Reviews: " 500 Miles The Blue Rock Sessions"
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Reviews: "The High Above And The Down Below"
“In another age, Mr. Eberhardt would have found his niche on Tin Pan Alley or writing for Broadway shows. His songs display the highest level of craftsmanship, his guitar playing is superb and his singing deeply emotional.”
- The Washington Times
"On The High Above and The Down Below he delivers his best album yet....Cliff Eberhardt has delivered an adult masterwork worthy of your full attention."
--Vintage Guitar
CLIFF EBERHARDT A near-disastrous car accident sidelined this veteran folksy singer/songwriter, but the resulting recovery time only sharpened his already impressive skills. Even the title of his first new album in five years, The High Above and the Down Below, references a sense of mortality typically felt by those who experience life-altering events. A jazz-trio backing adds fresh musical elasticity and a heightened sense of carpe diem hones his dramatic yet warm vocal and lyrical touch.
- Creative Loafing
The High Above And The Down Below
Back At The Wheel,
It's been five years since Cliff Eberhardt last delivered the goods. That's the longest span of time between any of his, now, seven solo releases. That hiatus was in part exacerbated by Eberhardt's near-death car accident in 2002 in which he sustained significant back injuries that required two back surgeries and months of intensive physical therapy. Eberhardt's liner notes relate that Eric Peltoniemi produced the roller coaster titled The High Above And The Down Below and that Peltoniemi selected the recording studio and the support musicians. A trio, those support players were Rich Dworsky, the keyboard wizard from Prairie Home Companion's Guy's All-Star Shoe Band; bassist Gordy Johnson (Maynard Ferguson, Doc Severinsen, Paul Winter Consort); and thirtysomething J.T. Bates (Michel Portal), who has been playing drums since the age of seven. Of American-Finnish extraction, you may recall that during 1997 Red House Records issued Eric Peltoniemi's solo album Songs O' Sad Laughter, while these days one of the caps Peltonemi wears is emblazoned "Vice President of Production, Red House Records."
In his liner notes Eberhardt recalls that the decision, from the outset, was to record the album live and towards the close adds, "This is the recording that I always wanted to make." Eberhardt launches The High Above And The Down Below with the lyrically edgy album title track and therein urges the listener to live life to the full while he/she can and certainly before it's time to go "Down the River Styx, all abandon ship." Dworsky pumps out chunky chords on a Hammond B3 organ and Eberhardt growls his way through the foregoing lyric while concurrently and assertively plucking his acoustic guitar. Melodically sticking with the Blues genre, in term of subject matter "Missing You" is a ballad filled with memories of love lost. Elsewhere on this disc Eberhardt leavens his all-original tunes with a soupcon of Soul or a pinch of Pop. As for his lyrics, their focus in general fluctuates from portraits of male/female passion to a travelling musician's other home, the road. "It's Home Everywhere I Go" embraces both those elements.
At the outset of "The Next Big Thing" the narrator declares that he has the "Heart of a lion" and goes on to reflect on the fleeting nature of fame (and, for that matter, affairs of the heart). "This ain't forever, it's just a fling/I'm gonna wait right here for the next big thing." I could imagine listening to the melancholic "The Right Words" late at night in some dark and smoky piano bar. Okay, preferably sans the smoke. For starters Dworksy's piano imbues the melody with an American Songbook feel, a hint of Randy Newman even, as Eberhardt embraces the final scene in a love affair - "So say goodbye/C'est la vie/Say why'd you grow so, tired of me." While precipitation features prominently in the title "After The Rain Falls," the song is the shortest cut on the album, the lyric proceeds to paint a positive snapshot of the aftermath of "rain" for mankind.
"Assembly Line" comprises the "when I'm at work/when I'm at home" reflections, respectively negative and positive, of a blue-collar worker - "Nothing has changed on this crazy assembly line/It's a job for a fool/I repeat my days and I'd go insane/If it weren't for someone like you." "Dug Your Own Grave" finds the lonely, lovelorn narrator in a melancholic mood - "Can you call back again/When I'm feeling alright" - while "Let This Whole Thing Burn" acquaints us with a rather devil-may-care attitude to love and life. Johnson's fretless electric bass opens the ballad "New Is What's Come Over You," in which the still-smitten-but-lovelorn narrator reflects "Oh how she has changed." Optimism concerning the future is articulated by the narrator in "I'm All Right," while the listener is privy to the other side of that coin in the album closer "Goodbye Again" - "Is it such a great expectation to be able to predict the blues."
Praise be, with a touch of the Blues, Eberhardt's back at the wheel.
Arthur Wood is a founding editor of FolkWax
Review: "School For Love "
Folk songs tend to offer up a moral or teach a universal lesson. Harking back to Woody Guthrie, the genre has always been full of music with a message, be it stridently political or intimate and personal.
Cliff Eberhardt takes the latter approach on "School for Love," his latest album, with a series of lovingly rendered songs about broken hearts and restless wanderers. It's a mature record from a seasoned songwriter who has seen plenty of life drift by. The 12 original songs on the album, while not overtly autobiographical, are certainly colored by recent events in Eberhardt's life: the death of his mother last year, the Sept. 11 attacks and a car accident that left the singer in chronic pain.
Yet in the midst of tragedy, Eberhardt held fast to the things that can make an otherwise hellish time bearable - his friends, for one - and they form some of the most powerful moments on "School for Love."
On the heartfelt "Blessings," Eberhardt thanks his friends for standing by him during tough times. He makes the point more explicitly on "Love Slips Away" when he sings, "Here's my advice/ Make it real/ Tell the ones you love just how you feel."
Eberhardt has plenty of loved ones. Dar Williams adds lovely harmony vocals on "Merry-Go-Sorry," Mark Erelli sings on two tunes and plays guitar on the title track, Jim Henry plays dobro on "Blessings," Jeff Pevar contributes mandolin and elegant electric guitar to four songs and Liz Queler sings harmony throughout.
The singer shows flashes of humor on "Sugartown" and the raucous "Whenever I Sing the Blues." Even on the most down-hearted tunes, like "School for Love" and "Will You Ever Love Again," Eberhardt maintains a stoical optimism that his lot will eventually improve.
It's an inspiring attitude, and one that fits nicely with the life lessons so often offered in the folk tradition.
- ERIC R. DANTON, The Hartford Courant
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Cliff Eberhardt
Discography
2009
500 Miles
The Blue Rock Sessi0ns
2007
The High Above And The Down Below
2002
School For Love
1999
Borders
1997
12 Songs Of Good And Evil
1995
Mona Lisa Cafe
1993
Now You Are
My Home
1990
The Long Road
www.redhouserecords.com
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