Check out the new review of Songs from Candyapolis by Shaun Harvey on his website, cvillemuse.com
Keith Morris: Songs from Candyapolis Posted by Shaun Harvey on June 26th, 2008
Keith Morris is the pied-piper in reverse. His music takes you into town, not away from it. He leads the parade. He is the grand marshall of a procession of song. And behind him his band plays in time with clocks that have the most magnificent hands.
There's Jeff Romano who has his own float outfitted with guitars, a piano, an organ, and a string of sleigh bells. There's Jennifer Morris with angelic voice and Morwenna Lasko with her own angel-voiced violin. Paul Curreri strums a guitar and sings in tune while Devon Sproule throws candy-coated verse to the folks lining Main Street. Spencer Lathrop plays drums, Brandon Collins plays cello, Sandy Gray on electric guitar, and a choir of singers in robes clap hands and shout in key. And there's a rabbit in a human suit or is it the other way around? And at the end of the line, which is only a glass half-empty way of saying: at the head of the line, is a princess with ruby cheeks and a magical wand who plays the role of Santa Claus in this Macy's Day parade.
This is the scene on the cobblestoned streets of Candyapolis, a town where there's a celebration every day and reverance by night, and it's Keith Morris who leads us all through the Songs from Candyapolis.
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It's a strange beginning to an album review to be sure, but that's how I hear it when the band starts to play. I was recently asked what I thought of Keith Morris's Songs from Candyapolis and without a great deal of thought and loads of wild inspiration this is how I responded:
"If I had heard this album in 2007 it would have easily been in my Top 5 albums for the entire year. As it stands right now, it's still one of the best things I've heard in '08. A work of incredible beauty. It's equally parts main street circus parade and lullabies for nights when the wind blows through moonlit November cornfields."
I don't know that I could have said it any better really. And I completely understand that I'm coming at Candyapolis a little late in the game. The reviews have long been submitted in a string of critical praise and wonderment. But damn it, this album is too good not to be re-visited. It's essential listening. It should be placed in the CD player with only two buttons ever pushed: "play" and "repeat". But first a brief run through the liner notes.
Keith Morris comes to us by way of the Deep South, through Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia, and the Mountain West hot spot of Boulder, Colorado. I say he comes to us, because he is among us, here in Charlottesville, as a songwriter, as a singer, and as Paul Curreri writes between the pages of album notes, as the Mayor of Candyapolis. This is his debut album, released in 2007, and produced with magic and moments of melodious mania by Morris and Jeff Romano. The cast of characters have already been established in the parade of an introduction. So without further ado, let's press:
Play. Songs from Candyapolis begins like a Blue Ridge Mountain mistress to a Sgt. Pepper song with Morwenna Lasko's violin and a deep cello tone alone in the orchestra pit. It's there and it's gone and it later returns as we begin our ride with "Rainbow Rollercoaster", which sounds like a bag of balloons dancing with children blowing bubbles. I ain't gonna lie, I jump up and dance when I hear it. And the backing voices of Jennifer Morris, Devon Sproule, Erica Olsen, and Caroline Pond can only be described as Leonard's Cohen's Angels of Mercy if mercy was defined as joy.
On "Cross-Eyed John" we hear the choir of Richelle Claiborne, Davina Jackson, Paul Curreri, and Sproule shouting in perfect key, and John Rimel lays it down in double-time on both organ and piano. And as for Mayor Morris, he sings them like he writes them, with a Todd Snider-like delivery and a knack for scenes photographed in animated form.
Keith Morris writes in his "thank you's" that on "Billie Weir's Dress" Devon Sproule's voice "is a beautiful dream". And it is, with its slight aching break in the chorus that reminds us we are awake and listening. There is insight in what follows as Daniel Johnston's "Casper the Friendly Ghost" is given wings by Sandy Gray's guitar and Jeff Romano's harmonica. Now we know that if Morris is the Mayor, then it is Johnston who is one of the guiding Governors.
"Candy Apples" is where the bells and whistles live. This is the theme song of the whole jumpin' little town and here Morris has found a way to put that sweet, hard-candy coating all the way down into the very core of your carnival apple eye. You'll be singing it too, "Can-Dee-Appl-Less". Guaranteed.
Jennifer Morris saves her best for my favorite track "Baby Saves World". She's the baby's voice singing sweetly "They say that a baby is gonna save the world " behind the Mayor's megaphone proclamation of verse:
"they say that satan, satan is a bear
and oh if you can hear me
the devil's sleeping near me
and chappy is his name…"
And when you hear it, it's as if Tom Waits was being sung in the sun as opposed to a dimly lit, smoke-filled bar.
These final songs are surrounded by lullabies and verses from nursery rhymes. Tales told through the eyes of a child and tales told for what lies behind them. "Little Cameron" and "Snow Day" and "Annabel Says". And to end it all, just as many of the citizens of Candyapolis lay tired eyes to the pillow, as main street is swept clean for tomorrow's parade, and as that last breath of wind rises just before the sun goes down, Mayor Morris sings us to dreams with "October Lullaby" and "Mockingbird". The lights go down and we, as children smile in our sleep. All is well in Candyapolis.
Repeat.