Word: waldman
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...Waldman almost loses the tension here but the next three songs come back strongly and they form the heart of the album. They don't meld in the same way the songs do on the first side of Mitchell's Court and Spark, where the music hardly ever stops, but there's a similar progression of mood in them. In "Wings" a nice slow piano works into a lament for her loss of freedom in her dedication to her music. The images aren't surprising--she's a "rooted tree" and her lover dances in the sky with wings that...
...least that seems to be the case with a new popular woman singer. Wendy Waldman. Waldman has been writing songs for a few years now and the wrote two that appeared on the Maria Muldaur debut solo album, which sold over $50,000 copies. She's already put out two albums herself, but Wendy Waldman is her first major record. Her voice sounds like Mitchell's might if you threw a little yeast into it and aged it for a while. Her music is at a crossroads between country, blues and folk rock and her songs adhere to the popular...
There are hints in Wendy Waldman of a thematic unity, a unifying consciousness that weaves the songs in and out of each other. In "Western Lullaby," the opening cut, she sings "Leave behind your visions dark and dreary... for you know that singin' is believin' "and it's almost as if her album is the dream she's leading you into after she has put you to sleep. There are moments on the album when the songs seem to fit together as nicely as a string of dreams. The slow western drawl promising to take you away "across the wide...
...save her when she asks Mr. Boatman--her muse--to "Take my troubled dreams to the opposite shore and run my achin' heart to my baby once more." It's a desperate song, but the melody is so light that it's almost hypnotic, and that's what Waldman seems to be looking for: because there's just time...
...Sundown" Waldman finds release in a powerful voice and a wide octave range reminiscent of Laura Nyro's throaty songs. It's almost as if her own voice were going down over the Pacific, getting big and red, sending its rays across the waves and sparking the water itself into a "wintertime sundown fire." But you wish that the sun would help her when she asks it to "carry my spirit just another time 'round" because the album begins to fizzle out at the end to the first side...