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WPCNR STAGE DOOR. By John F. Bailey. April 29, 2007: Westco Productions continues to be the leader in presenting artists who connect viscerally with Westchester audiences. Producer Susan Katz proved that again Friday evening at The Irv (Irvington Town Hall Theater) delivering the impossible-to-forget, can’t-ignore-it, compelling stylings of a real folk singer with 2007 savvy, Lucy Kaplansky. She held the audience from first chord to last lilting tribute to her father, backed by the cascading diamonds of sound created by her sideman, Duke Levine, whose marvelous riffs echo and reinforce Ms. Kaplansky’s words.
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Westco Producer Susan Katz, left with Lucy Kaplansky after Ms. Kaplansky’s performance Friday evening.
From the so-true lyric, she and her husband wrote for her daughter I will be with you when you remember me, to the intimate richly sexual depth she and Levine give to the simplistic Ring of Fire, Ms. Kaplansky shoves the knife edge of feeling deep into you, recalling those wild feelings in our lives that drive us to do the things lovers, parents, and children do—the irrational romantic fascinations, the heroic sacrifices, the self- destructive, to self pity with an edge — softened by Ms. Kaplansky’s vocal delivery.
Kaplansky’s dark intense eyes and her ramble of hair personifies honesty of feeling without apology accompanies herself on one big guitar. Her multi-faceted blunt, get-into-your-head contralto goes from murmur to hurt to triumph with modulation that you go with. Her voice plays your heart.
Her singing is embellished by guitarman Levine’s laying down beds of the most involving guitar enhancements for a vocalist I’ve heard in years and The Irv’s great acoustics just gets the sound into your soul and heart. Kaplansky herself said after the concert The Irv delivered just incredible sound
Levine and Kaplansky are in harmony of feeling – looking at each other and playing their feelings into each other
. Kaplansky paints the words that cut, wound, warm, slash, stroke and soothe like a sculptress’s hands while Levine on four different guitars and a mandolin enhances the feelings in the listener softening, and swelling her voice’s words. You paid attention to every song in this concert. The Irv audience hung on her every phrase, absorbing and surrendering to the feelings Kaplansky brought to the surface in them once more. From her first song Born Again by Woody Guthrie to her last a tribute to her father, her songs put into feelings our lives.
She introduces feelings you’ll remember: the fascination with a lover: “I just like hearing you talk.” (I mean, I remember feelings like that.) Over the Hills, the ballad that describes a child growing up hits home with every parent and had parents in the audience understanding thinking and tear-ing up. Her ballad about her grandmother, Molly, describes a time when a woman’s choices were different produced a whole range of sadness, resentment, bitterness,and chronicle of change. But it makes you feel good.
Kaplansky’s concerts are strong, involving emotionally hard to take music that make you wake up and feel again, sometimes a little too much than you want to and make you remember a lot more than you want to.
It’s folk music again – Kaplansky painting the picture of the human condition — the only thing missing is the cigarette smoke and some espresso, to complete the picture, and some guys with goatees and berets in shades – nodding their heads and saying, “Yeah, man. Cool. Solid. Out of sight.”
There was no song in the 2 hour show that did not move you, and that is way unusual. Kaplansky uplifts you as you explore her own personal journeys in song. Her patter in between songs lets you into her heart and personal life. Her ability to make the audience feel like a group of intimate friends of long-standing, builds an emotional rapport that shines up our seldom used emotions and validates our ability to feel again.
Ms. Kaplansky stayed after the show, signing scores of CDs for her fans in the near sellout crowd. Ms. Katz and Peter Katz look on.
Only Westco’s impresarios, the Katzs, Susan and Peter Katz are bringing performers of this sophisticated caliber to the county. From Judy Collins, to Livingston Taylor, and now Ms. Kaplansky, Westco this season has had the Merrick Touch. The popular concerts Westco produces help to fund their performances for local hospitals, schools and their programs for the handicapped and youth theatre programs.
Susan Katz on stage after the show on the Irvington Town Hall Proscenium — the best sounding little theatre in Westchester — that performers just love to perform on.
Next up for Westco is the Irish artist, Maura O’Connell at The Irv on June 17 – who not only does Irish fare but repertroires all over the musical landscape.
