CHRISTINE TOBIN – Takes This Waltz (& 10 Other Songs…)
Since her debut recording
Alililiu for the Babel Label in
1995, and over the course of ten albums, Irish singer Christine Tobin has
forged a path that is uniquely her own. In a world where it is easy to follow
the crowd, Christine has continued to surprise and delight with each to new
release having a life and concept that is different form its predecessor, yet
throughout her impressive discography there is consistency and evidence of
continuous artistic development, and this again readily apparent on the
singer’s new release A Thousand Kisses
Deep.
A constant that has been prevalent in her work, is her relationship with the lyric of the chosen material. Poetry has featured strongly in her work with Tobin having put music to the words of Paul Muldoon, Eva Salzman and most impressively on her 2012 release Sailing To Byzantium that featured the works of WB Yeats.
A constant that has been prevalent in her work, is her relationship with the lyric of the chosen material. Poetry has featured strongly in her work with Tobin having put music to the words of Paul Muldoon, Eva Salzman and most impressively on her 2012 release Sailing To Byzantium that featured the works of WB Yeats.
Following on from this, Christine has once again featured
the words from a single source on her latest album on her own Trail Belle
imprint, A Thousand Kisses Deep, and
reworks eleven songs from the pen of singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen. “I’ve
been a Leonard Cohen fan for a long, long time, explains Tobin. “I first heard
him on a compilation double album that belonged to my eldest sister when I was
about 10 years of age. The album was called Fill
Your Head with Rock and it had all of the great artists of the day, people
like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Moondog, Laura Nyro, and it was a great
introduction to all the wonderful music
I felt I had just missed!! ‘You Know Who I Am’ was the Leonard Cohen track on
the album and I was completely mesmerised by it when I heard it. I loved the
depth and presence of his voice and it seemed filled with human kindness. I
found that very attractive and was drawn by it.
Not to mention of course the extraordinary poetry of the words. I didn’t
understand them at the time but they pulled me in and I internalised them and
thought of them often. They had a kind of a hypnotic effect on me.”
Judging from Christine’s enthusiasm for Cohen’s work it now seems inevitable that she would make an album dedicated to his work, and this obviously seemed the right time to bring this project to fruition. “Oh definitely. At gigs people have always loved it when I do a Cohen song in amongst my originals and quite often they would ask me ‘When are you going to make an album of all Cohen songs?’, so it just felt like now was the right time to do it. It seemed logical to gather all of his songs I’d interpreted together like a bunch of friends, some of them old and some of them new. Also it’s his 80th birthday this year and as a lover of his work, this is my salute to the great man.”
One of the strengths of A Thousand Kisses Deep is that the album has a nice balance between the sombre and the more light hearted material. So how did Christine go about select the songs that are featured? “I’ve always had at least one Cohen song in my live repertoire so some of the songs have been with me since the early 90’s. In my teens I had his second album Songs From A Room and I loved all of the tracks but particularly ‘Story of Isaac’. I liked the music and the contrast of Cohen’s gentle delivery against the drama and violence of the lyric. I was fascinated to hear this version of a Biblical tale so I really wanted to sing it. The poet Eva Salzman who is a good friend of mine recommended I check out ‘Tower of Song’ – I did and immediately thought it would be great to find a way of doing that one. I loved the humour in it and I could say the same of ‘Everybody Knows’, it is politically incisive and hilarious. ‘A Thousand Kisses Deep’, Take This Waltz and ‘Dance Me To The End of Love’ were three I learned more recently and ‘Anthem’ was the last song for me to select. I think the simple but strong spiritual message of ‘Anthem’ is so powerful, like a prayer. It’s just beautiful and inspiring.”
As I have already mentioned, one of the pleasures in following Tobin’s work is the consistent quality of each release that ensures well balanced performances whilst allowing the singer to develop and push the boundaries of her own artistic vision. All the albums have a strong theme or subject running through them, so is this thematic continuity or concept something that she is consciously drawn to? “I would say, yes. I like having boundaries and structures to work within. When you chose a theme it provides a real opportunity to focus and explore and find many different colours and routes into that idea. It’s a canvas to thread your stories to so they can all together make a bigger picture. My experience has been that audiences really respond to that way of story-telling too.”
