Boubacar Traoré
Outpost Performance Space,
Albuquerque, NM
September 16, 2000

Boubacar Traoré's performance felt like one long collective dance. Accompanied by Sidiki Camara on calabash, the guitar master from Mali glided about in perfect synch with his music, often approaching the very edge of the small stage. Boubacar Traoré seemed to be everywhere, filling the entire room.

This 60-year-old guitarist from Mali played with the energy and grace of youth. Dressed in black and yellow traditional garb, Traoré (known as "Kar-Kar" in Mali) displayed a calm command of his instrument and deft grace in bringing the ancient African griot art of community celebration to a present-day American audience. The duo had the stage presence of a large band, which is not an easy achievement.

Boubacar Traoré's music has often been compared to the country blues of the American deep South, with some reviewers gushing that he is the "reincarnation" of Robert Johnson. Such distracting hyperbole is really not needed when you see and hear Traoré in the flesh. He is very much his own man, a unique and powerful African artist who, certainly, draws from the same deep cultural wellsprings that have fed the musical art of the African diaspora in America. To hear Traoré live is to journey spiritually a long, long way...to Africa and deep into the soul of humanity.

For his Albuquerque concert, Traoré led the audience through "Les Enfants de Pierrette," his beautiful hymn to his late wife Pierrette, and "Samba," an amazing meditation on treason and disillusion. Traoré is an artist who has delved deep into pain, both personal and collective. In his song, "Tunga Magni," he celebrated the strength and perseverance of exiles and immigrants the world over, whose trials he shared during a long exile in France.

Traoré's music, which often touches lyrically on heavy themes, was by no means somber or grim. In fact, his most grim observations were set to danceable rhythms and accented by lilting guitar lines. When he performed songs like "Serrer La Main" ("Shaking Hands"), one could see why he is so beloved in Africa. Truly a song of joy, and an invitation to dance and dance, troubles be whatever they may be!

Traoré's intricate guitar work really needs to be observed rather than described. His right hand picked intricate patterns and tapped out startling percussive effects while his left roamed the guitar neck choosing bluesy chord patterns worthy of any jazz master. Just watching Traoré's hands was an evening's full entertainment in itself.

Truly a memorable concert! — Bill Nevins (Albuquerque, NM) (photo by Bill Nevins)

Steeleye Span with
The Paperboys
Iron Horse Music Hall, Northampton, MA September 24, 2000

Lineup changes have been an inevitable part of the world of folk-rock since the day fiddles first met amplifiers. On a brisk September night in western Massachusetts, two bands — one from England and among the inventors of the genre, the other from Canada and part of its new generation — reminded a full house at the cozy Iron Horse that even though groups and members come and go, the spirit of the music is constantly renewed.

Opening the show were The Paperboys, a much-traveled band from Vancouver whose latest five-piece touring lineup includes only two members out of the six who made the Juno Award-winning album Molinos in 1997. Singer/guitarist Tom Landa and fiddler/accordionist Shannon Saunders are joined these days by dynamic flute/whistle player Geoffrey Kelly and a new rhythm section of Tobin Frank on bass and Todd Johnson on drums. There's been no change, though, in their energy, cohesion, or sense of fun. Their half-hour set was a fast-paced blend of Landa's hook-filled Celtic and Latin-rooted songs mixed with stomping jig and reel sets led by Saunders and Kelly, where a wild ride through Irish tunes could lead into the pop-friendly "Living Proof" and then the flamenco-rhythm Spanish travelogue "Santiago a Sevilla." The hand-clapping, head-bobbing audience appreciated their warmup efforts and called them back for one more: a bouncy, bluegrassy fiddle-and-whistle arrangement of "The Ballad of Jesse James."

Steeleye Span, of course, has been around slightly longer than The Paperboys. Although more than a dozen members have passed through its lineup since 1969, the focal presences of singer Maddy Prior, singer/guitarist Bob Johnson, and fiddler Peter Knight defined their sound for three decades. Prior left the band two years ago, Johnson just before this tour. Knight thus became the senior member of a quickly reorganized quintet that also includes singer Gay Woods, who rejoined Steeleye in 1996 after a 26-year hiatus; 1970s/80s bassist Rick Kemp, back after a decade away; singer/multi-instrumentalist Tim Harries, an 11-year member who switched from bass to lead guitar; and prototype folk-rock drummer Dave Mattacks, who finds time to sit in with Steeleye amid his numerous projects these days.

Any doubts as to whether this group would click lasted only through the first verse of their opening song, the hangman ballad "The Prickly Bush." Harries banged out the crunchy electric guitar riffs formerly handled by Johnson, Knight's deep-voiced fiddle droned an ominous backdrop, the rhythm section was steady and assertive, and four voices soared on the chorus harmonies. Their hour-plus set, almost entirely drawn from their three most recent albums, then built through one delight after another. The sound was true to classic Steeleye, in spite of an occasional rough edge that was probably due to the lineup's short time together.

Woods brings something of a theatrical feel to the group with her big music-hall voice and candid, often slyly funny asides to the audience. She was initially a touch shrill on the high notes and admitted to some road weariness from six shows in six days, but as the set went on, both her voice and her mood seemed to improve noticeably. She has added to Steeleye's repertoire some material from her Irish heritage, like "The Stuttering Lovers," a jaunty song of romance in a cornfield, and "Erin," an immigrantlament that jumped into an electric reel. Harries is a capable singer of gritty ballads who seemed enthusiastic in his new role as lead male voice, dueting with Woods on "One True Love," an eerie modal song of love beyond the grave where his guitar chimed like a dulcimer, and belting out the bloody tale of "John of Ditchford" with a cheerfully sinister grin. Knight fiddled the instrumental breaks and the jig and reel sets with the skill and taste of a master, while Kemp, hidden under a hat, thumped solid bass lines. Mattacks was absorbed in his drum kit as always, smiling steadily as his percussion took its customary complex, unique twists.

They did a glistening four-part a cappella arrangement of the ballad "Horkstow Grange," the obscure song with a character from whom the band took its name, and a soaring version of "Dark Eyed Sailor," a track that appeared on their first album. The highlight of the set came toward the end, when Knight took a seat behind the keyboards to sing "Bonny Birdy," a driving Scottish ballad of adultery and murder that features a mesmerizing syncopated keyboard lead matched by Mattacks' rifle-shot drumming. They wrapped up with one of the Prior-era band's signature songs, "Thomas The Rhymer," ably sung by Woods, and another hard-rocking murder ballad from Harries that he described only as "the story of an Elizabethan psychotic."
Two encores followed, a slightly silly version of their classic arrangement of "All Around My Hat" that led into a jig medley, and then, after another attempt to retreat off stage and persistent cheers from the crowd, a jocular take of "The Old Maid in the Garrett" followed by one more instrumental spin. Thirty years after their first recording, Steeleye Span are still at the head of their class. They left no doubt that they can be as vital a force in folk-rock in their fourth decade as they were in their first. — Tom Nelligan (Waltham, MA)