Gowan
Solotive: No Kilt Tonight
I’m sure that most of you haven’t heard of Mr. Larry Gowan. I myself was only vaguely aware of his existence until a few minutes ago. I was rummaging through my CDs to look for something that no one would have reviewed before and I found this. I had only heard one of his songs before and remember that I rather liked it. Now, after listening to the whole album all the way through, I’m absolutely hooked. Gowan is absolutely one of the most ingenious song writers I’ve ever heard of. This is a live album and I must say I’ve never heard anyone be able to sound so complete with just a piano and vocals. He managed to make the music sound rich and full all by himself.
I’ll get back into the music momentarily, but first I’d like to talk about something else. As I mentioned this is a live album and of the most important things an entertainer can do is acknowledge the crowd. In most cases if you’re an entertainer of any kind, no matter how bad your act is, if you get the crown involved they’ll love you. Not that Gowan needs to use that as a gimmick, but he did do a good job of making the audience feel at home. He often encouraged the crowd to sing along and in between songs he had little periods of conversation with them. Kudos to Gowan, I hate it when people don’t talk to their audience.
Now back to the instrumentals. The majority of the album was played on the piano, although Larry did break out his acoustic guitar for one short track. Now to be honest, I know very little about piano, so I probably won’t be able to describe it that vividly, but I’ll try. All of it was very well-written. Very melodic at times and at other times it was more high-pitched and vibrant. The notes frolicked through my ears like a gentle dear prancing through a grassy field. One track I particularly enjoyed was “The King Chanticleer Rag”. Gowan mentioned that is was based on a type of music that came out about one hundred years ago. The genre was called “rag time music”. It was brilliant. Such a playful track. It was like the piano you would here in an old black a white movie with no words.
There were also quite a few softer, sadder tracks. For example “A Criminal Mind”. The combination of Larry’s vocals (which I’ll talk a bit about later) and they tender, melodic piano made my spine tingle. That of course was not the only song that made me feel that way. Plenty of tracks had this effect. It’s hard to believe the amount of emotion Larry can get to pour out of his piano. He’s definitely right up there with my all time favourite pianists. Elton John, Paul McCartney etc. I enjoyed the superb use of the bass section of the piano in these softer tracks. They sort of lacked high-pitched notes, which seemed to make sense because the higher-pitched notes often give songs a more playful feel. So, by neglecting the high notes it helped contribute to the sorrowfulness of the tracks.
There really isn’t much to say about the guitar. He only used it in one track. It was, like everything else well-written. Although, it was just chords. That didn’t bother me too much, though. Mostly because it was a very acoustic-y song so anything too complex would’ve seemed out of place.
I must say I really liked Gowan’s vocals. They were vibrant and child like at times. While at others they were extremely serious and solemn. I enjoyed that contrast in this album. It kept things moving. Another thing I enjoyed about his vocals was the pitch of his voice. It was never too high, nor too low. It was slightly higher as opposed to lower, but it wasn’t so high that it made your stomach hurt, like some artists I know (James Blunt). And the last and arguably most important aspect of his vocals were the words to the songs. Which were well-written. Unlike most artists they weren’t cheesy and didn’t seem forced. That’s always nice to see in an artist.
Overall Rating: 5/5
Pros: Everything was well-written
Good range of songs
Acknowledged the crowd
Spectacular vocals
Cons: Surprisingly there were no cons to this album
I recommend looking into this guy. I’m myself am I huge metal head and I loved this. I really think that just about every single one of you out there will enjoy this. Larry Gowan is one hell of an entertainer. I’m absolutely numb from how great this is. Piano is such a great instrument. Until now I’ve underestimated it. I’ve always found to be sort of “meh”. But after listening to this I feel like a need to this to other bands/artists who use piano. Until next time keep your stick on the ice.
Metallicaman
