acht Originalsongs serviert uns Susan Kane ein GRATEFUL DEAD-Cover (To lay me down) und eine zwar abgespeckte, aber deswegen keineswegs ärmliche Coverversion des altehrwürdigen Love has no pride von Bonnie Raitts zweitem Album (anno 1972) "Give It Up". Dieser Song wurde zwar von vielen anderen Künstlern adaptiert, so auch von Linda Ronstadt und Rita Coolidge, doch langweilig wird diese Prachtballade wohl nie werden. Nicht nur hier überzeugt vor allen Dingen auch die feine Dobro-Slide-Arbeit des Albumproduzenten Billy Masters, den einige von seiner Zusammenarbeit mit Suzanne Vega kennen dürften. Masters verschafft diesem bunten Treiben aus akustischen und elektrischen Roots-Momenten einen transparenten und absolut passenden Sound, der den Unterhaltungswert dieses schönen Albums gekonnt abrundet.
Is anyone's Dutch up to snuff???
Er verschijnen enorm veel cd’s, sommige goede, een aantal uitzonderlijk mooie, zelfs een paar bar slechte. Hoe hoor je het verschil? Simpel; je moet jezelf openstellen, luisteren, en nog eens beluisteren, tijd nemen en aandacht geven. Sommige muziek geeft zich rap gewonnen, voor andere wordt meer moeite gevraagd.Die laatste categorie is vaak het mooist, zij die zich niet meteen overgeven, maar uiteindelijk toch hun “schoons”prijsgeven. Susan Kane’s bloemenpracht overtuigt meteen. Haar stijl is open en helder. Klank en productie zijn gerijpt, en maken een vlotte volwassen indruk. Deze snelweg pareltjes rollen achteloos voorbij op een zeer aangename wijze, wat deze plaat ongemerkt boven de middenmoot uittovert. Dat ze vergeleken wordt met Linda Ronstadt of Aimee Mann is voor mij niet zaligmakend. Haar zang en de wijze waarop ze haar muziek uitvoert zijn echter dusdanig overtuigend dat ik voor mezelf heb gedefinieerd haar debuut uit 2004 “So Long” aan een verdere analyse te onderwerpen.
Susan Kane proeft duidelijk naar meer, zowel haar eigen geschreven materiaal, als het door haar uitgevoerde klassieke nummer “Love has no pride”van Eric Kaz & Libby Titus origineel afkomstig van de eerste LP van American Flyer. Highway Bouquet is een mooie samengestelde set!
First, I have to tell you, as I was listening to your amazing version of Love Has No Pride, I got news that a friend's nephew was killed in Iraq--tragically a Humvee rollover...I thought those vehicles were designed to protect? I really hate this war.
I'm not one to make comparisons, but your artistry definitely side by side with Linda Ronstadt and Joni Mitchell on this album. The Story of Kesey is heartbreaking...I loved hearing the mandolin on Tenderhearted...then realized it's Matt Turk--great musician. I really love the song Nothing at All, especially:
'But you're just a lonely satellite
You get your orders from below
From the ground you seem a star so bright
And the truth they'll never know'Whew...that wrecks me. 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!
“Susan Kane writes the kind of songs I love: rooted in musical and social history, melodies that stick in your head, and she sings in a rich, natural voice that everyone should hear.”
So Long Susan Kane
This lovely set of hummable country-folk, beautifully produced by Billy Masters (Suzanne Vega's guitarist), has been getting some airplay on prestigious folk programs, and deservedly so. Kane has a sweetly unassuming but clear and sure voice, a good command of American idioms from country-western to blues to coffeehouse folk, a knack for homespun melodies, and an ace collaborator in Masters, whose guitar work and production nests the songs perfectly.
Kane sings folk with a country-singer's voice, merging the pure beauty of an Erica Smith with the worldliness of a Joni Mitchell. As with Linda Nuñez (see below), if you like this style of music, you will probably enjoy this strong album through and through.
