Recognition is a fitting title as, following my recent comment in the reissue review of MacDonald's 1983 debut No Commercial Traffic, the man thoroughly deserves each and every plaudit he receives. This is Macdonald's third Florida album, or at least, the third that he has released since his mid nineteen-nineties relocation to the Sunshine State from New York City, by way of Pontiac, Michigan.
The opening cut, "You Who Sleep Beside Me," is a hymn in praise of finding true love, and MacDonald succinctly draws the conclusion that it's "a feeling of arriving at the place where I belong." During his student days Rod spent a summer working for Newsweek. "The Man Who Dropped The Bomb On Hiroshima" recalls that vacation, and in particular the occasion, on which he interviewed the pilot of the B-29 bomber on that fateful day, July 29th 1945. What comes across tellingly in MacDonald's lyric, is the pilot's comment "they never told us what we were carrying," and the fact that, later, that pilot felt compelled to visit Japan. After seeing countless airfields full of attack-ready suicide planes, as well as the devastation that he had caused, the pilot concluded, "I left there thinking we'd made that war end sooner." To date, America is the only nation on Earth to deliver an atomic device in a conflict situation. Almost sixty years later, in the world order of the early 21st century, "My Neighbours In Delray" is a 9/11 song that focuses fairly dispassionately upon the activities of some of the participants in the months leading up to the execution of their mission.Dispassionately - except for the closing verse where MacDonald offers "but if my neighbours in Delray are in Paradise today, it would very much surprise me."
Vincent Van Gogh failed to sell his portrait of "Dr Gachet," or for that matter any of his works, during his lifetime. Vincent's thirty-seven years {*] on Earth amounted to a simple and poverty stricken existence, but a prodigious outpouring of paintings. Eventually the painting "crossed some borders and the dealer made a profit." From the German businessman who purchased it, it passed to a US-based oil executive who loaned it to a museum for his lifetime. Eventually sold at auction for 30 million dollars, it now lives, hidden from the world, in an airless case in the home of its Japanese owner. MacDonald's lyric raises the issue of who did, or didn't,receive justice in terms of benefit - certainly its creator didn't.
The chorus of "For The Good Of America," the closing track [as listed on the liner], ends with the line "their lips are moving but they're doing you wrong." The latter is a historical reference to the repetition by countless American presidents of the palliative, "For the good of America just forget it, cause it's time to move on." John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, Lyndon Baines Johnston, the Vietnam War, [General] Augusto Pinochet, the Iran hostage crisis, Ronald Wilson Reagan and the Iran-Contra scandal are either mentioned by name or alluded to, as MacDonald presents his take on American foreign policy through the latter half of the twentieth century.
Physical abuse within a marriage is the focus of "When Angel Gets Blue," the fantasy killing on-screen turns into intentional real life murder in "Video Game," while the entertainer in "Mickey World" clearly indicates that he'd much rather be someplace else. As it stands he has hours to go, imitating "Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Danny Boy, Elvis - a diver for yesterday's pearls." MacDonald co-wrote the gently reflective "Ireland, Ireland" - "there are so many songs about Ireland can there be anything left to say?" - with Steve Eriksson, and Susan MeKeown provides the harmony vocal. "137 Executions (Not One Innocent Man)" is set in Texas, a state with a statistical record to preserve !
The hidden track, "Mojo & The St. Luke's Flukes," has got to be close on two decades-old now, yet this is the first time that MacDonald has committed it to an official release. The song focuses upon the adventures of a softball team. With the bases loaded, the score tied, Mojo has the chance to break the deadlock...plus, he has a secret. Sorry, but you'll have to buy the album to find out what that secret is...
Across seventeen songs MacDonald paints a multi-faceted landscape of life in his homeland, circa the early 21st century AD, clearly making Recognition one of his finest works to date. Currently this album has only been released in Europe (Editor's note: the cd was released 6/1/03 in the US). It is available on the Internet from http://www.brambus.com, while Stateside readers can order the album from http://www.rodmacdonald.net
Note. [*] Vincent's brother Theo died six months after him. Initially buried in Utrecht, in 1914 Theo's wife, Johanna, had his body interred in the Auvers graveyard in the plot next to Vincent's. In addition, she had a sprig of ivy from Dr. Gachet's garden planted between the gravestones. That ivy now carpets Vincent and Theo's graves.
