Cut to the Chase–Reviews
"Kallick’s reputation as a songwriter is well established and that’s demonstrated in fine form here. Every song tells a story, and the lyrics exhibit a complexity that’s missing from many bluegrass-sounding albums. Her voice pairs nicely with the tone of the mandolin playing. This is the kind of album that showcases what modern bluegrass should be: recognizing the past, but with a contemporary lyrical twist. Highly recommended.”
— Skot Nelson, No Depression (May 4, 2014)
The saying “Cut to the chase”—meaning “Get to the important thing right now”—goes back to the early days of motion pictures. Movie makers quickly learned that the public didn’t want to sit through lengthy encounters or explanatory titles. Whether it was a scrambling Keystone Cops laugh riot or a thrilling cowboy pursuit, audiences wanted the film to “cut to the chase.” It’s a fitting title for California-based singer/songwriter/guitarist Kathy Kallick’s new album. Travel—including a chase or two—is a predominate theme. And each of the 13 original songs here (ten written solely by Kallick, three in collaboration with Clive Gregson) gets right to the important things: love, longings, desires, and choices in life choices, both good and bad.
The opening track, the high-lonesome “Tryin’ So Hard To Get To You,” finds the singer (spoiler alert) struggling in an almost pathetically funny attempt to join her beloved while gradually realizing that the frustrating delays are a blessing because the relationship is actually dysfunctional, unhappy, and pointless. The pursuit in the title-track “Cut To The Chase” takes place mostly within the close confines of a bar or club, but the journey is equally intense and revealing. The deceptively pretty waltz-time “The Night The Boat Capsized” launches a symbolic but wistful ocean voyage. Other titles transport the listener, in spirit at least, to ancient Greece (“Persephone’s Dream”), a twentieth century European dictatorship (“Franco’s Spain”), and maybe wryly to other dimensions (“The Time Traveler’s Wife”).
Kallick has a fine and versatile voice here: lilting, ornamented, or gutsy as the material requires. The regular members of her band (Annie Staninec, fiddle; Greg Booth, mandolin; Tom Bekeny, mandolin; Cary Black, acoustic bass) do their usual excellent job on several tracks. The album also features Kallick’s studio reunions with two members of the well-recalled Good Ol’ Persons band, John Reischman (mandolin) and Sally Van Meter (Weissenborn slide guitar). Banjoist Bill Evans and a host of other fine musicians are also here, fine fellow travelers all.
This is not exactly my-old-mountain-home or little-log-cabin-in-the-lane bluegrass song territory, and it’s not casually strolled. But Kallick’s fans will be hugely rewarded by her thoughtful and often powerful lyrics and music. You might be lulled at first by the easy country sway of “Same Ol’ Song” and then get hit by what that same old song really means. The concluding number, “Ellie,” is especially poignant because of its truths on how a life’s deceptions start in childhood and can grow from very loving intentions. If the album is a bit of a departure for this accomplished performer, it’s a worthwhile journey and Kallick cuts to the chase on every cut.
— Richard D. Smith, Bluegrass Unlimited (September, 2014)
Kathy Kallick has been among the elite of contemporary songwriters and singers since co-founding the seminal band, Good Ol’ Persons. Along the way, she has won a Grammy and two International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Awards, had five albums each spend a year at the top of the national bluegrass charts, appeared on three high-profile Rounder Records collections of bluegrass songs by women, received Lifetime Membership awards, and performed and recorded with the country’s top acoustic musicians. After 17 albums as a leading voice in American roots music, you’d think that Kathy Kallick would be ready to coast on her latest release, a collection of originals titled Cut To The Chase. Instead, she’s upped the ante, working with new collaborators and exploring new forms, as she pushes her songwriting out of a comfort zone to discover various approaches to what she calls “story songs.”
As Kathy notes, “Story songs were ways of spreading the news and recounting important events. I find the fact that something mattered enough to be recounted to be moving and compelling.” Her new songs certainly are compelling -- and moving.
Some of that comes from co-writing three songs with renowned guitarist/singer/songwriter Clive Gregson. As she says, “My initial response to all three melodies created by Clive was shock. They were nothing like what I expected – which is precisely why I wanted to collaborate with him.” Their song, “Franco’s Spain," has some of the lyricism of Joni Mitchell in a tale of adolescent travel and naivety. With “Time Traveller’s Wife," a complex fable of love wraps around a melody line that mimics the intricate puzzle-box nature of the song. And their title track inspired the album's cover art, created by the infamous Erik ("Savage Dragon") Larsen.