Judging from Christine’s enthusiasm for Cohen’s work it now seems inevitable that she would make an album dedicated to his work, and this obviously seemed the right time to bring this project to fruition. “Oh definitely. At gigs people have always loved it when I do a Cohen song in amongst my originals and quite often they would ask me ‘When are you going to make an album of all Cohen songs?’, so it just felt like now was the right time to do it. It seemed logical to gather all of his songs I’d interpreted together like a bunch of friends, some of them old and some of them new. Also it’s his 80th birthday this year and as a lover of his work, this is my salute to the great man.”
One of the strengths of A Thousand Kisses Deep is that the album has a nice balance between the sombre and the more light hearted material. So how did Christine go about select the songs that are featured? “I’ve always had at least one Cohen song in my live repertoire so some of the songs have been with me since the early 90’s. In my teens I had his second album Songs From A Room and I loved all of the tracks but particularly ‘Story of Isaac’. I liked the music and the contrast of Cohen’s gentle delivery against the drama and violence of the lyric. I was fascinated to hear this version of a Biblical tale so I really wanted to sing it. The poet Eva Salzman who is a good friend of mine recommended I check out ‘Tower of Song’ – I did and immediately thought it would be great to find a way of doing that one. I loved the humour in it and I could say the same of ‘Everybody Knows’, it is politically incisive and hilarious. ‘A Thousand Kisses Deep’, Take This Waltz and ‘Dance Me To The End of Love’ were three I learned more recently and ‘Anthem’ was the last song for me to select. I think the simple but strong spiritual message of ‘Anthem’ is so powerful, like a prayer. It’s just beautiful and inspiring.”
As I have already mentioned, one of the pleasures in following Tobin’s work is the consistent quality of each release that ensures well balanced performances whilst allowing the singer to develop and push the boundaries of her own artistic vision. All the albums have a strong theme or subject running through them, so is this thematic continuity or concept something that she is consciously drawn to? “I would say, yes. I like having boundaries and structures to work within. When you chose a theme it provides a real opportunity to focus and explore and find many different colours and routes into that idea. It’s a canvas to thread your stories to so they can all together make a bigger picture. My experience has been that audiences really respond to that way of story-telling too.”
One of the most distinctive aspects of the new album is the instrumentation
that the singer has utilised to frame her uniquely individual voice, so I ask
Tobin how did went about selecting the instruments and musicians for A
Thousand Kisses Deep, and did she have a specific sound in mind? “I’ve been
very lucky to have the same wonderful musicians with me for a long time. We
started A Thousand Kisses Deep as a
Trio with guitarist Phil Robson, who is also my partner, and double bassist
Dave Whitford who is a very good friend. For the recording I decided to add
accordion and percussion. I thought
accordion would bring the right texture and gypsy romance to the sound and also
it gave me the opportunity to work with Huw Warren again who played piano on my
first two albums. Adriano Adewale is a Brazilian percussionist and he plays an
unusual variety of instruments that work really well with this music where the
words are many and all important. It was my first time to work with him.”
On arranging the music Christine adds, “I always look to the words for inspiration to create a new backdrop or framework for the songs. Sometimes that can come with a rhythmic motif or by taking the chords in a different harmonic direction. All of the arrangements were written before the recording except for ‘Anthem’. That’s the only track on the CD with piano and I thought that doing it as a duo for voice and piano would amplify its hymn-like quality. I’d never recorded with Gwilym Simcock before so this gave me the perfect opportunity to play with him. I met him in the studio and we chatted a bit about the song. Then he started improvising, playing this beautiful introduction and took it from there. It was quite magical. I placed ‘Anthem’ at the heart of the album, halfway through because of its intimacy and pace. Another guest I was delighted to have on board is the trumpeter Nick Smart. He plays on the final track ‘Dance Me To The End of Love’. I thought trumpet would bring a sort of ‘ballroom of romance’ quality to the song and that his warm, full sound would be perfect to herald the finale. Some of the arrangements are made by me and Phil Robson together, some I’ve written myself such as ‘Tower of Song’ and ‘You Know Who I Am’ and some are written by Phil including ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ and ‘Take This Waltz’.
With such a strong musical identity and direction of her own I ask Christine about her early musical experiences and how she became interested in singing? “I sang in musicals when I was a kid. I liked being on the stage and being around the theatre and the whole idea of creating a different world but I didn’t really like the music I was singing then. It made me feel queasy. So I knew at an early age that I had to find a music and an expression that I really felt something for otherwise it wasn’t going to work. I didn’t really find that until I discovered jazz which I did after hearing Joni Mitchell’s brilliant Mingus Album. That opened up a whole new musical world where I found the freedom for a much deeper expression. After Mingus I got into Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Nancy Wilson, Charlie Parker, Bessie Smith, Stan Getz, McCoy Tyner, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sheila Jordon, Betty Carter, Wes Montgomery, Keith Jarrett, Hermeto Pascual….the list goes on and on………..”
