Release Date: 06 May, 2003
Audio CD
Tracks
- Yellow Guitar
- Corn in a Box
- Strongness of the Day
- Joe Louis' Furniture
- New South
- Petrified House
- How Much Can One Heart Hold
- Way Home
- William's Vision
- Walk Among Stones
- [Digital Press Kit]
|
Rating 4.5
Tunes 4 the New SouthKate Campbell picks up where her amazing "Rosaryville" CD left off. She chronicles the south on tracks like the "Yellow Guitar," "Halfway to Memphis, halfway to Tupelo." "Corn in a Box" throbs with Walt Aldridge's acoustic rhythm guitar. "If we're spinning through the heavens on a giant little ball, don't you think that it's incredible how we manage not to fall," Kate sings on the beautiful "Strangeness of the Day." "New South" is a playful tune, "They make Mercedes down in Vance, Alabama; And Tennessee is cranking Nissans out; I read about in my Wall Street Journal; we're all living in the new south." My favorite track is "How Much Can One Heart Hold," it's upbeat melody contrasts with the lyrics' sadness of fighting in the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam. The CD concludes with one of Kate's most haunting tracks, "Walk Among the Stones." With the cover art being grave markers, "Monuments" is as somber and heavy in subject, as it is gorgeous in melody and excellent in musicianship. While all of Kate's work is special, this set & "Rosaryville" are my two very favorites. Enjoy!music for livingBlessed with a heartbreakingly beautiful voice and a keen sense of grace in the midst of pain, Kate Campbell creates lyrics that are bound up with stories, most of them tied to the American South. The stories are poignant, but never sentimental. She does not shy away from the strangeness and painfulness of life, nor its beauty. She writes about real people in such a way that their lives enrich those of her listeners. This is true not only of Monuments, but also of her other cds. Her music and her words have a way of getting into the listener's life. They certainly have become a part of mine.RememberingAs with Kate Campbell's other CDs (Songs From the Levee, Moonpie Dreams, Visions of Plenty, Rosaryville, and Wandering Strange) Monuments is centered on a central theme. With Monuments, Campbell explores the poignancy of the past and its relevance in the present. Monuments are, after all, made and displayed for remembering. You should listen to this CD from beginning to end because the songs are positioned in such a way as to make them even more meaningful and to raise further questions. For example, "New South" makes clear historian Eric Foner's conclusion that the South was remade in the image of the North after the Civil War, but the next number, "Petrified House," is about a southern woman determined to continue living in the Old South in her "pertrified house." For me, as a Christian, "The Way Home" helped me greatly. But then, all of Kate Campbell's stories help me, whether she is writing and singing about the South, about the strangeness of a complex world, or about bowling alleys and homegrown tomatos. You will not be disappointed in Kate Campbell's latest offering. |
|
