Laurie Lewis is definitely the female Townes Van Zandt.<\/p>\n
Her country folk, almost bluegrass at times, sound, combined
\nwith the ability to tell a story like no other songwriter since the
\nlikes of Jim Croce, demonstrate that this woman might be one of
\nfolk’s best kept secrets. Her latest release,
\nSeeing Things<\/i>, is further proof of this.<\/p>\n
With the assistance of Darol Anger on violin and strings, Lewis
\nutilizes her skills as a singer, guitarist and violinist (oh, did I
\nmention songwriting?) to paint pictures of people and situations
\nthat we all can relate to.<\/p>\n
At times, Lewis delves into some beautiful pop\/folk not unlike
\nOctober Project (“Visualize”), creating songs that send chills up
\nmy spine every time I hear it. At other times, Lewis weaves words
\nso strong that you can’t help feel the joy or pain that they’re
\nmeant to represent. It’s incredibly hard for me to get through the
\nfinal track “The Blackest Crow”. Hell, I have difficulty just
\nreading the lyrics in the liner notes: “The time has come, my
\ndearest dear \/ for you and I to part \/ How little do you know of
\nthe grief and woe \/ in my poor aching heart.” Ka-pow. A similar
\ntale is told on “Let The Bird Go Free,” which is only a little
\nweaker, but not by much.<\/p>\n
Lewis’s subject matters on
\nSeeing Things<\/i> often are very serious. “Manzanar” looks at
\nthe life of a Japanese-American who was sent to a detention camp
\nduring World War II, while “Angel On His Shoulder” tells the tale
\nof a man who doesn’t realize his good fortune until he is involved
\nin a terrible car crash. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself
\nreaching for the Kleenex at times – this is a very powerful disc to
\nlisten to.<\/p>\n
But Lewis also shows she knows how to laugh, as shown on the
\nsong “Kiss Me Before I Die”. It is a slightly irreverent, certainly
\noff-beat look at experiencing the ecstacy of passion (and I’m not
\nspeaking about sexual) before leaving this vale of tears. It also
\naddresses not living your life with the question “What if?”.<\/p>\n
Surprisingly, the moments that Lewis goes for a
\ncountry\/bluegrass feel are where
\nSeeing Things<\/i> falls apart. If you just listened to the
\nopening track “Blue Days, Sleepless Nights,” and assumed the rest
\nof the disc was in that style, you would have missed out on some
\nincredible music.<\/p>\n
\nSeeing Things<\/i> is a difficult disc to get though, especially
\nif you’re dealing with some of the issues that Lewis writes and
\nsings about. However, the disc serves as a wonderful catharsis, and
\nis more than enough to cement Lewis’s future as one of this
\ncountry’s best story-telling singers. (And, with the loss of Jim
\nCroce, Harry Chapin, John Denver and Townes Van Zandt, we need all
\nwe can get.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7423],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-39038","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-laurie-lewis","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39038","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39038"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39038"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}