Kathy's solo compositions are equally mature and varied. Whether it's the ethereal Greek chorus and resonant harp of "Persephone's Dream" or the duet between pedal steel and dobro echoing the vocal duet on "Once Upon" or telling the story of one man's life inspired by the sound of a train whistle ("Not As Lonesome As Me") or refashioning "Ellie," her Good Ol' Persons classic, as a twangy country song, Cut To the Chase is a clear departure for Kathy Kallick from the bluegrass that has brought her such acclaim.
While she recorded some of these songs with her brilliant and versatile band --Annie Staninec (fiddle), Greg Booth (dobro), Tom Bekeny (mandolin), and Cary Black (acoustic bass) -- Cut to the Chase also reunites Kathy with Good Ol’ Persons John Reischman (mandolin) and Sally Van Meter (Weissenborn), plus California luminaries like pedal steel legend Bobby Black, members of Wake the Dead, guitarist Molly Tuttle, and banjo master Bill Evans. In the end, it’s Kathy Kallick's vibrant and soulful vocals as well as her distinctive and memorable compositions that make Cut To the Chase such a special experience. She combines a patchwork quilt mix of stylistic elements and of subject matter into a satisfying and powerful collection of new songs … which are also stories.
— Bob Cherry, Cybergrass (March 21, 2014)
Kathy Kallick is a versatile recording artist. Folk, bluegrass, Americana, pioneering trailblazer…labels have never meant too much to Kallick, have never limited her creativity.
“She was a nice Jewish girl living near Chicago,” is not the way most bluegrass biographies could begin, but those are the words Murphy Hicks Henry elected to use when beginning her chapter on Kallick within Pretty Good for a Girl: Women in Bluegrass. A California resident for forty years, she and like-minded compatriots founded the Good Ol’ Persons in 1974 and Kallick has been at the center of the dynamic West Coast bluegrass movement. The Good Ol’ Persons produced five albums including the essential live retrospective Good n’ Live.
She has recorded songs of her musical roots (My Mother’s Voice), albums for children (including the inspired Use a Napkin, Not Your Mom), an album of duets with Laurie Lewis (Together), and straight ahead bluegrass (Call Me A Taxi). Since the late ’90s, the Kathy Kallick Band has produced several albums of jaw-dropping, unfettered bluegrass starting with Walkin’ In My Shoes through to and including 2012’s Time. In my opinion, their Warmer Kind of Blue is all kinds of marvelous.
Alternately and frequently simultaneously, she has crafted albums bridging the unsettled ground between folk and country, releasing tremendously well-executed albums including Reason & Rhyme and Matters Of the Heart.
Having written a collection of new songs that will come to stand with her finest, with Cut to the Chase (which I mistakenly read as ‘Cut to the Case’ for about three weeks) Kallick provides ample demonstration that she continues to hone her art. I argue that my reading error was an honest one, as Kallick’s assertive, clean lead guitar playing is as central to the album as her remarkable voice and erudite lyrics.
The album’s lead track insightfully crafts a roadmap for Cut to the Chase, as the protagonist comes to the realization that “Tryin’ So Hard to Get to You” is a long journey toward heartache and frustration. While there may be benefits to giving oneself over to the power of another, it’s best to determine one’s own course, to “keep your feet on the ground,” to borrow from another song. The catchy “Same Ol’ Song” has a similar theme, but different mood. The influence of Hazel Dickens on these songs and “When” may only be apparent from my perspective.
Whether inhabiting others in “Persephone’s Dream” and “Franco’s Spain” (with beautiful mandolin lighting the way) and exploring the psyche and worlds of her creations, or describing the life shaped by a boy’s fascination with a train’s whistle—”Not As Lonesome As Me”—Kallick brings forth honesty and experience to fashion tactile personalities.
“Ellie,” a song that dates back to the Good Ol’ Persons, is given new life closing this set. Apparently long unavailable (the original version is on I Can’t Stand to Ramble, which I don’t own), hearing the song for the first time I fully understand why Murphy Henry highlights the song as “the timeless classic” from the GOP’s second album.
Determined to be a good girl in her mother’s eyes, Ellie makes some choices that might be disappointing. “As the baby grows, she learned to tell a lie, that’s easier to do to keep Mama satisfied” is just one of the foundational thoughts captured in the beautifully written song, with fiddle—presumably from Kallick band member Annie Staninec—tempering the ‘true life’ harshness of the lyrics with the acceptance of mournful reflection.
While Kallick wrote the majority of these songs by herself, three are co-written with Clive Gregson, long ago of new wave band Any Trouble and collaborations with Christine Collister, and himself a notable folk presence for the past few decades. “Get the hell away from me,” the affirming refrain within the album’s forceful title track, certainly cuts to the chase, while their “The Time Traveler’s Wife” requires listeners to immerse themselves in the song’s rich lyrical path.