Arthur Wood is a contributing editor at FolkWax
By Arthur Wood in Folkwax
Thought-Provoking Honesty (07/06/05)
The American release of Rod MacDonald's A Tale Of Two Americas on Wind River Records contains eighteen songs - sixteen MacDonald originals (including a previously unheard pair from 20 years ago), one co-write, and a cover of an early Bob Dylan tune - while the Swiss Brambus Records version has one cut fewer. Both discs contain enhanced media, as well as links to a number of Rod MacDonald associated websites.
The opening cut, "Ray & Ron," recalls two Americans who recently died in the same week. Ray Charles passed at the age of 73 on June 11 last year, while President Ronald Reagan left from this mortal coil six days earlier, albeit with a two-decade head start over "The Genius." Across five verses, featuring the positives and negatives of both lives (and including the consistently silly public statements made by one in particular), MacDonald closes with the consensus that Ron should have the common sense (nay, the magnanimity) to suggest that "Ray had so much soul it filled him to the brim, instead of naming all this stuff after me they oughta name it after him." Yeah, right! MacDonald's 2002 studio collection, Recognition featured a pair of songs that referenced 9/11, namely, "My Neighbours In Delray" and "For The Good Of America." Between then and now, America has undertaken bloody, body-counting excursions in Afghanistan and Iraq and in "Terror" Rod delivers reflections upon those
events and their repercussions back in the homeland - "Using fear foradvantage you're doing more damage than even your enemy does." Later in this set, and drawn from the same well of inspiration, there's "Beloved Enemy" - which can be summed up by "if we didn't have any enemies, we'd sure as hell invent them (merely for the profit they bring)," while Rod
opens verse two of "Sacrifice" with "Ah but those who say you have to go and fight/Never send their own to battle," and later "As long as there's enough poverty/There'll be volunteers for the military/While the ones who run the show sit back and watch their millions grow."
While not averse to penning love songs, MacDonald's lyrical approach has consistently been one that reflects upon a broad spectrum of social issues at home and abroad. Track two, "Missing," is inspired by the photographs of runaways that are displayed Stateside on milk cartons (and on posters in supermarkets and featured in public service commercials). This single issue remains an ill in modern American society that simply won't go away, and around one million missing child
cases are filed annually. Abductions whether by family members, friends, or strangers are also an integral part of this issue (although statistics indicate they only contribute to 10% of the total), while 90%of the youngsters simply chose to run away because of difficult conditions within the family home.
"The Governator" is a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the current Austrian-born Governor of California, and that rib-tickling vein also threads its way through the "what if this world was a much fairer place to live in" scenario painted in "Smoke." Social issues apart, MacDonald is also adept at delivering an engaging lyric based upon his own
personal experiences. His 1999 song collection Into The Blue contained material inspired by his then-recent relocation from New York City to the sunny shores of Florida. Here, "I'm Your Dad" - "Hello there little girl, welcome to the world" - finds Rod reflecting with heartfelt affection upon the recent arrival of a small female person in his and his wife's life, while "The Lucky Ones" spotlights the hardships and the blessings that are integral parts of life, during the annual hurricane
season down on the Gulf. The spiritually slanted "Here I Stand" - "For just another man am I who stands here pressed against this sky/Raising his voice on high to you out there" - is the oldest MacDonald composition here and dates from 1981 and is followed by theself-explanatory title "True Love" from 1985.
Charles Dickens opened his 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, with the words "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" and MacDonald employs that sentence as the foundation of the "A Tale of Two Americas" chorus - subjectively the song is an early 21st century snapshot of life in his beloved homeland, and features the war-mongeringbillionaire minority as well as the hard-pressed masses who are barely getting by. The penultimate cut, "I Am Bob Dylan," is a tongue-in-cheek number based around the premise of mistaken identity, and MacDonald closes his latest epistle with the still very relevant, though now
forty-year-old Dylan composition, "With God On Our Side." Time passes, one's life changes for better or for worse, but those major issues over which only governments retain control remain pretty much the same for
the ordinary man.
