The Milagro Saints have been working out of Raleigh since the late 1990s. During that time they’ve released four albums, including their current disc, Let It Rain, on the Moon Caravan label.
This particular quartet of saints — Joyce Bowden (guitar, vocals, clarinet), Stephen Ineson (guitars, vocals, percussion), Lee Kirby (Hammond organ, piano, harmonica) and Ed Root (drums, vocals) — found their groove in blending rock and modern folk. Their new album is, as a fourth album should be, wholly emblematic of the Saints’ musical sensibility. Let It Rain is really an acoustic-based album, though Kirby’s Hammond organ and Root’s drums give the songs more punch than an acoustic-oriented group of tunes would normally have.
The vocal work falls mainly to Ineson and Bowden, and their contrasting qualities provide a nice sonic palette for the Saints. Bowden’s voice has a lot of air in it. She has a good bit of clarity in the upper register, which helps her voice glide when she pushes it. She also sings well in unison and harmony. Check her performance on “Samastithe” and her excellent cover of “Deep River Blues.” Ineson’s voice has a fine melodic quality and a good amount of power. He’s a very agile singer within his range. Rather than a beautiful voice, Ineson has an immensely appealing voice. Listen to his vocal on “53rd & 9th Street” and “Jack Kerouac.”
The songwriting credits for Let It Rain fall mainly to Ineson, who had a hand in all but two of the 11 tunes on the CD. Bowden penned the song “God of the Big and Small,” and co-wrote “Soul Song” and “Shine Like a Healer” (this number is attributed to all four band members). A constant feature of the songwriting is a superb, tuneful literacy that can only come from a devotion to modern folk and roots songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Guy Clark.
The Milagro Saints tracked Let It Rain with Jerry Kee at Duckee Studio in Mebane. Bowden’s brother, Richard, added some choice fiddle parts in Austin, TX. The Saints also received stellar help from vocalists Karen Kletter and Karen Delahunty, bassists Rick Lassiter and Ernie Brooks, cellist Lee Kirby III, and mandolin ace Charles Pettee.
During a recent phone conversation with Ineson and Bowden, Ineson explained that he first met Bowden in New York City.
“Sometimes it’s just chance,” Ineson noted. “I met Lee at some other people’s show in New York. He and Joyce were doing a jam-session thing at their apartment, and I went along to that. I had a bunch of songs at that point, and we played some of them.”
Ineson, a native of Sheffield, England, had previously played in the English band The Jack Rubies.
“We came over here to tour in 1990,” he explained. “We were signed to a New York record label. We did a big tour of the States, and I really loved it here. I went back to England for a while after the group broke up, and then I came back for good in 1995. It just seems like a natural place for me to be.”
Ineson went on to note that it took a while for him to really get together musically with Bowden and Kirby after they’d met in New York.
“Lee and Joyce moved to North Carolina for various reasons, while I stayed in New York for about a year. Eventually, I also moved down here. We put out our first record on MoodFood Records (1998; self-titled album). I know that people think that New York City is the center of things, but when we got together in North Carolina it seemed like a lot more was happening for us down here. I mean, obviously, a lot of great bands have come out of this area.”
Discussing his musical influences, Ineson noted Bob Dylan, as well as Van Morrison and Neil Young.
“I was really into Joni Mitchell’s record Blue,” he said, adding that, “what’s called roots music of that period was actually mainstream.”
Bowden, who initially arrived in New York City to study at Juilliard, also allowed that she was captivated by Mitchell’s monumental album.
“Blue turned my head around,” she said. “Joni’s work is a combination of intellect and emotion. She reached a depth that echoed what I already knew — not that I could reach it as an artist — but that I knew it was there. Mitchell and a few other artists pointed the way with their music to the journey inside.”
Bowden noted that her Juilliard experience turned out to be something less than satisfying.
“Juilliard accepts about 30 people a year and then kicks out about six each year. Brutal. I didn’t like that process, so I quit when six of my best friends were kicked out. I picked up a guitar after that.”
With Juilliard relegated to her past history, Bowden pursued a somewhat different tack, music-wise. Among her many excellent musical adventures in New York, she worked with cellist/producer Arthur Russell.
“He was my mentor and my primary musical hero,” she said. “He worked with Allen Ginsburg and Philip Glass and David Byrne. He played standing up, and he sang. He inhabited three worlds, really: the dance world, the classical thing he had going on with Philip Glass, and the pop stuff he did with The Flying Hearts.
“He was basically honoring me by letting me be a part of The Flying Hearts,” she explained. “I was kind of this worshipful person on the periphery whom he let in, so to speak.”
Bowden and Kirby left the Big Apple for North Carolina 10 years ago when she was pregnant with their first child.
“My mother was still living here,” Bowden explained. “We were going to live a having-a-baby everyday kind of life, but we were very happy when Stephen decided to come down here.”
The having-a-baby everyday kind of life was replaced by a Milagro Saints kind of life, which has yielded their four albums. They’ve been doing their bit to keep the folk-rock genre alive and well.
“That kind of folky ’70s influence that we admire is getting bigger again,” Ineson said. “There’s definitely a strand of that music that’s pretty big now, even though it’s being sucked into the Starbucks thing. That’s OK, though, because people who go to coffeehouses like that music. It’s ironic, you know. All those ’70s artists who have been so influential started out playing in coffeehouses; it’s just that now that coffeehouse thing has become corporate.
“I mean, you’ve got to find new ways of distributing that kind of music,” he added. “All music is becoming niche music, but people will still find what they want to listen to, despite the efforts of mainstream labels to force their music down our throats.”
Let It Rain is available via the CD Baby Web site www.cdbaby.com. You can stay current with The Milagro Saints at: www.milagrosaints.com.
DISCOLOGY
Dave Holland Quintet: Critical Mass (Dare2 Records)
Another stellar jazz outing from the brilliant Dave Holland and his quintet. Holland, one of the true jazz masters of our time, is a gifted bassist and an accomplished composer. A veteran of Miles Davis’ band — he played on the seminal album Bitches Brew – Holland is quite possibly the most adept bassist/composer since Charles Mingus. His sense of swing is innate and unfailing, and he keeps good company. His quintet features Robin Eubanks (trombone), Chris Potter (tenor and soprano saxophones), Nate Smith (drums) and Steve Nelson (vibes, marimba). Critical Mass is comprised of eight tunes — four penned by Holland, two by Nelson, and one each by Eubanks and Smith. It’s a major thrill to listen to the dialogue between Eubanks, Potter and Nelson. Holland’s compositions present intriguing opportunities for soloists, and his ideas always give rise to choice passages from Eubanks and Potter. And then there’re Holland’s bass solos, which are artful in the extreme. This is an extraordinary jazz disc.
Eric Bibb: Diamond Days (Telarc)
Eric Bibb is really in top form on this album. He’s developed into an exceptional songwriter and an adroit guitarist, adding these crucial complementary talents to a singing voice that has always been massively appealing. Diamond Days offers a dozen original songs, each one unique, yet each one issuing from a single spiritual source. Bibb has said that blues, folk and gospel are all drawn from the same well, and the truth of that observation is apparent in listening to the tracks on Diamond Days. Bibb has established a new benchmark for himself with this release, and given his age, this could well be the beginning of a body of work that will be at the very least memorable, and quite possibly monumental.