Kallick’s hand-picked core band is a gathering of trusted colleagues. In addition to Staninec, members of the Kathy Kallick Band— Greg Booth (resonator guitar), Tom Bekeny (mandolin), and Cary Black (bass)—serve as the instrumental foundation for the album, while Good Ol’ Persons John Reischman (mandolin) and Sally Van Meter (Weissenborn lap slide), Bill Evans (banjo), and others also appear. The album is cohesive, with a consistency in sound that unifies the assembled story songs.
Cut To the Chase is several steps away from the music of the Kathy Kallick Band, and allows Kallick to continue to develop her own style of acoustic Americana. It is a beautifully constructed album of personal and poetic music that should appeal to all who have appreciated Kallick’s music and insights.
— Donald Teplyske, The Lonesome Road Review (April 15, 2014)
More than a decade before the arrival on the scene in the late 1980s of the teenaged wunderkind Alison Krauss, a band called The Good Ol’ Persons emerged from California and proved that not only was it okay for bluegrass and country bands to have more than one “girl singer,” but that a band composed of all or mostly women could write, perform, and draw crowds as well as the guys could. With her longtime friend Laurie Lewis, it was Kathy Kallick who helped blaze the trail and open doors for Krauss and other sterling female talents to pass through. Nearly four decades later, with Cut To The Chase, Kallick demonstrates convincingly that not only are her bluegrass chops still in good working order, but she’s still among the more distinctive and adventurous talents in what’s come to be known as the “Americana” format.
She’s backed up by her current Kathy Kallick Band (Annie Staninec, fiddle; Greg Booth, banjo and Dobro; Tom Bekeny, mandolin; and Cary Black, bass), and the roster of guests includes notable GOP’s alums Sally Van Meter and John Reischman, as well as guitarist Clive Gregson, with whom Kallick wrote three of the thirteen cuts (and the other ten all on her own). Co-producing with Tom Size, the material and arrangements highlight Kallick’s keen ability to tell a good story. “Same Old Song” revolves cleverly around the clichés that seem to mark every budding romance, “The Night The Boat Capsized” travels from vulnerability and sheer terror to survival and confidence, and “The Rustler’s Girl” is something of a modern version, set out on the range, of the old “Black Jack Davy” ballads.
It’s on the collaborations with Gregson, though, where Kallick really stretches out. “Franco’s Spain” is the tale of an American ingénue who learns that history takes place regardless of who’s around to watch, but “all the discos let us in for free.” “The Time Traveler’s Wife” elicits the seeming time/space distortion of wondering whether or not you’re in love or out of it. The album’s title track expresses the everywoman’s dream of telling the date from Hell to “get the Hell away from me.” It’s daring writing for someone who’s been in bluegrass for 40 years, but she carries it off well. An intriguing instrumental aspect to the album is the pairing of Booth’s Dobro with Bobby Black’s pedal steel guitar, producing a sound with it’s own brand of lonesome. Kathy Kallick has never been one to stand pat and do the same old thing, and it’s a big reason for the respect she’s garnered for so long.
— John Lupton, Sing Out! Magazine (May 13, 2014)
Story songs have a long history in bluegrass and other forms of traditional music. From murder ballads to train songs, from lost love to the Civil War, bluegrassers love to tell and hear a good story. On Kathy Kallick’s latest release, Cut to the Chase, she presents listeners with thirteen story songs, all from her own pen.
The songs include Kallick’s versions of fairy tales and myths, days in the lives of certain characters, and even a retelling of a popular novel. Kallick has long been a fixture in the west coast bluegrass scene, and the music here is reflective of that, utilizing all the standard bluegrass instruments but throwing in a folk/Americana vibe on the majority of the songs. For those who are most familiar with the Kathy Kallick Band’s grassier sound, Cut to the Chase might come as a surprise, but those who enjoy the “edge of bluegrass” should certainly find something to like.
One of the most intriguing songs is The Time Traveler’s Wife, which is Kallick’s version of Audrey Niffenegger’s popular novel of the same name. Those familiar with the novel will likely understand the story behind the song better (in brief, a woman whose husband travels through time without warning), but even those who haven’t read it should be able to identify with the dueling emotions of love and uncertainty expressed in the lyrics.
This song is one of three that were co-written by Kallick and Clive Gregson. The title track, a bouncy number with a ’90s folk-pop groove, is another. It finds the narrator struggling through a terrible date, and its story is both humorous and familiar. The third collaboration is Franco’s Spain, a weary, mandolin-guided reminiscence on youth and traveling through mid-20th century Spain.
