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CBC
celebrates Canada's contribution to music
Alex Strachan
CanWest News Service
Monday, March 05, 2007
Wistful and exhilarating by turns, the hour-long music special
Words to Music: The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame is a throwback
to a past era. A kinder, gentler, more civilized time, if you
will. The music has a ring of nostalgia to it; the venue looks
welcoming and warm; the crowd is in an appreciative mood; and
Hall of Fame inductee Joni Mitchell seems genuinely moved by
the end.
The
Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame celebrates homegrown songwriters,
and Words to Music is a reminder of just how influential Canadian
wordsmiths and composers have been in the popular culture of
the past half-century and more.
There's
a lull in the middle, but perhaps that's to be expected: Michael
Buble is simply sensational in his opening, swingin' rendition
of Ralph Freed and Burton Lane's 1941 classic How About You?
David
Clayton-Thomas lays on the mustard really thick as he shakes,
rattles and rolls his way through his anthemic standard, Spinning
Wheel, but your appreciation of Corb Lund and the Hurtin' Albertans'
rendition of Wilf Carter's Love Knot in My Lariat may depend
on your tolerance of country twang and yodelling. Lund gives
it as good as he's got, though -- which is plenty.
And
even if country isn't your scene, you may find yourself tearing
up at George Canyon's soulful take on My Old Canadian Home.
Herbie
Hancock is smokin' as he goes off on a piano riff on Mitchell's
Help Me with Divine Brown and James Taylor adds a deeply personal
touch to the Mitchell anthem Woodstock.
Purists
may not care for opera soprano Measha Brueggergosman's show-closing
"sweet abandon" on Mitchell's Both Sides Now, but
to my taste, Brueggergosman's aria is a real show-stopper.
Mitchell
is literally on the edge of her seat, fighting back tears, during
Hancock's heartfelt testimonial. She was 18 before she met a
man who had written a song, Mitchell tells the audience.
"I
thought that was extraordinary that I had met a man who wrote
a song," she says. "I'd sung songs and I'd danced
to songs, but I never met a man who wrote a song. Three years
it took before I wrote a song. Well, you know, I wrote a lot
of them."
A
minor quibble: Words to Music cries out for the two- or even
three-hour Great Performances treatment, rather than the single
hour it gets here. It could also do without the commercials.
It's
followed by a rerun of Little Mosque on the Prairie and the
ratty crime re-enactment show 72 Hours: True Crime. Is that
the best we can expect from our public broadcaster? 8 p.m.,
CBC
©
Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007
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