(Folk/Folk-Rock/Country) Jonathan Edwards - My Love Will Keep - 2011, MP3, 320 kbps

Warm as summer sunshine, real as the truth, intimate as a long overdue visit between old friends … such is a Jonathan Edwards concert. Four decades into a stellar career of uncompromising musical integrity, the man simply delivers, night after night – songs of passion, songs of insight, songs of humor, all rendered in that pure and powerful tenor which, like fine wine, has only grown sweeter with age.
This is one veteran performer who is neither grizzled nor nostalgic. These days Jonathan Edwards, a vital and relevant artist in today’s folk and Americana scenes, is most likely to be found on the road with longtime accompanist Stuart Schulman on bass, piano, fiddle, and vocals and Taylor Armerding, formerly of Northern Lights, on mandolin and high-tenor vocals. “I’ve been … doing what I do best, which is playing live in front of people. I’ve been concentrating on that and loving it,” he says.
An artist who measures his success by his ability to attract and take good care of an audience for four decades, Jonathan maintains that it is the feedback he receives after his shows that keeps him going. “It is really gratifying to hear [someone say], ‘Your stuff has meant a lot to me over the years.’”
The “stuff” he’s referring to is a highly respected repertoire that includes such classics as “Honky Tonk Stardust Cowboy,” “Sometimes,” “One Day Closer,” “Don’t Cry Blue,” “Emma,” “Everybody Knows Her,” “Athens County,” and everyone’s favorite ode to putting a good buzz on, “Shanty.” And then, of course, there’s the anthemic “Sunshine (Go Away Today),” that fierce proclamation of protest and independence that resonated with thousands and thousands of frustrated and angry young men and women when it was first released in 1971. Almost 40 years later, at show after show, the song continues to be embraced by faithful followers and new fans alike.
Since 1971, Jonathan has released 15 albums, including Blue Ridge, his standard-setting collaboration with bluegrass favorites the Seldom Scene, and Little Hands, his collection of children’s songs, which was honored with a National Library Association award.
As for album #16, Jonathan says, “Young people that are getting back to the land and trying to get off the power grid encourage me. My next studio album will reflect some of those themes.” With that in mind, it’s no surprise that he closes each night’s show with these heartfelt lyrics:
Calling all dreamers and optimistic fools
Don't let go of your dream, make it now, make it all come true
If you believe in a brighter day
I know we can find our way
To this island, in a starry ocean
Poetry in motion, this island earth
A beautiful oasis for all human races
The only home that we know, this island earth.
-- Donna Johnston
October, 2009

With his first all-new album in 14 years, Jonathan Edwards, the silver-voiced honky-tonk Stardust Cowboy, returns with a heart-warming blend of gentle folk, pop, and hill country-influenced tunes. Accompanied by Maine-based musicians including Charlie Rose (bass, pedal steel), Jim Begley (percussion), and Ed Dickout (drums), Edwards and a host of stellar guests, including vocalists Claire Lynch, Moondi Klein (Seldom Scene, Chesapeake), Edwards’ daughter Grace, guitar wiz Duke Levine (Peter Wolf, Mary-Chapin Carpenter), and mandolinist Taylor Armerding (Northern Lights), deliver a nearly 50-minute-long collection as filled with sunshine and good feelings as anything in the Minnesota-born singer-songwriter’s discography.
Five original tunes include “Johnny Blue Horizon,” memorializing John Denver; a harmonica-rich “Crazy Texas Woman”; a reprise of “How Long,” from his 1976 album, “Rockin’ Chair”; a duet with Claire Lynch (“Surrounded”); and “Lightkeeper,” composed for the closing theme of the Richard Dreyfuss and Blythe Danner film of the same name. An ecological theme threads most of the covers, including instrumentally backed interpretations of originally a cappella tunes, “This Island Earth,” by Paul Cooper (The Nylons) and “Sailor’s Prayer,” by Rod MacDonald. “Everybody Works In China,” one of two songs by Henry Gross, addresses unemployment and industrial outsourcing.
The high point of the CD comes with a rendition of “She Loves You,” that transforms the hard-rocking Beatles tune into a gently lilting, barely recognizable ballad arranged by longtime Tom Rush sideman, Eric Lilliquist.
—Craig Harris (Chicopee, MA)