Sometimes you get a review that deserves it's own page
Of Music, Deeply: A Review
February 21, 2015
Tangled Strings Studios
Huntsville, Alabama
It was, in more ways than you’d think, A Journey To Here.
In one way, it was the flesh and blood manifestation of a skilled songwriter’s greatest work--a collection of stylish and thematically rich melody and verse brought to life via the exceptional talent of the musicians known, collectively, as Ricky j Taylor and the Live Roots Ensemble.
In another way, it was a literal journey. By that morning, the previous day’s snow and ice had been traded in for a dreary rain. And, although four of the five members--Jim & Inge Wood, Hillary Bevels, and John Boulware--had to trek from their home state of Tennessee, in the end determination and dedication won out. Which is how the group came to be backstage at the Tangled Strings Studios that afternoon, where they joined the fifth and founding member of the band: Huntsville native Ricky J. Taylor.
Rick himself is the creative force behind the tracks on an album entitled A Journey To Here. The material was written and composed individually over the course of his life, and finally recorded as a collective work in 2013.
The album would become, as Rick himself writes, “the genesis” of the recently formed band.
I had never heard the album.
But I was ready to hear the band.
I wasn’t alone. The weather had done little to deter attendance--soon the seats were sold out. A few were allowed to stand. The rest had to be turned away.
I had the pleasure of a quick moment backstage before the show. The musicians all seemed to possess that electric hum of pre-showtime energy that every stage performer knows well. I was struck most by Inge Wood’s divine smile. A classical pianist turned guitar player, Inge was born and raised in Costa Rica, and was blessed with a smile that I personally believe could end violent wars and other problems for humanity if given the chance.
Her husband, Jim Wood, seemed to embody the confident serenity of a nearly thirty year veteran of the professional music industry--and five-time Tennessee Fiddle Champion. Similarly, the deep intensity of John Boulware--another Tennessee Fiddle Champion--and Hillary Bevels--who, at 22, has mastered control over more musical instruments than a big-band orchestra, it seems--stood out beneath the dim lights and artificial haze of the backstage cubbyhole.
All of that, combined with Rick Taylor’s aura of deep reflection--and the look of a man who is perpetually pondering something greater than himself around the corner--left me both curious and intrigued as to what was in store. By the time I made it back to my seat, I still wasn’t sure what to expect.
It was almost time.
After a deceptively normal introduction by the emcee, the band took the stage. And, gathered together in front of an almost comically vast collection of musical instruments, they settled in and became as one.
The same incomparable smile I had seen on Inga Wood’s face backstage now radiated out to everyone in the packed room. Jim Wood’s calm demeanor followed him onstage, as did the quiet intensity of John Boulware and Hillary Bevels.
And at their center, Rick Taylor--as much a philosopher in his private life as a physicist in his professional one--took the lead and addressed the audience.
Though quiet and contemplative by nature, Rick has a natural stage presence. His wit and ability to bring some levity into any situation is both endearing and disarming. And it was the latter, I believe, which had great effect on my personal experience of what was to follow.
Finally, the show began.
And the room around me disassembled and flew away.
As a writer, those are the only words that I could find to adequately convey the experience. At once, the amazing décor of Tangled Strings Studios--the walls, the roof, and even my fellow audience members were propelled out and away from my immediate awareness. Only the band, the music, and the light they created remained.
There is a famous line by the master poet T.S. Eliot that, in that moment, I understood:
“Music heard so deeply
That is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.”
I belonged to the songs. To the sounds. To the stories. Each masterfully unleashed by the collective talent of this band.
I had not asked for such wonder. Yet it came. From the haunting melody of long-ago Ireland in ”The Ghost of Rory O’Moore,” to the upbeat-yet-sober reality of heartache in “I Do It For Love,” to the poignant and nearly indescribable pain that comes from observations of the sometimes dark, always broken nature of the human condition in “The Ballad Of Katie Lynn,” and “I Move On.”
