You’ve probably never heard of Fred Small, which is a shame. A
\nman who Pete Seeger has called “one of America’s best songwriters”,
\nhis sporadic and low-key career has stretched across three record
\nlabels and seventeen years; despite my fondness for his work, I’ve
\nonly managed to locate two of his six extant CDs. His music is
\nbrilliant, heart-felt, and touching, emotional without being
\nmanipulative, and his single voice asking for diversity and
\nunderstanding is seemingly cynic-proof.<\/p>\n
A former Phi Beta Kappa at Yale and the holder of a law degree
\nfrom the University of Michigan, Small quit law in 1980 in order to
\nconcentrate on his music career. In 1996, he entered Harvard
\nDivinity School to become a Unitarian Minister. In between, he
\ncommitted to CD some of the best folk music around, and
\nEverything Possible<\/i> documents both how good the music was
\nand how well his audience responded.<\/p>\n
Small has two distinct voices. The satirist and humourist comes
\nout to play on “Hot Frogs On The Loose” and “The Marine’s Lament:
\nOr The Pink Peril”, and his sense of humour is devastatingly biting
\nand deeply amusing. The spoken interlude on “The Hug Song” turns a
\nRaffiesque children’s song into an interesting commentary on our
\nsociety. But on another level, Small is a balladeer, a bard,
\npointing out injustice and wrong in the tradition of Tom Paxton and
\nPhil Ochs. The disk’s opening track, “Guinevere And The Fire” is a
\nhaunting, gut-twisting indictment of racism, “Too Many People”
\nstarts out funny then turns serious on the subject of
\noverpopulation, and “Smile When You’re Ready” is a bittersweet
\nadvisory for those growing up misfit. The title track is a touching
\nlullaby to a child who needs to hear that whatever they do in life
\nis all right, and the spoken intro (“This is a song no one ever
\nsang to me as I was growing up”) made me use it as a lullaby for my
\nchildren. Sure, sometimes he becomes a touch too saccharine,
\nespecially on “Friends First” and “Rodney King’s Blessing”, but his
\nclear voice and honest emotion at least means -he- believes
\neverything he says, and in protest music that’s nine-tenths of the
\nbattle.<\/p>\n
Two special notes have to be made in closing. One, this is the
\nbest sounding live disc I’ve -ever- heard; you’re right there, and
\nthe crowd sound is clear without being overpowering. Kudos to small
\nChicago label Flying Fish for the marvelous sound. Two, “The Other
\nSide Of The Wood”, track four on the CD, is magnificent. I can’t
\nsay anything else, just listen to it yourself.<\/p>\n
You may have trouble tracking Fred Small down. Make the effort;
\nhe is one of the best songwriters out there today, and is the
\nworthy heir of a long tradition of guitars and messages.<\/p>\n
“You can be anybody you want to be, you can love whomever you
\nwill, You can travel any country where your heart leads, and know I
\nwill love you still, You can live by yourself, you can gather
\nfriends around you, you can choose one special one,” And the only
\nmeasure of your words and deeds Will be the love you leave behind
\nwhen you’re done…”<\/p>\n
–“Everything Possible”, Fred Small<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":24996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6099],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-36201","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-fred-small","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36201"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36201"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}