FEATURED SONG OF THE WEEK:
Fires On The Wind: John Pearson’s Blues & Beyond
Watching events unfold in California as wild fires raged must have been like reliving a nightmare for Kent-based songwriter John Pearson. The Merseyside-born guitarist and singer endured a similar trauma in Portugal in August, 2003, which eventually led to a haunting soundtrack, our Song Of The Week at herecomesthesong.com, Fires On The Wind.
He and his wife Kathy were building a home in the beautiful hills of Monchique inland from the Algarve coast but they had to abandon it when the devastating fires swept through, fleeing for their lives along with everyone else. ‘Ash came fallin’/ Dropping down like sin… Better round up all your kin.’
They returned to a moonscape although their shell of a main building remained. Many would have given up and gone home but the couple gritted their teeth, salvaged what they could from the ruins and started again. Their idyll would be realised. John’s music projects were delayed while building work was restarted but his guitars had been spared, if not his record collection and most of their belongings in a flattened storehouse, and would be put to magical use again.
Takes all your reason
Leaves you hollow like a shell
Livin’ in this eden
With all you love so well
As the land becomes a sea of flames
You watch this heaven turn into hell
Pearson’s track notes described the horror chillingly: ‘The sound of burning trees – acres of them – was like thunder, and you could feel the heat on your face as the flames crested the hills, coming ever closer. It was three o’clock in the afternoon but the sky was just like night. The evacuation of the village had to be quick – pick-ups loaded with family, belongings and anything that could be saved, including livestock. Tables, chairs, beds were piled high on vehicles of all shapes and sizes, crawling nose to tail through the dense smoke along the only road left open – to the west coast and Aljezur.
‘The fires raged all day and night and the sky glowed orange until dawn. Most of us spent the night on the beach unable to sleep and knowing our homes had gone. When dawn came and we were allowed to go back inland I’ll never forget that drive, at every turn getting out of the car to drag burnt and fallen trees out of the way. Nothing was left but a black landscape with charred trees standing on the skyline, many still burning. Those fires destroyed about 95 per cent of the beautiful hill country of Monchique.’
Death and desolation
Is all that you can see
It’s the Book of Revelation
And Deuteronomy
In a barren landscape all around
Neighbours stand weeping endlessly
Fires On The Wind appeared on Pearson’s 2007 album Eucalypso Furioso, the title a reference to the highly flammable eucalyptus trees prevalent in the Monchique region which regenerate quickly after forest fires.
The guitarist’s support cast do a fine job recreating the menace of the approaching flames and the frightening experience of being on the run from an inferno: keyboard player, accordionist and co-producer Harvey Summers, Jem Turpin on harmonica, bassist Colin Gibson and drummer Liam Genockey. The common denominator was their friendship with Kenny Craddock; the multi-instrumentalist had relocated to Monchique in 2001 but died in a car crash the following year shortly before John’s arrival there. They had collaborated back in England and were planning to do so again. The tragedy before the multiple tragedies.
John, an old bandmate of mine from our folk-blues adventures with Breakdown and About Time in the Seventies and early Eighties, has started performing again after a post-pandemic hiatus and included Fires On The Wind during a gig at the Acoustic Blues Club at the Jenny Lind in Hastings recently; you can catch it all on YouTube.
In 2004 Pearson recounted his harrowing story to Paul Jones on his BBC Radio 2 Blues Show, playing three songs live in the studio. Jones accompanied him on harmonica on a stirring rendition of Bob Dylan’s Man Of Peace. Fires On The Wind was still waiting to be written.
When time allows a dignified distance no doubt the calamities of Los Angeles and its environs will be painfully retold by musicians in homage to lost friends. Music is often regarded as cathartic but easing heartache as profound as this is a difficult process to comprehend. One of Pearson’s most impressive compositions will continue to provide an eerie parallel.
For more CD information visit johnpearsonblues.com
K’s Waltz: Rose Cousins
The award-winning Canadian songwriter Rose Cousins has paid homage to a lost friend as part of a new project exploring the complexities of love. K’s Waltz, our Song Of The Week at herecomesthesong.com, honours the memory of a fellow native of Prince Edward Island, Koady Chaisson.
