image courtesy of D.C. Anderson

Album Review of D.C. Anderson: Songs Stay Sung

D.C. Anderson has a versatile, very showtune-styled performance style adeptly combined with a singer-songwriter’s sensibility and an uncanny ability to turn a phrase. That’s showcased repeatedly, in all its glory, on his most recent full-length album, Songs Stay Sung. Often, D.C.’s albums can be heavy, thoughtful, introspective – all reasons I’ve enjoyed and reviewed them. This one doesn’t stray far from his bailiwick, but it does contain some truly lighter moments. Song Stay Sung is, indeed, an exploration of songs that are… worth staying sung? OK, well, that’s a severely strained sentence, so let’s just say the album’s hella cool to listen to.

This album grabbed me right from the start with the uplifting-flavored “Oh Man,” a Harry Chapin-penned number that leaps to life with D.C.’s emphatic vocal performance atop playful strumming and picking, thanks to enthusiastic acoustic guitarwork from Gantt Kushner. It flows nicely into the piano-led old standard “The Very Thought Of You,” wherein D.C.’s voice soars and squeezes every ounce of style and tunefulness out of this classic favorite. David Robison’s impeccable pianowork combines with D.C.’s emotive delivery produce a rendition of this song that’ll find its way to my favorites playlist.

“Something in the Valley,” next, transports the listener to a backwoods town. D.C. notes the song originated from the Perch Creek Family Jug Band. I guess I have a new band to research, but this does sound like a jug band’s kinda song, and guitarist Kushner is joined by harmonica-player Rob Paparozzi, whose eerily haunting opening notes foreshadow what’s to come. D.C. delivers great big, powerful vocal bellows, as if into a “holler,” or perhaps the bellows holler into a dark, unsettlingly foggy valley. D.C.’s voice rattles in the ideal spots during the lyrics “I got shivers runnin’ up and down my spine” before shaking in audible fear, letting you know all is not right because “mama, there’s something in the valley tonight!”

photo courtesy of D.C. Anderson

Never fear, though. Apparently D.C. survived whatever was in the valley, because he lived to sing song number four, “The Touch of an Old Friend’s Hand.” This may sound odd, but the sparse guitar strumming and the first few lyrics remind me of Kermit singing the opening of “Rainbow Connection.” Indeed, even in a later lyric, “I’ll just singing songs about leaving,” I half-expect the last word of that phrase to be “rainbows.” Muppet comparisons aside, this is a thoughtful song, as D.C.’s slow-paced vocals and little bit of harmonica work combine with Kushner’s widely-spaced guitar strums to deliver a pleasantly heartfelt rendition of this sweet Guy Drollinger-penned number.

There’s a nifty little guitar flourish on “Time,” next, that causes lightness in what would otherwise be a heavy song, with D.C.’s theatrical vocals rising sharply to add well-placed intensity here and there throughout this cover from Jonatha Brooke’s 2014 album My Mother Has 4 Noses. Perhaps moreso than any other song on this record, it showcases the full spectrum of D.C.’s vocal capabilities, ranging from softness to extreme power and forcefulness.

“Oh, This Time,” next, is a D.C. cowrite, with D.C.’s lyrics paired with Matt Vinson’s music. Robison mans the piano on this number, while D.C. forcefully delivers his own words, which plumb the emotions of loss, providing, over the course of the song, glimpses of the wide range of emotions experienced during such a time. D.C. follows it with a rendition of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “Between Here and Gone” that’s sensitive and graceful, supported well by Kushner’s patterned strumming, rising and falling with D.C.’s vocal power.

“Summons” is D.C.’s musical portrayal of a poem written by Aurora Levins Morales, a poem that carries a grandmother’s – or, rather, every grandmother’s – hope for piece. So yeah, this album does get deep and heavy. And it doesn’t stop there. “Promised Land” follows; it’s the Alan Chapman-penned song about a journey across the ocean hoping for a better life, a sentiment brought to life by the nooks and crannies of D.C.’s vocals, capturing the range of emotions while painting pictures that tell a story.

The mood gets lighter when D.C. takes on the playful Roy Zimmerman-penned “I Approve This Message,” which may carry a solid political message but is also frequently downright silly. If you’ve never heard D.C. perform a song like this, well, he’s a master. His voice can spin from serious to ridiculous on a dime, delivering just the right tone at the right time to tie the whole friggin’ thing together. This song is in most ways very different from “Pelican,” which I reviewed as part of my review of D.C.’s Believe, Breathe and Sing album, but, at least with respect to D.C.’s ability to provide the right tone to an otherwise ridiculous lyric, the two songs remind me a fair bit of each other.

Finally, D.C. closes the record with its title track, “Songs Stay Sung.” There’s a little feeling of an Irish dirge to this Zoe Mulford cover. Simultaneously dark and playful. A light ode to human impermanence, circling back to the lyric “love stays loved and songs stay sung.”

Indeed, this collection of songs stay sung. And enjoyably listened to. I’m a big fan of D.C.’s work as a recording artist, but this might be my favorite collection of his, at least the few albums I’ve listened to (and mostly reviewed) since I first encountered his music.

More Recently

image courtesy of D.C. Anderson

I had thought I might set aside Songs Stay Sung when I received my copy of D.C.’s next recording, the EP For Woody, which dropped just a few months later. But I really wanted to review Songs Stay Sung, so it remained the “feature” review, with For Woody relegated to a mere paragraph at the end here, certainly much less than it deserves. Regardless, here’s a quick overview of the EP. “For Woody,” you might guess, was inspired by Woody Guthrie. It’s the first of the five protest songs on this 5-song record, a disc comprised entirely of D.C. Anderson-penned lyrics, no covers. The rest of the songs are “Be Thou Our Vision,” “In Case I’m Disappeared,” “Twenty Twenty Six,” and “What a Time to Be Alive in America.” You can hear them all on the For Woody EP. They are also 5 of the 16 songs on D.C.’s “Songs for the Resistance” Spotify playlist, which you might enjoy if you’re looking for a larger collection of, as D.C. puts it, “songs for the resistance.”