What Sings in the Blood might be a call to arms for the inner soul. It is a major breakthrough for this artist with strong content, perfectly paced, with many nuggets embedded deep within its songs. Like a timed-release capsule, when taken aurally it will provide a depth of understanding of both the simple miracles of every day life, and a vision for change in the collective hearts of the world community.
Jason LaPrade produced and recorded this album at his Crystal Clear Sound studio in Toronto. He played on Oliver Shorer’s final epic CD, “Hymns & Hers” and is quickly making a name for himself both as a dobro player for session work in Toronto’s vibrant music community as well as an independent record producer. Interpreting Phelan’s most diverse and complex work as a songwriter to date, the use of drums/ percussion, brass, grand piano, unpredictable entries of stringed instruments, or well-placed vocals has allowed each song to possess its own identity.
The first song Redwing begins the journey with Rosemary’s rich and crystal clear A Capella over an ominous dark modal of darkness:
“Redwing oh Redwing in the blue sky
won’t you come down and tell what you see from on high….
I planted my garden in rows neat and fine
Lilies all tangled with bittersweet vine
I wait for the rain and I pray for some sun
Oh you never do know if tomorrow will come”
As David Francey adds his understated confirmation on the chorus, and the song continues with two more verses before ending with:
“The hour is late and the times they are dire
Some say our world will be ended in fire
And do as we may, do as we might
Love only love can set things aright.”
I’ve got the Star’s follows in a lighter tone thanks to Chris Coole’s rambling but expressive, emphatic banjo. However, the tale of a homeless woman in the subway still bears a message:
“I’ve got the stars for a roof up above
And nobody tells me who I cannot love
I got no walls to box my spirit in
Or to block out the light and the music”
Then high-pitched dobro tone descends from the heavens down to the bowels of the studio with We Never Cry:
“in heaven’s hall
wild prayers rise
where the mighty fall
under cobalt skies
pick and saw
and the steel chains fly
where money is law
but we never cry”
With but one last moment of respite with the cowgirl ballad Red Dress, What Sings in the Blood is finally ready to take hold of the listener and not let go till the last note is played – some six songs later! Heart Upon the Alter offers the bone chilling account of the emptiness of this “stone white silent love.”
“I am flame, I am water
you are wind across the land
you have held me like no other
I was springtime in your hands”
Then, without getting too comfortable, she finds hope amid the flames:
“oh I have walked the hollow corridors
where your voice no longer sounds
stepped ever lightly round the borders
of our shared and sacred ground
something golden still abides there
like a shimmer of dust from distant stars
love will resound and will reside there
long after we this world depart”
What follows is the harder edged folk-rocker Three Wishes that may someday be destined to explode in the hands of some electrified group down the road someday. But if words are daggers challenging the powers that be in this world to be accountable for what it does, this song draws plenty of its own blood:
“I want to walk on the sand at Kandahar
taste the perfume of forgiveness on the breeze
i want to know the human heart has come that far
and never sing another prayer for peace”
However, there is a surprise chorus that at first, I wasn’t totally sure what to make of but have since been thoroughly won over; it appeared at first to be ‘too simple.’ Suffice to say, it makes a distinct impression when it’s heard live, and these are the many things that so many artists can offer that are never even found on a small silver disc. They must be seen, and heard, to be felt. I know because when the chorus “Oh my heart” was sang during her CD release concert at Hugh’s Room in Toronto, it penetrated the outer layers of the soul and we all opened up.
It is something you have to experience to know.
Then Overwhelmed –with its profound poetry of verse:
“You say we’re all pieces of the stars
that long ago lit up the endless dark.
i don’t know but i swear from time to time
i feel something deep inside me shine
and i’m overwhelmed…. Overwhelmed”
David Francey takes the next verse to a place no one can touch. It took me awhile before I even attempted to try this one myself but have since thrown it into my own bag because the song takes me to that most profound place every time I sing it.
Then to finish the triumvirate, Hymn for the Innocent, cloaked in the warmth of Emily Stam’s grand piano and the majestic French horn, is the epitome of what Woody Guthrie did for his songs. What is that? To tell it like it is, but not for the purpose of tearing down for destruction’s sake but to find redemption, forgiveness and rebuilding in our tied together world –with the hope of achieving real change. Yes, it’s a fine line that all songwriters who follow this creed have to ride but in the Hymn, it is employed to perfection:
“scarlet the shame of the untamed hand
scarlet the blame of man for man
scarlet the rage that will not understand
oh the sorrows, oh the sorrows of this world”
And one more taught verse before turning it around:
As the odyssey continues, the songs ends:
“Rose blooms the pearl of greatest price
rose glow the bonfires of sacrifice
rose bleeds the heart that does not think twice
but lays itself, lays itself down for this world
blessed are those with eyes that see
blessed are those who hold the key
blessed are those who let it be
oh the beauty, oh the beauty of this world”
I don’t know who will play this song, or under what category if might fall under. Judy Collin’s might be comfortable singing it. But it’s Rosemary’s for now.
Lost Nation Road featuring the haunting flutes of Canada’s great folk treasure Ian Tamblyn is the song that ties the whole album together:
“home… there’s an echo inside
home… and it won’t be denied
it sings in the blood it rings in the bone
every soul has a home”
Finally, Invisible is a nod for the flowering of consciousness achieved often by the elderly or those aware enough to have learned to strip away much of the what gets in our way.
“I see your radiant souls
ancient monuments of gold
fear and sorrow fade to white
in the beauty of that light
the bright invisible”
Some people write songs for different reasons. Willie Nile is a rocker second, and a humanitarian first. That’s the order to which I view him. Rosemary has ‘layed it down for this world” and we, the listener’s are ever grateful.
