Songwriters expose souls at The Matchbox
CKUA hosts Andy Donnelly, Jan Randall and Lionel Rault exposed their poetic souls to a Red Deer audience on Wednesday.
And it was a bit of a revelation.
Not only are the three public radio hosts accomplished musicians and songwriters, but their collaborative performance at The Matchbox theatre showed the different genres of music they play — Celtic, jazz and blues — go together like chips and salsa.
Donnelly, of CKUA’s The Celtic Show, was host of the latest Songwriters’ Circle.
He broke the ice by saying, “It’s smashing to be here in Red Deer... I never use the word ‘awesome.’ It’s a daft word” — which struck the right casual tone, as the three took turns performing some very personal tunes.
Donnelly was the dreamy romantic of the group.
He reminisced about his childhood on the West Coast of Scotland and sang about sad stories and legends while strumming his acoustic guitar.
His most sentimental song, My Mother’s House, featured Donnelly’s friend Brad Bowie, adding vibrating atmospherics on the mandola.
Bowie’s electric guitar sound later morphed into something reminiscent of bagpipes when Donnelly performed a tune inspired by his 98 year-old friend, Jeannie from Aberdeen, who married a Canadian soldier, but sometimes wondered about a boyfriend she’d left behind.
Whether because of its toe-tapping chorus, or nostalgic feel, this was his most affecting song.
Donnelly joked Celtic ballads are usually about love, death, heartbreak and misery.
“This one has them all,” he said, launching into God and his Angels about a woman who loses her love at sea.
After completing his poignant The Crows in the Forest, about a dying soldier’s regrets, Donnelly joked to next-up Randall, “I think we should have a sad song now.”
But sadness didn’t seem to keep company on Wednesday with the accomplished keyboardist, and host of CKUA’s weekend breakfast shows, who has composed hundreds of film and television soundtracks.
Randall showed he’s an amazingly versatile quick-study, accompanying Donnelly on his Celtic songs, as well as bluesy folk artist Rault.
But his own music was mostly light-hearted and jazzy.
Randall told the audience of 50 that he wrote Good, Fair World “with no surprises at all.”
Sure enough, the crowd anticipated the lyrics and sang along to this cheerful tune about “the lovely side of being naive.”
Randall got slightly more serious in a song he wrote about his brother who joined the U.S. Navy. “My family seems to be a metaphor for the world,” he said.
And sure enough, Randall’s repeated refrain of “When’s my brother coming home?” sounded as if he was awaiting rescue from the cavalry.
Before long, the pianist was back with another playful tune, In-Between Day, about the antsy kind of weather we get in Alberta, when the sun doesn’t want to poke out of the clouds for too long.
Randall created tense keyboard sounds, giving the song the right nervous edge.
Rault, who hosts CKUA’s Nine to Noon program and has long travelled Alberta’s folk and blues music circuits, is perhaps the most introspective songwriter of the three.
His lyrics seem to reflect experiences most of us can relate to — from a tune about an after-hours bar in northern Alberta — which “my legal advisor says should remain anonymous” — called The No-Tell Hotel, to a cool song about a cold day.
Rault coaxed some amazingly complex sounds out of his slide guitar for the tune, That Old Saskatchewan, which seemed to illustrate the snow-drfits that inspired him to write the song.
He also sang about other relatable topics, including love that’s grown cold, and about “hanging around the same old town, living my life on the rebound.”
The talented Rault regularly jumped in with his guitar to add harmony and another textural layer to Randall’s keyboard compositions.
“How about that — Lionel Rault, who’s never heard this song before!” said Randall, lauding his friend’s improvisational abilities.
That’s the beauty of these three CKUA hosts — individually, they are unique entertainers who perform in different genres.
Yet, together, they collaborate and blend perfectly.
Contact Lana Michelin at
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
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