Photo Credit: Carol Rothman
Eric Andersen
Eric Andersen
Veteran folk singer Eric Andersen made for an imposing figure as he strode onstage at Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co.’s Walker’s Point location. His tall frame was clad in black, topped with a black fedora. Armed with acoustic guitar and rack harmonica, he opened with “Everything Ain’t Been Said.” The lowering of his vocal range over time added gravity to his song’s desolation, adding gravitas to the words that could only be hinted at when he recorded them in a higher tone on his first album 54 years ago.
However, a gracious storytelling disposition carried on throughout the set—his first concert in Milwaukee since 1975. For the rest of the night, a band comprised of background singer/violinist Scarlet Rivera (a veteran of Bob Dylan sessions) and percussionist Cheryl Prashker (of the Celtic ensemble Runa) lent an airiness to Andersen’s often weighty presence.
It may take a dark thinker to be inspired by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent rise of neo-Nazi skinheads in Europe to write the angry, foreboding “Rain Falls Down In Amsterdam,” but there were many lighter moments. A number Andersen co-wrote with Lou Reed, “You Can’t Relive the Past,” made for one of the evening’s more sardonically humorous selections. Andersen deemed Reed as his favorite folk singer, since one of folk music’s mandates is to write about one’s geography, and the late Velvet Underground front man’s lyrics focused on his New York City demimonde.
The chorus of “Driftin’ Away,” which he composed with late Band member Rick Danko, could be heard as a gospel plea. However, Andersen’s idea of salvation seems to derive from more earthly ecstasies, such as his love for his wife, as touchingly expressed in “Sinking Deep Into You.”
Andersen seemed humbled when he spoke of Leonard Cohen surprising him poolside at a Los Angeles hotel to tell him that one of his most enduring and often remade pieces, “Violets of Dawn,” inspired Cohen to take up songwriting. Again, Andersen’s aging, lowered vocal register gave his words shades of nuance absent from his original 1960’s iteration. He concluded his encore-free performance with another of his best-known songs—the welcoming “Thirsty Boots,” dedicating it to a local friend who has since passed on, Tom Petty’s Milwaukee-born Heartbreaker bassist Howie Epstein.
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It was easy to hear opening act Matthew Davies as someone coming up like Andersen in his early years. Though he is scheduled to celebrate the release of his fourth CD in June, he still sounds fresh and unjaded. That’s to his credit, as is his willingness to sing something by fellow Milwaukeean Jim Liban. Ditto for his ability to fashion a more universal-sounding song out of a specific incident involving a vicious critter he encountered after a house concert. Speaking with Davis after the show, he spoke of his thrill to be opening for Andersen, but he seems to be blazing a worthwhile trail of his own as well.