And on the subject of influences, are they are any artists or music that you feel a particularly strong infinity with? “All of the above have influenced me but I guess Billie, Sarah and Betty Carter are favourite singers, not to forget Elis Regina and Oumou Sangare. Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer album had a big influence on me too as did Herbie Hancock’s Inventions & Dimensions. And when you’re not behind the microphone what do you listen to for your own pleasure? “At the moment I’m listening to Britten’s Cello Symphony with Rostropovich – I can’t get enough it it! Also, Chopin’s Nocturnes and The Gloaming. I put Miles Smiles on the other day and I hadn’t heard it in ages – was a real treat to listen to it again.”
And plans for the future? Not one to suit still or rest on her laurels, Christine is already looking ahead, “I’m writing new music for poems and lyrics by poet Paul Muldoon. I’m looking forward to going into the studio to record them. I have gigs in Berlin and Athens this month (April) and am very excited about our Scottish Tour starting on May 22nd. Also, we’re playing Brecon this year!!”
On arranging the music Christine adds, “I always look to the words for inspiration to create a new backdrop or framework for the songs. Sometimes that can come with a rhythmic motif or by taking the chords in a different harmonic direction. All of the arrangements were written before the recording except for ‘Anthem’. That’s the only track on the CD with piano and I thought that doing it as a duo for voice and piano would amplify its hymn-like quality. I’d never recorded with Gwilym Simcock before so this gave me the perfect opportunity to play with him. I met him in the studio and we chatted a bit about the song. Then he started improvising, playing this beautiful introduction and took it from there. It was quite magical. I placed ‘Anthem’ at the heart of the album, halfway through because of its intimacy and pace. Another guest I was delighted to have on board is the trumpeter Nick Smart. He plays on the final track ‘Dance Me To The End of Love’. I thought trumpet would bring a sort of ‘ballroom of romance’ quality to the song and that his warm, full sound would be perfect to herald the finale. Some of the arrangements are made by me and Phil Robson together, some I’ve written myself such as ‘Tower of Song’ and ‘You Know Who I Am’ and some are written by Phil including ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ and ‘Take This Waltz’.
With such a strong musical identity and direction of her own I ask Christine about her early musical experiences and how she became interested in singing? “I sang in musicals when I was a kid. I liked being on the stage and being around the theatre and the whole idea of creating a different world but I didn’t really like the music I was singing then. It made me feel queasy. So I knew at an early age that I had to find a music and an expression that I really felt something for otherwise it wasn’t going to work. I didn’t really find that until I discovered jazz which I did after hearing Joni Mitchell’s brilliant Mingus Album. That opened up a whole new musical world where I found the freedom for a much deeper expression. After Mingus I got into Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Nancy Wilson, Charlie Parker, Bessie Smith, Stan Getz, McCoy Tyner, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sheila Jordon, Betty Carter, Wes Montgomery, Keith Jarrett, Hermeto Pascual….the list goes on and on………..”
And on the subject of influences, are they are any artists or music that you feel a particularly strong infinity with? “All of the above have influenced me but I guess Billie, Sarah and Betty Carter are favourite singers, not to forget Elis Regina and Oumou Sangare. Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer album had a big influence on me too as did Herbie Hancock’s Inventions & Dimensions. And when you’re not behind the microphone what do you listen to for your own pleasure? “At the moment I’m listening to Britten’s Cello Symphony with Rostropovich – I can’t get enough it it! Also, Chopin’s Nocturnes and The Gloaming. I put Miles Smiles on the other day and I hadn’t heard it in ages – was a real treat to listen to it again.”
And plans for the future? Not one to suit still or rest on her laurels, Christine is already looking ahead, “I’m writing new music for poems and lyrics by poet Paul Muldoon. I’m looking forward to going into the studio to record them. I have gigs in Berlin and Athens this month (April) and am very excited about our Scottish Tour starting on May 22nd. Also, we’re playing Brecon this year!!”
For more information, visit Christine’s website at www.christine-tobin.com
Click on the album cover to read our review of A Thousand Kisses Deep
&
Sailing To Byzantium.