Allison Crowe's Vox

It's Snowy Rock and Roll but Allison Crowe Likes It. She's In Good Company.

Allison Crowe, one of the greatest voices and natural talents in popular music, is home in snowy Corner Brook, Canada this Winter, writing and recording songs before launching a new concert touring year.

So far, in 2011, Crowe has captured basic vocal, piano and guitar tracks for five originals - "Arthur", "By Any Terms", "Chasing the Rain", "Don't Breathe", and "Pull You Through" - and, for more fun, she's covering two 'Americana'-hued songs by sublime singer-songwriter Patty Griffin - "Mary" and "Up to the Mountain (MLK Song)".

It's a welcome, extended, stay in one spot, after a hectic 2010 that saw Allison Crowe again navigate concert dates between her Atlantic and Pacific ocean homes, and expand continental touring territory. Crowe's latest album, (of seven), "Spiral", made best of lists from America to Europe and beyond.

Arts and entertainment blog Muruch, naming "Spiral" one of the top releases of last year, says: "Her voice flawlessly flows between the most pristine soprano and gut-wrenching, full-bodied wails. I hear Allison Crowe sing, and I remember the effect music is supposed to have on you."

Crowe's reputation encompasses her original songwriting, and singularly exciting live performances - and her art of interpretation. On her most recent visit to the City of Lights, Paris Voice Editor Bob Bishop called her "one of the best interpreters to come along since Joe Cocker".

Allan Showalter, author of the uniquely popular Leonard Cohen-centric blog, "One Heck of a Guy", expands on this theme: "Allison, whose covers include not only outstanding versions of Joni Mitchell's 'River' and 'A Case of You,' Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah,' 'The Beatles' 'In My Life' and 'Let It Be,' Lennon's 'Imagine,' and Cyndi Lauper's 'Time After Time,' but also the most provocative and seductive (forgive me, Aretha) take I've heard on Ronnie Shannon's 'I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You).' And, I stand by my conviction that Allison Crowe is the best thing to happen to 'Me And Bobby McGee' since Janis Joplin changed Kristofferson's lyrics."

On YouTube, Allison Crowe's audience is approaching nearly ten million (non-rigged) views. When makers of Hollywood movie, "Sucker Punch", were searching for how to reinvent the Eurythmics (Annie Lennox, Dave Stewart) song, "Sweet Dreams", they called on the "mistress of coversongs" as Crowe's been crowned by "Cover Lay Down" blog. Director Zack Snyder loves Allison's approach so they asked her to strip the song to an emotional core Actress Emily Browning performs the movie version (out later this month).

http://www.covermesongs.com/MP3s/Premieres/SweetDreams.mp3

In present culture, it can seem anachronistic that popular music was once a fertile community for rebellion and honesty, and the mainstream of pop and rock artists aspired to something more substantial than a bauble in a corporate chain. As rare as her talent is Allison Crowe's integrity. Like inspirations Janis Ian, Ani DiFranco, and a few others making music today, she does not "play the game".

Allison Crowe's path less-travelled brings her to Fredericton, New Brunswick, Halifax, Nova Scotia, and St. John's, Newfoundland for concerts this Spring - before her next European tour. Details of all shows and music is available @ www.allisoncrowe.com

Skeletons and Spirits - Animation by Christina Worby

 

Post V-Day, here's the flip-side to love's bliss.

Directed and produced by Christina Worby, City College Norwich, England comes this trippy video of Allison Crowe's song "Skeletons and Spirits".

Happy Valentine's

There is love in the air - as there should always be! Here, now, is some vintage emotion from Allison Crowe.

 

This is the version of "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)" from Allison's "This Little Bird" album. It's the song which brought Aretha Franklin to a big audience 44 years ago. And two hearts still beat as one :)

The lovely Valentine image is courtesy VintageHolidayCrafts.com

Mary 2011

This week, Allison Crowe has recorded three new originals: "Arthur" (not a Kinks kover); "By Any Terms"; and "Chasing the Rain". She's also recorded a cover.

"Cover Me" blog's Vincent Scarpa says: "Canadian singer-songwriter Allison Crowe drops great covers every time we turn around." Scarpa brands this newest interpretation "a lovely acoustic tribute to one of America's most underrated songwriters. Patty Griffin would surely approve of this bare-bones delivery that exposes what are some of Griffin's finest lyrics."