Cousins explains the background to her ode to Koady, banjoist and founder member of folk roots trio The East Pointers, who have collaborated with her throughout a career spanning two decades: ‘It’s hard to process and harder to accept that he’s gone. It’s also incredible to feel his presence still having a profound influence on the world he made. K’s Waltz marvels at the limitless capacity of a giving heart, the grace in every day survival.
‘In 2021, every day of December, his birth month, Koady dived into freezing cold water to raise awareness and money for the Unison Fund which supports Canadian music industry folks in times of hardship. The diving and fund-raising has continued and this year proceeds will go to Water First, Canada’s leading charitable organisation working with indigenous communities to resolve local water challenges.
‘Koady was kind, hilarious and generous with his time, talent and tomfoolery.’ He passed away on January 6, 2022, at the age of 37. The song has a stark beauty, Cousins’ economy of words allowing the listener scope for interpretation.
Into the water we go every day
Floating the notion that we’ll be OK
Is it that we both stop and continue to grow
The more of the living
The less we know
You beckon me
With your melody
Cousins does not just dip her toe into her favourite subject, like Koady she takes the full plunge. Everybody loves a great love song, and Cousins promises a clutch of them on her sixth full album Conditions Of Love, Vol 1, due out on March 14. Co-produced with long-time bandmate Joshua Van Tassel, it marks a return to the multi-instrumentalist’s preferred medium, the piano. ‘Piano is where I feel the most connected. It’s the best partner in expressing the emotion I’m mining,’ she says.
Majestically played, the piano also gives space for that achingly clear vocal to cast a spell. K’s Waltz features a dreamy horn sequence, arranged by good friend Dietrich Strause, and Cousins is aptly joined by Koady’s cousin Tim Chaisson and Jake Charron of The East Pointers on fiddle and synth.
The Nova Scotia-based artist’s website declares: ‘Ever the emotional explorer, Cousins seeks truth, in all its imperfection, in the depths of humans’ most complicated of emotions: love. The journey results in a striking clarity, and it’s the gift of that clarity that brings on surprising tears.’ Take your partners for a poignant waltz.
You are the colour in every room
Every time you leave
It’s always too soon
You’re the dancer first
Even when it hurts
‘Love feels great and makes us ridiculous,’ she says. ‘It’s tiring and intense, joyful and devastating. Falling in love, being in love and staying in love are all such different things. Being human is emotionally complicated enough without attempting to relate to another who is just as complex, and in the most vulnerable of arenas: romance. Love is wondrous and absurd (and very hard). Humour helps.’
Cousins, 47, released two EPs before her full-length debut, If You Were For Me, in 2006. Juno Awards followed for We Have Made A Spark and the adventurous Bravado, and her 2017 album Natural Conclusion (produced by Joe Henry and showcasing an admirable selection of co-writes after she had feared burnout from years of constant touring) was nominated for a Grammy. ‘My goal was to be wide open emotionally,’ she said. It remains her goal.
Conditions Of Love, especially with the hint of a second volume, should warrant similar acclaim. K’s Waltz is the fifth canapé served before the main course following Forget Me Not, Borrowed Light, I Believe In Love (and it’s very hard), described as the cornerstone of the album, and the artful Denouement which invites the listener ‘to fill in the blanks between paired words to create their own love story’.
‘What are we looking for from love, anyway?’ says Cousins. ‘We want to show and tell, to be seen, understood, and held. We want expansion, a new version of love, and at the same time, safety. We want to be loved for who we are, yet often, we don’t even know the answer to that question. But longing and belonging spur us to keep trying romantic love. We willingly dive in with someone brand new, a stranger actually, without ever knowing how the story will end.’
She addresses Koady at the denouement of K’s Waltz: ‘Your heart/ It did not give out or give in/ It gave everything.’ Just as Cousins does to the art of serving a love song. Poetry and emotion.
Comments