The Rustler’s Girl is a companion to Kallick’s previous song Rustler’s Moon, and tells of a woman who once loved a wandering rustler but chose family and home over him. It’s a well-written number, with an old west, cowboy song feel. Kallick describes Not as Lonesome as Me, the tale of a man with an old soul and a lonesome destiny as a cowboy/hobo song, and it does have some of that same feel, as well. The pedal steel, courtesy of Bobby Black, is a nice addition.
Same Old Song takes a novel approach, capturing a conversation between two would-be lovers, including the “he said” and “she said.” It’s a clever love story with a happy ending, a fun, cheerful sound, and the appearance of John Reischman on the mandonator. Tryin’ So Hard to Get to You is a love story, as well, but a one-sided one. This bluesy number finds the singer trying to realize why so many obstacles are keeping her from the one she loves.
One of the album’s highlights – as well as its grassiest track – is the closing song, Ellie. Kallick originally recorded this song with the Good Ol’ Persons in the early 1980s. Here, it’s a gentle, melancholy number about a young woman who learned that lying to her mother wasn’t as easy on her soul as she might have hoped.
Kallick handles the lead vocals and plays guitar throughout the album, but is also joined by a whole host of other musicians. In addition to her regular band members Annie Staninec (fiddle), Tom Bekeny (mandolin), Greg Booth (dobro and banjo), and Cary Black (bass), Cut to the Chase also features Sylvia Herold (guitar), Cindy Browne (bass), Molly Tuttle (guitar), and Sally Van Meter (Weissenborn guitar), among others.
— John Curtis Goad, Bluegrass Today (June 13, 2014)
This record came out in 2014, but only recently has a copy come my way. It's not one of those "re-promoted to coincide with a tour" jobs, but it's still definitely worth your belated attention. Musically, Cut To The Chase is very much Kathy, her singing voice as distinctive and flexible as ever, and yet it also signals something of a departure, in that it consists entirely of self-penned work. It's actually the third of Kathy's "not-so-strictly-bluegrass collections of mostly originals", but this one is different in that it's officially tagged as a collection of original story songs.
Here, Kathy responds deeply and honestly to the situations of her protagonists, taking on board as her credo the fact that "something mattered enough to be recounted". She clearly possesses the ability to get right inside her characters' predicaments, and voices their thoughts with genuine insight, all the while taking a mature and considered approach to the choice of musical idiom in which to set them. She skips around these idioms, beginning by chugging vibrantly through a bluegrass-style soundscape on Tryin' So Hard To Get To You then taking on the spirit of reassurance (Feet On The Ground), jittery pop-pourri (Cut To The Chase), and classic Americana-country in the shape of a Nanci Griffith-style railroad-hobo's life-story (Not As Lonesome As Me). Then there's the lilting accordion-and-mandolin-backed waltzery of The Night The Boat Capsized (its narrative inspired by a magazine photo), which complements the inspiring outcome of Persephone's Dream. Last but certainly not least, there's a pair of gorgeous, if plaintive romantic conundrums (When and Once Upon, the latter sporting a particularly delicious dobro-and-pedal-steel exchange that echoes the vocal duet between Kathy and Richard Brandenburg). The Rustler's Girl is a kind of "broken token"-themed sequel to Kathy's earlier song Rustler's Moon, while the album signs off with a creatively-country update-cum-refashioning of the first story song Kathy ever recorded, Ellie (a classic from her Good Ol' Persons days).
For this project, Kathy's fortunate to have enjoyed a goodly measure of practical assistance from master songsmith Clive Gregson, whose own writing, and extensive catalogue, has clearly been of much inspiration to her. Clive provided melodies for three of the songs on this CD - Cut To The Chase, Time Traveler's Wife and Franco's Spain - and yet, Kathy says, her initial response to these was shock, in that they were nothing like what she expected. She goes on to say that this was precisely why she wanted to collaborate with Clive. And yet, while these songs can be heard to contain resonances of Clive's all-round musical sensibilities, they don't sound like Gregsongs; the finest of the three, Franco's Spain, is a lyrically-expressed tale of adolescent naivety that more recalls Joni Mitchell or Neil Young. As well as playing guitar on those three co-written songs, Clive also contributes significantly to another disc highlight, the CD's self-styled "happy song", the rockabilly-pop-flavoured Same Ol' Song.
The instrumental backdrops are brilliantly played - as you'd expect from Kathy's crew of guest musicians, including the members of her own band (Annie Staninec, Greg Booth, Tom Bekeny and Cary Black), as well as John Reischman (mandolin), Sally Van Meter (Weissenborn guitar), Bobby Black (pedal steel), Molly Tuttle (guitar) and Bill Evans (banjo)… phew! … But another incidental glory of this disc is that it's replete with intelligent and cannily coordinated little touches of scoring that often reflect elements within the stories being told. The overriding sensation is that of a natural yet at the same time carefully woven patchwork of stylistic elements, unified by the power of Kathy's storytelling.
