Only Love Can Break A Heart

Music Review: Brian Dolzani – “if i don’t speak a word…”

Is Brian Dolzani’s new album a sign that the best is yet to come from this singer-songwriter?

There are certain albums that we use to mark time. Consider this chronology… In 1969, Neil Young released his first, self titled, solo album which demonstrated that he was a distinct artist apart from the Buffalo Springfield. In 1991, Matthew Sweet released Girlfriend, a mix of ballads and joyful hard rock pop that resulted in its becoming the best-selling album on college campuses that year. And in late 2012, Brian Dolzani released his lower-case entitled 12-song collection, if i don’t speak a word…

Dolzani’s website uses three words to describe his album: Introspective/Heartfelt/Intimate. It’s a start.

My first impression, upon hearing an early sampler with 5 songs from word, was that Dolzani sounds more than a bit like early Neil Young. He also has a freshness and love for his craft that calls to mind the younger Matthew Sweet. It just so happens that both Sweet and Dolzani are admirers of Mr. Young, and sing one or more of his songs when they perform live.

Dolzani has a great way with words and phrases, some of which are only caught after listening to his songs more than once: “I spent a lifetime looking for a lost clue…”, “I fell in a forest and nobody heard it…”, “History is yours to steal…”

The CD begins with “Older Now,” which sounds like a track from the Crosby, Stills & Nash album. The singer is still trying to figure out life, and we’re the beneficiaries of his confused pondering. Track two, “Reasons,” sounds like Leo Sayer in its melancholy tone and lyrics. Which takes us to “Whether or Not,” the best song never recorded by Neil Young and Crazy Horse. The singer is battered and bruised by life and love’s indifference, “I lose blood and it matters not to me…” He wants to see the face of the guy who his girl now loves more than he. Although the band behind Dolzani is a bit too synchronized to be Crazy Horse, any Young fan will agree that this is a fine song in the style of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere or After the Goldrush.

In “Before Midnight,” the singer asks his girlfriend to respond to his questions: “Are we still good together? Are we still in love?” Here, Dolzani comes across like an early day Jackson Browne. He interacts well with the instrumentation, singing with it and not overpowering it. “Sail This Sea,” is a divorce song that might have been written by Phil Collins. “I’ve been trying so long, and all I got was another song.”

The protagonist of “Broken” views his life as a mess, with the pieces of his body lying on the floor. The singer has been knocked down, but he’s ready to get up and rejoin life; he’s healing even if it means having to revisit “old feelings, old dreams.” It’s a Tim Hardin-style song that reminded me of “No Regrets.” In “Not As Lonely,” the protagonist tries to convince himself that his world has not ended because his lover has left him. It recalls “I Thought I Knew You” from Sweet.

“Hey Dad” is Dolzani’s tribute to his late father, a man who was not perfect. It’s enlivened by a Beatles Revolver-style backing track. “Wilted” includes a Harvest era melody harmonica, as the singer concludes (in words that almost sound lifted from Young), “Happily ever after is a fantasy…” The protagonist in Young’s “The Loner” would identify perfectly with this song.

“Fair” is about the unfairness in a relationship in which one party loves more than the other. The sentiments are similar to those on Sweet’s “Nothing Lasts” and it’s bolstered by a nice steel guitar. In the piano-based “Autumn in Central Park,” the singer expresses ambivalence about love. “Even when you know that you’re in love/There are times when you’ve had enough…”

The album concludes with “I’m Sorry Now”. The singer is down (“I’m sorry for the way I can make you feel like you’re dead.”) but there’s a tone of hopefulness for the future on the edge of his voice. It makes for a fitting conclusion to the album, except that it feels like an idea for a song rather than something fully realized.

I think most will find this to be a pleasant and enjoyable collection of songs. Its weakness is that it suffers from a lack of variety in tone. As one person remarked, “A little bit of that guy goes a long way.” On Girlfriend, Matthew Sweet sang a number of heartbreak ballads, but he also unleashed four wild and heavy rock songs, “Divine Intervention,” “Evangeline,” “Girlfriend” and “Does She Talk?” Perhaps Dolzani can find two or three lead guitarists to similarly embolden his next recording session.

Bear in mind that Brian Dolzani is a very talented and creative musician. He may now have to live with the knowledge that – as stated by the reknowned philosopher Snoopy – “There’s no heavier burden than a great potential.”

Well recommended.

Joseph Arellano

This review originally appeared on the Blogcritics Music site:

http://blogcritics.org/music/article/music-review-brian-dolzani-if-i1/

To hear the complete album, if i don’t speak a word…, go to:

http://www.briandolzani.com/wp/listen/

A review copy of the CD was provided by a publicist.

