Song List: Just a Little Ways Down the Road, Enough, Texas Wind, Why’d You Have to Break My Heart?, Quaking Aspen, Trees, Long Gone, Hound Dog Blues, the Banks Are Covered in Blue, Down on the Levee, The Day Is Mine, Rock the Pain Away.
Bay Area music icon Laurie Lewis has been captivating her fans for the last five decades. With timely and timeless tunes, her voice and songs have captured moments in time of lives well lived and challenged, beauty in nature that is changing all around us, and a spit and fire that rises up and denies victory to opposition.
Laurie has been part of many bluegrass bands over the years, and her “Right Hands” band is still actively performing across the country. Current band members are Hasee Ciaccio on bass, George Guthrie on banjo and guitar, and Brandon Godman on fiddle, though former band member Patrick Sauber appears on several songs as well. Core to the band sound was Laurie’s partner Tom Rozum who now is unable to add his multi-instrument skills to their music. Tom added harmony vocals to some of the songs and a captivating painting of trees for the album cover. It’s a crossroads time for Laurie, but she has managed to forge a new sound in her songs for the future and revive several special songs from other writers.
“Hound Dog Blues” is a joyous bounce into a bluesy vocal complete with Laurie’s fine yodeling. The singer is left with the lover’s dog like its owner is best at “sleeping and laying around.” John Hartford’s “Down on the Levee” has the charming blend of Brandon Godman’s fiddle and Patrick Sauber’s banjo as they perform a tribute to the steamboat’s call of a whistle and the “river rat’s vagrant life.”
Laurie’s original songs are more personal with a focus on the natural environment and the endurance of relationships. Most are personal reflections and are not tales of cabins in the woods or stories of a Desert Rose in Barstow. “Enough” is a stirring lament of a scorched earth of ash gray monotone. Paired with the pain is the reach for the hand of a loved one and the promise of a sequoia seed released in the aftermath of the fire. “Trees” is an a cappella lament with Laurie, George, Hasee, and Tom Rozum delivering a message of endurance as the natural world observes change and vows to “live beyond human times.” The return of the flowers in spring provides a reminder that love can remain true and blossom and the gentle waltz with fiddle and banjo adds so much to the tone of “The Banks Are Covered in Blue.” Her tribute to songwriter John Prine, “Why Did You Have to Break My Heart So Early in the Day?” begins with the brewing of the morning coffee and gives the key to a songwriter’s success: “how you fit so much of ordinary life in every simple rhyme.” The closing song, “Rock the Pain Away,” is a carefully crafted song to showcase the power of relationships and love and is an album highlight.
There are so many memorable songs in the Laurie Lewis collection but “Trees” and “Rock the Pain Away” are amongst the best. The sprouting of a sequoia seed after the tragedy of a fire gives us hope for our future and we can look forward to more compelling music from Laurie Lewis to guide our journey.