All told, this is an extremely impressive disc, on which Kathy adds more than just another string to her songwriting bow.
— David Kidman, Fatea (April 9, 2016)
— Skot Nelson, No Depression (May 4, 2014)
The saying “Cut to the chase”—meaning “Get to the important thing right now”—goes back to the early days of motion pictures. Movie makers quickly learned that the public didn’t want to sit through lengthy encounters or explanatory titles. Whether it was a scrambling Keystone Cops laugh riot or a thrilling cowboy pursuit, audiences wanted the film to “cut to the chase.” It’s a fitting title for California-based singer/songwriter/guitarist Kathy Kallick’s new album. Travel—including a chase or two—is a predominate theme. And each of the 13 original songs here (ten written solely by Kallick, three in collaboration with Clive Gregson) gets right to the important things: love, longings, desires, and choices in life choices, both good and bad.
The opening track, the high-lonesome “Tryin’ So Hard To Get To You,” finds the singer (spoiler alert) struggling in an almost pathetically funny attempt to join her beloved while gradually realizing that the frustrating delays are a blessing because the relationship is actually dysfunctional, unhappy, and pointless. The pursuit in the title-track “Cut To The Chase” takes place mostly within the close confines of a bar or club, but the journey is equally intense and revealing. The deceptively pretty waltz-time “The Night The Boat Capsized” launches a symbolic but wistful ocean voyage. Other titles transport the listener, in spirit at least, to ancient Greece (“Persephone’s Dream”), a twentieth century European dictatorship (“Franco’s Spain”), and maybe wryly to other dimensions (“The Time Traveler’s Wife”).
Kallick has a fine and versatile voice here: lilting, ornamented, or gutsy as the material requires. The regular members of her band (Annie Staninec, fiddle; Greg Booth, mandolin; Tom Bekeny, mandolin; Cary Black, acoustic bass) do their usual excellent job on several tracks. The album also features Kallick’s studio reunions with two members of the well-recalled Good Ol’ Persons band, John Reischman (mandolin) and Sally Van Meter (Weissenborn slide guitar). Banjoist Bill Evans and a host of other fine musicians are also here, fine fellow travelers all.
This is not exactly my-old-mountain-home or little-log-cabin-in-the-lane bluegrass song territory, and it’s not casually strolled. But Kallick’s fans will be hugely rewarded by her thoughtful and often powerful lyrics and music. You might be lulled at first by the easy country sway of “Same Ol’ Song” and then get hit by what that same old song really means. The concluding number, “Ellie,” is especially poignant because of its truths on how a life’s deceptions start in childhood and can grow from very loving intentions. If the album is a bit of a departure for this accomplished performer, it’s a worthwhile journey and Kallick cuts to the chase on every cut.
— Richard D. Smith, Bluegrass Unlimited (September, 2014)
Kathy Kallick has been among the elite of contemporary songwriters and singers since co-founding the seminal band, Good Ol’ Persons. Along the way, she has won a Grammy and two International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Awards, had five albums each spend a year at the top of the national bluegrass charts, appeared on three high-profile Rounder Records collections of bluegrass songs by women, received Lifetime Membership awards, and performed and recorded with the country’s top acoustic musicians. After 17 albums as a leading voice in American roots music, you’d think that Kathy Kallick would be ready to coast on her latest release, a collection of originals titled Cut To The Chase. Instead, she’s upped the ante, working with new collaborators and exploring new forms, as she pushes her songwriting out of a comfort zone to discover various approaches to what she calls “story songs.”
As Kathy notes, “Story songs were ways of spreading the news and recounting important events. I find the fact that something mattered enough to be recounted to be moving and compelling.” Her new songs certainly are compelling -- and moving.
Some of that comes from co-writing three songs with renowned guitarist/singer/songwriter Clive Gregson. As she says, “My initial response to all three melodies created by Clive was shock. They were nothing like what I expected – which is precisely why I wanted to collaborate with him.” Their song, “Franco’s Spain," has some of the lyricism of Joni Mitchell in a tale of adolescent travel and naivety. With “Time Traveller’s Wife," a complex fable of love wraps around a melody line that mimics the intricate puzzle-box nature of the song. And their title track inspired the album's cover art, created by the infamous Erik ("Savage Dragon") Larsen.
Kathy's solo compositions are equally mature and varied. Whether it's the ethereal Greek chorus and resonant harp of "Persephone's Dream" or the duet between pedal steel and dobro echoing the vocal duet on "Once Upon" or telling the story of one man's life inspired by the sound of a train whistle ("Not As Lonesome As Me") or refashioning "Ellie," her Good Ol' Persons classic, as a twangy country song, Cut To the Chase is a clear departure for Kathy Kallick from the bluegrass that has brought her such acclaim.
