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Rock/pop

Kathleen Grace: No Place to Fall

No Place To Fall
Kathleen Grace: No Place to Fall
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Shortly after Kathleen Grace established herself as a jazz vocalist, country music started to lure her away, and on her fourth album, No Place to Fall, this stylistic turn fits her so well that there isn’t a weak cut on the album. The record kicks off with a powerful reading of the title track, a Townes Van Zandt composition that’s a fine vehicle for Grace’s soft, pure voice as well as some sweet steel guitar by Greg Leisz. In spite of stiff competition the three compositions that follow stand up well against the elite cadre of songwriters she draws from elsewhere, Tom Waits and the Meatpuppets among them. Further into the record she stretches the canvas a bit, blending jazz and country on Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo” and the Oscar Levant and Edward Heyman chestnut, “Blame It on My Youth.” Both performances put such a fresh spin on these old favorites that you’ll end up loving them even more. Sonically, too, No Place to Fall is a treat. Recorded at Carriage House Studios and engineered by Todd Burke and Sheldon Gomberg, this intimate live-in-the-studio recording sounds as natural as Kathleen’s voice.

By Jeff Wilson

This will take some explaining, but I can connect the dots between pawing through LPs at a headshop called Elysian Fields in Des Moines, Iowa, as a seventh grader, and becoming the Music Editor for The Absolute Sound. At that starting point—around 1970/71—Elysian Fields had more LPs than any other store in Des Moines. Staring at all the colorful covers was both tantalizing and frustrating. I had no idea who most of the artists were, because radio played only a fraction of what was current. To figure out what was going on, I realized that I needed to build a record collection—and as anyone who’s visited me since high school can testify, I succeeded. Record collecting was still in my blood when, starting in the late 1980s, the Cincinnati Public Library book sale suddenly had an Elysian Fields quantity of LPs from people who’d switched to CDs. That’s where I met fellow record hawk Mark Lehman, who preceded me as music editor of TAS. Mark introduced me to Jonathan Valin, whose 1993 detective novel The Music Lovers depicts the battles between record hawks at library sales. That the private eye in the book, Harry Stoner, would stumble upon a corpse or two while unraveling the mystery behind the disappearance of some rare Living Stereo platters made perfect sense to me. After all, record collecting is serious business. Mark knew my journalistic experience included concert reviews for The Cincinnati Enquirer and several long, sprawling feature articles in the online version of Crawdaddy. When he became TAS music editor in 2008, he contacted me about writing for the magazine. I came on board shortly after the latest set of obituaries had been written for vinyl—and, as fate had it, right when the LP started to make yet another unexpected comeback. Suddenly, I found myself scrambling to document all the record companies pressing vinyl. Small outfits were popping up world-wide, and many were audiophile-oriented, plus already existing record companies began embracing the format again. Trying to keep track of everything made me feel, again, like that overwhelmed seventh grader in Elysian Fields, and as Music Editor I’ve found that keeping my finger on the pulse of the music world also requires considerable detective work. I’ve never had a favorite genre, but when it comes time to sit down and do some quality listening, for me nothing beats a well-recorded small-group jazz recording on vinyl. If a stereo can give me warmth and intimacy, tonal accuracy, clear imaging, crisp-sounding cymbals, and deep, woody-sounding bass, then I’m a happy camper.

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