I have one quibble. Although lyrics, as a consequence of their dependence on a musical setting, generally sound better sung than they read upon the page, Kane's, curiously, go the opposite way. The simple, rather formal beauty of the song structures and melodies seem to contrast with the natural, tumbling quality of the storytelling, resulting - to this ear, anyway - in moments of diminished artfulness.
That aside, this is a fine disc worthy of a place on your folk shelf. Kane and Masters are also a pleasure to hear live, as I learned at a recent show at NYC's Rockwood Music Hall.
The singer-songwriter scene here in the suburbs north of New York City has attracted so many practitioners in the past decade that the murmurs of there being a "Hudson Valley sound" are starting to be heard.
Here they strum: in coffeehouses, natch, but also in bars and restaurants, libraries and museums, social halls at places of worship and concert halls in venues of all sizes. With dozens of carefully wrought, hard-won songs they know by heart or a repertoire of just a few originals and covers, the crowd of folk-centric musical artists working regularly around these parts (and farther afield) offer plenty of entertainment and enjoyment practically every night of the week.
The humblest of these tuneful soirees-"open mic night" performances-are cropping up continuously, in every comer of the county it seems, and attracting a spectrum of talents, some on the cusp of strong regional popularity, all of them ready to win over the intrepid hearts in attendance who are unwilling to surrender to the cultural imperative of television.
Dollar for dollar, plugging into this scene is the best way to feed your soul. The growing presence of teenagers and young adults at the gigs (which are, for the most part, caffeine-charged), underlines the idea that, as the words go, "something is happening here." It's community building in its purest form, exciting and inspiring, welcoming and inclusive, a true reflection of who we are and how we're faring in this world.
Susan Kane comes from the middle-aged caucus of singer-songwriters presently lifting the Valhalla, NY-based Tribes Hill folk music collective, which has spearheaded the singer songwriter scene around Westchester County since the late 1990s, to national prominence (and thus helping to establish the "Hudson Valley sound"). Listening to her debut album, So Long, released in August 2004, it's obvious that she possesses sterling gifts as a vocalist and songwriter, her country-flavored sound a fitting match for the heartfelt declarations and touching narratives that comprise her lyrics.
Seemingly coming out of nowhere, Kane nonetheless has the mature poise of a music biz vet, and that's part of her allure, undoubtedly, to boomers with lots on their minds. That said, then, music fans who know the digital bits of their Lucinda Williams and Mary Chapin Carpenter CDs through-and-through will want to check out Kane. Plus, she's got a local's perspective, too, and that gives her artistry extra credence in the wilds of suburbia.
Kane had just returned from the North East Regional Folk Alliance (NERFA) conference held last weekend at the Kutsher's resort in the Catskills when I caught up to her by phone at her home on the border between Mount Kisco and Bedford Hills. We'd met a number of times over the years, usually at Tribes Hill gatherings, and while she's been hard at work trying to push her musical career I've always been impressed by her unflagging support for all the other singer-songwriters working in the area--checking out their gigs, helping out with their CDs at the merchandise tables when no one else will, lending glorious harmonies to tunes whenever asked. NERFA stands as a big deal for singer-songwriters, as it connects them with radio programmers and concert booking agents. A lot of the musical showcases don't begin until 2 a.m., and then there are informal "song swaps" throughout the resort in different performers’ rooms that last until dawn. “Forget nerves—the hardest part about being at NERFA is staying awake,” joked Kane.
So Long met with decent success for a debut album released independently. Over 80 radio stations nationwide picked up on it, not including some syndicated programs that reached listeners at 75 other stations, and Kane reported that the buzz hasn't died down yet. Apparently, WKZEFM in Sharon, Conn, one of the region's top stations for Americana musical artists and acts--has just added a few of her songs to the regular playlist.
"When the Roots Music Report put my album on their Folk Chart, I looked at the list and saw a lot of indies like myself, but there were also names like Mark Knopfler on the chart, and that was amazing," she said.