While she recorded some of these songs with her brilliant and versatile band --Annie Staninec (fiddle), Greg Booth (dobro), Tom Bekeny (mandolin), and Cary Black (acoustic bass) -- Cut to the Chase also reunites Kathy with Good Ol’ Persons John Reischman (mandolin) and Sally Van Meter (Weissenborn), plus California luminaries like pedal steel legend Bobby Black, members of Wake the Dead, guitarist Molly Tuttle, and banjo master Bill Evans. In the end, it’s Kathy Kallick's vibrant and soulful vocals as well as her distinctive and memorable compositions that make Cut To the Chase such a special experience. She combines a patchwork quilt mix of stylistic elements and of subject matter into a satisfying and powerful collection of new songs … which are also stories.
— Bob Cherry, Cybergrass (March 21, 2014)
Kathy Kallick is a versatile recording artist. Folk, bluegrass, Americana, pioneering trailblazer…labels have never meant too much to Kallick, have never limited her creativity.
“She was a nice Jewish girl living near Chicago,” is not the way most bluegrass biographies could begin, but those are the words Murphy Hicks Henry elected to use when beginning her chapter on Kallick within Pretty Good for a Girl: Women in Bluegrass. A California resident for forty years, she and like-minded compatriots founded the Good Ol’ Persons in 1974 and Kallick has been at the center of the dynamic West Coast bluegrass movement. The Good Ol’ Persons produced five albums including the essential live retrospective Good n’ Live.
She has recorded songs of her musical roots (My Mother’s Voice), albums for children (including the inspired Use a Napkin, Not Your Mom), an album of duets with Laurie Lewis (Together), and straight ahead bluegrass (Call Me A Taxi). Since the late ’90s, the Kathy Kallick Band has produced several albums of jaw-dropping, unfettered bluegrass starting with Walkin’ In My Shoes through to and including 2012’s Time. In my opinion, their Warmer Kind of Blue is all kinds of marvelous.
Alternately and frequently simultaneously, she has crafted albums bridging the unsettled ground between folk and country, releasing tremendously well-executed albums including Reason & Rhyme and Matters Of the Heart.
Having written a collection of new songs that will come to stand with her finest, with Cut to the Chase (which I mistakenly read as ‘Cut to the Case’ for about three weeks) Kallick provides ample demonstration that she continues to hone her art. I argue that my reading error was an honest one, as Kallick’s assertive, clean lead guitar playing is as central to the album as her remarkable voice and erudite lyrics.
The album’s lead track insightfully crafts a roadmap for Cut to the Chase, as the protagonist comes to the realization that “Tryin’ So Hard to Get to You” is a long journey toward heartache and frustration. While there may be benefits to giving oneself over to the power of another, it’s best to determine one’s own course, to “keep your feet on the ground,” to borrow from another song. The catchy “Same Ol’ Song” has a similar theme, but different mood. The influence of Hazel Dickens on these songs and “When” may only be apparent from my perspective.
Whether inhabiting others in “Persephone’s Dream” and “Franco’s Spain” (with beautiful mandolin lighting the way) and exploring the psyche and worlds of her creations, or describing the life shaped by a boy’s fascination with a train’s whistle—”Not As Lonesome As Me”—Kallick brings forth honesty and experience to fashion tactile personalities.
“Ellie,” a song that dates back to the Good Ol’ Persons, is given new life closing this set. Apparently long unavailable (the original version is on I Can’t Stand to Ramble, which I don’t own), hearing the song for the first time I fully understand why Murphy Henry highlights the song as “the timeless classic” from the GOP’s second album.
Determined to be a good girl in her mother’s eyes, Ellie makes some choices that might be disappointing. “As the baby grows, she learned to tell a lie, that’s easier to do to keep Mama satisfied” is just one of the foundational thoughts captured in the beautifully written song, with fiddle—presumably from Kallick band member Annie Staninec—tempering the ‘true life’ harshness of the lyrics with the acceptance of mournful reflection.
While Kallick wrote the majority of these songs by herself, three are co-written with Clive Gregson, long ago of new wave band Any Trouble and collaborations with Christine Collister, and himself a notable folk presence for the past few decades. “Get the hell away from me,” the affirming refrain within the album’s forceful title track, certainly cuts to the chase, while their “The Time Traveler’s Wife” requires listeners to immerse themselves in the song’s rich lyrical path.
Kallick’s hand-picked core band is a gathering of trusted colleagues. In addition to Staninec, members of the Kathy Kallick Band— Greg Booth (resonator guitar), Tom Bekeny (mandolin), and Cary Black (bass)—serve as the instrumental foundation for the album, while Good Ol’ Persons John Reischman (mandolin) and Sally Van Meter (Weissenborn lap slide), Bill Evans (banjo), and others also appear. The album is cohesive, with a consistency in sound that unifies the assembled story songs.
