Linda Draper - Keepsake

  by Malcolm Carter

published: 22 / 7 / 2007

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Review

There are so many female singer/songwriters out vying for our attention just now, more than at any other time, that it is increasingly hard to hear even a fraction of them. Time was when it was possible to hear all those that were worth hearing but now a name like Linda Draper comes along. I fall in love with her album and think I’m in at the beginning of a promising career only to discover that this is her fifth studio album. Not having the time yet to check out her previous work it’s obviously not possible for me to compare this to her earlier albums. I’ll leave that to those lucky enough to have been there from when she made her debut in 2001, but from this showing it’s surprising that I haven’t come across her name before as when it comes to producing folk music with a deft pop touch there are few to touch Linda Draper just now. Recorded in New York the nine originals and one cover (Rick Nelson’s ‘How Long’) have a stripped back feel about them. But the main attraction, apart from Draper’s excellent song writing skills, is her voice. It’s a thing of rare beauty and perfectly suited to the music Draper makes on this album. The problem with music of this genre is that over the length of an album it can all merge into one sound and the melodies are not always that strong. Draper is skilled enough to avoid both of those traps. Her melodies are sweet and memorable and lyrically she is very gifted. She even injects a little humour into one song; the standout ‘Cell Phone’. Possibly the first honest song to be put to tape concerning mobile phones “I still do not think I really need one”… “When the truth is there’s no one I care to hear from”… “ And the only one I want to talk to is the one that I’m sitting next to”, there’s a lot of truth in her words and with just acoustic guitar, piano and bass the intimate setting makes the words even more affecting. Being her fifth album Draper is experienced enough to realise that in such an intimate setting and with such a bare basic sound that just performing these songs with an acoustic guitar is not enough; so on ‘Kissing The Ground’ for example, which is just Draper with acoustic and minimal keyboards her multi-tracked vocals offer up something unexpected and out of the ordinary. Draper follows the same pattern on the next song, ‘Sunburned’, an exceptional song lyrically concerning getting older and accepting it and again it’s Draper’s multi-tracked vocals that make the song. There are enough little musical touches to make the songs interesting; the stand up bass used effectively on ‘Full Moon’ for example along with the violin on the same song takes the darker more mysterious side of Draper’s work to a totally different place to that of say the likes of ‘Cell Phone’. That Draper can mix such different styles on one album without it sounding disjointed or ruining the flow says much of her talent. Her version of Rick Nelson’s ‘How Long’ from a 2006 tribute album to the 50's and 60\s hit maker which also closes this album is exceptionally strong. Again it’s that voice that makes the song. There’s a purity in Draper’s vocals which is rarely heard these days. In a genre that is bursting at the seams Linda Draper is certainly one of the best.

Track Listing:-

1 Shine
2 Keepsake
3 Cell Phone
4 Too Late
5 Traces of
6 Kissing the Ground
7 Sunburned
8 Among Every Stone That Has Been Cast
9 Full Moon
10 How Long

Label Links:-

http://www.plantingseedsrecords.com/ho
http://plantingseedsrecords.bandcamp.c
https://twitter.com/psrmusic
https://www.facebook.com/plantingseeds
https://www.youtube.com/user/plantings