The intimacy of the affair was as undefinable as it was undeniable. Each song, it seemed, was meant only for me. And through the mysterious alchemy of art, each one was about me. Each one asking me to look through the face of it--to the heart of what is thought and felt beneath what is said or sung. To look into the depths of the unspoken, the unaware.
Some of it was painful. Some of it made me want to fall in love.
Some of it took me back in time. Some of it made me more thoughtful about the future.
The hands that played the instruments as I was moved me to clap in delight of Hillary Bevels’ impromptu buckdancing one moment, were the very same hands that pried open cracks along my soul--where Rick Taylor’s voice poured in the light of his profound lyrics. A light that insisted on shining beyond one’s individual needs, to illuminate the world outside the window of a single psyche--a world where the real truth of our human condition is, at times, much darker than it should be. A light written into existence by a chief artisan of the lyrical craft. A lyrist who writes as a witness, not to events, but to what matters about those event. Not to relationships, but to how those relationships struggle to expose, celebrate, or defy a truth. Written for the purpose of cherishing what will otherwise be lost, and understanding what has never made sense. And with the realization that both our love and our grief unite us. Together. Whether we’re “On That Train,” or “Turnin’ Round,” our lives may be different, but our desires--our needs--well, for each of us, “It’s All The Same.”
And yet, there was nothing melancholic or preachy about the experience. Ricky j Taylor and the Live Roots Ensemble exercised a mastery over the arrangement of their show, unwilling to let any single message of their compositions consume the others. Their purpose was not to crush a listener such as myself under the boot of some dark and insurmountable tragedy of existence. Instead, within the dichotomy of the music and the lyrics borne upon it, another purpose can be found--a purpose meant to implore listeners to see beneath the surface of things. To a place where suffering can be translated into meaning; where the edge of hope can be found and turned into a dance floor. A place where we are asked to try for perception beyond our ego’s understanding, then invited to join others in step to the sound of guitars, fiddles, mandolins, and the occasional cello.
For Ricky j Taylor and the Live Roots Ensemble, their CD A Journey To Here may be completed.
For their fans, however, the journey has only just begun.
-J.L. Newman
Of Music, Deeply: A Review
February 21, 2015
Tangled Strings Studios
Huntsville, Alabama
It was, in more ways than you’d think, A Journey To Here.
In one way, it was the flesh and blood manifestation of a skilled songwriter’s greatest work--a collection of stylish and thematically rich melody and verse brought to life via the exceptional talent of the musicians known, collectively, as Ricky j Taylor and the Live Roots Ensemble.
In another way, it was a literal journey. By that morning, the previous day’s snow and ice had been traded in for a dreary rain. And, although four of the five members--Jim & Inge Wood, Hillary Bevels, and John Boulware--had to trek from their home state of Tennessee, in the end determination and dedication won out. Which is how the group came to be backstage at the Tangled Strings Studios that afternoon, where they joined the fifth and founding member of the band: Huntsville native Ricky J. Taylor.
Rick himself is the creative force behind the tracks on an album entitled A Journey To Here. The material was written and composed individually over the course of his life, and finally recorded as a collective work in 2013.
The album would become, as Rick himself writes, “the genesis” of the recently formed band.
I had never heard the album.
But I was ready to hear the band.
I wasn’t alone. The weather had done little to deter attendance--soon the seats were sold out. A few were allowed to stand. The rest had to be turned away.
I had the pleasure of a quick moment backstage before the show. The musicians all seemed to possess that electric hum of pre-showtime energy that every stage performer knows well. I was struck most by Inge Wood’s divine smile. A classical pianist turned guitar player, Inge was born and raised in Costa Rica, and was blessed with a smile that I personally believe could end violent wars and other problems for humanity if given the chance.
Her husband, Jim Wood, seemed to embody the confident serenity of a nearly thirty year veteran of the professional music industry--and five-time Tennessee Fiddle Champion. Similarly, the deep intensity of John Boulware--another Tennessee Fiddle Champion--and Hillary Bevels--who, at 22, has mastered control over more musical instruments than a big-band orchestra, it seems--stood out beneath the dim lights and artificial haze of the backstage cubbyhole.