Cut To the Chase is several steps away from the music of the Kathy Kallick Band, and allows Kallick to continue to develop her own style of acoustic Americana. It is a beautifully constructed album of personal and poetic music that should appeal to all who have appreciated Kallick’s music and insights.
— Donald Teplyske, The Lonesome Road Review (April 15, 2014)
More than a decade before the arrival on the scene in the late 1980s of the teenaged wunderkind Alison Krauss, a band called The Good Ol’ Persons emerged from California and proved that not only was it okay for bluegrass and country bands to have more than one “girl singer,” but that a band composed of all or mostly women could write, perform, and draw crowds as well as the guys could. With her longtime friend Laurie Lewis, it was Kathy Kallick who helped blaze the trail and open doors for Krauss and other sterling female talents to pass through. Nearly four decades later, with Cut To The Chase, Kallick demonstrates convincingly that not only are her bluegrass chops still in good working order, but she’s still among the more distinctive and adventurous talents in what’s come to be known as the “Americana” format.
She’s backed up by her current Kathy Kallick Band (Annie Staninec, fiddle; Greg Booth, banjo and Dobro; Tom Bekeny, mandolin; and Cary Black, bass), and the roster of guests includes notable GOP’s alums Sally Van Meter and John Reischman, as well as guitarist Clive Gregson, with whom Kallick wrote three of the thirteen cuts (and the other ten all on her own). Co-producing with Tom Size, the material and arrangements highlight Kallick’s keen ability to tell a good story. “Same Old Song” revolves cleverly around the clichés that seem to mark every budding romance, “The Night The Boat Capsized” travels from vulnerability and sheer terror to survival and confidence, and “The Rustler’s Girl” is something of a modern version, set out on the range, of the old “Black Jack Davy” ballads.
It’s on the collaborations with Gregson, though, where Kallick really stretches out. “Franco’s Spain” is the tale of an American ingénue who learns that history takes place regardless of who’s around to watch, but “all the discos let us in for free.” “The Time Traveler’s Wife” elicits the seeming time/space distortion of wondering whether or not you’re in love or out of it. The album’s title track expresses the everywoman’s dream of telling the date from Hell to “get the Hell away from me.” It’s daring writing for someone who’s been in bluegrass for 40 years, but she carries it off well. An intriguing instrumental aspect to the album is the pairing of Booth’s Dobro with Bobby Black’s pedal steel guitar, producing a sound with it’s own brand of lonesome. Kathy Kallick has never been one to stand pat and do the same old thing, and it’s a big reason for the respect she’s garnered for so long.
— John Lupton, Sing Out! Magazine (May 13, 2014)
Story songs have a long history in bluegrass and other forms of traditional music. From murder ballads to train songs, from lost love to the Civil War, bluegrassers love to tell and hear a good story. On Kathy Kallick’s latest release, Cut to the Chase, she presents listeners with thirteen story songs, all from her own pen.
The songs include Kallick’s versions of fairy tales and myths, days in the lives of certain characters, and even a retelling of a popular novel. Kallick has long been a fixture in the west coast bluegrass scene, and the music here is reflective of that, utilizing all the standard bluegrass instruments but throwing in a folk/Americana vibe on the majority of the songs. For those who are most familiar with the Kathy Kallick Band’s grassier sound, Cut to the Chase might come as a surprise, but those who enjoy the “edge of bluegrass” should certainly find something to like.
One of the most intriguing songs is The Time Traveler’s Wife, which is Kallick’s version of Audrey Niffenegger’s popular novel of the same name. Those familiar with the novel will likely understand the story behind the song better (in brief, a woman whose husband travels through time without warning), but even those who haven’t read it should be able to identify with the dueling emotions of love and uncertainty expressed in the lyrics.
This song is one of three that were co-written by Kallick and Clive Gregson. The title track, a bouncy number with a ’90s folk-pop groove, is another. It finds the narrator struggling through a terrible date, and its story is both humorous and familiar. The third collaboration is Franco’s Spain, a weary, mandolin-guided reminiscence on youth and traveling through mid-20th century Spain.
The Rustler’s Girl is a companion to Kallick’s previous song Rustler’s Moon, and tells of a woman who once loved a wandering rustler but chose family and home over him. It’s a well-written number, with an old west, cowboy song feel. Kallick describes Not as Lonesome as Me, the tale of a man with an old soul and a lonesome destiny as a cowboy/hobo song, and it does have some of that same feel, as well. The pedal steel, courtesy of Bobby Black, is a nice addition.