You can hear this song @: Allison Crowe Records Patty Griffin's "Mary" (Cover Me Premiere)

And it's on YouTube

On her most recent Tidings concert tour, Canadian musician Allison Crowe began performing "Mary", a song written by the sublime American singer-songwriter Patty Griffin. (She'd fallen in love with the song when US cable television program "Sons of Anarchy" featured it in its Season two episode "Balm".)

The New Year kicking in, Crowe pulled her piano stool over to the kitchen table, sat down and recorded this version simple and true.


Enjoy! Happy New Year to all!!

Thoughts on life and the colour Orange

…going through journals from very, very early elementary school, probably grade 1 or 2, with my friend Fanifau. I came across this journal, one of those little Hilroy notebooks that's half-blank and half-lined where you'd practice writing in one area and drawing in the other. (I LOVED those little books.)

 

That day we were given a task.

 

Choose your favourite colour, and, using that colour, in crayon, draw pictures with it, and write about why it’s your favourite colour.

 

Somehow I got orange – and in the picture area I drew some lips, (I must have just learned how to draw lips), and some other things, maybe an entirely orange rainbow, maybe a sun. Beneath the pictures I wrote, and I quote here:

 

“Orange is my favourite colour. I love orange. I WOULD DIE WITHOUT IT.”

 

This is who I am.

 

Now, I don’t remember even LIKING the colour orange let alone having it as my favourite colour. Maybe it was the last colour left in the box. (I WAS shy after all – no seriously – I was… that may have been in part due to the eye-patch I had to wear, or a constant fear of having to wear corrective shoes for having pigeon-toes… that never did happen.) Whatever the case, in the moment, I meant EVERY word of that with EVERY fibre of my being, and I always will.

 

‘Fau and I both laughed until we cried. When I was at my youngest I was a concentrated version of myself – and as I get older the years creep in and settle a little bit of that out – always leaving the original formula but making things a little easier to swallow. Not watered-down but perhaps mixed with something a touch smoother.

 

Things hold less intensity – not because they are less important – but because in order to get through day-to-day life I’ve had to learn to let go of some things or ways of thinking a little bit.

 

I still believe in what I believe in with every single fibre, to my bones, but, perhaps, and hopefully, these days, a little less to my own detriment… and with less of a weight. There is a bright side to the dark – but I can look at both with equal respect – and I realize that I truly know very little about much at all – and I look at that with bright eyes eager to learn and see.

 

I keep hearing that I don’t look 29 and that makes me unreasonably happy considering that when I was younger I always seemed much older. Whatever the case, I dig it. I think it may be less in the physical look as it is in the outlook. Things are funny. Laugh at them. It’s okay. We’re all in this together. We’ll understand and keep you in our wings. We are humans and we laugh and love and cry and disdain together – and it’s beautiful.

 

We lost a great friend this year in Corner Brook in Shannon. He is someone that I will always remember with a smile through a tear who loved people without judgement, and had a humour and glimmer in his eyes that I think all of us could learn from, who seemed to know all of this just by existing - and I am reminded to tell everyone I know and love each day how much I appreciate them - and for that lesson I am eternally grateful.

 

Thank you for another year of knowing you, everybody, and thank you for being yourselves.

 

Love,

Allison :)

 

'Cover Me' Premieres "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" & 1 Heck of a Guy, MTV and more dig it

"Cover Me" blog's Editor-in-Chief Ray Padgett, (SPIN, Consequence of Sound, Mashable and more), premieres Allison Crowe's take on Annie Lennox & Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams"

In the accompanying article, "Allison Crowe Shows Us What 'Sweet Dreams' Are Made Of (Cover Me Premiere)", writer Eric Garneau says of Crowe's bare take on the song:

"She delivers a reading on this '80s mainstay at once beautifully melodious and ferociously in-your-face."

Allison Crowe being a rock musician - well, what was called rock in the '60s - she really enjoys, but doesn't replicate, the sounds of the original's pop sensibility. She strips things to their emotional core.

1 Heck of a Guy, a blog renowned for its reportage on Leonard Cohen and broomcorn lore and much, much more, shines a light on Allison Crowe's "alchemy" in covering songs - saying:

"Allison, whose covers include not only outstanding versions of Joni Mitchell’s 'River' and 'A Case of You,' Leonard Cohen’s 'Hallelujah,' 'The Beatles’ 'In My Life' and 'Let It Be,' Lennon’s 'Imagine,' and Cyndi Lauper’s 'Time After Time,' but also the most provocative and seductive (forgive me, Aretha) take I’ve heard on Ronnie Shannon’s 'I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You).' And, I stand by my conviction that Allison Crowe is the best thing to happen to 'Me And Bobby McGee' since Janis Joplin changed Kristofferson’s lyrics."