All of that, combined with Rick Taylor’s aura of deep reflection--and the look of a man who is perpetually pondering something greater than himself around the corner--left me both curious and intrigued as to what was in store. By the time I made it back to my seat, I still wasn’t sure what to expect.
It was almost time.
After a deceptively normal introduction by the emcee, the band took the stage. And, gathered together in front of an almost comically vast collection of musical instruments, they settled in and became as one.
The same incomparable smile I had seen on Inga Wood’s face backstage now radiated out to everyone in the packed room. Jim Wood’s calm demeanor followed him onstage, as did the quiet intensity of John Boulware and Hillary Bevels.
And at their center, Rick Taylor--as much a philosopher in his private life as a physicist in his professional one--took the lead and addressed the audience.
Though quiet and contemplative by nature, Rick has a natural stage presence. His wit and ability to bring some levity into any situation is both endearing and disarming. And it was the latter, I believe, which had great effect on my personal experience of what was to follow.
Finally, the show began.
And the room around me disassembled and flew away.
As a writer, those are the only words that I could find to adequately convey the experience. At once, the amazing décor of Tangled Strings Studios--the walls, the roof, and even my fellow audience members were propelled out and away from my immediate awareness. Only the band, the music, and the light they created remained.
There is a famous line by the master poet T.S. Eliot that, in that moment, I understood:
“Music heard so deeply
That is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.”
I belonged to the songs. To the sounds. To the stories. Each masterfully unleashed by the collective talent of this band.
I had not asked for such wonder. Yet it came. From the haunting melody of long-ago Ireland in ”The Ghost of Rory O’Moore,” to the upbeat-yet-sober reality of heartache in “I Do It For Love,” to the poignant and nearly indescribable pain that comes from observations of the sometimes dark, always broken nature of the human condition in “The Ballad Of Katie Lynn,” and “I Move On.”
The intimacy of the affair was as undefinable as it was undeniable. Each song, it seemed, was meant only for me. And through the mysterious alchemy of art, each one was about me. Each one asking me to look through the face of it--to the heart of what is thought and felt beneath what is said or sung. To look into the depths of the unspoken, the unaware.
Some of it was painful. Some of it made me want to fall in love.
Some of it took me back in time. Some of it made me more thoughtful about the future.
The hands that played the instruments as I was moved me to clap in delight of Hillary Bevels’ impromptu buckdancing one moment, were the very same hands that pried open cracks along my soul--where Rick Taylor’s voice poured in the light of his profound lyrics. A light that insisted on shining beyond one’s individual needs, to illuminate the world outside the window of a single psyche--a world where the real truth of our human condition is, at times, much darker than it should be. A light written into existence by a chief artisan of the lyrical craft. A lyrist who writes as a witness, not to events, but to what matters about those event. Not to relationships, but to how those relationships struggle to expose, celebrate, or defy a truth. Written for the purpose of cherishing what will otherwise be lost, and understanding what has never made sense. And with the realization that both our love and our grief unite us. Together. Whether we’re “On That Train,” or “Turnin’ Round,” our lives may be different, but our desires--our needs--well, for each of us, “It’s All The Same.”
And yet, there was nothing melancholic or preachy about the experience. Ricky j Taylor and the Live Roots Ensemble exercised a mastery over the arrangement of their show, unwilling to let any single message of their compositions consume the others. Their purpose was not to crush a listener such as myself under the boot of some dark and insurmountable tragedy of existence. Instead, within the dichotomy of the music and the lyrics borne upon it, another purpose can be found--a purpose meant to implore listeners to see beneath the surface of things. To a place where suffering can be translated into meaning; where the edge of hope can be found and turned into a dance floor. A place where we are asked to try for perception beyond our ego’s understanding, then invited to join others in step to the sound of guitars, fiddles, mandolins, and the occasional cello.
For Ricky j Taylor and the Live Roots Ensemble, their CD A Journey To Here may be completed.
For their fans, however, the journey has only just begun.
-J.L. Newman