Kate McGarrigle, RIP

Very sad this evening, upon learning that Canadian folk singer, Kate McGarrigle died at 63 on Monday of cancer. Along with sister, Anna, the McGarrigles enjoyed a relaxed pinnacle of achievement for their unique blend of Stephen Foster ballads and French Canadian folk music. Their complex love of family permeated their stage presence - critic Robert Christgau described their exploration of family as a "repository of both strength and of horror" - and intelligent songcraft. Anna's rhymes were always perfect with a wry touch of philosophy, owing to a long-term writing collaboration with poet/farmer friend, Philippe Tatartcheff, who got his Sorbonne philosophy Ph.D.

Jigsaw Puzzle

Our scene is pastoral
Naive like our minds
Not fun to be in some times
We want a change from the fields and the skies
And crave some dots or some lines

We were like interlocking pieces
In the Jigsaw Puzzle of Life

from their first album. I saw them perform once on a freezing night in St Paul, MN. Here is a rendering of "Hard Times," surrounded with friends and family:

A rousing number, Complainte pour Ste. Catherine, from their first album

And when Carolyn and I left Ithaca for Tacoma, WA for my first academic job, we played "Talk To Me of Mendocino," as we pulled out of town...

I bid farewell to the state of old New York
My home away from home
In the state of New York I came of age
when first I started roaming

And the trees grow high in New York State
They shine like gold in autumn
Never had the blues from whence I came
But in New York State, I caught 'em

Talk to me of Mendocino

Let the sun set over the ocean
I will watch it from the shore
Let the sun rise over the redwoods
I'll rise with it til I rise no more
Talk to me of Mendocino

+++

NYT once described a Kate McGarrible song, “Had Emily Dickinson been a late-20th century songwriter, this might be just the sort of piece she would have written.”

PS: Who else uses the word, "WHENCE"?