This fun, naturally, arises from the premiere of Allison's take on Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart - The Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams" on the "Cover Me" blog.

This music news has now spread to the MTV blog: "Allison Crowe Strips Down Eurythmics' 'Sweet Dreams' " - and the site which has been serving 'Sweet Dreams' to devoted Eurythmics fans since 1999 - ethrillnet

1 Heck of a Guy includes a link to this YouTube audio with pic:

 

When the makers of Hollywood movie "Sucker Punch" were looking for ideas on how to approach the song, they called on Allison Crowe. For the 2011 blockbuster from director Zack Snyder, actress Emily Browning performs the song as a production number that opens what promises to be an exciting, visceral, film ride.

Canadian Crowe's Annual Musical Migration Underway

Musician Allison Crowe, who calls Nanaimo, BC and Corner Brook, NL, home, is set for her annual European migration confirms European road manager, Camille Schmah.

The bicoastal Canadian tours Europe at least once or twice each year and her "Spiral" Europa Tournee 2010 takes flight this month - with concert visits to Frankfurt, Nijmegen, Aachen, Gentilly - Paris, Vienna, Florence, Berlin and Quedlinburg.

From a land that's brought forth such legendary singer-songwriters as Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, this "old world" is witnessing a singular talent of a new generation.

With the release of her newest album, "Spiral", UK music blog "We Write Lists" declares her "Canada's finest songwriter" - building on acclaim from MOJO, TimeOut, the BBC and other UK media. Swedish reviewer Anna Maria Stjärnell says that on "Spiral", Allison Crowe "sings her heart out. She's made yet another album to treasure." Underscoring one of her unique characteristics, this week, "Paris Voice" labels Crowe "one of the best interpreters to come along since Joe Cocker".

Allison Crowe "Spiral" Europa Tournee 2010 poster - original art by Tara Thelen of Bergen, NL

Embodying songwriting, as well as interpretive, artistry of the highest order is rare enough. To these, Allison Crowe brings intense energy and honesty in performance - undoing any stereotypes of the modern singer-songwriter as purveyor of flaccid folk, plastic pop, or regurgitated rock tropes.

Longtime Canadian radio and television personality, Rick Dennis, (now creator/host of CICV's "Rick's Country Classics and Folk Favorites"), told his radio audience, after Crowe's appearance at "Special Woodstock", this Summer: "You really have to see Allison Crowe live. The way she splits those notes, it's like light through a prism - all the colours of a song."

For select concerts on her upcoming Euro tour, Allison Crowe is joined by guest artists: Holland's Leontine Snoeren; France's Emily B. Green; and Canadian-Brazilian Billie Rocha-Woods. Details can be found @ http://www.allisoncrowe.com/tour.html

23.09  Jazzlokal Mampf - Frankfurt, Germany
25.09  De Lindenberg - Nijmegen, Netherlands
30.09  Aula Carolina - Aachen, Germany
02.10  Auditorium du Conservatoire  - Gentilly / Paris, France
08.10  Tunnel Vienna Live - Vienna, Austria
12.10  Teatro del Sale - Florence, Italy
15.10  Osterkirche - Berlin-Wedding, Germany
16.10  Blasiikirche - Quedlinburg, Germany

The essence, articulated by operators of Teatro del Sale in Firenze, home to famed Chef Fabio Picchi and Artist Maria Cassi, is "la ricerca della qualità della vita"!

Cover Me Covers Allison Crowe

Cover Me, the covers blog penned New York-based music writer, Ray Padgett, (SPIN, Consequence of Sound, Mashable and others) features In the Spotlight: Allison Crowe @ http://www.covermesongs.com/2010/07/in-the-spotlight-allison-crowe.html  

"There are some voices that speak (or sing) for themselves. You know the ones. Voices where it doesn't matter what they sing. Voices where it doesn't really matter what instruments support them. Solomon Burke has such a voice. Jeff Buckley had it. Allison Crowe has it too."

So begins a posting which well showcases a cross-section of Allison's cover work - Rolling Stones, Cyndi Lauper, Pearl Jam, The Beatles and, says Padgett, "the best version of Leonard Cohen's oft-covered 'Hallelujah' "..