A new Rod MacDonald recording is always an event to anticipate an savour, since you know that his lyrics will challenge your perceptions regarding recent historic occurrences, even shared events in ones everyday life, and he consistently brings clarity to those issues. That his songs are always leavened with thought provoking honesty seems to me
to be a fair synopsis of his skill as a lyricist - think of a subtle version of Phil Ochs, if you've never heard a Rod MacDonald song. In terms of aural execution A Tale Of Two Americas is a stripped-down affair - wholly acoustic - on which Rod's voice and guitar are supported by the bass of long time musical associate and album co-producer Mark Dann, plus the mandolin, Dobro, and guitar of regular road warrior Steve Eriksson. Meantime, this disc can be purchased by North American readers
from the Folk Era site at FolkEra.com
One of the moving forces of the Fast Folk musical magazine and other singer/songwriter ventures that were based in NYC during the late 70's and early 80's, MacDonald has put out records and CDs for about twenty years. Several of his songs have been covered by Garnet Rogers, Gordon Bok and others. Into The Blue is the latest collection of songs by a singer who moved from the melting pot of NYC to the beaches of Florida. Though still a social critic, his point of view changed a bit and the breezes of Caribbean Rhythms celebrate "the good life" as well.
The CD opens with a catchy, happy blues tune about a traveler looking forward to returning to his wife in "Seven Days". In "I Have No Problem With This" he describes the changes that occurred in the life of a person whose values changed as he climbed the ladder of financial success. "Best Defence" is considered a quiet song in these strident times, a slow and old car not to be part of the fast pace. In "Days Of Rain", he comes up with a few suggestions of what to do when the hurricane passes by but you still get rained on. "Here's A Song For You" is a wedding present. MacDonald takes a tongue-in-cheek view of Southern life from the snowbirds' perspective in "It's A Tough Life". He describes Florida's natural history and the threat to ecological balance by more suburban homes in "Aucilla River Song". MacDonald uses the example of the crash of an passenger airplane several years ago in "Deep Down In The Everglades" which deals with the sensational media. "Lightning Over The Sea" is an autobiographical sketch of MacDonald and his wife's lives in Florida and he sings of his love of flying a small air plane in "Into The Blue". He wonders about his "Fear" while living in the country with the greatest military, and evokes Native American spirit in "Sun Dancer". He praises the advantages of being an old fashioned singer with an acoustic guitar in "Six Strings And A Hole Big And Round". The last cut is "The Cure For Insomnia", an instrumental which prominently featuresthe kalimba which irritated my nerves.MacDonald's clear voice delivers all songs with conviction and passion and the pleasant and sweet melodies comfortably carry the lyrics of both the fast and slow paced songs. Except for the kalimba, it's a fairly traditional singer/songwriter accompaniment consisting mostly of acoustic guitar, bass, percussion and some keyboards. The production by MacDonald and his long time musical partner Mark Dann is smooth as we've come to expect from this team and it never interferes with the stories. So, sit back and listen!
Copyright 2000, Peterborough Folk Music Society.
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November 26, 1987 Among the many exciting singer-songwriters to emerge from the thriving Fast Folk/Speakeasy scene in New York City, Rod MacDonald is possibly the most musical. In this long-awaited first American album (he has had one released in Europe), his high, clear voice and clean, honest phrasing, his catchy melodies and relaxed, rolling rhythyms make for an album that is urgent in its poetry; yet always bopping, pretty music. In "Song Of My Brothers," he turns alienated idealism into a stirring anthem of community, all to a brisk, pulsing rhythm and breezy melody. He writes with a wry, original vision about contemporary life's peculiar horrors. In "The Aliens Came In Business Suits" he shares an urban-dweller's ultimate nightmare: The aliens "took every parking space." In the witty and captivating "Blues For The River," he offers this modest lover's lament: "She lay in my arms/And talked to me about her boyfriend." In "Sanctuary," he wonders, if we welcome thugs like Somoza and Marcos, "Why do we send back Rosalita and Roseanne?" Where some would use a thumping, good 'n mad melody for such an angry message, MacDonald chose a sweet, pretty one, giving the song a wrenching, sorrowful humanity. MacDonald is a poet with a lot on his mind who has never allowed himself to make points at the expense of making music. The result is that he does both captivatingly well.--Scott Alarik