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After the Goldrush

The Language of Trees by Ilie Ruby (Avon; $14.99; 339 pages)

“I was thinking about what a friend had said, I was hoping it was a lie…”   Neil Young

“I could always heal the birds,” he admits…  Echo takes his hand, “Joseph says that birds are the only creatures that have blind faith.   This is why they are able to fly.”

Ilie Ruby has crafted a magically moving novel composed of disparate elements: a tragic childhood death, a kidnapped woman, American Indian (Seneca) ghosts and spirits, wolves that interact with humans, unrequited love, and a parent’s illness.   The book is also replete with dysfunctional families who, sadly, may represent normality in American life.   Dysfunctional families are fueled by shame and secrets, and the secrets are kept until they must be divulged in order to save lives.

Two of the key characters in The Language of Trees are Grant Shongo and Echo O’Connell.   Grant is a half-blooded Seneca with the power to cure sick and wounded birds and animals.   He is also a person who cannot cure himself.   Then there’s Echo, who feels that she is lost in her life in spite of the fact that she’s true to herself.   Echo is the one person in the story who is free, except that she’s not aware of it.   And, except for Echo, the book is populated with characters that are haunted by the past – literally and figuratively – as they search for peace and redemption.

“Happiness is just as hard to get used to as anything else.”

The Language of Trees is written in a cinematic style.   It begins slowly and it takes the reader some time to absorb all of the many characters and to understand the personal issues affecting them all.   There’s also more than a touch of mysticism and magic to the story.   There are unique and spiritual events that will seem almost commonplace to those with even a touch of Native American blood.   (The author demonstrates a great deal of respect for Indian folklore and beliefs.)

What is initially calm builds to a highly dramatic and satisfying conclusion.   Coming to the final pages, I was reminded of the style of Pat Conroy in The Prince of Tides, which found this reader both excited and sad that the journey was about to end.   As with Conroy’s novels, Ruby leaves us with a life’s lesson, which is that one must let go of the demons of the past in order to “not (be) afraid of the future anymore.”   Once the nightmares of the past have been left behind, we are free to soar like birds.

At its conclusion, this novel has the power to transport the reader to a better place.

“Well, I dreamed I saw the silver space ships flying in the yellow haze of the sun.”   (N. Young)

The Language of Trees is nothing less than masterful and transformational.   Let’s hope that we will not have to wait too long for Ms. Ruby’s next novel.   Highly recommended.

Joseph Arellano

A review copy was received from the publisher.

Birds

Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott

I try to write the books I would love to come upon…   Anne Lamott

I love the way Anne Lamott writes.   She writes like Anne Tyler (Noah’s Compass, Breathing Lessons, The Accidental Tourist, Digging to America) with a professor’s seriousness about life, but a child’s smile.   Life scares Lamott but she keeps the bogey men away by writing about people who are like her, except that maybe they have just a bit more courage.   Or maybe they don’t.

Imperfect Birds is a novel about a family, about mother Elizabeth Ferguson, her second husband James and her daughter Rosie, a senior in high school in Marin County.   Elizabeth and James worship Rosie as they simultaneously count the days until she’ll leave for college so that they can stop worrying about her.   “…life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection.   It hurt but you had to tough it out.”

Rosie’s been a straight-A student until, as a 17-year-old senior, she begins getting Bs in even her best subjects.   That would not be much of a disappointment for other students, but there’s a reason she’s coming undone.   She’s using drugs, of almost every variety, to the point where even her extremely forgiving mother can no longer ignore what’s happening.   “…(Elizabeth) had a conviction now that when she thought something was going on, it was.”   This also means that a mother’s worst fears are coming true:  “I was afraid of how doomed you would be as a parent.”

The title, of course, refers to imperfect people – people who have lost the ability to fly straight.   Elizabeth is too forgiving of her daughter’s faults for too long.   James is too judgmental and too quick to prescribe a harsh remedy for his stepdaughter’s problems.   Rosie, who lost her father to cancer years before, is young and wants to enjoy life until…   Until she finds that her drug abuse has left her dreamless and with a heart “like a little dead animal.”

Rosie also wants to be loved by someone other than her mother and step-father, which is why she creates fantasies about one of her male instructors and later becomes involved with someone older.   Eventually a decision has to be made…   Will Rosie’s parents save Rosie from herself or will they step aside and let her self-destruct before her life even really begins?

If this was the work of a less-talented writer, the reader might be tempted to take a guess at the ending and put the book down prematurely.   But Lamott is one of the best writers we have – about this there can be little doubt.   So this story feels like a gift – one to be savored and treasured – and will be appreciated by any reader who does not make a claim to perfection in his or her own life.Highly recommended.   An advance review copy was provided by Riverview Books.   Imperfect Birds will be released on April 6, 2010.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field.   I’ll meet you there.”   Rumi