Check out Cover Me for this Allison installment, and, for lots more on the art and fun of interpretation.

And best wishes of the Summer... or whatever you're celebrating!

Allison Crowe's Rolling Wonder Revue

Allison Crowe, already renowned for her peerless concert performances, amazing voice and rock and roll piano chops, continues to earn widening appreciation for her music.

 

“Canada’s finest songwriter” is how UK culture blog, ‘We Write Lists’, tagged Crowe upon release of her newest album, “Spiral” this Spring. And while the musician herself is not one to seek plaudits, it’s true that the singular quality, consistency and diversity of her creations over a decade of song recordings is increasingly appreciated. Her repertoire of original songs, such as “Effortless”, “Whether I’m Wrong”, “Disease”, “Skeletons and Spirits”, “Wedding Song” and plenty more, combined with her supreme delivery of interpretations is, as one reviewer put it, a mighty force.

 

On Fishpond.com, Australasia’s largest online store, (Down Under’s counterpart to Amazon.com), “Spiral” has been the second top-selling CD in the weeks following its release. Helping reach people on this side of the globe is Crowe’s much-loved cover of “Throw Your Arms Around Me” – the Hunters and Collectors song which is an anthem to folks in Australia and New Zealand. In the Singer-Songwriter category, “Spiral” remains in the top ten, alongside albums from such artists as Carole King and James Taylor, Laura Marling, Jack Johnson, Natalie Merchant, Anika Moa and Leonard Cohen.

 

“When I listen to it, I think ‘This is real music, real singing’, it has the power, it's natural, not artificial and calculated like many songs nowadays,” says Lukasz Garbol, podcaster with Poland’s popular Radio Świdnik – playing Crowe’s song “Now”.

 

Allison Crowe’s appeal to international audiences, regardless of language or other differences, is explained by Jeffrey Pitcher, Artistic Director of Theatre Newfoundland: "No matter where she is in this world, that voice, that conviction, it crosses all borders. She's one of those rare artists that fits into any culture, any community because she is who she is - an incredible talent."

 

"I hear so much music these days, too much for one person really,” says US-based music blogger Muruch. “I’m inundated with such a flood of sounds both good and bad that I sometimes forget what it feels like when a song literally produces chills on your arms. Then I hear Allison Crowe sing, and I remember the effect music is supposed to have on you. That awe-inspired rush, that indescribable feeling of communion between artist and audience. The gratitude that someone gifted has expressed through their art an emotion you personally lack the talent to articulate."

 

Muruch, a trail-blazer in online music communities – creating Audiogasms ('02-04) on Livejournal which evolved into Audiography (2004) – has just celebrated its tenth anniversary. ( http://www.muruch.com/2010/07/a-decade-of-muruch.html ) The blog, which for a decade has introduced its audience to a rich array of arts and entertainment, in music, film and literature, considers “Allison Crowe to be Muruch‘s true musical mascot” – noting: “Her extraordinarily emotive way of singing and the subtle beauty of her songs stand out from just about any other artist ever.”

 

Allison Crowe - Upcoming Canadian "Spiral" Concerts

BRITISH COLUMBIA

July 30:  Sechelt, BC - Sunshine Coast Arts Centre – Sechelt Festival of the Arts
Aug. 6:  Salt Spring Island, BC - ArtSpring Theatre – for SSI BCSPCA
Aug. 7:  Victoria, BC - Fairfield United Church – in the Garden City
Aug. 13:  Nanaimo, BC - St. Andrew's United Church – “Catch the Spirit” campaign
Aug. 15:  Duncan, BC Canada - Providence Farms – “Special Woodstock”

 

Fuller details will be announced next week @ http://www.allisoncrowe.com/tour.html

Celebrate... everything!

There's been fireworks both sides of the Canada/US border in recent days. And, likely, soccer fans from Spain and the Netherlands are sparking up their own celebrations before the world cup final. Maybe you have a birthday, an anniversary, something special to mark - simply, even, another day being alive.

To add to the fun... Robert Courtemanche attended Canada Day celebrations in the nation's capital, Ottawa, with friends. He's put together this video of a fireworks display - with musical accompaniment from Allison's newest album, "Spiral" ~ the song "Going Home Tonight".

Ottawa Canada Day Fireworks long exposure still photography in HD

Salut!