In a 1996 concert promoting her slickly produced major-label record
10 Cent Wings,
Jonatha Brooke told her audience, "It's not
folk music anymore." Two years later,
Brooke shrugged off the album's disappointing commercial showing and the dissolution of her relationship with
MCA, formed her own record company, and released
Live. It was
folk music again, and her audience responded. The live set quickly sold more copies by mail order than
10 Cent Wings had sold in stores.
Brooke's longtime producer,
Alain Mallet, is clearly an innovator, but he has a tendency to tinker a bit too much with the arrangements (e.g., the
Latin jazz flourishes of
The Angel in the House, the glossy
pop veneer of
10 Cent Wings). This live CD gives fans the chance to hear
Brooke's prodigious songwriting talents almost unadorned. The stripped-down arrangements provide a showcase for her exquisite melodies, inventive alternative tunings, complicated technique, and gorgeously dissonant harmonies. The album is also an excellent retrospective of the first ten years of
Brooke's career. Some of the best tracks reach back to her days as the songwriting half of the Boston
folk duo
the Story. Background singer and keyboardist
Ingrid Graudins proves more than adequate as a substitute for
Jennifer Kimball, blending beautifully with
Brooke on
"Always," "At the Still Point," and
"In the Gloaming." In fact, the record might have benefited from even more use of
Graudins (perhaps including samples of the witty badinage between the two singers that often enlivens
Brooke's concerts). It could also have stood to be a little more sparing in its use of
Gerry Leonard's sometimes intrusive
ambient guitar. Nevertheless,
Live is a triumph to be savored. ~ Evan Cater
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![Red [Deluxe Edition]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0602537173143_p0_v2_s90x140.jpg "Red [Deluxe Edition]")
![Fearless [Taylor's Version]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0602435845098_p0_v4_s90x140.jpg "Fearless [Taylor's Version]")
![evermore [deluxe version]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0602435648583_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg "evermore [deluxe version]")