Same Old Song takes a novel approach, capturing a conversation between two would-be lovers, including the “he said” and “she said.” It’s a clever love story with a happy ending, a fun, cheerful sound, and the appearance of John Reischman on the mandonator. Tryin’ So Hard to Get to You is a love story, as well, but a one-sided one. This bluesy number finds the singer trying to realize why so many obstacles are keeping her from the one she loves.
One of the album’s highlights – as well as its grassiest track – is the closing song, Ellie. Kallick originally recorded this song with the Good Ol’ Persons in the early 1980s. Here, it’s a gentle, melancholy number about a young woman who learned that lying to her mother wasn’t as easy on her soul as she might have hoped.
Kallick handles the lead vocals and plays guitar throughout the album, but is also joined by a whole host of other musicians. In addition to her regular band members Annie Staninec (fiddle), Tom Bekeny (mandolin), Greg Booth (dobro and banjo), and Cary Black (bass), Cut to the Chase also features Sylvia Herold (guitar), Cindy Browne (bass), Molly Tuttle (guitar), and Sally Van Meter (Weissenborn guitar), among others.
— John Curtis Goad, Bluegrass Today (June 13, 2014)
This record came out in 2014, but only recently has a copy come my way. It's not one of those "re-promoted to coincide with a tour" jobs, but it's still definitely worth your belated attention. Musically, Cut To The Chase is very much Kathy, her singing voice as distinctive and flexible as ever, and yet it also signals something of a departure, in that it consists entirely of self-penned work. It's actually the third of Kathy's "not-so-strictly-bluegrass collections of mostly originals", but this one is different in that it's officially tagged as a collection of original story songs.
Here, Kathy responds deeply and honestly to the situations of her protagonists, taking on board as her credo the fact that "something mattered enough to be recounted". She clearly possesses the ability to get right inside her characters' predicaments, and voices their thoughts with genuine insight, all the while taking a mature and considered approach to the choice of musical idiom in which to set them. She skips around these idioms, beginning by chugging vibrantly through a bluegrass-style soundscape on Tryin' So Hard To Get To You then taking on the spirit of reassurance (Feet On The Ground), jittery pop-pourri (Cut To The Chase), and classic Americana-country in the shape of a Nanci Griffith-style railroad-hobo's life-story (Not As Lonesome As Me). Then there's the lilting accordion-and-mandolin-backed waltzery of The Night The Boat Capsized (its narrative inspired by a magazine photo), which complements the inspiring outcome of Persephone's Dream. Last but certainly not least, there's a pair of gorgeous, if plaintive romantic conundrums (When and Once Upon, the latter sporting a particularly delicious dobro-and-pedal-steel exchange that echoes the vocal duet between Kathy and Richard Brandenburg). The Rustler's Girl is a kind of "broken token"-themed sequel to Kathy's earlier song Rustler's Moon, while the album signs off with a creatively-country update-cum-refashioning of the first story song Kathy ever recorded, Ellie (a classic from her Good Ol' Persons days).
For this project, Kathy's fortunate to have enjoyed a goodly measure of practical assistance from master songsmith Clive Gregson, whose own writing, and extensive catalogue, has clearly been of much inspiration to her. Clive provided melodies for three of the songs on this CD - Cut To The Chase, Time Traveler's Wife and Franco's Spain - and yet, Kathy says, her initial response to these was shock, in that they were nothing like what she expected. She goes on to say that this was precisely why she wanted to collaborate with Clive. And yet, while these songs can be heard to contain resonances of Clive's all-round musical sensibilities, they don't sound like Gregsongs; the finest of the three, Franco's Spain, is a lyrically-expressed tale of adolescent naivety that more recalls Joni Mitchell or Neil Young. As well as playing guitar on those three co-written songs, Clive also contributes significantly to another disc highlight, the CD's self-styled "happy song", the rockabilly-pop-flavoured Same Ol' Song.
The instrumental backdrops are brilliantly played - as you'd expect from Kathy's crew of guest musicians, including the members of her own band (Annie Staninec, Greg Booth, Tom Bekeny and Cary Black), as well as John Reischman (mandolin), Sally Van Meter (Weissenborn guitar), Bobby Black (pedal steel), Molly Tuttle (guitar) and Bill Evans (banjo)… phew! … But another incidental glory of this disc is that it's replete with intelligent and cannily coordinated little touches of scoring that often reflect elements within the stories being told. The overriding sensation is that of a natural yet at the same time carefully woven patchwork of stylistic elements, unified by the power of Kathy's storytelling.
All told, this is an extremely impressive disc, on which Kathy adds more than just another string to her songwriting bow.
— David Kidman, Fatea (April 9, 2016)