SISTERS

Rip It Up, Issue 4, 1 September 1977, Page 4

SISTERS

William Dart

One of this writer’s earliest telememories was Rosemary Clooney and her kid sister singing the song which contained the immortal couplet: God help the mister who comes between me and my sister But God help the sister who comes between me and my man.

Sibling rivalry on such a scale has not been a feature of the rock world to date. From the Ryans through to the Pointers, Winters and the McCartney/McGear duo, co-operation seems to be the order of the day. And now a new team has come on to the musical horizon —Kate and Anna McGarrigle. Their two Warners’ albums, Kate and Anna McGarrigle and Dancer with Bruised Knees should now be nestling in the shelves of your local record dealer.

Like Randy Newman, Joni Mitchell and other ‘class’ writers, the McGarrigles got their first break when the big ones started recording their songs. Maria Muldaur included a McGarrigle song on each of her albums, and the current ‘c& w’ goddess of the Time cover, Linda Ronstadt, named an album after Anna’s Heart Like a Wheel.

The McGarrigles’ background is very similar to Maria Muldaur’s. After years singing with her husband, Geoff, in the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, and two albums with husband, she retired to do only session work. And then in 1973 came the first of her solo albums. Muldaur is not the world s greatest singer but she has a shrewd sense of style, and a great taste which enables her to hand pick her material. This runs the gamut from straight nostalgia through country and western (she was taking Dolly Parton seriously in 1973!) to the best of contemporary writers such as the McGarrigles. The McGarrigles share Muldaur’s basic ‘folkie’ background with years singing around folk clubs in their native Canada as well as in Greenwich Village. Anna’s “Heart Like a Wheel” at times sounds like a cunning composite of about three American folksongs, and this same spirit has led them to include various arrangments of French Canadian folk songs in both their albums.

The first album opens with a terrifically gutsy “Kiss and Say Goodbye” with a stunning arrangement let’s face it, how can you fail with Joe Boyd producing (unless you’re Vashti Bunyan) and Lowell George in the background (unless you’re Robert Palmer). The celebrated “Heart Like a Wheel” is also on the first side of the album, and I think this must be one of the premier love songs of the past ten years, with its simple but affecting imagery:

Some say a heart is just like a wheel When you bend It you can’t mend it And my love for you is like a sinking ship And my heart is on that ship out in mid-ocean I think that, with Eric Kaz’s and

Libby Titus’ “Love Has No Pride” (Check Bonnie Raitt’s Give It Up album), this must be one of my all-time favourite songs. The sheer magic of the McGarrigles’ arrangement deserves comment. Opening with eerie organ harmonies, and accompanied for the most part by banjo and effective vocal harmonies. Side two opens with “Complainte pour Ste-Catherine” which is the only French song on this album. This is another memorable opening number and had a fair chart success on the Continent. In a 1973 interview, Maria Muldaur commented on the McCarrigles’ individual sense of harmony, and perhaps this contributes a lot to the charm of this number. But this underplays the brilliant arrangement which is a sort of West Coast'refinement of the British Albion Band style, with stunning use of button accordion (shades of Flaco Jimenez). I think freshness is the key to this album, and to the whole of the McGarrigles’ work. In England they were slightly roasted by the musical press for their inabilitity to handle crowds of thousands at the various temples of rock. So who wants to emulate the Bay City Rollers and Adolf Hitler? Some of the same critics were a little reserved in their judgement on the second album, Dancer with Bruised Knees, but this is a fine work and shows a definite development from their first album.

The highlights range from “Be My Baby” with its bouncy Carribean feel and John Cale marimba solos, to Southern Boys' with its rather sly eroticism:

Oh let it out, Oh please don't hide it, All that good old stuff down below that Mason Dixon line

And Perrine Etait Servante" is a lovely tale telling how an unfortunate seducer was turned into an altar piecd. Mystifying? Take it as a challenge and try to invest in either of these albums, if you have anything over after buying Ry Cooders new one.