Garnet Rogers - Get a Witness
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CD Details
Artist: Garnet RogersEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2007-10-23
Music Label: Snowgoose
Soundtracks:
- Junior
- Beyond This Wall
- Get a Witness
- Summer Lighting
- Empty Glass
- Good and Faithful Servant
- Bittersweet
- Blood Brothers
- David's Solo
- Night Drive
- Northwest Passage
- The Bay Boy [*][Instrumental]
Music reviews of Get a Witness
Music Review: I DID have such high hopes for this CD - revised
Rating: 2 Stars
Like the other reviewers, I thoroughly enjoy Garnet Rogers' music, I have all his CD's. After his wonderful last CD, 'Shining Thing', which is so perceptive, finely drawn, and sensitive, I looked forward to this next one - I had such high hopes for it.
But, its been a disappointment. While there are some worthwhile songs, like Junior, Witness, and Beyond the Wall, but they just aren't songs that bear much re-listening. In ideas, they are sufficiently compelling and interesting, and I agree with the sentiments, but they lack that unique melodic quality so evident in earlier CD's that make me want to listen again.
The remake of Summer Lightning - with backup singers no less! - what on earth COULD have possessed him? If you've never heard the original, listen to it, please don't think this new version is what that song should be! This is more like a 'funhouse caricature' of something that is almost too beautiful. To be sure, the new instrumentalization is interesting and the range of sounds impressive, but the vital essence of the song - which is its very simplicity and imagary - is lost in all the complicated electronic sounds.
The remake of Northwest Passage combined with Night Drive? There are some things, so well done in their original form, that make 'creative remakes' hard to like. This is one of them. However, after seeing Garnet in concert this weekend, I have a somewhat different perspective on the Night Drive remake. The old version and the new version are actually 2 very different songs. The first version is a rather forlorn, bewildered expression of loss - and very beautiful in that respect. The new version is one of resiliance, of distance, of strength - it has a much more complex instrumentalization , with all sorts of electric feedback effects, but the melody and words get rather lost and it comes across as being more from the synthesizer than from the heart. He gave a terrific performance of this in concert, it was truly impressive and compelling to watch, but I'd still rather listen to the old version in the car where the subtlety of the words and melody is more apparent.
Believe me, folks, this CD is from a man with an incredible depth of talent, insight, eloquence and musical ability - his music has enriched my life and for that I am very grateful. But not for this CD! I have no problem with an artist 'moving on' to other styles, of course we all look for new things to try, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the new styles are better!
Live performances are always difficult to capture on recording - all too often the 'being there' quality is lost in the extra noise and the less care and precision in delivery, especially when the material is musically and conceptually complex. In live concert, there is the 'power of the moment', but on CD, the noise and loss of melody is more apparent. While this was NOT the case with Stan Rogers' "Home in Halifax" CD, where every song is so much better than the studio version, this certainly is the case with this CD.
I can only hope that his NEXT CD returns to his previous style and heart - for at least some of the songs. I will wait for that, patiently.
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Description of Get a Witness
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