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Live Music. Live Concert San Jose. San Jose Live Concert. San Jose Folk. San Jose Jazz.
TrueWind Music Review
Connie's Songbird,
Lisa Atkinson
2007 Big Red Ant Records
By Greg Newlon, TrueWind Music
WARNING: Do not listen to this CD the first time driving around in your car or turned up loud as you clean the house. Take some time to sit in a comfortable chair and savor this travelogue of story songs that feel like a new friend’s answer to the question “Tell me about yourself?”
In Connie’s Songbird, Lisa Atkinson takes the listener on a journey through her heart. As with any CD, movie or piece of literature, you have to be willing to let go and be taken on a ride. Lisa makes it easy, from sitting on a park bench observing the exchange from a shy couple just getting to know each other in “Don’t Know What to Do” to going with grandma and grandpa up to Whisperville Mountain where there’s “so many stars you’ll be tuckered out from countin.’
“Another Long Day” reveals the inevitability of aging, and we’re reminded that we’re all itinerant workers in this life in “Mojados in the Promised Land.” On the lighter side, “Please Stand By” and “Jimmy & Joe” just make you smile.
I can’t help listening to any CD from the perspective of a songwriter. In this case, every song elicited a response of “damn, I wish I’d written that line.”
There is a little bird up in the branches, listen to her sing.
And even in the coldest days of winter, she remembers spring.
(Little One)
If I were the wind I’d be happy
to play with the clouds I would find
I’d change them to mushrooms and dragons and whales
Clouds easily do change their mind
And when I grew weary I’d wander
And let waves cradle me on the sea
If I were the wind, with the sky as my friends
Oh what a life it would be
(If I Were the Wind)
Impeccably produced by Marty Atkinson, Connie’s Songbird captures Lisa’s essence. For a songwriter, there is a potential danger in working with a producer who is as talented a musician as Marty. The two are not related, but are long time friends. In someone else’s hands the songs may have become lost in the production, but Marty allows Lisa and her songs to stand out. Through beautiful instrumentation and harmonies, it’s barely noticeable that there is anyone except Lisa on this CD - which is a tribute to both artist and producer.
In the liner notes we are told that Connie was Lisa’s father, who died shortly after she was born. Song after song, I am reminded of every season Connie’s Songbird chooses to sing about. And to borrow from her own words … Lisa, thank you for the everything.
Purchase at CDBaby.com