In American folk-rock music, 1975 was a year of powerful, dark and confessional albums. Just take a look at this series: Bob Dylan – Blood On The Tracks, Neil Young – Tonight’s The Night, Joan Baez – Diamonds and Rust, The Band – Northern Lights, Southern Cross. While healthy doses of nostalgia for the 60s and idealism was present in Joan Baez’s work, Dylan turned inwards to create brilliant emotional expertise of the tired marriage, and Young suffered due to the loss of few collaborators whose lives were taken by heroin. The Band enriched their vision of Americana with synths, but kept it obscure.
Fresh blood and the air of optimism came from Quebec. Debut album of two sisters, Kate and Anne MacGarrigle, won the heart of critics, but the response from the audience was missing. In fact, the first news about the highly talented sisters from Quebeck was brought by Linda Ronstadt who did a cover of McGarrigle’s Heart Like A Wheel.
Sisters had more luck from there: contract with record label, self-titled debut, the sophomore, then lukewarm Dancer With Bruised Knees, also included on the compilation that I am about to review. Massive hype did not emerge after the second album either. Still, when you take a look at the list of musicians featured on it (John Cale from The Velvet Underground, Dave Mattacks from Fairport Convention, Stephen Gadd, Tommy Morgan, Tony Levin, etc.), it is clear that Kate and Anna McGarrigle were respected as the first class artists and huge inspiration for their colleagues.
Compilation comprises three discs titled Tell My Sister and it includes first two albums of the sisters, plus some recordings from the embryo phase of their career. Kate and Anna started playing in clubs in Montreal in the first half of the sixties. During their bar tours, whey have managed to finish schools, and then came the work in studio.
The music Kate and Anna performed can best be described as a music of 49th parallel, since it connects American influences of country and folk with French tradition. They did it equally good as when southern American musicians were combining Mexican music and country.
From American country and folk, sisters have borrowed suggestion and explicit expression of morose emotions. When it comes tom French tradition, it’s where they learned how to be cheerful and spontaneous. McGarrigle are perfectly adaptable to jazz themes as well, and everything is colored with the euphoria of music.
The collection is full of remarkable songs saturated with imaginative singing and understanding of traditional music. The originality is undeniable. The quality of music comes from practice and knowledge about the laws of genre. Listening to Tell My Sister, you will get the idea how important is to have a connection with your family.
