Sera Cahoone— From Where I Started

I’ve been hearing about Sera Cahoone for years yet her music somehow eluded me. Friends used to ask me if I had heard her yet and of course I hadn’t and I don’t know why I didn’t search for her because she was then living in Seattle, a city I had loved dearly during my thirteen year stay there, and when it came to music, I trusted the people recommending her. A couple were relentless, sure I would love the direction she was heading, and I would have if I… If I what? Only taken a few minutes to track down one of her records? I sigh at the opportunities missed, especially this one. I have no idea how many albums Cahoone has released but I shall soon find out.

I sit here listening to her latest album titled From Where I Started and am dragged back to my days spent in early seventies Eugene, Oregon, fresh out of the Army and disillusioned but hopeful, part of a growing back to the earth community with its musical roots deeply embedded in folk and country rock. In those days it was Gordon Lightfoot and John Denver and James Taylor and while they weren’t exactly country rock, they embraced so many elements of it that they might as well have been. Of course, my roots ran deeper, leaning toward Cowboy and Pure Prairie League and Delbert & Glen and Uncle Jim’s Music and a handful of others ignored at the time but getting their dues today. Sometimes it takes the collapse of the musical village, you know?

Cahoone would have fit right in then, her voice an excellent conduit for the rootsy less-country-more-rock feel we hippies (we weren’t, really, but that’s what they called us) craved. It is a feeling as much of a sound and I felt it the second I heard the opening strains of the opener, “Always Turn Around,” the upbeat shuffle belying the message and the presentation. Funny how a simple phrase at the end of a chorus can set a pace that has already been laid, but in this case it does, the short burst of harmony vocals carrying the song on its back.

I could go through this album track-by-track, laying out the subtle nuances but I shall only say that not only are they there, they are at moments exquisite. So close to so many songs and yet a world apart. I have a few friends who bemoan the lack of good music these days and I laugh because while they point out that all of the notes have already been played, the difference is not in the notes themselves but in how they are put together. Cahoone does a magnificent job, the songs fresh yet familiar, proof that you do not have to play minor sevenths or in oddball signatures to do the job. She does it with major chords and harmonies that for me melt butter. She does it with lyrics not so much personal as universal. And she does it eleven times. Hard enough to do it once.

I see they are calling this Americana these days. I struggle with that term as I believe it cuts too big a swath. I file this under country rock, and damn fine country rock it is, full of melody and harmony with just the right touches and, for me, at just the right time. I’m getting too old for sports, gave up alcohol for Lent which for me comes every day, and can’t watch the news anymore. Don’t start the revolution without me but don’t knock too loud. I will be in the listening room, headphones on, soaking up the music of the Sera Cahoones of the world.

By the way, back in 2008, No Depression ran an article which covered Cahoone’s early years. I heartily suggest you read it. Click here.

I love this record.