Originally, Kane admitted, she was hoping to record an EP-length demo to be able to score some gigs and enter songwriting contests with. Working with guitar-ace Billy Masters in between his forays in Suzanne Vega's touring band, Kane cut a handful of songs, "but Billy thought they were pretty good and suggested I write a few others," she said.
Some of the songs Kane first recorded for So Long, like "Chicory Blue" and "Truth Will Out," contain "road" imagery, which, she maintained, was appropriate enough. "We're a nation of drivers and riders, really, and here in suburbia you spend a good deal of time in the car. So, it's a universal image, a metaphor for life, and a day-to-day experience, too."
Kane knows suburbia. She grew up in Waldwick, N.J., near the Paramus Mall. Her mother taught piano and her father was an aspiring actor who finally packed it in to sell insurance. When the Beatles hit America Kane asked for a guitar, and by the time she was in 7th grade she was leading her own folk music trio.
She studied economics at Bryn Mawr College and kept up her songwriting on the side, graduating in 1975. After a stint at the European American Bank in Manhattan she moved over to the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company, teaching brokers and bankers in the Credit Training Program for several years before marrying and staying at home to raise three children. She continues to pay close attention to financial matters around the world, and in conversation she mentioned how easy credit has "fueled countless personal disasters and supported the growth of the U.S. economy during the past two decades," posing real ethical dilemmas for those working in the banking and credit industries. Her work also' led to factory visits around the country, "which made me glad to have a college _degree," she said, and gave her first-hand look at how globalization was changing the blue- and white-collar worlds. Local governments, she added, "haven't yet recognized" the effects of globalization on their communities and probably won't either "until it's too late."
All this from a Grateful Dead fan. As her kids got older Kane started to feel the itch of performing music again. She helped start a Dead cover band, August West (named for the narrator in "Wharf Rat;' one of the group's lugubrious tunes, sung by Jerry Garcia), in 1998, and then worked in another outfit, Bad Dog, that featured some of her original songs. Coaxed into the singer-songwriter genre by her friend Sloan Wainwright, she has been a regular at Tribes Hill and the open mic scene for the past three years, gradually emerging as an artist with a sizable collection of arresting songs and a shimmering voice that can carry country ballads and rockers alike.
Kane mentioned being inspired by the example of Mary Gauthier, another singer-songwriter who "got into this game later in life;' but expressed no regrets for the roads she's taken.”You do what you do," she said, "and don't look back if you can help it. I don't view my corporate life as a sidetrack I shouldn't have been on. For now, it's great to be doing something new and challenging. I have a lifetime to draw on for my songwriting, and I'm making the kind of music where you don't need a stylist to find an audience."
" If justice were served, "Susan Kane" would be a household name! Her first album is so assured, so full of wonderful songs, so well-produced that in a fair world you'd expect to find her on the cover of Rolling Stone. Susan Kane deserves a much wider audience. She conquers audiences, one coffeehouse at a time." Jim Motavalli, WPKN-FM Bridgeport, CT
"Susan's pure delivery of this beautiful collection of songs [So Long] leads the listener on a sublime sonic journey." Sloan Wainwright
"...listen closely to the lyrics for maximum enjoyment!" Zoe Montana, RadioIO.com
("Rebekah" is) a remarkable portrait...to set alongside "Eleanor Rigby...." Bob Sherman, Woody's Children WFUV-FM New York
Deuxieme album de la new yorkaise Susan Kane. Il a ete produit par le guitariste Billy Masters, connu, entre autre, pour ses prestations aupres de Suzanne Vega et de Richard Shindell. Depuis plusieurs annees, Susan Kane a acquis une solide reputation dans le monde de la musique folk le long du fleuve Hudson. Sa voix sans vibrato est tres pure, assez procohe de celle de Kate Wolf. On retrouve bein sur Billy Masters a la guitare, ainsi qu'au dobro ou a la mandoline. 8 des 10 chansons ont ete ecrites par Susan. Le deux autres sont une belle version de To Lay Me Down des Grateful Dead et Love Have No Pride, chanson ecrite par Eric Kza et Libby Titut pour Bonnie Raitt, il y a pas loin de 40 ans.
